Post by Ravery (Ravery.net) in Sim Nimby comments

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Look up e.g. the Vacancy Report by the ACCE institute, which states: "With more than 36,000 unhoused residents, Los Angeles simultaneously has over 93,000 units sitting vacant, nearly half of which are withheld from the housing market."

"Why would investors want to lose money on an empty unit when they can simply rent out the unit instead?"

Properties are often used to protect wealth from recession and inflation. Depending on local laws it might be considered too costly to have e.g. low-paying tenants as the value of a property is affected by occupants. A vacancy tax is often named as a way to force the property owners to have the property be of use to the public.

penguincascadia1 year ago(+2)(-2)

Los Angeles has millions of people, so what we should be looking at is the vacancy rate, which is very low at about 3%: https://therealdeal.com/la/2022/02/09/study-confirms-market-heat-pinch-on-apartm...

The higher the vacancy rate, the lower rents and homelessness typically are: https://www.sightline.org/2022/03/16/homelessness-is-a-housing-problem/

There is demand for a lot more housing in LA and other cities, which can only be met by building much more housing.

It still doesn't make sense to have an empty unit, because there are plenty of high paying tenants in a supply constrained market.

Ravery (Ravery.net)1 year ago (1 edit) (+1)(-2)

"There is demand for a lot more housing in LA and other cities, which can only be met by building much more housing."

Why do you think you have to meet demand? (Also in a way that is against(!) the will of the people.)
Why do you even WANT more people in overcrowded cities? Is it some kind of Sim City worldview and you are trying to maximize population numbers simply because "big numbers are good"?

Imagine if your neighbor was like "yo, my family wants to live here, so I'll put a bed in your room, so my peeps can live there. And a bed in your kitchen. Also please empty a few fridge compartments, so they can use your fridge."

Anyway. I've addressed a few other points under your NYC comment.

penguincascadia1 year ago(+2)(-1)

Demand means a lot of people want to live there. America has already sprawled out all it can.

A lot of people want to live there. That’s literally the will of the people.

Polling shows that building more housing is the will of the people: https://www.theurbanist.org/2022/02/03/poll-indicates-wa-favor-missing-middle/

American cities are far from overcrowded. NYC is half the density of Paris, a city many people find desirable and achieves most of its density through 5 story and below buildings.

And besides, it's literally the people themselves who want it- they want to live there, so we should let them.

If we don't want people to have to share housing, there is a simple solution to that. Build more housing so people can have their own apartments and houses.

Ravery (Ravery.net)1 year ago(-3)

"Polling shows that building more housing is the will of the people"

Building more housing in their "backyards"? Is this what the poll about? Cause so far you haven't addressed my points and I'm not sure why I should invest more time looking into your points, when you simply ignore mine.

So please answer that first. Is this a poll about people being in favor that some development company starts building "social housing" in their "backyards"?

penguincascadia1 year ago(+3)(-1)

The article talks about how the poll tested things like upzoning in people's own neighborhoods and found a majority in support, so yes, it is in their own backyards.

I've already addressed your arguments in previous posts.

Ravery (Ravery.net)1 year ago(-4)

I think you are NOT reflecting the poll correctly (i.e. again: debate tactics).

The poll talks about people's support to have more housing being built near public transportation, allowing the construction of duplexes, fourplexes and sixplexes being built "in all large cities" and giving homeowners the right to build e.g. "in-law suites" and "cottages" in their own backyards.

Nowhere does it say: "Are you okay that the state simply builds 'social housing' next to you."

There is a giant difference between a "sixplex" like:

And "social housing":

penguincascadia1 year ago(+1)

I am talking about upzoning and building more housing in general, not social housing. I'm not sure where you got the impression that I'm talking about social housing.

Anyway, back to the point. Polling finds that a lot of Americans in big cities are fine with building more housing to meet the demand from people who live there.

Ravery (Ravery.net)1 year ago (1 edit)

"I'm not sure where you got the impression that I'm talking about social housing."

I literally asked you: "Is this a poll about people being in favor that some development company starts building "social housing" in their "backyards"?"

And instead of saying "no", you simply kept going. Also I asked you directly whether your goal is to address homelessness and you already said how horrible homelessness is and how this aims at addressing it. (Which sounds very much like social housing.)

Regardless. It feels very, very "vague" talking to you as you try to use the urgency of homelessness, but in reality you simply want to house as many people as you can - no matter how many people want to move into some city. It feels like you deliberately misrepresent statistics and polls and misuse the results just to make points, while constantly jumping from one location to the next, changing goals, changing problems, changing everything.

It feels like you are desperately avoiding the actual issue of the conversation:

Literally nobody cares about duplexes and the poll shows it. But that's not what the resistance of "NIMBYs" is about. It's not about duplexes. People don't want "social" housing near them, because people who have lived near some projects knows how unpleasant it is to get mugged by some drug addict or get beaten up by some thug, who wants to prove their strength to their "peers". Only privileged young people, who were born with a silverspoon up their butt and who were driven around by helicopter parents don't know the danger of having "social" housing in the neighborhood. I enjoy jogging without getting my teeth kicked in. I enjoy a stroll through the neighborhood without getting stabbed, just because someone wants my wallet to fuel their addiction. Do you understand that difference?

I had enough beatings in my childhood and my teen years, when I lived near "social" housing. I do not want any more constant, physical danger and I do not want my children to experience that. And sorry that people like you will be opposed by me, when you do your "big numbers = good" game, but my security and the security of my family is far more important to me than whatever "points" you want to maximize.

penguincascadia1 year ago (3 edits)

You already answered your own question: the poll is talking about missing middle housing- stuff like triplexes and low rise apartment buildings. I also pointed that out. I never brought up social housing until you did.

Homelessness can be addressed without social housing if you want to. It turns out that the biggest driver of homelessness is a lack of housing. Simply allowing the construction of much more market rate housing increases the vanacy rate, which drives down rents and homelessness: https://www.sightline.org/2022/03/16/homelessness-is-a-housing-problem/

So I have no idea why you are going on about social housing.

I have used all the statistics and polls in their original context. A lot of people, including in New York City, support allowing the construction of more housing: https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/rpa-org/pdfs/RPA-NYC-Issues-Survey-Topline-F0...

New York City has a low vanacy rate. And so on.

The Sightline poll literally shows that "A poll conducted this January shows over two-thirds of polled Washington voters support a statewide zoning law to construct more missing middle housing."

It is talking about market rate new housing, not social housing. Your original post on this game was about market rate housing, judging by the mention of corporations on it, and I responded with points about market rate housing. I don't know why you keep bringing up social housing and crime when I was talking about market rate housing.

The majority of NIMBYism I've seen is resisting new market rate housing. So, presumably people do care about duplexes.

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