there are some people who argue that up-zoning for higher density drives land value increases, and - perversely - are a negative impact on affordability. I'm showing, by contrast, that land values in single fam areas have risen dramatically with very little change in density. - ThreadSky

lanefab.com • 5 days ago

there are some people who argue that up-zoning for higher density drives land value increases, and - perversely - are a negative impact on affordability.

I'm showing, by contrast, that land values in single fam areas have risen dramatically with very little change in density.

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matt439miller.bsky.social•5 days ago

Which is why ADUs and other forms of 'barnacling' and #missingmiddle are really revolutionary: they upset the political equilibrium by pitting subsets of owner-occupiers against one another, while creating a constituency of small developers who aren't just profiting on 'development facilitation'.

lanefab.com•5 days ago

yes, we've been doing it for 15 years

matt439miller.bsky.social•4 days ago

Have they ditched the owner occupier requirement yet?

lanefab.com•4 days ago

It was never a requirement in Vancouver, but has been used as a poison pill by other munis.

I talked about it in 2017 for Citylab:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-22/how-accessory-dwellings-can-densify-cities

matt439miller.bsky.social•4 days ago

Hmm, yeah, I guess it was one of the minis across the river my friend had a basement ADU in.

matt439miller.bsky.social•5 days ago

So if you are either an owner sitting on an appreciating asset (while enjoying its amenity value) or a developer specialized in securing entitlements, there is no reason to rock the boat.

matt439miller.bsky.social•5 days ago

As anyone living in a moldy cardboard shack in SF can attest, most of the value in property isn't in the structure, but in the land, and future use value for redevelopment.

Our under-supply of housing means that the ROI on the handful of new units is quite nice.

matt439miller.bsky.social•5 days ago

If you just upzone for duplex, eventually the rents from a duplex minus rebuilt costs will exceed rents from one plex. (Eventually). Until then, it's just the entitlement capitalized into the OnePlex's value.

matt439miller.bsky.social•5 days ago

The rule of thumb I have is that redevelopment happens when the new thing that can be built is 3x the value of the existing use. So, if I upzone, and it only increases the value by 2x, redevelopment won't happen, which will impair housing affordability.

matt439miller.bsky.social•5 days ago

Upzoning from one plex to duplex is basically worthless for affordability. (Exception being an ADU, as it can be added without replacement costs.

lanefab.com•5 days ago

The affordability comes from buying less land.
In Vancouver the land cost usually far exceeds the value of the house.

matt439miller.bsky.social•5 days ago

That's an entirely normal circumstance in most places. (There is a cool map of land vs structure value out there).

matt439miller.bsky.social•5 days ago

Less land per unit means less cost per unit. Lowering rents can only be achieved be either sharing land, or by lowering transportation costs in a way that adds to the supply of developable land.

matt439miller.bsky.social•5 days ago

A sequence of revolutions in urban transportation technology (railed omnibus, funicular, rapid transit, electric traction, automobiles, limited access roads) have repeatedly expanded the developable area. But there's been nothing new in high capacity transportation in decades.

matt439miller.bsky.social•5 days ago

We've gotten incrementally better at All the Things, but there's been no paradigm shift. Maybe self -driving vehicles or advanced air mobility will do the trick. Until then, we're stuck with a near-fixed supply of developable land. And so all of today's battles are about land use and who decides.

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