I read the news about Moore’s housing plan and saw that 25% “affordable units” poison pill. It’s something that NIMBYs demand to handicap housing initiatives.
If we want housing to be affordable to low income persons, then expand housing voucher along with upzoning. Don’t demand developers take a loss.
Much of the left of the Democratic party hates the idea of people making money and loathes capitalism. And those who don't hold such views are fearful of being canceled or primaried or attacked by those who do. News at 11. And so when housing abundance plans get hatched—which usually means Democrats these days given that the GOP has decided they need to defend the Constitutional Right to tell your neighbor they can't build stuff—there have to conspicuous and ludicrous nods to "affordability" (scare quotes very much intended). Profits are evil, after all.
It's tiresome and depressing. I guess we should all be happy at least the winds of change are finally blowing when it comes to housing. Baby steps.
I’d go one further and claim that strict affordability requirements discredit the whole YIMBY project because they create the implication that local control preemption means central planning rather than market freedom. IMO the underlying tension around how to get affordable housing built has not been resolved satisfactorily by YIMBY advocates, and that is pretty fundamental to NIMBY support.
The choice between “build what the local planning board thinks should go here” and “build what Annapolis HUD thinks should go here” is not a flattering one for the YIMBY movement.
I left this comment on your Heritage post: "In the case of leftists, my observation is that don't insist on [focusing exclusively on subsidized housing] merely because they believe filtering doesn't work. It's more that they believe that filtering is immoral *even if it does work* because with filtering, you're employing a process where the poor and working-class 'get table scraps.' In their minds, truly caring about the poor and working-class means delivering housing to them the same way you'd deliver a gift to a personal friend: you need to pick out the gift, and you need to deliver it in person or with a nice card, otherwise you're just 'treating them like numbers on a spreadsheet.' So no matter how many economics papers are published showing that filtering works, they're not going to be convinced."
Moore isn't a leftist, but I suspect that like some other progressives, he has a gentler version of the same beliefs. The idea of filtering is unappealing because all the nice new stuff goes to rich people, the companies that make money make money from the nice new stuff that goes to rich people, and working-class people get "leftovers" that can only indirectly rather than directly be traced to the governor's policy.
I do not understand why the yimby movement supports the "affordable housing" kludge at all. It distorts incentives, distributes the benefits randomly to a small number of people, and is susceptible to being gamed.
If your goal is to subsidize less affluent people, then why not just tax all new construction and use the income for some sort of voucher program?
I think it would be beneficial to analyse why people are NIMBYs and not YIMBYs. Not the pabulum about how people in local areas should have the right to determine the size of the neighbourhood, but the >real< reasons. The real reasons are that people want to live in a clean and orderly area with minimal crime. Abundant housing upsets the apple cart, and offers the potential for people with Challenging Behaviour to move into the area. Extortionate housing minimises the risk of this happening.
There’s a real tension between helping the poorest 15% and helping those closer to the median.
Pro market reforms won’t much help the poorest because their market incomes are simply too low. Housing abundance might reduce rents materially, but that doesn’t mean a single mom who makes $10 an hour and works part time will be able to make rent. However, housing abundance makes a huge difference for a family making $50-$100k a year, who can live much better if they go from spending 38% to 32% of their income on housing and might build equity if they can buy a starter home.
The same is true of professional licensure. Dental hygienists aren’t poor, they make about $70k. Letting them work independently would increase their incomes and the expense of dentists who make two or three times as much. It would help customers in the broad middle afford better dental care, but it wouldn’t do much for a dude who makes $12 an hour-- he probably needs a subsidy to keep his teeth from rotting.
Politically, helping the worst off is a loser. They are unlikely to vote and easily demonized. They are also very expensive to help. Helping the very worst off- the terminally ill-- is a huge money pit. Practical progressives will aim their policies at the 15th through 80th percentiles. There are a lot of votes in that group and a lot of workers with enough guile and discipline to take advantage of opportunities.
Can I also suggest that attaching affordability requirements is also a poison pill on pure politics terms? What I mean is, in a state like Maryland, housing costs are so high that it means middle class people and heck upper middle class people struggle more than they need to to afford rent or buy a house. Attaching strict AMI and affordability requirements essentially restricts the benefits of more housing to only a small poorer segment of the electorate. And let’s be real, a segment of the electorate less likely to vote especially in non presidential elections. One lesson I would hope we’ve learned last 10 years is the public at large needs to feel on some level they are benefiting from a change in law or policy.
There is one piece of this Matt is leaving out which may lead to more housing construction than Matt thinks. The tax implications. I can tell you from working in this industry that the reason developers or sponsors invest in deals like this is almost entirely related to the possible tax benefits you can gain. In fact when underwriting these deals, sizing loans and business plans themselves are almost entirely dependent on the developer actually getting the tax benefit.
An angle that Matt understandably didn’t want to bring up: a development with these affordability lotteries is more odious to the median NIMBY than market rate housing. If you are deliberately targeting people with low incomes for your housing units, you are more likely to be bringing disorder and crime and poor-people culture or whatever euphemisms are currently in vogue. You strengthen opposition relative to just relaxing zoning.
>That said, even if your only interest is in maximizing the number of “affordable” units you ought to consider the possibility that a lower affordability ratio will actually generate more affordable units.<
The above question (optimal affordability requirements to actually maximize affordable units) would be a great question to get to the Odd Lots crew, especially after the super great episode where they had the Montgomery County MD housing guys on. I have to think the Montgomery guys have modeled this question and have some cool insights.
This article implies that the way forward is for politicians to write better bills. But I think the way forward is to persuade the affordable housing activists that YIMBYism actually works, so they stop pressuring politicians to add these affordability mandates. We’re lucky that politicians are listening to a small and vocal YIMBY activist group. Why shouldn’t they also listen to the small and vocal affordable housing activist group?
I have watched a large number of NYC community board meetings. One thing that floors me, nay -- flabbergasts me, is the obsession with AMI. I have seen 30 minute discussions involving live calculations to determine if someone making $120K can live in a unit or only $115K, for a bulding with like 3 affordable units. The entire concept is absurd. There's not an income level where you deserve to live in a specific unit. And the idea that local, unelected boards spend so much time debating this for individual units is honestly enough to make you lose all faith in government at every level.
I know this isn't the main point, but I want to nitpick the Warren tweet, which neglects interest rates as well as average house size. Mortgage interest rates are at ~6.6% right now, whereas 40 years ago (Jan. 1984), they were 13.4%, almost exactly twice as much. Assuming a 20% down payment in both cases, the same mortgage payment buys a house 1.78x as expensive compared to 1984. This makes up over 70% of the difference in Warren's tweet. Note that if the mortgage interest rate were to drop back to 4%, it would completely wipe away her "11x vs. 4.5x" distinction.
Also, I don't know about Boston, but nationwide the average home size was ~1600 sqft in 1980, whereas it's ~2300 sqft now, almost 1.5x as much. And the finishes are usually better.
A bipartisan bill, HB 102 has been filed in the current session of the Kentucky General Assembly to allow the construction of duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes and secondary dwelling units in residential areas zoned for single family dwellings. Having read through it, it looks like it will expand the housing supply and it deserves support from all YIMBYs. The NIMBYs are of course trying to kill it; everyone in Kentucky who cares about affordable housing needs to contact their legislators, Democrats and Republicans alike, to support it.
I read the news about Moore’s housing plan and saw that 25% “affordable units” poison pill. It’s something that NIMBYs demand to handicap housing initiatives.
If we want housing to be affordable to low income persons, then expand housing voucher along with upzoning. Don’t demand developers take a loss.
Much of the left of the Democratic party hates the idea of people making money and loathes capitalism. And those who don't hold such views are fearful of being canceled or primaried or attacked by those who do. News at 11. And so when housing abundance plans get hatched—which usually means Democrats these days given that the GOP has decided they need to defend the Constitutional Right to tell your neighbor they can't build stuff—there have to conspicuous and ludicrous nods to "affordability" (scare quotes very much intended). Profits are evil, after all.
It's tiresome and depressing. I guess we should all be happy at least the winds of change are finally blowing when it comes to housing. Baby steps.
I’d go one further and claim that strict affordability requirements discredit the whole YIMBY project because they create the implication that local control preemption means central planning rather than market freedom. IMO the underlying tension around how to get affordable housing built has not been resolved satisfactorily by YIMBY advocates, and that is pretty fundamental to NIMBY support.
The choice between “build what the local planning board thinks should go here” and “build what Annapolis HUD thinks should go here” is not a flattering one for the YIMBY movement.
Stupid question but why do we require affordable units and offer subsidized housing vouchers instead of just giving people money
I left this comment on your Heritage post: "In the case of leftists, my observation is that don't insist on [focusing exclusively on subsidized housing] merely because they believe filtering doesn't work. It's more that they believe that filtering is immoral *even if it does work* because with filtering, you're employing a process where the poor and working-class 'get table scraps.' In their minds, truly caring about the poor and working-class means delivering housing to them the same way you'd deliver a gift to a personal friend: you need to pick out the gift, and you need to deliver it in person or with a nice card, otherwise you're just 'treating them like numbers on a spreadsheet.' So no matter how many economics papers are published showing that filtering works, they're not going to be convinced."
Moore isn't a leftist, but I suspect that like some other progressives, he has a gentler version of the same beliefs. The idea of filtering is unappealing because all the nice new stuff goes to rich people, the companies that make money make money from the nice new stuff that goes to rich people, and working-class people get "leftovers" that can only indirectly rather than directly be traced to the governor's policy.
I do not understand why the yimby movement supports the "affordable housing" kludge at all. It distorts incentives, distributes the benefits randomly to a small number of people, and is susceptible to being gamed.
If your goal is to subsidize less affluent people, then why not just tax all new construction and use the income for some sort of voucher program?
I think it would be beneficial to analyse why people are NIMBYs and not YIMBYs. Not the pabulum about how people in local areas should have the right to determine the size of the neighbourhood, but the >real< reasons. The real reasons are that people want to live in a clean and orderly area with minimal crime. Abundant housing upsets the apple cart, and offers the potential for people with Challenging Behaviour to move into the area. Extortionate housing minimises the risk of this happening.
There’s a real tension between helping the poorest 15% and helping those closer to the median.
Pro market reforms won’t much help the poorest because their market incomes are simply too low. Housing abundance might reduce rents materially, but that doesn’t mean a single mom who makes $10 an hour and works part time will be able to make rent. However, housing abundance makes a huge difference for a family making $50-$100k a year, who can live much better if they go from spending 38% to 32% of their income on housing and might build equity if they can buy a starter home.
The same is true of professional licensure. Dental hygienists aren’t poor, they make about $70k. Letting them work independently would increase their incomes and the expense of dentists who make two or three times as much. It would help customers in the broad middle afford better dental care, but it wouldn’t do much for a dude who makes $12 an hour-- he probably needs a subsidy to keep his teeth from rotting.
Politically, helping the worst off is a loser. They are unlikely to vote and easily demonized. They are also very expensive to help. Helping the very worst off- the terminally ill-- is a huge money pit. Practical progressives will aim their policies at the 15th through 80th percentiles. There are a lot of votes in that group and a lot of workers with enough guile and discipline to take advantage of opportunities.
Can I also suggest that attaching affordability requirements is also a poison pill on pure politics terms? What I mean is, in a state like Maryland, housing costs are so high that it means middle class people and heck upper middle class people struggle more than they need to to afford rent or buy a house. Attaching strict AMI and affordability requirements essentially restricts the benefits of more housing to only a small poorer segment of the electorate. And let’s be real, a segment of the electorate less likely to vote especially in non presidential elections. One lesson I would hope we’ve learned last 10 years is the public at large needs to feel on some level they are benefiting from a change in law or policy.
There is one piece of this Matt is leaving out which may lead to more housing construction than Matt thinks. The tax implications. I can tell you from working in this industry that the reason developers or sponsors invest in deals like this is almost entirely related to the possible tax benefits you can gain. In fact when underwriting these deals, sizing loans and business plans themselves are almost entirely dependent on the developer actually getting the tax benefit.
An angle that Matt understandably didn’t want to bring up: a development with these affordability lotteries is more odious to the median NIMBY than market rate housing. If you are deliberately targeting people with low incomes for your housing units, you are more likely to be bringing disorder and crime and poor-people culture or whatever euphemisms are currently in vogue. You strengthen opposition relative to just relaxing zoning.
>That said, even if your only interest is in maximizing the number of “affordable” units you ought to consider the possibility that a lower affordability ratio will actually generate more affordable units.<
The above question (optimal affordability requirements to actually maximize affordable units) would be a great question to get to the Odd Lots crew, especially after the super great episode where they had the Montgomery County MD housing guys on. I have to think the Montgomery guys have modeled this question and have some cool insights.
This article implies that the way forward is for politicians to write better bills. But I think the way forward is to persuade the affordable housing activists that YIMBYism actually works, so they stop pressuring politicians to add these affordability mandates. We’re lucky that politicians are listening to a small and vocal YIMBY activist group. Why shouldn’t they also listen to the small and vocal affordable housing activist group?
I have watched a large number of NYC community board meetings. One thing that floors me, nay -- flabbergasts me, is the obsession with AMI. I have seen 30 minute discussions involving live calculations to determine if someone making $120K can live in a unit or only $115K, for a bulding with like 3 affordable units. The entire concept is absurd. There's not an income level where you deserve to live in a specific unit. And the idea that local, unelected boards spend so much time debating this for individual units is honestly enough to make you lose all faith in government at every level.
I am once again asking Democrats not to act like a caricature of themselves
I know this isn't the main point, but I want to nitpick the Warren tweet, which neglects interest rates as well as average house size. Mortgage interest rates are at ~6.6% right now, whereas 40 years ago (Jan. 1984), they were 13.4%, almost exactly twice as much. Assuming a 20% down payment in both cases, the same mortgage payment buys a house 1.78x as expensive compared to 1984. This makes up over 70% of the difference in Warren's tweet. Note that if the mortgage interest rate were to drop back to 4%, it would completely wipe away her "11x vs. 4.5x" distinction.
Also, I don't know about Boston, but nationwide the average home size was ~1600 sqft in 1980, whereas it's ~2300 sqft now, almost 1.5x as much. And the finishes are usually better.
A bipartisan bill, HB 102 has been filed in the current session of the Kentucky General Assembly to allow the construction of duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes and secondary dwelling units in residential areas zoned for single family dwellings. Having read through it, it looks like it will expand the housing supply and it deserves support from all YIMBYs. The NIMBYs are of course trying to kill it; everyone in Kentucky who cares about affordable housing needs to contact their legislators, Democrats and Republicans alike, to support it.