A look at Denver’s “Unlocking Housing Choices” plan

throw-the-towel

Thankfully this article is about the zoning codes, not code as in computer programs.

JumpCrisscross

> A developer could likely fit 3-4 nice cottage homes on that lot, sell them for $500-700k, and make a profit Denver takes 264 days to approve "multi-family or industrial projects with a valuation in excess of $1.5 million, such as a new apartment or office building, large additions" [1]. Construction loans in Colorado cost "8% to 13%" [2]. For a project with $1.5mm up-front costs, from land purchases to permit fees and legal costs, that comes to $87 to 141 thousand per project . This isn't as bad as San Francisco, where permiting delays alone add hundreds of thousands of dollars to housing costs. But in addition to upzoning, it's something to be considered, particularly since Denver seems to categorise practically all impactful residential development as "major commercial." [1] https://www.denvergov.org/Government/Agencies-Departments-Of... [2] https://www.clearhouselending.com/commercial-loans/colorado/...

pessimizer

The premise is that the author is a libertarian, except that housing in the neighborhood they live in should be fixed at the price that they can afford, and that the character of the neighborhood from the point that they moved into it should be preserved. It's only real gentrification when upper-middle class YIMBYs get forced out.

maerF0x0

> Today, the neighborhood is mixed-income with a range of families from different backgrounds This is a good thing! Overall I think this is simply an outcome of NIMBYism, regulators over regulating to justify their existence, and a K shaped economy. There's nothing wrong with the market building what there is actual money in. No one should be forced to lose money to serve those who cannot afford the product. (That's the space of charities) Denver seems to have done an amazing job, relative to other places I've been, at actually adding a lot more housing. The market likely would be _worse_ had there not been so much built (and building)

bicx

Plans like this would be interesting to me if I believed it were possible to get all the necessary parties to agree.

ecshafer

Fixing housing is incredibly easy: 1. Remove Zoning / Deed Restrictions / Parking Minimums 2. Remove Red Tape (Environmental impact assessments, time cap approvals to a couple weeks, at cost fees) 3. Land Value Taxes Watch as Gentrification suddenly goes away and infill development occurs. These complicated schemes are unnecessary.

djoldman

A rare anti-Betteridge's law of headlines article. Yes, there are laws that, if passed, would stop or slow or even reverse the increasing price of real estate. Would they pass? Hard to say and probably not quickly. As has been repeated many times: it's in the financial interest of people who own property to increase their property's value by constraining supply via zoning/building codes, and they usually have a good amount of influence in the local politics that determine these rules. The solve is fairly straightforward: allow absolute maximum density so long as it is built safely. You'll get tall apartment buildings pretty quick. Then everyone can go to the schools and enjoy the low crime and fast fire response. But that isn't allowed because incumbents don't want it. There's not much new about this... it's the same story all over the US.

AuthAuth

You cant just 4x every plot because that would destroy the ultilties that have been allocated.

thcipriani

I'm down with killing restrictive zoning laws. But removing regulation has not historically been a great curb for the uber-wealthy.

rr808

There are millions of homes that are super cheap and no one wants to live there. I think we missed a real opportunity for WFH to allow people to move where things are more affordable, rather than having everyone live in mega cities and complain of high prices.

cheesecompiler

No because gentrification is a side effect of private property, not insufficient technology.

bawolff

Is gentrification a bad thing? Neighbourhoods change, some get richer and some get poorer. That is the way of things. Both poor and rich alike need somewhere to live.

hibikir

No, we can't. Once could lower the rate of increase of housing prices (and, more realistically, land values), but "gentrification" isn't really just about pricing, but a change in preferences: Areas close to urban centers had low prices because people wanted to live in deep suburbs, far away from city crime and bad schools. Now they are desirable, and thus people far more affluent are going to bit outbidding the communities that live there anyway. So the gentrification is inevitable, and IMO any attempts to stop it are bad: Nobody has right to a character of the neighborhood, whether we are talking a Mexican American community or people that want racial covenants in their subdivision. The entire idea is just straight out illiberal in the broadest of senses. It's true that the gentrification process speeds up when there is no building, as those differences in preferences mean existing tenants are competing with even richer people, and would have to move even further out, but the change in preferences still exists, and thus the gentrification is straight out unavoidable. Besides, in almost every place where we have serious housing problems, the small changes proposed here are insufficient. When the land is expensive, the normal behavior everywhere is to redevelop plots to the maximum economically viable density. Turning 1 house into 4, which would sell for 500k each, doesn't make sense when the possibility of an apartment building is there. Single stairway apartments turn those 4 cottage homes into 16 3-4 bedroom units. If one is simplifying permitting anyway, why not simplify it for that density, and get far more out of the same land. Those 4 new cottages, now new, would not get redeveloped again for another 30, 40 years, so they would become difficult to afford really quickly. That's why you don't see many places actually attempting this low key densification, as it's way too much work for what you get.

Johnny_Bonk

Very curious about what tools or platforms are used to make the visual housing figures with highlighting like you see in strategy 2 figure. any tips much appreciated

katekatezzz

Thought it was something like using computer programming to save the market lol

iandanforth

Huge fan of zoning reform, however I'd love to see equal effort in lending reform. The availability of multi-million dollar mortgages on 30 year terms means that we all get poorer. Getting people into owned homes is a dream left over from the Clinton era that has warped into an ever expanding pool of debt and over sized buildings. Developers will build to the limit of what people can afford (and slightly beyond), and that is defined by mortgage policy. The harsh reality is that as long as you're supporting a system where a 1k sqft house can cost 300, 400, 500k you're not helping anyone who isn't in the business of lending. The only way to reverse the trend is to limit the pool of available capital and bring the sale value of property down .

cyberax

The answer is "no". That's because WE DO NOT HAVE a housing crisis. And yes, I'm not crazy. We have 1.1 housing units per family right _now_. We likely will have the record number of housing units per capita within about 2 years just due to the current pipeline of new housing. These numbers are easy to verify. Why are we talking about housing then? That's because we have a JOBS crisis. The only available good jobs are concentrated in a dwindling number of dense areas. And making it easier to build makes the jobs crisis even worse. Don't believe me? Look at Vancouver, BC. They did everything: automated transit, soul-crushingly depressive high rises near transit stations, (de-fact) prohibited foreign ownership of housing, streamlined permitting. Guess what happened? If your guess is "plentiful cheap housing" then make another guess.

milkytron

I live in the Denver metro and have worked on zoning code in other municipalities. This is actually the first I've heard about the "Unlocking Home Choices" plan. This proposal seems like an improvement overall. Some of my thoughts: > The second concept is to incentivize retention of existing buildings by allowing substantial new construction behind them. Basically, let people cash in on their backyard. This is a significant expansion of the accessory unit rules we have today, and the city’s concept art suggests that it would allow backyard cottages larger than the existing homes (a big change). This is interesting and I wonder how it would change neighborhood dynamics. I'm not opposed at all because it enables more potential housing options. We have a few of these in the neighborhoods I frequent, but from what I've heard, it's somewhat cost prohibitive in the current form to be worth building one. If this helps make ADUs (maybe the ADU would become the original structure in this case), then that seems like progress. > The third concept is to allow more units if one unit is deed-restricted to be permanently “affordable.” This is basically the same logic as the first proposal — let developers sell more square footage if they do something residents want: in this case, deed-restrict part of the square footage to be priced below market rate. This would be helpful for allowing current residents with lower incomes than the newcomers to stay in the neighborhood without taking away an existing dwelling unit from the market. Deed-restrictions kind of concern me, but this seems like a decent compromise to prevent displacement. > What I don’t see in any of the proposals so far is streamlining and expediting permitting for developers who pursue the path the city wants: more, less expensive homes, rather than fewer, more expensive homes. Indirectly, the removal of parking minimums from the zoning code should help with this. I think there was also a change to allow single stairways in the zoning which creates a bit more incentive for developers and potentially eases the permit process.

ipnon

My neighborhood in California added plenty of these and it didn’t change the vibe of the neighborhood at all. It’s a great YIMBY solution because it satisfies both the pro and anti development crowds.

woeirua

"ideally, a property owner should be able to walk into city hall and leave with a permit the same day if they’re building the kind of housing that the city explicitly wants to see built." Hear, hear! Finally someone gets it. Same day permits for all high density housing projects. BTW, the NIMBYs are definitely going to fight the cottage homes tooth and nail otherwise. "Where will all the new cars go???"