Could Oregon Become the First State to Ban Single-Family Zoning?

[M II A II R II K]

Could Oregon Become the First State to Ban Single-Family Zoning?


December 14th, 2018

By Rachel Monahan

Read More: https://www.wweek.com/news/state/201...family-zoning/

WW has learned that Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek (D-Portland) is drafting a proposal that would require cities larger than 10,000 people to allow up to four homes to be built on land currently zoned exclusively for single-family housing. Legislation being drafted in Oregon could become the nation's most dramatic effort to address the housing shortages and economic and racial segregation caused by zoning restrictions.

- Kotek's proposal follows a similar move this month by Minneapolis, Minn., where city leaders have enacted a plan that will end single-family throughout that city a decision hailed in the national press for its innovation. — Portland has been dithering for more than four years on a related proposal for what's called "middle housing" that recently was delayed once again. This time, the delay is until the summer. Under Portland's proposal, as currently drafted, four units would be allowed in 96 percent of the cities' single family neighborhoods. The city effort has proved controversial, attracting fierce opposition from neighborhood groups interested in preserving suburban-style housing even in urban cores.

- But champions of zoning reform say allowing smaller dwellings or breaking up single-family homes into multiple units creates more housing and the chance to make housing more affordable in pricey neighborhoods. Reversing those zoning restrictions could go a long way toward addressing the need for more housing, experts argue. "The crux of the matter is land is the scarce commodity here," Oregon state economist Josh Lehner said this week, in a blog post arguing for exploring this type of change. "Outside of lava flows and seawalls, we're not making more of it. As a region grows, so too does housing demand which places upward pressure on housing costs."

- Zoning reform could also address the economic and racial segregation of single-family neighborhoods. The economic segregation of Portland neighborhoods matches neatly with its single-family zoning, and a segregationist history informed those restrictions, Sightline Institute's Michael Andersen wrote earlier this year. — Kotek's legislation is currently being drafted, but her official concept for the legislation sets a deadline of 16 months for cities to come up with a plan to allow for duplexes, triplex, quads as well as so-called housing "clusters." It applies only to cities of 10,000 or more within an urban-growth boundary.

- Critics of Portland's proposal are likely to offer the same objection to Kotek's efforts: They fear it will cause the pace of demolitions to rise. Kotek attempts to address that concern by proposing changes to the state's building code, which would allow single family homes to be divided more easily into multiple dwellings. — In his blog post this week, Lehner discusses the long-delayed Portland proposal and it's possible for Oregon to achieve major results from one policy change. "By simply allowing for not requiring townhomes and triplexes to be built on existing lands in the City of Portland, the policy can accommodate 1 out of every 7 new Portland area households in the coming decade," he writes. "That is a big finding."

.....

[BrownTown]

I obviously haven't read the actual text of the law, but from the synopsis it sure seems stupid. If you want more density around the urban core then just change the zoning in the core (even pass a law saying no single family zoning within X miles of the core depending on city size), but why fucking over all the suburbanites just trying to fix this limited issue?

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

I obviously haven't read the actual text of the law, but from the synopsis it sure seems stupid. If you want more density around the urban core then just change the zoning in the core (even pass a law saying no single family zoning within X miles of the core depending on city size), but why fucking over all the suburbanites just trying to fix this limited issue?

How is it fucking over "all suburbanites"? Or any suburbanites for that matter? I don't see the connection.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

How is it fucking over "all suburbanites"? Or any suburbanites for that matter? I don't see the connection.

Well, more broadly because people should be able to live in the sort of communities they prefer (assuming they can afford it).

Specifically because you're going to stick a bunch of low income people in their communities and the whole point of suburbs is to avoid these sort of people.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

Specifically because you're going to stick a bunch of low income people in their communities and the whole point of suburbs is to avoid these sort of people.

Jesus christ, you can't be serious with this anti-density fear mongering shit? How is giving property owners more freedom to develop their properties to higher densities going to result in "a bunch of low income people" being imported into affluent suburban communities?

Not that people who are afraid of getting too close to the poors are deserving of much sympathy anyway - but the economic feasibility of private developers building low-cost 4-unit apartments in expensive, low-density areas makes the probability of that happening just about zero. That the upzoning applies to SFH areas universally does not mean that the results will be uniform.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

Well, more broadly because people should be able to live in the sort of communities they prefer (assuming they can afford it).

Specifically because you're going to stick a bunch of low income people in their communities and the whole point of suburbs is to avoid these sort of people.

Maybe I miss understood the proposal, but from my understanding it isn't preventing single family homes from being built but rather preventing land from being zoned in a way that would prevent anything other than single family homes. If there's a market for single family homes then why would this prevent people from buying them? And if there's still a significant amount of demand, wouldn't there still be the critical mass needed to create neighbourhoods dominated by that housing type? I don't see how it's any different than parking requirements. If there's a demand for parking then it will be built, but not having such laws allows it to not be built when there isn't demand.

But yea, I'm not even going to touch the argument that single family home owners should be able to legally enforce segregation via official government laws. I mean, if you believe that an appropriate role for government should be to create laws with the aim of making large expanses of residential land off limits to large numbers of people because it's desired by those more privileged, then we'll just have to agree to disagree.

[pdxtex]

single family parcels split up in established portland neighborhoods = three 500k townhomes.....

[the urban politician]

Wow. I,love it

[Crawford]

Idiotic. Localities obviously should have the right to zoning preferred by like 90% of the population, and existing homeowners should not have their neighborhoods destroyed.

Also, what "housing shortage"? Portland is the cheapest West Coast metro. I'm sure it's very expensive compared to Dayton and Muncie, but we aren't exactly talking Silicon Valley here. A college friend bought a basic SFH two miles north of downtown Portland for a little over 400k a year or two ago, which doesn't sound unreasonable for an in-town location.

[pdxtex]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Idiotic. Localities obviously should have the right to zoning preferred by like 90% of the population, and existing homeowners should not have their neighborhoods destroyed.

Also, what "housing shortage"? Portland is the cheapest West Coast metro. I'm sure it's very expensive compared to Dayton and Muncie, but we aren't exactly talking Silicon Valley here. A college friend bought a basic SFH two miles north of downtown Portland for a little over 400k a year or two ago, which doesn't sound unreasonable for an in-town location.

dude west coast leadership is all over the map. they cant get their agendas straight.first its a homeless crisis, then a rental shortage, then a affordable home crisis and then gentrification. now single family homes are....racist!! im pretty sure the predatory lending and redlining of the past is the shady part. but correct, we don't have a housing shortage, let alone a affordable one. if you are in the market to purchase one. we lots of sub 300k homes all over the metro and prices have actually fallen as people pass up portland for slc, seattle or denver. dont get me wrong, im all for density so if they want to say single family homes are promoting segregation, then sure, go for it. but its not going to make anything market rate become "affordable". social justice wackos are running the ship in the PNW at the moment so it will be a few years before that fog clears.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

dude west coast leadership is all over the map. they cant get their agendas straight.first its a homeless crisis, then a rental shortage, then a affordable home crisis and then gentrification. now single family homes are....racist!! correct, we don't have a housing shortage, let alone a affordable one. if you are in the market to purchase one. we lots of sub 300k homes all over the metro and prices have actually fallen as people pass up portland for slc, seattle or denver. dont get me wrong, im all for density so if they want to say single family homes are promoting segregation, then sure, go for it. social justice wackos are running the ship in the PNW at the moment so it will be a few years before that fog clears.

Ironically the social justice wackos are also a huge reason that housing costs so much to begin with. All the regulations, permits, taxes etc. associated with building housing makes the price skyrocket. There was a good articles around here a few months ago about how just to cut through the red tape in San Francisco costs more than the median house in the rest of the country so basically you're already paying above average housing prices before you even start construction.

[goat314]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

dude west coast leadership is all over the map. they cant get their agendas straight.first its a homeless crisis, then a rental shortage, then a affordable home crisis and then gentrification. now single family homes are....racist!! im pretty sure the predatory lending and redlining of the past is the shady part. but correct, we don't have a housing shortage, let alone a affordable one. if you are in the market to purchase one. we lots of sub 300k homes all over the metro and prices have actually fallen as people pass up portland for slc, seattle or denver. dont get me wrong, im all for density so if they want to say single family homes are promoting segregation, then sure, go for it. but its not going to make anything market rate become "affordable". social justice wackos are running the ship in the PNW at the moment so it will be a few years before that fog clears.

I don't think single family zones are racist (that would be assuming that there are no black single family neighborhoods), but I think it's a civil rights issue and discriminatory to have exclusionary zoning clauses in wealthy areas. Many municipalities around the country have excluded public housing, rental units and multifamily, which concentrates poverty in certain areas. It's basically modern day redlining, which is indeed a classist and many times initially racist policy. What I find extra interesting is that places like Oregon and Minnesota, which have smallish Afro-American populations are implementing these policies. Let's see Chicago, Atlanta, Detroit, and Philadelphia do it. Then I'll be impressed.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by goat314

I don't think single family zones are racist (that would be assuming that there are no black single family neighborhoods)

Exactly, and that's a weird assumption.

From my observations at least, it seems black Floridians like their SFHs just as much as anyone else. The few obvious advantages of that type of living (a private backyard, no neighbors above or below you, etc.) are just as valid for people with higher melanin levels.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by lio45

Exactly, and that's a weird assumption.

From my observations at least, it seems black Floridians like their SFHs just as much as anyone else. The few obvious advantages of that type of living (a private backyard, no neighbors above or below you, etc.) are just as valid for people with higher melanin levels.

The assumption that most liberals make is that all black people are poor and therefore policies that hurt poor people are racist. It's more politically persuasive for them to say the policies are bad for black people than poor people because liberal voters don't give a flying fuck about poor whites (or more accurately they actively despise poor white people).

That much aside, if the goal is to integrate people racially then I don't think this is a very well thought out plan as it's more likely to integrate people economically. Poor people are still incredibly segregated by race. In fact looking at racial maps of cities it's almost insane the degree to which most big cities are racially segregated. There's the famous example like 8 mile road in Detroit, but basically every big city has those same sort of lines between races even when both sides of the lines are poor. And again it's not just blacks and whites being segregated, hispanics and asians are just as bad. Just from looking at the racial dot map it seems like asians and whites can integrate pretty effectively, but all other races are like oil and water with each other.

[mhays]

Some of you are all over the map. If there are too many regulations, cutting one should be good, right?

For example today's $500,000 townhouses are the result of very limited land and high demand. This measure sounds like it would drop townhouse land prices dramatically. Developers and individual homeowners would have the way clear to do smaller accessory units too, which would allow much lower prices.

This sounds like a good idea.

[mhays]

^ It's the same mindset that says adding transit or a bike lane is an attack on cars.

[Nouvellecosse]

What I want to know is, if people think it's a good idea for government to support income segregation by creating laws that act as a barrier to poorer people from moving into middle-class or wealthy areas, does this mean that that also support government barriers that discourage affluent people from moving into lower income areas (aka gentrification)? It must, right?

[JoeMusashi]

I’ll never not be amazed at the amount of things liberals can co-opt of African Americans to justify any demand or policy their donors want. It really is the Franks Red Hot Sauce of politics. You can “put that shit on everything”.

Anything built from this will benefit the affluent and the subsidized poor. High end apartments/townhouses that people can barely afford making them modern day serfs. Subsidized housing for the poor. Single family houses for the rich. Everyone else will flee inland like a plague of locusts to enact the same policies that drove them there in the first place.

The conspiracy side of my brain sees this as another attack on individualism. Property owners will be well compensated, their heirs will be less able to afford to live in that community. Mom and Dad sell the house to pay for somewhere else to live and their retirement/old age care. That windfall is diluted. The property management landlords are the long term winners.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by mhays

^ It's the same mindset that says adding transit or a bike lane is an attack on cars.

Transit isn't normally an attack on cars, but getting rid of a car lane that carries 1000 people an hour and replacing it with a bike line that carries 10 people an hour sure is. Not just an attack on cars, but also an attack on common sense. Even more so because most of the people I see riding bikes around here appear to be doing it for exercise and there's no reason that those of us trying to get to work should be delayed as a result.

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

What I want to know is, if people think it's a good idea for government to support income segregation by creating laws that act as a barrier to poorer people from moving into middle-class or wealthy areas, does this mean that that also support government barriers that discourage affluent people from moving into lower income areas (aka gentrification)? It must, right?

If the government were only zoning for 5000sqft mansions then maybe you would have a point, but simply owning a home isn't exactly a bastion of wealth.

Originally Posted by JoeMusashi

I’ll never not be amazed at the amount of things liberals can co-opt of African Americans to justify any demand or policy their donors want. It really is the Franks Red Hot Sauce of politics. You can “put that shit on everything”.

Yeah, pretty much. Basically everything that they don't support is racist because... reasons. But again the real irony is it's the liberal's excessive regulations that are causing housing prices in liberal areas to skyrocket.

Just look at CNN any given day and it's all but certain there will be some story about how a white person committed a crime against a non-white person. Sounds like there's a racist epidemic going on.. until you realize there are 320,000,000 people in the country so on any given day you could probably find plenty of crimes committed by any given race against any other given race. But CNN (and other liberal "media" outlets) want to push racial animus in the country in order to get more clicks and push their liberal political agenda so of course you only ever hear about white perpetrators again non-white victims.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

If the government were only zoning for 5000sqft mansions then maybe you would have a point, but simply owning a home isn't exactly a bastion of wealth.

You don't need zoning that enforces low density to simply allow people to own a home.