I AM UNTETHERED AND MY RAGE KNOWS NO BOUNDS

There are higher density buildings that aren’t ugly and they can and have been built even here in Richmond e.g. 541 N 2nd st & the Canopy at Ginter Park. It is plainly illegal to build them in much of the district or city. And for what it’s worth, that Ginter development was by right and still had appeals by the neighborhood that delayed the project. By right doesn’t mean everything goes but it allows more variation in what is possible in most cases. The 2600 Kensington block ($600k townhomes in 2016 for what it’s worth) were also by right because they happened to be in a multi family district (R-48). And 2601 still needed a variance for yard size just to meet the style of adjacent lots!

>Vacancy rate is MUCH higher than 1.7%. Take a walk at night, you’ll see lots of dark buildings with “leasing now” signs.

You can have the apartment empty for some time, like if people were off or somewhere else at night or gasp turn the lights off at night.

>One way to curb demand is to not haphazardly build build build…if potential transplants can’t find a place to live they move elsewhere, like Durham. Mind blowing right

The way demand is curbed now is higher prices which I think changes who and what kind of person lives there. You can live in your place while your neighbors just go up in income as the neighborhood grows in price, this is the real gentrification. Gentrifiers were priced out of the neighborhoods they wanted instead of stuff being but for them. They will move in until the price reaches a level where Durham is cheaper which will take some time since Durham is way more expensive.

Agglomeration benefits are fought in this country for no good reason. Pissing away trillions because you were sold a lie.

• vcu student from NOVA

>I totally agree that these mid-density housing options are excellent for maintaining a smaller land base while still providing units. I know a few of them have gone up in Eugene in the past few years, it just seems the backlog of demand has really outstripped supply.

5 stories tall for blocks on end would put it in the top densities in America. Most towers are surrounded by like grass and then a parking lot so there isn't nearly as much or lower density than staying lower and it's just preference at some point.

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/1/3/comparing-approaches-to-achieving-density

What I'm saying you could be 11x denser than the fan with just that...

>Like the recent infrastructure bill that has been sorely needed, we need some kind of construction subsidization bill to get people in reasonable mortgages. I think the amount of stability for a family that ownership provides will create huge economic benefits down the line. And even though it may hurt my own home value, its a hit i'm willing to take to solve this overall problem. I would like to imagine others would as well, but NIMBY has never been more specifically applicable than with this problem!

I think increasing housing will continue the increase in housing prices, walkability would likely increase and most density changes would lead to people who want the suburban home near the middle of the city. Your prices would rise while per unit prices would hopefully be stable/fall.

I think we can solve a lot of this through regulations and pilot programs to get some development started. Allowing things to be built is step 1.

[deleted]

Flooring it is what got this car in the lake, so yeah.

Vacancy rate is MUCH higher than 1.7%. Take a walk at night, you’ll see lots of dark buildings with “leasing now” signs.

One way to curb demand is to not haphazardly build build build…if potential transplants can’t find a place to live they move elsewhere, like Durham. Mind blowing right

Check if there’s a body inside

But look at the increase in demand, we have a rental vacancy rate of 1.7% when something in the 5-8% range is needed.

What you don't seem to understand is that we have increased the amount being built, but I think we need even more. The prices clearly indicate that demand is outstripping supply.

I think we can clearly link the lack of household formation to housing supply and housing prices. The household formation rate increased in the spring and housing prices spiked and supply was extremely low.

I really think Richmond city needs to be adding more units to stay affordable. I think the lack of building has been making the city more expensive and less cool more than any preservation has done.

You keep saying I'm too dumb to explain and yet I have data sources to back up my assessments.

The driver is just playing hide and seek.

Can tell by your uninformed diatribe you are very young and haven’t been involved with developers in the real world. As I said before it is a pointless exercise to try to inform you. Literally take a walk in the areas I pointed out for you…make sure to take your phone for pics of all the new development happening as you read this.

Plates don't look local but could be the angle.

Those fan like townhomes that completely miss the mark because they are weighted down by being lower density because people demand 3 parking spots is the problem here. Richmond has regulations adding parking spots to many of these places.

The amount of buildings going up is a relative increase especially with the regulation changes to allow more like TOD-1 but what I'm saying is we need more. We need to get used to more building, the amount of building being done across this country was not enough and needs to be increased. Multifamily housing increased due to a decrease in regulations (due in people like me arguing for reduced regulations) and cities becoming pricier as demand has increased and supply has been stable. It's illegal to build new housing in a lot of America.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HOUST5F

Haphazardly is not the word I would use. We need to just allow people to build. Why do you want to thwart the free market and instead stop people from building homes? So the zoning codes of the fan were haphazard and the problem or the nicest part of Richmond?

> It’s a MUCH more dynamic equation than you surmise with simple supply/demand thinking.

Explain it to me then and explain why it's completely different from cars. The simple example is that in the 1980s they banned some Japanese car imports, so Toyota, Honda and Nissan created the luxury car brands of Lexus, Acura and Infiniti to increase the price due to the limiting of supply (really the threat of limiting). So cars the other very expensive good that many buy has the exact same effects. Why do you twist yourself in circles to convince yourself that it's not supply and demand?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexus?wprov=sfla1

>If you really want some high-density dystopian city then move back to the city from which you hail.

High density cities are not dystopian, suburbs are IMO. You want to force me to buy because we aren't adding enough housing. Suburbs are government subsidized because low densities increase the public to private ratio and we overtax cities. Suburban poverty has outpaced urban poverty for decades at this point.

People pay a premium to live in the city, people must like it but no live in a shitty ugly cape cod.

Also this is every city, the point here is that demand has been outstripping supply for decades. Where is the affordable high density city you want me to move to. All of America decided to ramp up zoning regulations at the same time around the 1970s and so we have housing unaffordability.

Nope I meant the exact block I noted. And if you need more examples there are plenty in Carver, Jackson Ward, and Church Hill too. Zoning laws are there for a reason, most non-transplants do not want our neighborhoods or city overrun with these grand visions of ugly high density buildings going up by “right”. That would be an absolute nightmare

Could have been at the point of tightening the lugs

Do you mean 3100 block of Kensington? Either way it’s a good illustration of what I’m talking about. These five townhomes are only permitted via a special use permit that had to be approved by council because of, among other things, the setbacks for the townhomes are less than what the lost is zoned for (R-6) allows. see here for the special use permit. see the R-6 zoning code for yards and setbacks here

These should have been able to have been built by right, or even something higher density like one or two of the 6-plexes that exist across the street. Instead the developer had to go to the mayor and council for a variance to build these. This is unnecessary cost and uncertainty for zero benefit. They could have by right built one to ~three homes no problem based on current zoning no variance needed.

As a different example, six stand alone single family houses in my neighborhood (on moss side between the church and ladies mile road) met their zoning requirements no problem and were built in a few months time from property transfer and demo of the old building to people moving in the new homes. These are $600k homes, R-3 zoned six of them on ~one acre. It should and could have been something higher density but the zoning didn’t allow it. Because that was easiest and quickest it was what was built, no approval from council on any zoning variation needed as was the case on Kensington.

If you don’t allow density by right then the default is that single family homes get built. The developer in Kensington went out of their way for that, the one on moss side did not. One got 5 homes on a ~quarter acre and the other 6 on ~an acre. We should be encouraging the former and not the latter

Phew for a second I thought no one was gonna make this reference hahah

Wow! How did that happen?

Someone needed insurance money to pay off their Christmas credit card debt

/r/CantParkThereMate

This is terrible

Oof. Imagine bitching about your luck while changing your tire, then this happens.

The regulations…LOL. Again step outside, stop ignoring the reality of buildings actually going up in the city that are modern versions of Fan-like townhomes (all in the areas mentioned above as well as many more). If you really want some high-density dystopian city then move back to the city from which you hail. Richmond does not have the infrastructure to just haphazardly build build build and get rid of parking requirements, or add ADUs where people/corporations want like so many uninformed here state. It’s a MUCH more dynamic equation than you surmise with simple supply/demand thinking.