Excellent post Laura, thanks. I read Scott's Housing Plan with delight. Big, audacious, smart - classic Scott Wiener. I would especially love to see this idea go through, ideally with zero hooks, gotchas or pointless incentives.
I expect a $10k federal housing incentive would have a big impact in many areas. I’m not sure how much it will impact a city that already charges $50k+ in impact fees! Still well worth exploring since most of the country is not so insane as CA suburbs
My one criticism of this policy is that it incentivizes mass production of tiny units like studios and 1bd apartments. To avoid that, the fund should scale with the size of the unit, perhaps measured by square footage or bedroom count. A relatively easy fix, but an important one.
They have to find developers who think that they can sell them. And if they can, who cares if they are small, let's not start letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, let alone projecting our own preferences on innocent third parties 😁
it’s not a personal preference, it’s a matter of incentives. Families need larger units, but this policy as it stands creates a powerful incentive to build the smallest units possible. That’s not good, but thankfully it’s an easy fix to just scale the payments with unit size.
It is not, actually. It is very expensive to combine studio and 1bd units into larger units, to the point that it is almost always cost prohibitive. Insofar as there is a limited supply of developable land (especially given that zoning will continue to constrain it) it’s important to get this right.
Really? This is presumably a planning restriction or sth specific to the US generally, but normally the obstacle is actually buying two adjacent units, which is usually quite easy "off the plan"
No, it’s a construction issue. It’s very expensive to combine two studios or 1bd relative to the unit quality you get, because those units are the most expensive per sq ft (hence why developers already prefer them). You end up with a 2 bd that has 2 kitchens, 2 master beds, 2 master baths, and 2 living rooms. That’s a ton of wasted space that drives up costs relative to building a family style unit.
Studio and 1bd apartments are not “starter homes”, that’s the point. A 1200 sq ft 2 bd 1.5 bath starter home is exactly the kind of home we need more of, but as written the policy actually skews the market against those.
Maybe I didn’t see it in the fine print of the proposal, but if a homeowner opened up a spare bedroom as a rental unit (private room, shared bathroom and kitchen), would that count for the voucher?
Excellent post Laura, thanks. I read Scott's Housing Plan with delight. Big, audacious, smart - classic Scott Wiener. I would especially love to see this idea go through, ideally with zero hooks, gotchas or pointless incentives.
Good to see "pay for results" gaining from the old "pay for policy reform" (which often never delivers).
I expect a $10k federal housing incentive would have a big impact in many areas. I’m not sure how much it will impact a city that already charges $50k+ in impact fees! Still well worth exploring since most of the country is not so insane as CA suburbs
The most pro-housing law is no law.
The Federal government could just ban several key veto points instead of sending everyone bribes.
My one criticism of this policy is that it incentivizes mass production of tiny units like studios and 1bd apartments. To avoid that, the fund should scale with the size of the unit, perhaps measured by square footage or bedroom count. A relatively easy fix, but an important one.
They have to find developers who think that they can sell them. And if they can, who cares if they are small, let's not start letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, let alone projecting our own preferences on innocent third parties 😁
it’s not a personal preference, it’s a matter of incentives. Families need larger units, but this policy as it stands creates a powerful incentive to build the smallest units possible. That’s not good, but thankfully it’s an easy fix to just scale the payments with unit size.
I can see the issue and I support some design modification to take this into account, but I would rather that than nothing.
Worst comes to worst it is quite easy to make smaller units into bigger ones
It is not, actually. It is very expensive to combine studio and 1bd units into larger units, to the point that it is almost always cost prohibitive. Insofar as there is a limited supply of developable land (especially given that zoning will continue to constrain it) it’s important to get this right.
Really? This is presumably a planning restriction or sth specific to the US generally, but normally the obstacle is actually buying two adjacent units, which is usually quite easy "off the plan"
No, it’s a construction issue. It’s very expensive to combine two studios or 1bd relative to the unit quality you get, because those units are the most expensive per sq ft (hence why developers already prefer them). You end up with a 2 bd that has 2 kitchens, 2 master beds, 2 master baths, and 2 living rooms. That’s a ton of wasted space that drives up costs relative to building a family style unit.
God forbid we end up with a lot of affordable starter homes
Studio and 1bd apartments are not “starter homes”, that’s the point. A 1200 sq ft 2 bd 1.5 bath starter home is exactly the kind of home we need more of, but as written the policy actually skews the market against those.
Maybe I didn’t see it in the fine print of the proposal, but if a homeowner opened up a spare bedroom as a rental unit (private room, shared bathroom and kitchen), would that count for the voucher?
That level of fine print isn't available yet but, no. I think the answer will be no, because units are typically defined as having their own kitchen.