LA Housing Policy
The city's trying to make a developer set aside 25% of its new units for low-income (i.e. rich people in any other city in America). Anyway, the developer's taking the city to court. There are a lot of things going on here that bug me. (What follows are my own non-professional opinions, observations obviously)
1. The city (thanks in part to our bought-and-sold, idiot mayor -- see: Century City developments) is much too quick to ok new housing developments and far too slow to ok any sort of freeway or mass transits projects. This is because housing and even mixed-use office/housing developments represent a tax base. They pay out millions. Roads, bike trails, train tracks on the other hand, those cost money. So what are we left with? More housing, yes. But not the infrastructure to support it. Which leads to more sprawl (be it horizontal or vertical) and more pollution and a lower quality of life.
2. The city forcing developers to set aside low-income units is the state interfereing in the market. And this usually drives up real estate prices (as developers charge more for what's left to off-set market losses), not to mention squeezes out smalltime, independent landowners who are stuck singlehandedly subsidizing tenants when dwellings are priced artificially low. In turn, this makes it harder for landowners to build or buy, which in turns means the only people building apartments/condos are massive real estate developers.
Jeez, I just confused myself. Maybe I should stop.
1. The city (thanks in part to our bought-and-sold, idiot mayor -- see: Century City developments) is much too quick to ok new housing developments and far too slow to ok any sort of freeway or mass transits projects. This is because housing and even mixed-use office/housing developments represent a tax base. They pay out millions. Roads, bike trails, train tracks on the other hand, those cost money. So what are we left with? More housing, yes. But not the infrastructure to support it. Which leads to more sprawl (be it horizontal or vertical) and more pollution and a lower quality of life.
2. The city forcing developers to set aside low-income units is the state interfereing in the market. And this usually drives up real estate prices (as developers charge more for what's left to off-set market losses), not to mention squeezes out smalltime, independent landowners who are stuck singlehandedly subsidizing tenants when dwellings are priced artificially low. In turn, this makes it harder for landowners to build or buy, which in turns means the only people building apartments/condos are massive real estate developers.
Jeez, I just confused myself. Maybe I should stop.
1 Comments:
I see the point there, but you do seem to be contradicting yourself...
If you build denser mixed use areas and have zoned low income housing, that in itself decreases congestion. It means that people (both the rich ones and poor ones) don't have to travel as far to work, and don't necessarily have to drive. It seems to me this sort of thing makes a lot of sense in places that already have freeway access and public transit in place (ie downtown and Hollywood) and these are the places that should (and do) see this kind of development.
I find nothing more ridiculous than people taking a bus from East LA to the Pacific Palisades to be somebody's maid for the day. That might be the market at work, but it doesn;t seem to be working FOR anybody.
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