Affordable Housing

KC topics that don't fit anywhere else.
swid
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by swid »

I was going to say "this sounds a lot like what can be done via impact fees - since I've never heard that phrase used in KC, is that even a thing here?"

After a little searching, turns out that it is, but a cursory reading of that chapter of city ordinances leads me to believe that it's effectively worthless in either a) funding streets or b) discouraging ongoing sprawl.
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by flyingember »

FangKC wrote: Wed Aug 18, 2021 9:24 pm The City needs to do something to incentivize developers building on small lots. I tend to not want to outright ban huge lots, but am not opposed to making people pay a premium for them.
Large lots capture more water runoff, can contain trees to capture CO2 and passively shade a building.

Small lot single homes could be worse than large lots for the environment.

What we need to is to promote combining small lots and incentivize denser developments where instead of one home per lot, the property has front-back 2-3 story apartments.
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normalthings
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by normalthings »

Single lot homes in the core have trees. Go to SFH areas in old cities and they are covered in trees. Large suburban styles lots demand car based lifestyles which have a footprint far larger than any potential benefit
flyingember
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by flyingember »

normalthings wrote: Thu Aug 19, 2021 9:47 am Single lot homes in the core have trees. Go to SFH areas in old cities and they are covered in trees. Large suburban styles lots demand car based lifestyles which have a footprint far larger than any potential benefit
Large suburban sized lots could also be to support city required green space conservation easements around storm runoff.

You should see my lot, it couldn’t be sized smaller to fit two homes on it due to the slope. My first floor is above my neighbor’s second floor. We have storm runoff space between the two.
aknowledgeableperson
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by aknowledgeableperson »

FangKC wrote: Wed Aug 18, 2021 9:24 pm If there is a tax of that type, it needs to be applied to SFH to some extent. The tax also needs to escalate for each square foot of that specific house--in increments, as well as each square foot of lot sizes. People who build 4000 square foot houses should pay much more tax than 2000 sq. foot houses, and also people building on huge residential lots need to pay a lot more past a certain threshold. This would encourage increased density, and for houses to be built in multiple stories instead of sprawling one-story homes on big lots.

Many parts of Kansas City are simply not dense enough to support their infrastructure and city services. It will get worse as these neighborhoods age.

The City needs to do something to incentivize developers building on small lots. I tend to not want to outright ban huge lots, but am not opposed to making people pay a premium for them.
How cities and counties tax real property in their jurisdictions are governed by state laws. And tax amounts are usually determined by property values. Depending on location a 2,000 sq ft house on a central city lot can have a much higher value than a 4,000 sq ft house on large lot far from the central city.
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AlkaliAxel
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by AlkaliAxel »

normalthings wrote: Wed Aug 18, 2021 2:21 pm Bough introduced an ordinance that would study adding a tax on new construction (linkage fee) to pay for affordable housing.



I would support a recall of Bough.
If true then yes
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DaveKCMO
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by DaveKCMO »

As I've said elsewhere, recall elections over a simple policy disagreement are worthless and will fail. And, quite honestly, I'm embarrassed anyone here would even propose such a thing.
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FangKC
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by FangKC »

Five Lessons from California’s Big Zoning Reform
...
2) The lot splitting part might be a bigger deal than the duplex part

There are two main parts of California’s Senate Bill 9.

One is legalizing duplexes on almost all lots. (There are a few exceptions. Maybe the most interesting is that on lots that have been occupied by a tenant in the last three years, the law doesn’t allow any duplex that would require demolishing more than 25 percent of the exterior walls.)

The other main part of the bill is legalizing what it calls “urban lot splits.” This is a new process that would be possible only within city limits. If the owners indicate their intent to live on site for at least three years, they’d be allowed to split a lot into two lots, down to a minimum size of 1,200 square feet each. Each of those new lots would then be allowed to have a duplex.
...
On many sites, lot splits can help solve one of the biggest problems with small-scale infill: how to get a construction loan. Many banks and credit unions struggle to figure out how to value a lot with an extra rental on site, and therefore can’t always offer good loan terms to people looking to build a backyard cottage or remodel into a duplex. But every lender knows exactly how to value a little lot with a new house on it. This would make mortgage financing easier, which would let more property owners with a bit less wealth take advantage of the law.
...
https://www.sightline.org/2021/08/26/fo ... ng-reform/
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DaveKCMO
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by DaveKCMO »

Why not just legalize it all? Who cares if it only generates a small portion of new units or permits? Housing shouldn’t be illegal if we have a shortage.
earthling
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by earthling »

Because perhaps all the bureaucratic paperwork to legalize might cause the Dept of Records heads to explode.
- re: Brazil (the movie, not the country)
flyingember
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by flyingember »

DaveKCMO wrote: Tue Aug 31, 2021 7:20 pm Why not just legalize it all? Who cares if it only generates a small portion of new units or permits? Housing shouldn’t be illegal if we have a shortage.
Logically we don't want to encourage dense development on the edge of the city because it comes with new roads, sewers and such and it's not economical to construct and add transit to it. We want to encourage only as much development as the current infrastructure can support.

It should be more like a step pyramid where you setup zoning so the center has the densest zoning as a minimum and the edge bans anything but the least dense.

We get in trouble because even trying to build more dense on the edge of the city, like Lenexa's city center, encourages unsustainable practices around it

When enabling infill and replacement development we shouldn't legalize everything but legalize only doing much more than what's there today. New construction costs more than most can afford so we need the economy of scale of 8-plexes more than we need duplexes.
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chaglang
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by chaglang »

In a rapidly changing Midtown, some fear Streetcar expansion will price out neighbors
https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/a ... 78943.html

Super sloppy article from the Star. Home prices have quadrupled in Brookside in 30 years. That's already happened, and is continuing to happen. So I have a hard time believing that the streetcar is the villain here. Housing scarcity seems the more likely culprit, but didn't get a mention.

Also not sure why the article veers over to Troost to talk about what's happening on the east side. It's a bit far from Main St.
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by flyingember »

chaglang wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 8:32 am In a rapidly changing Midtown, some fear Streetcar expansion will price out neighbors
https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/a ... 78943.html

Super sloppy article from the Star. Home prices have quadrupled in Brookside in 30 years. That's already happened, and is continuing to happen. So I have a hard time believing that the streetcar is the villain here. Housing scarcity seems the more likely culprit, but didn't get a mention.

Also not sure why the article veers over to Troost to talk about what's happening on the east side. It's a bit far from Main St.
Even without the 2021 prices increases, construction prices roughly doubled in the past ten years and this fact is often ignored.

That's going to affect the price of renovations too.
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alejandro46
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by alejandro46 »

flyingember wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 8:53 am
chaglang wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 8:32 am In a rapidly changing Midtown, some fear Streetcar expansion will price out neighbors
https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/a ... 78943.html

Super sloppy article from the Star. Home prices have quadrupled in Brookside in 30 years. That's already happened, and is continuing to happen. So I have a hard time believing that the streetcar is the villain here. Housing scarcity seems the more likely culprit, but didn't get a mention.

Also not sure why the article veers over to Troost to talk about what's happening on the east side. It's a bit far from Main St.
Even without the 2021 prices increases, construction prices roughly doubled in the past ten years and this fact is often ignored.

That's going to affect the price of renovations too.
Not to mention the Hyde Park neighbors that pick up torches every time a medium rise building is proposed. SFH is part of the root cause of this spike. We need more missing middle housing.
Riverite
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by Riverite »

alejandro46 wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 9:40 am
flyingember wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 8:53 am
chaglang wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 8:32 am In a rapidly changing Midtown, some fear Streetcar expansion will price out neighbors
https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/a ... 78943.html

Super sloppy article from the Star. Home prices have quadrupled in Brookside in 30 years. That's already happened, and is continuing to happen. So I have a hard time believing that the streetcar is the villain here. Housing scarcity seems the more likely culprit, but didn't get a mention.

Also not sure why the article veers over to Troost to talk about what's happening on the east side. It's a bit far from Main St.
Even without the 2021 prices increases, construction prices roughly doubled in the past ten years and this fact is often ignored.

That's going to affect the price of renovations too.
Not to mention the Hyde Park neighbors that pick up torches every time a medium rise building is proposed. SFH is part of the root cause of this spike. We need more missing middle housing.
I've seen people complaining that the new developments are just to entice suburban people, and making the city more suburban.
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FangKC
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by FangKC »

When construction prices double over 10 years, it makes existing older houses more desirable since they are often cheaper to acquire than build new. Thus, it pushes the prices of those houses up faster as well.

One of the unreported aspects of construction prices going up so fast is demand from China for materials. There is more competition for raw materials.

China Used More Concrete In 3 Years Than The U.S. Used In The Entire 20th Century

https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccar ... 44ebf34131
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FangKC
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by FangKC »

Riverite wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 9:44 am
alejandro46 wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 9:40 am
flyingember wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 8:53 am

Even without the 2021 prices increases, construction prices roughly doubled in the past ten years and this fact is often ignored.

That's going to affect the price of renovations too.
Not to mention the Hyde Park neighbors that pick up torches every time a medium rise building is proposed. SFH is part of the root cause of this spike. We need more missing middle housing.
I've seen people complaining that the new developments are just to entice suburban people, and making the city more suburban.
There is always a certain percentage of the population who are determined not to be pleased about everything.
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chaglang
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by chaglang »

It's also easier to blame the new development on rising prices, rather than accept that neighborhoods opposing new development has done a lot to spike local housing prices.

If we are going to be serious about slowing gentrification on the east side, places that are already gentrified need to be where we build more density. At the very least, Brookside, Waldo, the Plaza, South Plaza, West Plaza should all be fair game.
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beautyfromashes
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by beautyfromashes »

I find it a bit disingenuous to complain about Midtown becoming gentrified. The area between DT and the Plaza has shouldered way more than their load of blood banks and check cashing places and smoke shops and homeless support. To complain that it's becoming more expensive as some percentage is just a testament to how far down it went and how much neglect the city and others put on it. Places like the New Yorker and Alcazar and Westport Central should be next on the list.
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FangKC
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Re: Affordable Housing

Post by FangKC »

It's a radio interview.

Kansas City's Overlooked Housing Stock

https://www.kcur.org/podcast/up-to-date ... sing-stock
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