Yay, but also please build more purchasable housing like condos and townhomes. I'm so sick of "you will own nothing and be 'happy'" mentality making it so people are perpetually stressed by...
Yay, but also please build more purchasable housing like condos and townhomes. I'm so sick of "you will own nothing and be 'happy'" mentality making it so people are perpetually stressed by ever-increasing rent costs and being beholden to corpo landlord companies.
Comment box Scope: comment response, information, opinion Tone: neutral, mildly ticked off (at the state of the world, not any of you) Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none SB 79 allows developers to...
Comment box
Scope: comment response, information, opinion
Tone: neutral, mildly ticked off (at the state of the world, not any of you)
Opinion: yes
Sarcasm/humor: none
SB 79 allows developers to build more dense or multifamily housing near transit lines. This can include owner-occupied condo units. Physically, there is no inherent difference between the footprint of a condo building and a renter apartment building. This legislation authorizes more of each.
The ratio of new condos to new rental buildings depends on market conditions and local regulations. Bafflingly, local municipalities may have more complex building requirements for condos than rental buildings. Maybe there are higher minimum parking requirements (almost always unscientific), maybe there are higher floor space requirements in anticipation of larger families, or maybe there's an onerous aesthetic review process for condos specifically.
These might ostensibly be to "protect" condo buyers from some perceived issue with typical modern construction or to establish some sort of higher minimum property value. This is because people buying condos are less economically sophisticated than institutional landlords. Local government may care more about condo buyers from a development that turns out to have a flaw (real or perceived) than institutional landlords (who likely aren't residents). They want to protect their voters. Okay, makes sense.
In extreme cases, this kind of regulation can disincentivize developers from building condos, and instead predispose them to rental buildings. Minimum parking requirements are probably the worst example of this. It is sometimes the case that a local government sets a higher MPR for a condo than a rental building because they expect or want "real [long-term] residents" to own cars, and renters (usually younger) not to. This can be well-intentioned or a way to discriminate against certain kinds of people who want to buy homes, such as poorer people who coincidentally don't own cars. In a multifamily building, a MPR requires either:
An underground garage (extremely expensive to build, and/or takes space away from other amenities like gyms or individual storage units for residents)
Allocating ground-level space to a parking garage (makes multi-use impossible, which can hurt neighborhood attractiveness and therefore reduce expected selling values)
Allocating above-ground space to a parking garage (reduces sellable housing units). Remember that these buildings have height limits (again due to local preferences); developers can't just build higher to recoup the cost.
So, as usual, the excessive regulatory codification of the storage of private vehicles and the interests of entrenched local landowners discourage the building of the kind of housing people actually want. (The solution is to NOT REQUIRE PARKING for the majority of new construction and just let the market rate decide how much parking to build.)
Also, condo associations in the USA are extremely litigious. If you're a developer, there's a good chance you'll get sued by the condo HOA for the building you constructed! The statute of limitations is like a decade. You have to hope that the profit of building a condo exceeds the cost of litigation from picky people who live there. (Their litigation might be frivolous; it is still expensive and annoying to deal with.) Institutional developers can certainly also sue, but the kinds of things that condo owners sue over are likely to be much more minor. Renters don't care so much about minor defects because they don't plan to live there permanently, and only a few complaints get filtered through to the institutional owners anyway.
The other issue can just be a perceived market demand, which is mostly cultural. If developers culturally believe that people who want to buy property mostly want to do so in single-family homes in the suburbs, that's where they'll build housing. They can also come to this conclusion using statistical evidence, even if it's wrong or incomplete. If you look at the number of new residents in urban, suburban, and rural areas in the USA, suburban usually wins out. But that's not necessarily because all of those people actually want to live there, it just means that's where they can afford a house. And that's influenced by... government regulation restricting the construction of housing in more heavily urbanized areas. It's cheaper and always legal for developers to build SFHs in some exurb off the highway, so that's what they do, so that's what people can afford to buy, so that's how they structure their lifestyle, so that's what developers see demand for, so that's what they build more of... etc.
Oh, cool, thanks for the extra info! When I looked through the article it only seemed to mention "apartment builders" so I was worried. To be honest, I bet if apartment owners could organize under...
Oh, cool, thanks for the extra info! When I looked through the article it only seemed to mention "apartment builders" so I was worried.
Also, condo associations in the USA are extremely litigious. If you're a developer, there's a good chance you'll get sued by the condo HOA for the building you constructed! The statute of limitations is like a decade.
To be honest, I bet if apartment owners could organize under something like an apartment owners association they would probably be just as litigious. The condition of my mom's new apartment building she stayed in for two years was absolutely abhorrent. The walls were so thin that in her bedroom, I could hear the person in the unit next to her's snoring. She was having poor sleep because of how thin the walls were because she had to put up with her neighbor's snoring. The front door was poorly insulated, you could see the light through the hallway, and it made it so that during the cold mountain winters she would quickly lose all her heat that she is paying for. And speaking of the heating, the building developers did the absolute worst thing one could do, and installed the thermostat for the living room directly above the electric heater... So it would constantly turn on and off for short bursts of time, being extremely inefficient, wasting extra electricity money. But because she is a renter, and because everyone there is a renter, they can all suck it up or move. No one should have to live in such a poorly designed building.
I don't want to fault homeowners for using one of the few meaningful recourses they have, like litigation, to attempt to improve the living standards of their houses. In fact, I think that maybe apartment owners and apartment buildings should also have such a statute of limitations, so that purchasable units and rentable units are on the same level of ability to seek damages for poor construction. There needs to be someone held responsible for poorly built housing.
Comment box Scope: comment response, information, opinion Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none I'm supportive of tenant rights...I know people who are very involved with organizing that....
Comment box
Scope: comment response, information, opinion
Tone: neutral
Opinion: yes
Sarcasm/humor: none
I'm supportive of tenant rights...I know people who are very involved with organizing that. I don't fault condo owners for suing. Just observing that their ability to organize is still a deterrent for builders.
Organized labor in civil construction in general consistently has the same problem: unionized workers demand high wages, so the capital cost of constructing public works in union cities is extremely high. It's great for the workers, it just makes it difficult to build anything quickly because projects have high costs. I support the labor movement, but when people complain about why we don't have high-speed rail or whatever, that's a contributing factor. (Definitely not the most egregious... see analysis from Alon Levy)
Sound Transmission Class requirements in the USA are 50+, so that level of sound bleed shouldn't happen. For new construction, that building sounds shoddily constructed. Unfortunately, yes, many builders either hire incompetent laborers or scam their clients. Maybe construction wouldn't have cut so many corners if the developer hired union labor instead... but that's more expensive. :p
(I am empathetic toward your mom. I once lived in a unit with a window that couldn't shut, so the heat did not stay in, and exterior noise was constant. It was not pleasant and took years for the landlord to fix.)
In fact, I think that maybe apartment owners and apartment buildings should also have such a statute of limitations
Construction negligence has a similar SOL for rental properties as condos. In some jurisdictions it's longer.
The issue is more that renters don't care or don't realize that they can sue their landlords. Landlords themselves don't know or don't care about construction issues.
Pretty much all jurisdictions have minimum habitability requirements. Sometimes the tenant doesn't have to sue the landlord, they can just report it to the city and following claim approval (sometimes) they're allowed to withhold rent until the landlord fixes the issue.
There needs to be someone held responsible for poorly built housing.
This is what construction inspections are for. There are supposed to be inspections at every step. Your city's housing authority has an office of building inspectors who are supposed to evaluate foundational and framing work for alignment, among other things (like STC). There should be separate inspections for plumbing, electricity, HVAC, fire, etc.
If your city (or county) isn't doing this, or is doing a bad job, there are lots of reasons. The solutions are not easy. An underfunded housing authority is caused by municipal overspending and under-taxation, which is common. Many cities have too many unproductive roads to profitably maintain, and are reluctant to tax their residents more than the bare minimum. (Educated liberals always support higher taxes until they are being taxed more highly; then it is an injustice.) Of course some cities have such low property values that the tax base can barely sustain operations to begin with.
Or your building inspectors could suck at their jobs.
Taxes are very difficult and the intricacies of tax policy are outside my wheelhouse. Academics who study urbanism lately tend to favor something called the Land Value Tax (LVT), a part of Georgism economic philosophy, which is supposed to solve some of the issues with existing tax systems. I think that is federally considered unconstitutional, but states can levy it. Pennsylvania has done this in a few cities, but like most housing policies it needs to be statewide to be particularly effective. Most places also tax improvements (not just land value), which discourages building, unless the improvement tax rate is lower than the LVT, which I think works.
Yay, but also please build more purchasable housing like condos and townhomes. I'm so sick of "you will own nothing and be 'happy'" mentality making it so people are perpetually stressed by ever-increasing rent costs and being beholden to corpo landlord companies.
Comment box
SB 79 allows developers to build more dense or multifamily housing near transit lines. This can include owner-occupied condo units. Physically, there is no inherent difference between the footprint of a condo building and a renter apartment building. This legislation authorizes more of each.
The ratio of new condos to new rental buildings depends on market conditions and local regulations. Bafflingly, local municipalities may have more complex building requirements for condos than rental buildings. Maybe there are higher minimum parking requirements (almost always unscientific), maybe there are higher floor space requirements in anticipation of larger families, or maybe there's an onerous aesthetic review process for condos specifically.
These might ostensibly be to "protect" condo buyers from some perceived issue with typical modern construction or to establish some sort of higher minimum property value. This is because people buying condos are less economically sophisticated than institutional landlords. Local government may care more about condo buyers from a development that turns out to have a flaw (real or perceived) than institutional landlords (who likely aren't residents). They want to protect their voters. Okay, makes sense.
In extreme cases, this kind of regulation can disincentivize developers from building condos, and instead predispose them to rental buildings. Minimum parking requirements are probably the worst example of this. It is sometimes the case that a local government sets a higher MPR for a condo than a rental building because they expect or want "real [long-term] residents" to own cars, and renters (usually younger) not to. This can be well-intentioned or a way to discriminate against certain kinds of people who want to buy homes, such as poorer people who coincidentally don't own cars. In a multifamily building, a MPR requires either:
So, as usual, the excessive regulatory codification of the storage of private vehicles and the interests of entrenched local landowners discourage the building of the kind of housing people actually want. (The solution is to NOT REQUIRE PARKING for the majority of new construction and just let the market rate decide how much parking to build.)
Also, condo associations in the USA are extremely litigious. If you're a developer, there's a good chance you'll get sued by the condo HOA for the building you constructed! The statute of limitations is like a decade. You have to hope that the profit of building a condo exceeds the cost of litigation from picky people who live there. (Their litigation might be frivolous; it is still expensive and annoying to deal with.) Institutional developers can certainly also sue, but the kinds of things that condo owners sue over are likely to be much more minor. Renters don't care so much about minor defects because they don't plan to live there permanently, and only a few complaints get filtered through to the institutional owners anyway.
The other issue can just be a perceived market demand, which is mostly cultural. If developers culturally believe that people who want to buy property mostly want to do so in single-family homes in the suburbs, that's where they'll build housing. They can also come to this conclusion using statistical evidence, even if it's wrong or incomplete. If you look at the number of new residents in urban, suburban, and rural areas in the USA, suburban usually wins out. But that's not necessarily because all of those people actually want to live there, it just means that's where they can afford a house. And that's influenced by... government regulation restricting the construction of housing in more heavily urbanized areas. It's cheaper and always legal for developers to build SFHs in some exurb off the highway, so that's what they do, so that's what people can afford to buy, so that's how they structure their lifestyle, so that's what developers see demand for, so that's what they build more of... etc.
Oh, cool, thanks for the extra info! When I looked through the article it only seemed to mention "apartment builders" so I was worried.
To be honest, I bet if apartment owners could organize under something like an apartment owners association they would probably be just as litigious. The condition of my mom's new apartment building she stayed in for two years was absolutely abhorrent. The walls were so thin that in her bedroom, I could hear the person in the unit next to her's snoring. She was having poor sleep because of how thin the walls were because she had to put up with her neighbor's snoring. The front door was poorly insulated, you could see the light through the hallway, and it made it so that during the cold mountain winters she would quickly lose all her heat that she is paying for. And speaking of the heating, the building developers did the absolute worst thing one could do, and installed the thermostat for the living room directly above the electric heater... So it would constantly turn on and off for short bursts of time, being extremely inefficient, wasting extra electricity money. But because she is a renter, and because everyone there is a renter, they can all suck it up or move. No one should have to live in such a poorly designed building.
I don't want to fault homeowners for using one of the few meaningful recourses they have, like litigation, to attempt to improve the living standards of their houses. In fact, I think that maybe apartment owners and apartment buildings should also have such a statute of limitations, so that purchasable units and rentable units are on the same level of ability to seek damages for poor construction. There needs to be someone held responsible for poorly built housing.
Comment box
I'm supportive of tenant rights...I know people who are very involved with organizing that. I don't fault condo owners for suing. Just observing that their ability to organize is still a deterrent for builders.
Organized labor in civil construction in general consistently has the same problem: unionized workers demand high wages, so the capital cost of constructing public works in union cities is extremely high. It's great for the workers, it just makes it difficult to build anything quickly because projects have high costs. I support the labor movement, but when people complain about why we don't have high-speed rail or whatever, that's a contributing factor. (Definitely not the most egregious... see analysis from Alon Levy)
Sound Transmission Class requirements in the USA are 50+, so that level of sound bleed shouldn't happen. For new construction, that building sounds shoddily constructed. Unfortunately, yes, many builders either hire incompetent laborers or scam their clients. Maybe construction wouldn't have cut so many corners if the developer hired union labor instead... but that's more expensive. :p
(I am empathetic toward your mom. I once lived in a unit with a window that couldn't shut, so the heat did not stay in, and exterior noise was constant. It was not pleasant and took years for the landlord to fix.)
Construction negligence has a similar SOL for rental properties as condos. In some jurisdictions it's longer.
The issue is more that renters don't care or don't realize that they can sue their landlords. Landlords themselves don't know or don't care about construction issues.
Pretty much all jurisdictions have minimum habitability requirements. Sometimes the tenant doesn't have to sue the landlord, they can just report it to the city and following claim approval (sometimes) they're allowed to withhold rent until the landlord fixes the issue.
This is what construction inspections are for. There are supposed to be inspections at every step. Your city's housing authority has an office of building inspectors who are supposed to evaluate foundational and framing work for alignment, among other things (like STC). There should be separate inspections for plumbing, electricity, HVAC, fire, etc.
If your city (or county) isn't doing this, or is doing a bad job, there are lots of reasons. The solutions are not easy. An underfunded housing authority is caused by municipal overspending and under-taxation, which is common. Many cities have too many unproductive roads to profitably maintain, and are reluctant to tax their residents more than the bare minimum. (Educated liberals always support higher taxes until they are being taxed more highly; then it is an injustice.) Of course some cities have such low property values that the tax base can barely sustain operations to begin with.
Or your building inspectors could suck at their jobs.
Taxes are very difficult and the intricacies of tax policy are outside my wheelhouse. Academics who study urbanism lately tend to favor something called the Land Value Tax (LVT), a part of Georgism economic philosophy, which is supposed to solve some of the issues with existing tax systems. I think that is federally considered unconstitutional, but states can levy it. Pennsylvania has done this in a few cities, but like most housing policies it needs to be statewide to be particularly effective. Most places also tax improvements (not just land value), which discourages building, unless the improvement tax rate is lower than the LVT, which I think works.