Archinect - News

Austin becomes largest city in the U.S. to dump parking requirements

2023-11-05T09:00:00-05:00

Austin on Thursday became the largest city in the country to stop requiring new developments to have a set amount of parking — a move aimed at both fighting climate change and spurring more housing construction amid the city’s affordability crisis. The Austin City Council voted 8-2 Thursday to wipe out minimum parking requirements for virtually every kind of property citywide. That includes single-family homes, apartment buildings, offices and shopping malls.

As noted by The Texas Tribune, housing advocates, developers, and climate activists have increasingly advocated for the erasure of parking requirements, which have been found to drive up housing costs and fuels a dependency on cars. Cities across the country in recent years, including Portland, Minneapolis, and San Jose, have taken similar actions to scale back requirements. In 2019, the L.A. City Planning Department released its Downtown Community Plan, called DTLA 2040, which included plans to eliminate parking requirements for all of downtown Los Angeles.

Previously on Archinect: Are vacant parking lots affecting the cost of housing? A new study in Boston sheds light on the issue

According to Austin City Council Member and the proposal’s author, Zohaib Qadri, keeping parking requirements contradicted the billions of dollars the city has set out to invest in its public transit system.

Opponents of the move worry that getting rid of parking requirements will redirect parking to near...

California passes law allowing affordable housing to bypass approval processes

2022-10-04T12:27:00-04:00

California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed into law a major reform to homebuilding in the state. The Affordable Housing and High Road Jobs Act, signed on September 28th, will override local zoning codes to allow for more affordable housing units to be built on land previously zoned for commercial use.

From July 1, 2023, certain residential projects comprised of 100% affordable housing will be granted “by right,” overriding local zoning laws and bypassing the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) approval process. To qualify, the affordable housing project must be located in commercial corridors, occupying land otherwise typically used for strip malls and parking lots.

Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, a leading proponent of the legislation, celebrated the bill’s passage into law by citing an independent analysis claiming it has the capacity to produce between 30...

On the disappearance of American starter homes

2022-09-26T15:38:00-04:00

The disappearance of such affordable homes is central to the American housing crisis. The nation has a deepening shortage of housing. But, more specifically, there isn’t enough of this housing: small, no-frills homes that would give a family new to the country or a young couple with student debt a foothold to build equity. [...] At the root is the math problem of putting — or keeping — a low-cost home on increasingly pricey land.

America has a long history of gradually siphoning away architecture made for predominantly middle-class people (think pre-war buildings in Manhattan or Levittown tract housing on Long Island) and is now simply under-delivering what could otherwise be an equalizing force as a result of prevailing factors like intimidating zoning regulations, prohibitive materials costs, and nationwide lack of available new land.

Related on Archinect: Why is America obsessed with huge homes?

Changes in demand also meant the 2010s were curtains for the possibility of building a home at less than $100,000. Today’s market has gravitated towards so-called "missing middle" construction as historical notions of family composition themselves come into question. This means the future of housing might look closer to Adam Neumann's Flow vision or BIG's Nabr initiative than it does to the archetypal American suburb of the 1950s.

As the Times reports, its cause can also be attributed to the overburdening of bui...

$800-a-month sleeping pods? One company thinks they are the solution to California’s housing crisis

2022-05-20T18:41:00-04:00

A new Silicon Valley startup is taking the charge put forth by the recent expansion of ADUs and other non-traditional forms of accommodation in the uphill battle to provide affordable housing to the millions of Californians struggling to find a way forward.

Business Insider recently took a closeup look at the San Francisco-based Brownstone Shared Housing, an eight-month-old company co-founded by former state auditors James Stallworth and Christina Lennox, that has designed a new stackable sleeping pod currently being modeled within single-family homes in Bakersfield and Palo Alto.

Similar to the sleeping capsules common to urban Japanese hotels and resorts, the four-foot-tall spaces can be scaled to hold up to 14 people and are being marketed by the company as an alternative to the high-rent, low-availability housing situation typical in the areas adjacent to Stanford University.

San Francisco seeks $600 million affordable housing bond

2019-07-21T11:00:00-04:00

Authorities in San Francisco are making moves to bring a $600 million affordable housing bond to voters later this year. The bond, according a recent press release, would allow the city to "fund the creation, preservation, and rehabilitation of affordable housing in San Francisco."

City officials estimate that approximately 2,800 new affordable housing units could start construction over the next four years if the funding measure is approved.

Of the proposed funding, $150 million would go toward repairing and rebuilding distressed public housing properties, $220 million would go toward the completion of existing low-income housing projects in the pipeline, and $150 million would be put toward the creation of new affordable housing units targeted specifically to senior citizens.

In addition, $30 million each would go to preserving existing affordable housing units and toward the creation of new middle-income housing complexes. The bond could also bring $20 million to projects slated...

The next housing crisis can be found (Again) in North Las Vegas

2018-09-22T17:47:00-04:00

The damage from the housing crisis — a toxic combination of frenzied buying, rampant construction, predatory lending and investment excess — was extensive. Of the 23,000 single-family homes in the 89031 ZIP code, more than 7,500 have had at least one foreclosure since 2006, according to Attom Data Solutions.

A team including; Matthew Goldstein, Robert Gebeloff, Ross Mantle and Matt Ruby released a deep dive into the community of North Las Vegas. The global financial crisis of 2008 impacted it greatly and though the local housing market has strengthened and it is today one of the fastest-growing cities in the country, affordability is a growing concern.

Toronto residents use political art to push for “Gentrification Tax” to keep neighborhoods affordable

2018-08-22T15:42:00-04:00

The billboard suggested the rapid rise in home values between 2008 and 2017 necessitates a steep tax aimed at speculative flipping. The proposed tax would grab as much as 100 per cent of the profit from a home resale during the first year of ownership, then decline by increments of 10 per cent over 10 years. It would target non-resident and resident buyers alike, including primary residences [...] the goal is to keep Toronto’s popular neighbourhoods affordable for all income levels.

New report shows 60-percent drop in U.S. affordable-housing stock between 2010 and 2016

2017-10-24T14:20:00-04:00

The number of apartments deemed affordable for very low-income families across the United States fell by more than 60 percent between 2010 and 2016, according to a new report by Freddie Mac. The report by the government-backed mortgage financier is the first to compare rent increases in specific units over time. It examined loans that the corporation had financed twice between 2010 and 2016, allowing a comparison of the exact same rental units and how their affordability changed.

The Washington Post reports about a new report by Freddie Mac: "More renters flooded the market after people lost their homes in the housing crisis. The apartment vacancy rate was 8 percent in 2009, compared to 4 percent in 2017. That trend, coupled with a stagnant supply of apartments, resulted in increased rents."

Some of the states with the highest decreases in the percentage of affordable units were Colorado and North Carolina.

"Humanitarian emergency": Michael Greenberg looks inside New York City’s housing crisis

2017-08-01T15:47:00-04:00

New York City is in the throes of a humanitarian emergency, a term defined by the Humanitarian Coalition of large international aid organizations as “an event or series of events that represents a critical threat to the health, safety, security or wellbeing of a community or other large group of people.” New York’s is [...] a “complex emergency”: man-made and shaped by a combination of forces that have led to a large-scale “displacement of populations” from their homes.

"What makes the crisis especially startling," author Michael Greenberg continues in his latest piece for The New York Review of Books, "is that New York has the most progressive housing laws in the country and a mayor who has made tenants’ rights and affordable housing a central focus of his administration."

Car-less apartment renters pay 16% of their rent for parking that they don't use

2017-07-18T18:43:00-04:00

The average price of building a garage parking space (as much as $34,000 in 2012) is passed on to people whether they own a car or not, and distort the true demand for urban parking.

According to the 2011 National American Housing Survey data of the US census, about 16% of a housing unit’s monthly rental cost is attributable to the expense of building an urban parking spot. For the average renter that amounts to to $1,700 per year, or $142 per month.

Parking mandates increase housing prices by displacing area that could have gone to housing (thus shrinking supply), and makes each new unit more expensive to pay for more garage parking. A separate study in Los Angeles found the city’s parking minimums raised apartment prices by about $200 per month and price of a condo by about $43,000. Renters without cars end up subsidizing this arrangement to the tune of about $440 million annually in the US. While only 7% of US rental households lack cars, according to Census data, this burden falls most heavily on the urban poor since lower-income households can least afford to subsidize garage parking spaces.

Researchers find that it might be less wasteful to price and sell ...

The issue with the median as indicator of housing affordability

2017-03-17T13:39:00-04:00

The standard yardstick for judging housing affordability is to look at the median level of rents or home prices. As we all remember from statistics, the median is the observation in the middle of the distribution. And while for many purposes, it’s a reliable indicator of typical prices, in some neighborhoods, particularly those with a mix of expensive and cheap housing, the median is actually a weak indicator of affordability.

"For an illustration of this problem, imagine two neighborhoods. In both places, the median home costs $300,000. But in the first neighborhood, every home costs exactly $300,000, while in the second, there are a range of homes from $100,000 to $500,000. Although both neighborhoods have the same median home price, the second neighborhood has some homes affordable to low-income people, while the first neighborhood does not. So rather than the median, or 50th percentile, home price, we really care about something like the 25th percentile: the home for which 75 percent of homes are more expensive."

Even the wealthy are having trouble buying homes in Silicon Valley, so lenders are offering "zero-down loans"

2016-07-29T14:01:00-04:00

Lenders often give special treatment to the wealthy, of course, but the tech industry has created a particularly ripe crop of clients who are rich or on their way. [...] “Lenders get so caught up trying to stay competitive and finding a market edge, they basically allow greed to overcome common sense ... Easy money does fuel and accelerate the inevitable bubble.”

Related on Archinect:

5 myths about gentrification, according to a GSAPP urban planning professor

2016-06-06T12:57:00-04:00

my research shows that longtime residents aren’t more likely to move when their neighborhood gentrifies; sometimes they’re actually less likely to leave [...] In a 2009 study, I found that gentrifying neighborhoods are more racially diverse than non-gentrifying ones. [...] To be sure, market forces help change commerce in gentrifying neighborhoods. But often lurking behind the “invisible hand” are activists and policymakers who wish to nudge the market to produce certain outcomes.

Lance Freeman's research at GSAPP focuses on issues related to gentrification, affordable housing, and race. Watch the Washington Post's video below, summing up the myths:

Related on Archinect:

Austin Mayor Steve Adler on the city's growing pains

2016-03-29T13:44:00-04:00

We’re growing faster than any other metropolitan area in the country, and we have been for the last five years...And the challenges are, with all the growth that we’re having, we’re going to stop being the city that we imagine that we are, that we remember being. We have to grow to be the city that we still recognize. So those challenges are not optional challenges for us to deal with, they’re the challenges for us to deal with.

As Austin rapidly becomes an "it" city, how will the city keep its character? Metropolis talks with Austin Mayor Steve Adler about the multiple challenges ahead.

Clickbait is making affordable housing even more of an uphill battle

2016-03-08T13:50:00-05:00

when media outlets report cost of materials as being some $13,000, I want to know what was donated in terms of materials, too. Were permit fees waived? There are many times when you need a licensed architect or engineer for certain permits, and that’s not likely in these totals. It is completely fine to get around having to do that stuff, but it’s not truthful to report the results without the real numbers as a part of the story. These kinds of things get shared around...

Related on Archinect:

Michael Kimmelman on the state of affordable housing in NYC

2016-01-26T17:28:00-05:00

New York City once set the standard for subsidized housing. The city started out building and maintaining tens of thousands of apartments for working families, sponsoring job training and social programs. It ran a budget surplus. [...] Now the Village is like a gated playground for runaway wealth. Subsidized apartments all across town are converting to market-rate rentals and condos faster than City Hall can build affordable units or preserve old ones.

How L.A. can reboot its "creative economy" so artists can actually live in town

2015-12-11T14:26:00-05:00

But if L.A. is going to remain a creative capital, its civic and cultural leaders are going to need to do more than offer really great talk about how great we are...This can start with the Otis Report on the Creative Economy...If this report is to be more than just a feel-good data dump, it could use some solid recommendations on how L.A. compares to other cities culturally and how we might improve the situation for artists and cultural organizations, both small and large.

More about arts districts on Archinect:

Venice Beach's ongoing grapple with the tech titan invasion

Downtown LA's vision of an architecture and design super cluster

How one urban planner is helping revamp a Miami suburb "without gentrification"

With a little compromise, illegal urban squats like Ljubljana's Metelkova Mesto can do a city good

How Many Artists Does It Take to Make an Arts District?

A little reminder that U.S. rent affordability is at its worst, according to Zillow

2015-08-14T20:40:00-04:00

Americans living in rentals spent almost a third of their incomes on housing in the second quarter, the highest share in recent history. Rental affordability has steadily worsened, according to a new report from Zillow, which tracked data going back to 1979...While mortgages remain relatively affordable, landlords have been able to increase rents because demand for apartments remains strong. The U.S. homeownership rate fell to the lowest level in almost five decades in the second quarter.

Planning for Local and Liveable Neighbourhoods in Melbourne

2014-09-03T15:24:00-04:00

Melbourne is now a more expensive place to live than New York. The increasing cost of living, and in particular, the cost of housing risks seriously undermining the city’s liveability. Plan Melbourne, the new metropolitan strategy for the city, recognises that housing affordability is one of the pressing issues facing Melburnians. The strategy offers a set of concepts aimed at shaping the city’s future and – the government hopes – addressing housing affordability and choice.

Architecture vs. Housing: The Case of Sugar Hill

2014-09-03T15:07:00-04:00

We cannot rely on visionaries and authoritarians to generate more, and better, housing. They might deliver, with enormous risk and perseverance, through personal connections and their willingness to invest their own equity or to defer their developers’ fee, as BHC has done. But visionaries and authoritarians are few and far between. Rather, we need to formalize ways of rethinking and requantifying net-to-gross, studio-to-three-bedrooms, block-and-plank formulas.

Study confirms LA is least affordable city for rentals in US

2014-08-22T17:40:00-04:00

The study from UCLA's Ziman Center for Real Estate shows that the average renter in Los Angeles, which has the highest percentage of renters in the country, devotes 47 percent of his or her paycheck to rent. [...] It's the latest depressing news about L.A.'s rental market, and it comes with a twist: affordability is not a new post-recession problem, but one that has been getting worse for decades. “Our studies show a severe housing burden among poor renters has existed since 1970

Car ownership may combat poverty better than mass transit, studies suggest

2014-06-09T14:17:00-04:00

Cars offer more than just convenience: they can give lower income Americans an economic leg up. [...] While tracking households that had participated in two federal housing voucher programs, [a study] found that car owners were twice as likely as transit users to find jobs and four times likelier to retain them. Car-owning households were also able to locate near better neighborhoods and schools. This reaffirmed previous work ... arguing that car ownership plants the seeds for upward mobility.