The Only Thing Worse Than A NIMBY Is A Preservationist

[Nite]

The Only Thing Worse Than A NIMBY Is A Preservationist.

Jan 11, 2021

Current Affairs Editor Nathan J. Robinson recently wrote about the nationwide YIMBY movement to encourage building more homes to ease the rent crisis.

Robinson portrays YIMBYs as a selfish, capitalist, money-grubbing monolith based on nothing more than older hitpieces and uncharitable interpretations of excerpts of copy lifted from selected YIMBY group websites. He also accuses YIMBYs of believing in “a fairy tale, a story about a world that could theoretically exist rather than the world that actually does exist.” But I would argue that it’s Robinson who believes in fairy tales. Specifically, he seems to believe we live in a world where building housing increases housing prices and exclusionary zoning doesn’t increase housing costs, concentrate poverty, harm the environment, and exacerbate disparate health outcomes, displacement, homelessness, racial segregation, and the racial education gap.

Supply and demand impact prices
“YIMBYs do not have much sympathy with preservationists or people who want to keep the character of their neighborhoods,” Robinson writes, correctly.

It’s worth thinking about why that is.

YIMBYs believe that the problem of affordable housing is a problem of supply. This idea is hardly unique to YIMBYs. It turns out that nearly every economist agrees that, all else equal, when demand outstrips supply, prices rise. And when supply outstrips demand, prices fall.

Robinson believes that housing is a special case where new supply creates its own demand. That is, if you build it (housing) they (rich people) will come. The thing is this just isn’t true.

Rather, our severe nationwide rent crisis, where half of renters must spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing, is a direct result of having severely underbuilt housing.

Economists widely agree that building more housing eases displacement pressures and lowers rents regionally. We actually have real-world examples of it working in Seattle and the Navy Yard neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Another reason we know supply and demand impact housing prices is that rents have fallen as people have left expensive cities during the pandemic.....

Read More: https://exponentsmag.org/2021/01/11/...eservationist/

[llamaorama]

You know, I think both sides of the debate are correct.

Urban infill can raise the desirability of a neighborhood. Isn't that obvious to anyone who spends time on this forum? Replacing a parking lot with a nice residential midrise with a cafe or something on the ground floor totally changes the vibe of a street. It encourages people and businesses who would have otherwise lived or officed in the suburbs or another city to choose that neighborhood. This was the entire point of the "Creative Class" strategy and the "Millenials want to live in the city" narrative that was popular 10-15 years ago when I first joined Skyscraperpage and read all the shared articles from The Atlantic and Planetizen and Vox and Slate and whatever about remaking cities.

So it shouldn't shock anyone that under the right circumstances, the mass influx of white collar workers who have chosen to come back to downtowns and cities might have, surprise, bid up the cost of housing in them. Infill adds to the housing supply, but it can become an induced demand situation in the right circumstances. A neighborhood that was lacking services and kind of rough is now fantastic so its on people's radar.

To me the takeaway is not to side with NIMBY's in general, I think most cities and neighborhoods should build more urban infill and in most cases this should equalize housing prices and make city living more inclusive. But if you were talking about a working class Bay Area suburb and the goal was to build a catalytic new urban center on an industrial brownfield site, the 500 or so new housing units will not compensate for the general effect of changing the mental geography of the area from "ghetto stay away" to "oh cool I could live there" in the minds of some 20-something FAANG employee taking home 250k and willing to pay thousands in rent.

[DCReid]

Originally Posted by Nite

The Only Thing Worse Than A NIMBY Is A Preservationist.

Jan 11, 2021



Read More: https://exponentsmag.org/2021/01/11/...eservationist/

I haven't heard or read about rent increases easing in DC because of Navy Yard. Instead I have heard that now developers are moving into Anacostia next to Navy Yard and putting up market rate housing and the African-American neighborhood is now being gentrified and becoming more white. I also doubt that comment about Seattle, especially given the voracious growth of Amazon and other tech and life sciences companies. I think the article is off the mark. While NIMBYs and preservationists have some fault, I think the problem is also with developers, who want to maximize their profit and won't hesitate to build a 100 story building in a neighborhood of midrise buildings if they can get away with it. Or they will value engineer a new building in a nice neighborhood without any regard for the existing structures and it will stick out like an eyesore. Some of the eyesores in cities like NYC are due to developers, not preservationists and NIMBYs.

[SFBruin]

Kind of agree.

I feel like we preserve too much in this country, though of course it's difficult to know where to draw the line.

[Manitopiaaa]

Disagree strongly, and this reeks of Robert Moses urban renewal. Washington DC is infamous for its strong preservationist lobby, and it's the American city with by far the most buildings listed as "historic"



Everything in orange below is protected:



And it looks like another one is coming in the next month: https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/bl...district/18645

----------------

And yet....Washington is booming, and has grown by 15% in the past decade.

Even being only 61 square miles, D.C. has enough empty space to keep growing for the next 50 years. Navy Yard alone was a nothing more than a decade ago and now has 15,000 people, and still has space to add another 10,000. And this is just a tiny neighborhood: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Na...xgQ8gF6BAhgEAE

Ward 6 in D.C. is 5.7 square miles, yet added 30,000 people from 2010-2020. Density went from 12,000 per mile in 2010 to 17,500: https://censusreporter.org/profiles/...006-ward-6-dc/

This is the now-defunct Kennedy Stadium:



It's right next to desirable Capitol Hill, the U.S. Capitol, and Union Station. This stadium and the parking lots alone could accommodate upwards of 25,000 people.

Could you imagine New York if they'd decided to raze Park Slope, instead of redeveloping the Brooklyn Navy Yard? You're not going to fix the housing crisis by razing historic buildings.

[MonkeyRonin]

Dumb take. Heritage preservation is pretty far down the list of barriers to affordability. It's certainly not the case here in Toronto where heritage protections are largely nonexistent, yet high housing costs remain a persistent problem due primarily to real estate speculation & investment, restrictive zoning by-laws, building codes, and high demand.

Besides, there are more to cities than just cramming as many people into a space as cheaply as possible. Kill the character and you kill what made people want to be there in the first place.

[bilbao58]

"The Only Thing Worse Than A NIMBY Is A Preservationist."

If you really feel that way, you might as well just move to Houston because that's where thinking like that leads.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Dumb take. Heritage preservation is pretty far down the list of barriers to affordability. It's certainly not the case here in Toronto where heritage protections are largely nonexistent, yet high housing costs remain a persistent problem due primarily to real estate speculation & investment, restrictive zoning by-laws, building codes, and high demand.

Besides, there are more to cities than just cramming as many people into a space as cheaply as possible. Kill the character and you kill what made people want to be there in the first place.

The city of Toronto rejected the proposal below in Parkdale and is trying to designate the existing building as historical to make it harder for the developer to get the province to approve the proposal instead.




this is the existing building that they don't want redeveloped
https://www.google.com/maps/place/13...!4d-79.4325364

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Nite

The city of Toronto rejected the proposal below in Parkdale and is trying to designate the existing building as historical to make it harder for the developer to get the province to approve the proposal instead.

this is the existing building that they don't want redeveloped
https://www.google.com/maps/place/13...!4d-79.4325364

Good. However, it would certainly be a first if the development ended up not happening because of heritage. What will most likely happen is what always happens: the heritage building will be facaded and incorporated into the new development.

The fact remains that Toronto's inventory of heritage-protected buildings is pathetically small relative to actual size of inventory, and that developers can easily get around preservation rules anyway by simply incorporating the facade into a new development.

So I'll say it again: heritage-listed buildings are demonstrably not what's standing in the way of enough housing being built in the city to meet demand (nor do they have anything to do with the way the housing market has become so decoupled from the local economy through investment & speculation).

[Manitopiaaa]

Originally Posted by Nite

The city of Toronto rejected the proposal below in Parkdale and is trying to designate the existing building as historical to make it harder for the developer to get the province to approve the proposal instead.




this is the existing building that they don't want redeveloped
https://www.google.com/maps/place/13...!4d-79.4325364

Queen Street West is one of Toronto's best remaining historical low-rise main street neighborhoods, and you want to begin demolishing it? Not every building in Toronto has to be a blue glass 40-story cookie-cutter condo tower.

Imagine if Toronto had followed the preservation strategy of Old Montreal. It certainly would be a much more beautiful city today. I hope Toronto doesn't demolish that building.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

So I'll say it again: heritage-listed buildings are demonstrably not what's standing in the way of enough housing being built in the city to meet demand (nor do they have anything to do with the way the housing market has become so decoupled from the local economy through investment & speculation).

Do those pesky heritage-listed buildings supposedly causing such issues with an adequate supply of housing include the almost 850k single family fully detached houses in the city?

https://betterdwelling.com/city/toro...ached-homes/#_

I once got jumped on by someone on this forum for suggesting Toronto has a huge supply of single family homes. Turns out not only was I correct, but according to the website linked above, there are more single family detached houses than any other single type of housing.

All it takes is a look at a 3D satellite view of Toronto to see that huge swathes of the city are suburban in nature. That is, as long as your map doesn’t cut off at Lawrence Ave. Last time I checked, Toronto now extends all the way to Steeles.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

Do those pesky heritage-listed buildings supposedly causing such issues with an adequate supply of housing include the almost 850k single family fully detached houses in the city?

https://betterdwelling.com/city/toro...ached-homes/#_

I once got jumped on by someone on this forum for suggesting Toronto has a huge supply of single family homes. Turns out not only was I correct, but according to the website linked above, there are more single family detached houses than any other single type of housing.

All it takes is a look at a 3D satellite view of Toronto to see that huge swathes of the city are suburban in nature. That is, as long as your map doesn’t cut off at Lawrence Ave. Last time I checked, Toronto now extends all the way to Steeles.

That doesn't sound quite right. Not sure where they're getting their data from, but per Statcan the housing breakdown in Toronto is as follows:

Apartments >5 stories: 44.3%
Apartments <5 stories: 19.2%
Detached houses: 24.2%
Attached houses: 12.2%

https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-r...TABID=1&type=0

[The North One]

What a BS hot take. NIMBYs do nothing but act on pure selfish interest, damn everybody around them. Preservationists try to save buildings that are important to culture, urbanism, history and quality of life for the benefit of everyone. Are there some preservationists who are too extreme and go to far? Yeah, but they're not worse than NIMBYs overall.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

That doesn't sound quite right. Not sure where they're getting their data from, but per Statcan the housing breakdown in Toronto is as follows:

Apartments >5 stories: 44.3%
Apartments <5 stories: 19.2%
Detached houses: 24.2%
Attached houses: 12.2%

https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-r...TABID=1&type=0

Wow. That is a HUGE difference.

[bilbao58]

I have a question that will be totally unpopular: Do NIMBY-haters on this forum actually own their own homes?

I ask because my one-storey 1920s Montrose area cottage in Houston years ago was threatened with having all morning light blocked by 3-storey townhouses that we’re going to be built 20 feet away. An elderly architect ended up building his single-storey one bedroom solar-powered home there instead. Some stories have happy endings.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by The North One

NIMBYs do nothing but act on pure selfish interest, damn everybody around them.

Tha same can be said about many developers… ESPECIALLY… in a city like Houston.

[Manitopiaaa]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

I have a question that will be totally unpopular: Do NIMBY-haters on this forum actually own their own homes?

I ask because my one-storey 1920s Montrose area cottage in Houston years ago was threatened with having all morning light blocked by 3-storey townhouses that we’re going to be built 20 feet away. An elderly architect ended up building his single-storey one bedroom solar-powered home there instead. Some stories have happy endings.

If you wanted to guarantee morning light, you should have bought the next plot as well. The idea that a homeowner is entitled to "morning light" from an adjacent plot he doesn't even own is peak NIMBY behavior.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by Manitopiaaa

If you wanted to guarantee morning light, you should have bought the next plot as well. The idea that a homeowner is entitled to "morning light" from an adjacent plot he doesn't even own is peak NIMBY behavior.

So, your answer is “no.”

And I never said I was entitled to anything other than the right to bitch about it.

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

"The Only Thing Worse Than A NIMBY Is A Preservationist."

If you really feel that way, you might as well just move to Houston because that's where thinking like that leads.

Do you want Charlotte? Because this is how you get Charlotte.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Manitopiaaa

Queen Street West is one of Toronto's best remaining historical low-rise main street neighborhoods, and you want to begin demolishing it? Not every building in Toronto has to be a blue glass 40-story cookie-cutter condo tower.

Imagine if Toronto had followed the preservation strategy of Old Montreal. It certainly would be a much more beautiful city today. I hope Toronto doesn't demolish that building.

I might argue that at least part of what happened with Montreal was simply luck.

Old Montreal was quite neglected at one time (as recently as the 1980s) and had anyone wanted to raze and redevelop it I think it would probably have been given serious consideration. But those weren't exactly boom years in Montreal so much of the old town was saved.

Though in fairness Montreal has still been way better than Toronto (or any Canadian city except Quebec City) at historical preservation over the past 30-40 years.