Street Votes: A proposed response to Ireland's housing crisis

https://www.thefitzwilliam.com/p/a-simple-and-elegant-response-to

97 173 3 years ago

YellOh2• 3 years ago

I'm very interested to see how this goes, especially since I was not aware of Ireland's particular housing shortage.

I'm a big fan of infill/increased urban density in general, as long as it is ~equally beautiful to the surroundings. (Ex. live-work units can be much more beautiful than single-family homes, but 5-over-1s are usually not)

Some other topical sites I've been reading recently that I'd recommend:

https://missingmiddlehousing.com/

https://www.strongtowns.org/ (North America specific)

One quote I'm unsure about:

[Popular housing reform] means having strict rules on parking and driving, ensuring congestion doesn’t increase.

I'm unsure whether to read this as strict rules to increase car infrastructure as housing is increased to make way for more people's vehicles, or to make sure new housing development holds steady car flow / implements alternative transportation so as not to increase the number of cars.

The first interpretation would make me concerned about induced demand.

CalRobert18• 3 years ago

Ireland is an extremely car-dependent country and has copied the worst of US urban design patterns.

wiredfool3• 3 years ago

Yeah, the estates are crazy. Typical newer estates have one exit, and Walls/Fences surrounding them to make it difficult to cut through.

Essentially, They're designed so that there's no reason to enter the estate unless you're going there. There's minimal network of paths for walking or cycling, and all the car traffic is funneled into increasingly difficult turns onto the main roads.

Older estates might have a few footpaths out -- We're in the closest one to town, 3 different walking ways out, and the ability to walk places is so much nicer than farther out. (Note, there's a dog in the house that drives a lot of the walking we do.)

Paul-Craft• 3 years ago

I wasn't familiar with this term, so I'm dropping this here for the benefit of others who also are not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5-over-1

kibwen• 3 years ago

(Ex. live-work units can be much more beautiful than single-family homes, but 5-over-1s are usually not)

I'm not sure why this is presented as fact. Most single-family homes in the US are humble midcentury boxes, or bland suburban copy/pastes, or hideously garish McMansions. None of these are any prettier to look at than a 5-over-1.

govolckurself2• 3 years ago

It's moot anyway. You shouldn't be able to veto a building you neither own nor live in simply because it doesn't suit your aesthetic tastes (ostensibly. I'm not convinced the accusations of "it's ugly!" aren't just another convenient excuse to shout down new structures).

opportune• 3 years ago

I would rather walk past a 5-over-1 than SFH populated by roommates-who-don’t-want-roommates and homeless people on the sidewalk.

If maintaining an “aesthetic” costs keeping people in bad conditions, it’s not worth it.

And I agree, it’s a false dichotomy anyway as the most attractive development targets in a given area are the less desirable (ie less expensive) plots.

tmnvix• 3 years ago

I'm really curious to know what proportion of Ireland's housing is now in the short term rental market. Effectively removing dwellings from the housing stock should be heavily discouraged during an accommodation crisis.

lastofthemojito• 3 years ago

On daft.ie I see 626 places to rent (long-term) in Dublin County: https://www.daft.ie/property-for-rent/dublin

Meanwhile there's 7,877 Airbnbs: http://insideairbnb.com/dublin

Guthur• 3 years ago

Housing is another clear example of governments being solely concerned with continued enrichment of the few at detriment of the many.

Solutions nearly always seem to come when these oligarchical groups can be bypassed.

I've had to move my family numerous times over the last decade due to a housing market whose sole purpose seems to be enrichment rather than human survival.

Western overly financialised and deindustrialised economies are now so completely dependent on continued asset price inflation so as to maintain the ongoing ponzi scheme that to change it will require huge pain to asset holders who hold all the power. And so it won't happen peacefully.

kderbyma2• 3 years ago

and if it starts to fall...they import migrants to show up demand artificially

govolckurself2• 3 years ago

Except in the US, the government is... us. Show up to a local city council meeting sometime and tell me how many oligarchs show up to shout down new development, and then tell me how many of your own neighbors show up to do the same. You might be incredibly surprised by whom you see.

robocat3• 3 years ago

Houses are a large part of the engine for the capitalist economy, so if houses are desirable and available the economy will grow. Housing is the #1 form of savings for most people in wealthy countries. Also people get a job, then they bid as much as they possibly can to buy a house, then people spend decades working hard to pay it off. Making shitty dense housing doesn’t work as well for the economy if apartments don’t have a strong status signal (prestige/status-seeking drives housing which drives people working which drives economies). It feels wasteful, but it also seems how things currently work; although I would love to see us all find a better model.

Homeowners need skin-in-the-game so this article is interesting. In New Zealand we get property developers creating problems, because they don’t live in the houses they build and don’t have to face the consequences of their decisions. Christchurch example 1: powerful lobbying by developers so they can subdivide high-risk land (liquefaction risks or flooding risks). Local example 2: developers letting houses rot for decades because they are waiting for prices to increase (I’ve experienced examples in city-centre and New Brighton). Auckland example #3: leaky homes.

PaulDavisThe1st2• 3 years ago

Housing is the #1 form of savings for most people in wealthy countries.

I believe this applies mostly to the anglophone wealthy countries. It is much less true (if it is true at all) for most people in non-anglophone wealthy countries. In many of the latter, the percentage of home ownership doesn't even make it to 50%.

[ EDIT: while made in good faith, this claim is wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_owne...

Sorry for the misinformation (and meme spreading that had already infected me. ]

notahacker• 3 years ago

Home ownership is actually higher in many non-Anglosphere developed countries than the Anglosphere. Even with a relatively low home ownership country like Germany, it's a fair bet that the home is the most valuable item in the savings of most of the half of the population that own their home, and most of the half that don't own homes have relatively little in the way of savings...

hackerlight5• 3 years ago

You're talking about the wealth effect, but there's no reason you can't emulate that effect using stocks as the vehicle instead of housing. It is government policy, specifically additional tax breaks and SFZ, that drives capital into housing. The existence of the wealth effect isn't a coherent economic argument that justifies NIMBY policies.

robocat3• 3 years ago

The economic driver is status signals that you can show off to your peers. A home also has a multitude of opportunities to show off your status: art, appliances, garden, furniture, location, alterations, soirées, blah blah blah. Well known historically.

For most people, owning stocks cannot be as prestigious as owning a home. I agree it is for some investors, but they are the exception. Owning a stock has very limited opportunities for visibility or extra status variables.

fpo2• 3 years ago

Genuine question, how is giving even more (hyper)local control gonna solve it? This is the exact breeding ground for NIMBYism and the like. The author doesn't really present an argument in favor of that, just sort of drops it as an assertion in the end with a CYA "but yea maybe I'm wrong".

Eumenes8• 3 years ago

Whats wrong with locals deciding local issues?

CalRobert18• 3 years ago

They profit by blocking other people from becoming locals.

fpo2• 3 years ago

That's a separate question. But I think all evidences points to that NOT solving any housing crises.

tptacek9• 3 years ago

The Collective Action Problem. Locals have a concentrated interest in preventing development. The broader public's interest in there being housing outweighs that, but it's diffuse. You see the same thing play out over and over again in cities around the world: it's so much easier to organize opposition to housing than support that no housing gets built.

arcticbull3• 3 years ago

You end up with people trying to optimize for their own personal well-being at a micro level leading to an untenable macro-level situation.

davidsawyer• 3 years ago

Developer: "Hi neighbor, would you like me to build a house so that someone can live in it? Do keep in mind that it would increase housing supply in your area, thus increasing supply and putting downward pressure on your property's value. That okay?"

Neighbor: "No, thank you!"

dionidium2• 3 years ago

Nothing, so long as their decisions don't abridge other fundamental rights. I can't speak to Ireland, but we've pretty clearly in the U.S. created a regime that fundamentally violates foundational principles of private property.

hackerlight5• 3 years ago

Because "local issues" aren't just local issues, as much as NIMBYs hope to frame it that way for persuasion purposes. There are larger global effects. In this case, a crippling housing crisis, leading to disenfranchisement and alienation of large swathes of the populace, leading to human suffering, inequality, and political extremism.

renewiltord• 3 years ago

I actually support that. That's why I think someone local to a plot of land is the person who should decide what to build there.

Tiktaalik2• 3 years ago

The problem is which locals end up being those that dominate the deciding.

What we've seen happen over the decades is that those with the most amount of time and money available end up drowning out the voices of others, as they have more time to devote.

So inevitably older, wealthy, established interests end up dominating the discussion as younger, marginalized, working class people are too busy just trying to get by to engage in local planning.

Accordingly the local consultative process ends up favouring the older wealthy and established land owning locals and not the marginalized working renter class locals.

pharmakom• 3 years ago

There isn’t enough housing. To solve this we must do some of the following:

- Increase density of living in existing stock (no more solo pensioners living in mansions)

- Increase housing stock

This will have to impact someone, somewhere. All locals will say no so the problem will not get solved by local groups.

More fair is that there is a process by which the impact is spread somewhat evenly and extreme impact is avoided entirely.

This cannot be coordinated by locals because they have no incentive to take on any of the burden.

OkayPhysicist2• 3 years ago

I think the unstated assumption is that if you limit the number of people who have a say enough, a developer could just offer kickbacks to the lot. It's hard to change people's mind by giving a lot of people a little money. It's much easier to give fewer people a modest amount of money.

bo1024• 3 years ago

It turns 'sell your house to a developer' into a prisoner's dilemma. If every other block is zoned single-family and your block votes to rezone for large apartment buildings, the value of your property goes up. Of course, then every block should do vote yes, and then the value of everyone's property goes down. And lots of housing gets built.

(City-wide NIMBYism is a solution to the prisoner's dilemma: band together to require that nobody be allowed to redevelop.)

Disclaimer: armchair analysis.

CalRobert18• 3 years ago

Disclaimer: I study the Irish housing market and have a buggy site for finding houses at https://www.gaffologist.com/

Interestingly Ireland has effectively no YIMBY party. The debate here reminds me of what I experienced in California 20 years ago. The left shrieks about "evil developers" and "affordable housing" and opposes new market-rate building. Meanwhile the right has mostly homeowners voting for them so they hardly have an incentive to allow more building.

It's also a place where making a return through investment is horribly discouraged; ETF's are kneecapped with a 41% tax on _unrealized_ gains, and capital gains tax is high (33%). Income taxes are also punishingly high - the top rate of tax (52%) kicks in under 100k, much lower than e.g. Germany.

But houses? Your primary residence is liable for only a laughably low property tax (a few hundred euro a year for most people) and you can sell it with no capital gains tax whatsoever, regardless of the gain. Even the US isn't so generous!

Make a million quid in the market? The notions on you, we'll be taking that thank you very much!

Have the gall to _work_ for it? Why we'll just take €520k, thanks!

But you bought a house in 1992 and then shouted down all new development for the last 30 years and now can sell it for €1.5 million more than you paid? Why, that's your HOME you can't tax HOMES can you??

No wonder money all flows to homes.

Not to mention that the government takes money from taxpayers and funnels it in to new house prices via help to buy, AND takes money from taxpayers and uses it to _outbid those very same taxpayers_ by buying property off the private market to meet social housing quotas. (Social housing is fine but for fuck's sake build your own, don't shrink the already tiny private market)

Even better, mortgages are capped at only 4x your income and you need a 10% deposit, so you can pay 2500 a month in rent to someone like me, who bought a house in cash. Because we need to protect people from themselves, of course!

(I live in my house, I don't rent it out, but you get the idea)

Incidentally I'm probably selling my house an hour from Dublin a bike ride from the train with gigabit fibre on 3.5 acres soon if anyone's interested.

switch0075• 3 years ago

You add some excellent background and context. I was reading the article screaming "it's so much more complicated than this".

Incidentally I'm probably selling my house an hour from Dublin a bike ride from the train with gigabit fibre on 3.5 acres soon if anyone's interested.

I'm curious how much you're listing it above your purchase price. Show me a vendor who doesn't succumb to estate agents whispering in their ear about what you can get for it or a belief they _have_ to participate in 'supply and demand' and I'll eat my hat. (Yes, I'm just as guilty of this)

CalRobert18• 3 years ago

How would I not participate in supply and demand? I'll sell to the highest bidder, whatever that is.

Though I suspect I'll take a loss when all is said and done. I was stupid enough to buy a protected structure and thanks to heritage's intransigence I now have a thatched cottage (recently rethatched!) with a beautiful 120 sqm extension with huge windows, high ceilings, engineered wood floors, heat pumps, insulated foundation.... and no insurance. Because of the thatched bit...

biorach2• 3 years ago

What do you think of Dermot Desmond's article?

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/dermot-desmond-everyone-h...

CalRobert18• 3 years ago

Haven't read it, though quickly skimming doesn't give much hope. All this talk about "hoarding" and not enough about how it's default-illegal to build a house until you satisfy every church biddy around. We need as-right zoning. I'd weep for joy if Ireland passed sensible ADU rules like California.

returningfory2• 3 years ago

Not the OP, but I would describe this article as muddled. And in a way that’s common for people who haven’t thought deeply about the housing market.

For example he complains that 95% of apartments are owned by institutions, but also that rents are too high. These complaints are in tension. One of the key ways in which rental supply is expanded is through large developments that are owned and managed by companies. For example, here in Downtown Brooklyn we’re getting a new “super tall” building with 425 apartments for rent [1]. How can you create this kind of rental supply without institutions? Is your plan to somehow sell 425 apartments to individual owners and hope those owners can rent them out? I don’t think it makes sense.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brooklyn_Tower

switch0075• 3 years ago

Hm the opinion of Ireland's 9th richest person - a past banker, current businessman and financier - on the housing market, this should be interesting.

(Maybe he could offer to pay for the refurbishment of the the Taoiseach's yacht (again), in an effort to influence housing policy?)

acchow2• 3 years ago

The tax-advantaged status of your primary residence is also a major driver of the housing bubble in Canada as well.

ska3• 3 years ago

Isn't there a lifetime limit of capital gains shelter there much less than the price of homes in the big cities?

It's not like the US where mortgate payments are sheltered, right?

Tiktaalik2• 3 years ago

It could be, though I can't help but notice that the USA levies taxes on primary homes and in many jurisdictions in that country they also have very expensive real estate. (yes there's a sizeable exemption, but not so big that no one would ever pay it)

I suspect other issues such as low rental vacancy, not enough supply of homes and very low property taxes are more dominant causes of high Canadian real estate prices.

anotherhue• 3 years ago

Best summary I've seen in years. I emigrated due to this nonsense.

CalRobert18• 3 years ago

Immigrating here was a mistake.

xp842• 3 years ago

Income taxes are also punishingly high - the top rate of tax (52%) kicks in under 100k

Wow -- got to make up for that famously lax corporate income tax, I guess! Which provides an interesting window into transnational company exploits. Ireland's decided to place more tax burden on individuals vs companies (which could have good reasons and could in theory even be net-neutral domestically, just shifting tax burden around between companies and their shareholders.) Now a giant tech company decides to domicile as much of itself as possible in Ireland, while themselves remaining US citizens and residents, since our tax code taxes individuals far more lightly than Ireland.

"This is a perfectly balanced game!"

roomey3• 3 years ago

Well it isn't quite like this. The personal tax rate is banded, so only your income _above_ a certain amount is taxed at 52%.

Like, it's a progressive way to tax, rather than a lower flat rate.

Also, the gov just announced a big surplus again from multinationals, so I don't think it lines up to say the tax burden is shifted to individuals, when there is a really big take from corp tax also;

"Higher corporation tax receipts are expected to contribute to a budget surplus of €10 billion this year and €16.2 billion next year."

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2023/0418/1377638-cso-gover...

twelvechairs• 3 years ago

But you bought a house in 1992 and then shouted down all new development for the last 30 years and now can sell it for €1.5 million more than you paid? Why, that's your HOME you can't tax HOMES can you??

The other side is this helps people move. When a parents kids move out of home you dont want them holding onto big homes just because theyd take a major financial hit by moving, even if their current home doesnt suit their lifestyle.

Incentivising ownership through reducing capital gains for owners also encourages a society where people own their home which hugely softens the issues of retirement and pensions as well as greatly adding to peoples psychological sense of security.

Increasing annual land taxes is a better solution imo, especially in more desirable locations (they should stay low in poorer areas).

nordsieck• 3 years ago

The other side is this helps people move. When a parents kids move out of home you dont want them holding onto big homes just because theyd take a major financial hit by moving, even if their current home doesnt suit their lifestyle.

I don't think this really matters unless a lot of people are upside down on their homes.

We could probably target a 2% annual housing price decline (until builders stopped building) and still be fine in that regard.

ghiculescu• 3 years ago

mortgages are capped at only 4x your income

How does this work? If I'm earning (say) 50k, can I only take a mortgage of up to 200k?

cuSetanta2• 3 years ago

Yes basically. I am in the process of getting a mortgage in Ireland and they will give you up to 4x the gross income of those applying. This doesn't include any deposit or savings you may have of course.

cuSetanta2• 3 years ago

Incidentally I'm probably selling my house an hour from Dublin a bike ride from the train with gigabit fibre on 3.5 acres soon if anyone's interested.

Christ I would love to be, but 3.5 acres is way out of my league. Good luck with the sale man!

CalRobert18• 3 years ago

The land is actually not expensive! This place is less than a 2 bed flat in parts of Dublin.

sgt• 3 years ago

I couldn't help reading your post in an Irish accent. Perfect

CalRobert18• 3 years ago

I hope it was pleasant! Alas, even after a decade here my accent remains firmly Californian. My kids have Irish accents though.

whitemary2• 3 years ago

Nowhere has a "YIMBY party" haha. YIMBY types are literally just profit-seeking developers.

The left shrieks about "evil developers" and "affordable housing" and opposes new market-rate building.

See...there you are. The opposition is the YIMBY types.

notafraudster• 3 years ago

I moved from west Los Angeles (Mar Vista near Culver City) to Dublin and my rent is significantly higher in Dublin (renting a new-ish build 2br 800 sq ft near the Canal, city center). Dublin's a lovely city -- but it's a lovely city of half a million people in a country of 5 million, less than half greater Los Angeles county. London, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles are major cities of the world. Dublin is a regional city. It's absurd. I never thought I'd live somewhere _more_ expensive than LA.

reillyse3• 3 years ago

The "metro area" is 1,270,000 so a lot more than the "city" count and I imagine if you added in the neighboring areas that are part of the commuter belt that would increase even more (e.g. Dublin county itself has 1.388 million not counting Meath, Kildare, Wicklow etc ).

wiredfool3• 3 years ago

Ireland is a lot like Washington State, in size and population, and the size profile of the cities.

(though Washington has more real wilderness, and Ireland has a lot more small farm rural, but Seattle and Dublin occupy very similar weights in the regions)

1letterunixname3• 3 years ago

Austin sized :)

tptacek9• 3 years ago

I'm somewhat politically engaged in my local municipality over this issue; we're a small suburb directly adjacent to Chicago, and every viable piece of residential land was developed, overwhelmingly SFZ, decades ago.

The problem we have here seems like the solution this article proposes: any new development will, automatically, generate organized opposition from the block (and neighboring blocks) it's sited on, and the challenge is ensuring that the planning and zoning variance process makes decisions for the good of the municipality, and not just to suit the preferences of the neighbors.

I don't know how much our experience ports over to Ireland (probably not that much), but to me this is the opposite of what you'd want; rather, you'd want to do what California ostensibly does: moving control over residential zoning/planning to a level of government high enough that concentrated local interests can't derail the more important diffuse interest in getting more housing built.

arcticbull3• 3 years ago

We need to federalize zoning just like Japan. You should be able to build anything permissible on your land - and if your neighbors aren't happy with that they should buy your land to stop it, or move. Exceptions to this policy should be meaningful enough that you need to get the federal government involved.

thebradbain2• 3 years ago

I think state-level zoning hits the sweet spot— the US has some wildly different climates and geography, and I do appreciate that zoning in, say, Rhode Island, Nevada, and California have distinct enough geocultural situations to have their own codes. I don’t expect federal lawmakers from Ohio to worry about the California coastline, for example.

However, I don’t see any reason why Atherton gets to have a different zoning than San Francisco, or Santa Monica/Beverly Hills an entirely different code than Los Angeles.

Theoretically, it would be amazing to have a singular state zoning board pooled from all of the resources of smaller municipal offices, with one standard application and one process.

Right now it’s crazy that Los Angeles and Beverly Hills have two completely different zoning codes with two completely different processes— so much time wasted on two different bureaucracies (and sometimes, both! If the project is big enough) based on if something is one block over or not.

State level DOTs have shown, in a way, how effective this approach can be (though rather than encouraging sprawl, we do the same for density). If we built housing anywhere as fast as we do highways, imagine how much would get built.

midoridensha3• 3 years ago

We need to federalize zoning just like Japan.

Nit-pick: Japan does not have "federalized zoning", or federalized anything. Japan does not have a federal government; nor, does Ireland, nor most other countries in the world. This is an Americanism (though it applies to Germany too). In most countries, which have unitary governments, the top-most level of government is the "national government", so what you want is "nationalized zoning".

Anyway, yes, Japan's nationalized zoning is great. We're not having the ridiculous housing problems I keep reading about in western nations. However, it does have its detractors, like westerners vising Japan and then whining about how all the buildings look so different from each other and there's no "character". If you want historically-preserved neighborhoods, or neighborhoods where all the buildings have the same theme and architectural style, you won't find it in most of Japan.

dionidium2• 3 years ago

Yes, so long as this appeal to a higher authority is about preventing localities from passing legislation that makes it impossible for residents to engage in ordinary economic activity and not instead about central planning by other means.

We've made it impossible to build housing for about 70 years. Let's stop doing that for a while and see what happens.

colmmacc• 3 years ago

Having lived in several places in Ireland and in the US, I think the dynamics are very similar. I live in Magnolia in Seattle, where the city planning meetings, Facebook groups, and NextDoor forums have many neighbors objecting to the first sign of real high density housing in the area, because they want to "preserve its character".

In Ballyfermot in Dublin, I see the very same in the groups there in response to similar developments. Ballyfermot is a well connected inner city suburb - perfect for more density - but most of the locals still seem against it. In Ireland the political party who campaign on housing and stand to benefit the most, Sinn Fein, are often objecting themselves to these projects. The fundamental dynamic is that the people who would benefit just don't live in the area yet, and their future theoretical votes don't count yet.

wiredfool3• 3 years ago

We have a couple of new estates going in on old farmland next to our 1970's era estate, and the outcry over the fact that building was happening was amazing. There's periodic calls to close a walkway through the wall to the next estate, because the wrong people walk through. This walkway is part of a designated quiet traffic route between parts of town. There's (finally) bike lanes going in on the main road, with initial sitework happening, and the first thing that people yelled about was that they weren't consulted. (Full public comment on that plan has been going on for 5 years. Why it takes 5 years to put a bike lane on .75km of a 50KPH road that connects 5 different schools. None of the students of those schools when the plan was proposed will be still there to take advantage of it.)

At one point last year were 5 places to rent in Meath on the biggest rental site.

We bought about 5 years back, when our rental went up for sale and we couldn't find a new rental then. Hindsight is saying it was a great move, even though prices in our estate have been pretty flat since then.

Izikiel432• 3 years ago

In WA SB 1110 just got approved, which would allow 4plexes in SFZ lots if the city is over 75k people, so we will see how long can things stay the same now that flood gates will open.

oh_sigh• 3 years ago

Doesn't moving the control to a higher level mean the rich-and-well-connected-at-state-level people get to have their way and the "little guy" is powerless? At least with a local system there is local accountability - the local politicians pushing something locally unwanted will probably not get re-elected. With state governments, it is doubtful that the exact placement of a development in a neighborhood will become an issue relevant to their re-election.

tptacek9• 3 years ago

One serious way to think about this problem is that every hyper-local decision making body is corrupt, but states are only some of the time. There's no level at which you can make collective action decisions where there's no significant risk of corruption, but the narrower you go, the more natural and unavoidable the conflicts of interest become.

JumpCrisscross• 3 years ago

Has anyone tried giving equity in the resulting property to the neighbours?

davidw• 3 years ago

For people taking on this problem, these two groups are great resources that can give you a big boost in terms of learning how to do this kind of advocacy:

* https://yimbyaction.org/

* https://welcomingneighbors.us/

And: it's great and very rewarding. Housing, and how we build our cities, is so central to so many things. The economy, the environment, homelessness of course, and our health.

It's also something where there's been a lot of fairly rapid progress. The state of Washington just passed their 'middle housing' bill, following in the footsteps of Oregon, California and also Montana. The last one hints at an important aspect of the politics: everyone needs a place to live, whether their politics are 'red' or 'blue'.

Gigachad• 3 years ago

In Australia I'm observing a trend where state governments are continually removing powers from local councils to approve or deny applications as those councils have proven to be completely dysfunctional and work against the interests of the general population

klipt• 3 years ago

Good for those state governments!

onlyrealcuzzo• 3 years ago

and work against the interests of the general population.

The non-homeowning population...

Home owner's mainly care about their investment, and the system is working as intended for these people.

einpoklum• 3 years ago

Another example is Israel’s approach to urban densification. Israel increased apartment supply in Tel Aviv by around half through a rule known as ‘TAMA 38’. Under this rule, if 80% of a given apartment block’s residents agree, they can vote for redevelopment, demolish the block, and build a larger one

This was absolutely horrible. So, TAMA 38 was originally a plan for protecting buildings against earthquakes: If the residents undertake a fortification of their building, they get some extra rights in terms of built area on their property. In practice, the regions where an earthquake is more likely have seen almost no use of this arrangement - because fortification is expensive, and real-estate there is not very lucrative. But the Tel-Aviv/Gush Dan region, where there's a housing bubble, has seen massive use of this program - but of course not by residents. Rather, real-estate entrepreneurs make contracts with residents to perform the fortification, or an entire reconstruction of the building, in exchange for using the extra building rights for more apartments. But of course - nobody had any concern for the space around the building; the importance of unpaved ground, trees and vegetation for an urban environment; the extra pressure on all sorts of infrastructure to accommodate a denser populace etc. There are also aesthetic concerns, but let's put those aside. The result has been a massive windfall for such entrepreneurs, and a significant degradation of the quality of life where this occurs - not because of the density itself, but because of lack of urban planning to support it.

SeanLuke• 3 years ago

Irish? Proposal to cure social ills? I seriously thought this was going to be a play on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal

1letterunixname3• 3 years ago

A Movable Feast, indeed -Made from Organic Soylent

I guess the counter-reaction is to eat the rich then eh?

EntrePrescott2• 3 years ago

given the fact that the demographics of home/real estate ownership by age group are very much biased in favor of the elderly, one could say that indeed such a proposal featured here on hn just recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35588997

toss14• 3 years ago

>By giving locals the power to enable extra construction, and get a share of the resulting economic benefits
>and get a share of the resulting economic benefits

THIS, right there, is the key.

Zoning rules of density caps exist to create & maintain a more pleasant environment. People building or purchasing into these areas pay higher costs initially and throughout their residency to maintain the better environment. These include everything from higher purchase cost, higher taxes, higher maintenance costs, higher regulatory costs, and more, and the benefits are worth it to them.

ANY proposal to rezone at higher density essentially steals this extra value the existing residents have created over the course of decades (and generally transfers it into the pockets of the developers). Whether it is a medium-density city street with postage-stamp lots, a tight suburb, or an exurb with genuine wildlife habitat, the value of both the existing property and the neighborhood goes down. They get zero benefit, the benefits they've worked and paid to create are destroyed, and the developers extract the value of the land that is now worth more per square foot, building higher-density housing. So, OF COURSE they vote against it at every opportunity.

However, this can all turn around if the existing landowners, who have paid for decades to create the value, share in the increase in values. If the property will devalue from 500x to 400x, but the compensation is 120x, then some will still vote against it because of the intangible environmental degradation (trees, wildlife, traffic, noise, etc.), but many will happily vote for it. The developers will still extract absurd amounts of money.

That is how you make it work. An actual market mechanism, not expropriating value that homeowners have paid over decades to build with fiat dictates.

hackerlight5• 3 years ago

ANY proposal to rezone at higher density essentially steals this extra value the existing residents have created over the course of decades (and generally transfers it into the pockets of the developers).

The complete opposite is closer to the truth. The homeowners resisting rezoning are the ones who are essentially stealing unearned extra value, as per Henry George's analysis. The majority of their home values do not come from the local investments made by fellow homeowners in the same block. The vast majority comes from physical network effects and public expenditure in the city and country at large. Everything from the army, judiciary and police, which protects the very existence of private land titles and therefore their value, to the local public roads and shopping centres and distance to the city heart which make that location desirable, to the public healthcare and overall GDP/prosperity of the country, which makes the country itself desirable. These are all variables and private and public expenditures which they haven't contributed to any more than someone living across the country who would like to move into their neighborhood. They steal this value by making it illegal to create new housing stock, which then causes all that public value to interalize into their private hands. It is classic capitalistic theft via using government as a tool, no different in spirit to crony capitalism, yet done by private individuals with a financial motive instead of by corporations.

toss14• 3 years ago

Nonsense.

Setting the criteria at the block level is an absurd strawman argument, guaranteed to yield the intended result.

A block of people better mowing their lawns and painting their houses obviousl costs something and does add a bit of value, but almost nothing is purchased at that level.

For example, the strong conservation, good services, open space preservation, etc. I cited above are all made at the town level. Town A doesn't invest in those, saves the costs, and Town B does invest and costs more, and creates more value. But because it isn't the block, he puts it on the "public" side of his ledger.

That's proof of nothing but George's willingness to paint the picture he and you want.

Plus, if you really want to create value on land, you do development. Zoning maximum density REDUCES the value of the properties. I could make enough to retire if I could take down my house and put up a condo unit. But it is 2-acre zoning, and I can't, and it was cheaper to buy.

I'm also a heluva lot less concerned once zoning density is high enough that there is effectively no ecosystem, it's just suburban hardscape, so maybe under quarter-acre zoning, it won't have much environmental effect as the flora & fauna are already pretty much gone, so development has much less impact beyond the heat island effect. But I don't know as much about the mix of buying/building/taxes/investment in those or city zones.

cultureswitch2• 3 years ago

Existing owners have paid nothing. They contribute next to nothing to make a neighborhood better. Public services do. They have bought the land years ago for peanuts and spent some resources keeping other people from doing the same.

It's basically just pulling the ladder up once you're on top.

toss14• 3 years ago

Wrong.

I can tell you specifically as an existing landowner in an area with a very healthy ecological preservation culture and strict conservation regulations, that we pay A LOT more on a continuing basis to maintain this, and it benefits our values a lot less than aggressive construction.

First, the "public services" you mention? Yes, we pay more for those, because they are maintained at a high level. Everything from good roads and maintenance, good levels of service, conservation commission with a full-time employees in a tiny town, etc. Those public services cost money, and we are the only ones who foot the bill. (Not complaining, but don't act as if you are free or paid for by the state, county, etc.).

On top of that, everything is also more expensive. Merely getting an exception to a rule to change where the front walk comes from the driveway to the front door required a $2000 engineering plan and $350 application fee for board approval (and that was to get a de minimus exception so we didn't need to get a $9000 survey) because a few feet of the stairs was within a 100' wetland buffer zone. We'll also have to take extra steps & costs during the construction to prevent any impact on the wetlands.

There are also town taxpayer funds created to purchase open lands for wild area and recreational preservation. Again, all maintained OVER TIME by the town;s residents, and no one else.

The original purchase price is meaningless; they are paying to build a better environment the entire time.

It has zero to do with "pulling up the ladder", and everything to do with not wanting to do things like putting a 200-unit condo development on top of a steep wetland species harboring endangered species, multiplying traffic on rural roads by a factor of 20+, adding unpaid burdens to local public services, etc.

tptacek9• 3 years ago

In fact, zoning rules and density caps exist, in the US (where they were pioneered) at least, mostly to prevent Black families from moving into municipalities. They proliferated after the 1917 Supreme Court Buchanan case that outlawed outright racial zoning. This is also most of the reason for minimum lot sizes (they worked in tandem with mortgage underwriting restrictions for Black families to make home purchases viable for whites and non-viable for Blacks).

kderbyma2• 3 years ago

Housing is a racket. Banks + Governments at the top of the pyramid....everyone else getting either screwed or doing the screwing for the guy upstairs to get their chance to get less screwed.....

it makes the human centipede look charming.

xiaodai• 3 years ago

"other countries have delivered large increases in housing supply with popular support."

Such as? Just pure bs

monterey11• 3 years ago

At 63, I have seen it and heard it all before. Tenants paying rent way in excess of a mortgage, indeed paying someone else's mortgage, has, continues and until this is changed will continue to be the major factor which impoverishes renters here and in other free market economies. The refrain 30 - 40 years ago was investing in a property to provide your pension income, the idea being that you took your pension pot and purchased a property outright to let and live off that income. This has morphed into scraping together 20- 30 % of the purchase price and tenants paying rents are your oysters, but unlike the oyster, tenants have no protection against the new parasite class of investor/ landlord. Probably it will be the same 30 - 40 years hence.

nmstoker• 3 years ago

I don't follow the situation closely enough but I distinctly remember seeing footage of lots of half finished housing developments abandoned in Ireland. Can't they be restarted? (Or have they been and gone already?)

Macha4• 3 years ago

It's been 15 years - mostly the ones that were in a state to be completed have been, and any that were abandoned fifteen years ago and left untouched in that time are likely (a) in the middle of nowhere and not particularly sustainable or (b) in such poor state that it'd be a knock and rebuild job.

A lot of it is a consequence of the collapse of the building trade in 2008, population growth and poor regional planning forcing everyone into the cities

EntrePrescott2• 3 years ago

poor regional planning forcing everyone into the cities

could you please elaborate on that? What kind of poor planning and in what ways did it force people into the cities?

dahwolf• 3 years ago

Personally, I've come to the conclusion that densification is a tweak against very powerful odds rather than a sustainable long term solution. Proper 21st century thinking would be to rethink work, mobility, culture, care and how people access things in a way that is modern and sane.

ska3• 3 years ago

regardless of the rethink, density will have some scaling advantages in infrastructure, etc.

balfirevic• 3 years ago

how people access things in a way that is modern and sane

Unless teleportation is invented, if you want to have access to a large variety of things that are not just generic grocery store/post office/non-specialised gym or similar - you're going to need density.

1letterunixname3• 3 years ago

I notice a lot of Irish immigration to the States. 2 Irish-Americans in our department alone. And several younger Irish-Americans in our building.

My mom's family came over in both the waves of pre-Revolutionary (American) War (early 18th c.) and the Famine (mid 19th c.).

mastax• 3 years ago

On Daft, Ireland’s most popular property website, fewer than 1,100 properties are available to rent in Ireland, a country of over 5 million people.

Wow. For comparison the US state of Minnesota has a population of 5.7 million and if you select the state on apartments.com it says "32,693 Apartments Available."

beAbU• 3 years ago

I'm in the middle of my application for a visa/permit to immigrate there with my wife. Reading the article and the conversation here makes me stress now :(

thdespou• 3 years ago

Yep, Harsh reality living in Ireland is the Housing crisis. Unless you are not earning a big fat salary, you won't be able to affort the current rent rates.

So your renting experience goes like this:

- Desperately try to find somewhere to live paying X amount on rent for 2-3 years.

- Landlord gives you 6 months notice because they want to sell the house.

- You try to find a new house to live. The availability is smaller each time, plus they take 800 euro more to rent with the same amount of rooms. Plus you have to move to a commuting area since the available properties in your area are non-existant or they take 150% of your salary.

- Rinse and repeat every 2-3 years until you pay 100%+ of your salary in rent or just leave cursing.

Street Votes: A proposed response to Ireland's housing crisis

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