> This is incorrect. Developers seek variances for various zoning restrictions all the time.
Variances are part of the zoning process.
> And doing so effects financing decisions because a project that requires variances may face substantial delays.
No one lends construction money before zoning is satisfied, regardless of how it's satisfied.
You seem to disagree, so how about an example of a lender providing construction money before there was good reason to believe that construction would be allowed.
Yes, lenders may think that some projects are more likely to be approved and the reasons for approval may be political, but that just means that lenders consider the outcome of political processes, not that they're making decisions for political reasons.
Absent something like CRA, lending decisions are based on predicted return on investment. Can the borrowers make the payments? The greater the risk, the higher the interest rate.
Immediate reaction: Construction loans don't matter, because those only happen after you have legal permission to build something. And only huge corporations can afford the usual 3 to 8 years of Zoning Commission red tape, NIMBY wars, environmental reviews, legal challenges, etc. that come before you actually get legal permission to build something.
You do have some power over what gets built. It's called the zoning process, which allows us to decide ahead of time which types of things we will allow or not, so that people can plan and proceed accordingly. It's why we have laws that people can read, rather than just bringing everything before a jury to decide after it happens whether or not it was illegal.
Deciding what housing can be built should not be like a game of Scattergories, where we all just argue about whether or not something is okay after the fact.
Because the way it stands, only projects with high rate of return will be built--ie luxury housing. A 10% rate of return on investment might be okay for a project that takes one year, but if it drags on to 4 years, that's barely beating inflation. Time is money, and our process makes our housing more expensive.
I’m ok with building materials, architecture, and any range of requirements that a community wants to place on new structures to maintain a certain “look” to a neighborhood. Those can be factored easily into costs.
I’m not ok with a community preventing new development entirely, especially taller and denser development. Even worse is that red tape can delay a project for years if not permanently, making the cost of owning property for development (mortgage, taxes, size of eventual payoff) uncertain.
If you set clear rules, the market will adapt. When everything is banned or uncertain, developers are much less likely to take risks.
I'm pretty sure these sorts of restrictions will just slow down construction.
IMO: the real problem is that it's very hard for individuals to get loans for construction easily (and the ones you can get are extremely risky because the rates can change on you.)
There is no right for equal treatment for a construction company to be chosen by a developer.
If the government is the"developer", you regularly see lawsuits.
They usually aren't it's an argument used to scare people into making housing stock replenishment more expensive and lock in property values.
I'm building a house now. I sent the county... A picture of a square on a map. No plans no inspections nothing. Fuck all that. I build based on what seems reasonable after a cool Busch Light and then I just do it without asking permission from anybody.
Half my county did the same. It's not rocket science, and the world here hasn't fallen apart or burned down. But you will be told the opposite to get locked into expensive contractors and corrupt inspectors and the cash extracting nightmare licensing and permitting systems that surround that.
And before anybody gets too excited... this is all 100% legal if you pick the right spot.
For some reason, planners argue that “neighbours change over time” and this is meant to be a reason why this kind of variance can’t be allowed. Makes no sense to me, as future neighbours would know what they are getting into when they buy. Perhaps there needs to be a notice period preventing someone from agreeing to a variance and then selling their house before the variance activity has been completed.
Your seeming assumption that I want the federal government to dictate what gets built is in error. I mostly want them to stop dictating what gets built.
The Federal government plays a significant role in deciding what kind of housing can be readily financed. This plays a really substantial role in what actually gets built.
They've done this since shortly after WW2. It's a de facto stranglehold on the housing market.
There are also substantial tax breaks etc that influence the housing market.
That isn't quite fair. Most of these selections about what goes into a new house are not being made a la carte. The construction is performed according to the specifications of development companies. Individuals then go on to buy the homes which are available, at which point they are making choices based on the entire package.
The city's ban is largely aimed at changing the design specifications made by the developers. It has the benefit of preventing additional decades of lock-in and new development to infrastructure they'd like to remove anyway.
Seems from the article he wants to build something that doesn't adhere to local code restrictions on height and size limits.
It seems to be a part of the human condition to want to say "we should make these rules!" and then say "but I don't mean for me" It's just that people with a lot of money have more options when it comes to that second part.
You did buy it if the law/zoning said it would stay that way. Hence people getting worked up when people talk about allowing big buildings where they currently aren't allowed.
I didn't mean 'allow construction' was a consequence of removing rent control. I meant it literally as 'remove absurd zoning restrictions that impede construction'.
Tbf many of those restrictions are there for good city planning reasons - and important to keeping a city livable and not outgrowing its infrastructure. But the cost of enforcing those is quite often a ridiculously bogged-down planning department that often takes months or a year to process applications and revisions, significantly inflating the risk and thus costs of construction, and relegating it to big firms that can handle all of the legalese and scheduling turmoil.
Now, why dont governments better fund those departments and emphasize faster throughput? Well, let's ask their main constituents - who are largely homeowners and companies in the industry - whether they'd like to dedicate more taxes to a service that would speed up construction and drop their housing prices.
Totally understandable, but that doesn't mean the government should restrict others right to build on their property. Especially in a city, you should expect changes in the surroundings.
The idea that local municipalities get to decide, arbitrarily and subjectively, what is "compatible with the neighborhood," means that property rights do not exist. As property rights are the basis of free markets, it's important that we understand there is no free market - not even a highly regulated market - for construction in large swathes of the US, and nearly every employment center.
It is perfectly fine to regulate the acceptable parameters of development, but they can't subjective and arbitrary. That's not how rule of law works.
Variances are part of the zoning process.
> And doing so effects financing decisions because a project that requires variances may face substantial delays.
No one lends construction money before zoning is satisfied, regardless of how it's satisfied.
You seem to disagree, so how about an example of a lender providing construction money before there was good reason to believe that construction would be allowed.
Yes, lenders may think that some projects are more likely to be approved and the reasons for approval may be political, but that just means that lenders consider the outcome of political processes, not that they're making decisions for political reasons.
Absent something like CRA, lending decisions are based on predicted return on investment. Can the borrowers make the payments? The greater the risk, the higher the interest rate.
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