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Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
41,937 posts, read 36,948,491 times
Reputation: 40635
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WestieWhitie
Centrally planned? Comrade, what's centrally planned about removing the red tape and letting people do as they please with their property, as long as it's within reason?
You want to government to determine, and dictate to a community, what is "within reason", as opposed to letting people who live and vote in their communities determine what is "within reason".
You want government to dictate what is best for the community.
Not exactly democratic. Sounds a lot like that "politburo" you were just railing against.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WestieWhitie
I have this funny feeling you're actually a slumlord masquerading as "progressive" salivating over the possibility of Wu's East SF social experiment driving your property values into stratosphere. Either that or you work for Comrade chairWuman.
You're all over the place! Now you're saying Wu's "Maoist" policies will help landowners by increasing their wealth. What an incredible reversal from yesterday.
Majority of maoist rentcontrollas weren't even born in the 80s and 90s, that's why they're eating up those fairy tales wholesale.
Quote:
Originally Posted by massnative71
Where do you get that it didn't help housing costs, or that things wouldn't be significantly worse had it not been for this development? Increased inventory = lower prices, even if it's "luxury units" being built. This forum always has a hard time understanding that.
The problem isn't really the city, it's the suburbs. Boston can't do it all on its own, when it makes up but a tiny fraction of the metro's land area. Boston had a dearth of residential development until rent control was abolished and it took years to recover. We are perhaps still seeing negative effects of it, such as deferred property maintenance. But of course those of us from the area understand this, and how the 80s/much of the 90s are not a road we want to go back down again.
Easy - make it cheaper for developers to build so even more affordable projects are profitable. Get rid of parking requirements, do away with "affordable unit" extortion, relax the zoning laws, allow smaller unit size and most importantly tell the NIMBY brigade to go shove it. Developers are driven solely by profit and will build in all price ranges as long as it's profitable, they are not going to leave any money on the table.
Also no need for towers everywhere, we would satisfy the demand if a small percentage of all the decrepit triple-deckers and single families you see all Boston were re-built as 10-15 unit buildings.
Now we have something to work with.
Stupid Libertarian slippery-slope fears of freedom deprivation aside, what do you see as it relates to zoning laws and smaller unit size that's going to help here? What zoning restrictions are you seeing as an obstacle, and given the number of <400 square foot units already out there, how much smaller are you thinking here?
I get the argument about parking, and it's going to go on forever, but since we're discussing theoretical here, I'll give that one a pass that it could happen (and would reduce cost burden to developers) in this scenario...at least until developers realize there's such a pent-up demand for parking that they stop building housing and start building garages to sell spots for $600/month.
No comrade, I want the government to stay the hell out of it. And I want the "people" who don't own the property to stay the hell out of it as well, unless they buy the said property.
So, masked slumlord or Wu lackey?
Quote:
Originally Posted by timberline742
You want to government to determine, and dictate to a community, what is "within reason", as opposed to letting people who live and vote in their communities determine what is "within reason".
You want government to dictate what is best for the community.
Not exactly democratic. Sounds a lot like that "politburo" you were just railing against.
Majority of maoist rentcontrollas weren't even born in the 80s and 90s, that's why they're eating up those fairy tales wholesale.
Makes sense. I can't imagine anybody who actually lived through it being a proponent, unless they were one of the lucky beneficiaries. Or they grew up in Belmont and want to have their "big city" experience on the cheap for a couple years, then bail again for suburbia when the "novelty wears off".
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
41,937 posts, read 36,948,491 times
Reputation: 40635
Quote:
Originally Posted by WestieWhitie
No comrade, I want the government to stay the hell out of it. And I want the "people" who don't own the property to stay the hell out of it as well, unless they buy the said property.
So, masked slumlord or Wu lackey?
Neither, just educated.
And so you want no zoning and want to be able to put a strip club next to a grade school, a nightclub or plating plant in a densely residential neighborhood, a shooting range next to a playground, etc because its private property and no one else's business. Got it.
I don't think many people agree with lack of zoning. They disagree with how the zoning looks like. Thankfully there is a process for changing it.
Not a reversal but you have just proved that you can't read. I was saying Wu's policies would drive up existing property values and rents by discouraging new construction, similar to what been happening in SF. Run along now, I don't argue with illiterates!
Quote:
Originally Posted by timberline742
You want to government to
determine, and dictate to a community, what is "within reason", as opposed to letting people who live and vote in their communities determine what is "within reason".
You want government to dictate what is best for the community.
Not exactly democratic. Sounds a lot like that "politburo" you were just railing against.
You're all over the place! Now you're saying Wu's "Maoist" policies will help landowners by increasing their wealth. What an incredible reversal from yesterday.
Easy - make it cheaper for developers to build so even more affordable projects are profitable. Get rid of parking requirements, do away with "affordable unit" extortion, relax the zoning laws, allow smaller unit size and most importantly tell the NIMBY brigade to go shove it. Developers are driven solely by profit and will build in all price ranges as long as it's profitable, they are not going to leave any money on the table.
Also no need for towers everywhere, we would satisfy the demand if a small percentage of all the decrepit triple-deckers and single families you see all Boston were re-built as 10-15 unit buildings.
Quote:
Originally Posted by timberline742
He called Wu, Comrade Wu and a Maoist. Then he , in short, proposed what he was railing against (ignoring the individual(s) for what he claims is best for society), just benefitting another party. Same game. That's the irony, he is effectively proposing what said he is opposing.
Perhaps you don't see it that way. That's fine. While I don't like NIMBYism a lot of the time, I think leadership should respect the wishes of what people in a community wish to see their neighborhoods look like. I've lived in places where there was no or minimal zoning. It rarely ends well, and it would be horrific in a dense place like coastal New England.
I missed the racist communist call outs, but reducing government interference in private land development is hardly what I'd call 'ignoring the individual for what he claims is best for society'. I don't think Houston-style zoning is the best choice for Boston, but I also don't think anyone would think of it as 'communist'. The real communist solution is to abandon private ownership of land pick some non-market mechanism for deciding who gets to live where. Rent control shades a lot closer to communism than unfettered development.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
41,937 posts, read 36,948,491 times
Reputation: 40635
Quote:
Originally Posted by WestieWhitie
Not a reversal but you have just proved that you can't read. I was saying Wu's policies would drive up existing property values and rents by discouraging new construction, similar to what been happening in SF. Run along now, I don't argue with illiterates!
But it doesn't discourage new construction as new construction is exempt from rent control in SF. Actually, everything built in the last 40 years in SF is exempt. SF has an INCREDIBLE amount of new construction over the last 40 years.
You are just dead wrong. You don't make any sense. You have zero grasp of economics. If a building is locked into its current use (say 6 units) and prevented from being made into say (18 units), its maximum value will be reduced, not increased.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jayrandom
I missed the racist communist call outs, but reducing government interference in private land development is hardly what I'd call 'ignoring the individual for what he claims is best for society'. I don't think Houston-style zoning is the best choice for Boston, but I also don't think anyone would think of it as 'communist'. The real communist solution is to abandon private ownership of land pick some non-market mechanism for deciding who gets to live where. Rent control shades a lot closer to communism than unfettered development.
It's a false dichotomy. I never advocated for rent control at all. I just wanted to dispel the erroneous claims about the SF model made here. Rent control can work, but it depends on the model, and the goal. It doesn't work if you're looking to maximize economic gains, but that's hardly should be the only deciding factor. We don't have a free market. Never have. Never will. No one would stand for it. Heck, right wingers are some of the most anti free market people out there. They are all for free flow of capital (generally), goods (usually, though Trump (more a populist) was into tarrifs, but zero are into free flow of labor. Few people are.
Where do you get that it didn't help housing costs, or that things wouldn't be significantly worse had it not been for this development? Increased inventory = lower prices, even if it's "luxury units" being built. This forum always has a hard time understanding that.
The concept sounds super simple, but the application isn't so simple. Same thinking how there's many months where jobs were added and the unemployment rate went up as a result: the demand pool is dynamic and even micro-adjustments to inventory can create demand that may have otherwise sat it out or given up. Someone who gave up looking in the city who saw a small price drop due to extra inventory may get a renewed interest and put Boston back on the table. That added inventory in turn created additional demand and pushed prices right back up.
Same concept with traffic engineering -- the obviously simple solution to congestion on I-93 is building more lanes...except it isn't, because it won't help like "common sense" intuition leads one to conclude.
Quote:
Originally Posted by massnative71
The problem isn't really the city, it's the suburbs. Boston can't do it all on its own, when it makes up but a tiny fraction of the metro's land area. Boston had a dearth of residential development until rent control was abolished and it took years to recover. We are perhaps still seeing negative effects of it, such as deferred property maintenance. But of course those of us from the area understand this, and how the 80s/much of the 90s are not a road we want to go back down again.
We agree on this, but the mayor of Boston doesn't have control over other towns around it. I would also say with a high degree of confidence towns like Brookline/Winchester/Newton are never going to swing around to building masses of housing to drive down costs, so it's folly to entertain any scenario where they do.
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