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  #81  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2022, 2:29 AM
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@steely,

Those small yards, who cuts the grass? Is it a HOA contractor or does the city do it?
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  #82  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2022, 2:35 AM
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@steely,

Those small yards, who cuts the grass? Is it a HOA contractor or does the city do it?
Usually the owner(s).

Old and/or lazy people sometimes hire it out, I guess.

The city definitely doesn't maintain private property.


For our 3-flat, one of the owners is responsible for mowing the lawn, while me and the guy on the 2nd floor are on team snow shovel. It's just an agreement we made in-house because I fucking love winter!
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  #83  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2022, 2:45 AM
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Usually the owner(s).
Since you guys have no HOA, how do you plan maintenance, repairs and so on? Informal gentlemen's agreement?
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  #84  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2022, 2:50 AM
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Since you guys have no HOA, how do you plan maintenance, repairs and so on? Informal gentlemen's agreement?
We have an "HOA", or in Chicago parlance, a "condo association".

3 units: 3rd floor is the "president", 2nd floor is the "secretary", and I'm the "treasurer".

In reality it's all super informal, but we do schedule meetings from time to time to talk about building maintenance/improvement issues and to make plans to address specific items.

Last I checked we had reserves of around $25K in the association account. Not a shit ton of money, but not nothing either.
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  #85  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2022, 2:44 PM
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
We have an "HOA", or in Chicago parlance, a "condo association".

3 units: 3rd floor is the "president", 2nd floor is the "secretary", and I'm the "treasurer".

In reality it's all super informal, but we do schedule meetings from time to time to talk about building maintenance/improvement issues and to make plans to address specific items.

Last I checked we had reserves of around $25K in the association account. Not a shit ton of money, but not nothing either.
Does your HOA pay your property taxes? That is a ton of money for a 3 unit condo building to sit on, unless your building has a ton of deferred maintenance.
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  #86  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2022, 2:45 PM
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yeah, in the regular chicago street grid, there are 8 "long" blocks to the mile, and 16 "short" blocks to the mile in the other direction, making for 128 "regular" chicago blocks per square mile.

subtracting out street ROWs, this makes for an idealized block with approximately 600' x 250' of useable area, or 48 standard 25' x 125' lots, double loaded along the alley.

so, 48 lots per block x 128 blocks per square mile = 6,144 lots per sqaure mile

so if that square mile was built out entirely with bungalows, and if we use the rule of thumb that ~2.5 people occupy each detached SFH, that would yield a density of 15,360 ppsm.

i rememebered yesterday talking about how lots out in chicago's bungalow belt tend to be a little bigger at 30' x 125', and even going up to 37.5' x 125' in some outer bungalow belt areas (those with the 1.5 lots), and i was curious to rerun the calcs to see how those small lot size changes might impact overall popualtion density in theoretical land.

30' wide lots yields 40 lots per 600' block, for a total of 5,120 lots per sq. mile. 5,120 x 2.5 = 12,800 ppsm

37.5' wide lots yields 32 lots per 600' block, for a total of 4,096 lots per sq. mile. 4,096 x 2.5 = 10,240 ppsm


i'm not aware of too many places in the US where detached SFHs are put on lots much smaller than 3,750 SF (30' x 125') at scale, which is why, with today's relatively small average household sizes, it's hard for areas of exclusively detached SFHs to ever climb higher than the low ten-thousands in terms of density, and that's at absolute peak intensity. unless we're talking about some SFH LA immigrant neighborhood where 10 people are crammed into every house, tightly packed detached SFH city neighborhoods seem to usually peak out in the 7,500 - 10,000 ppsm range in the real world when other land-uses are figured into the equation (parks, commercial buildings, schools, churches, etc.)
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  #87  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2022, 2:52 PM
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Does your HOA pay your property taxes? That is a ton of money for a 3 unit condo building to sit on, unless your building has a ton of deferred maintenance.
no, each unit pays their own property taxes.

we know that our building's roof is not long for this world. it's not exactly deferred maintenance (it's still holding up fine for the time being), but at 22 years old now, we know a full roof replacement is coming soon, so we've been trying to build reserves to avoid a special assessment when that $15K hit comes. it looks like we'll clear that hurdle.

we also have some back porch maintenance that needs addressing. the plan is to get some repair quotes in the spring. could be around another $5K in repairs.

so we're looking pretty ok <knock on wood>
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  #88  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2022, 5:10 PM
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no, each unit pays their own property taxes.

we know that our building's roof is not long for this world. it's not exactly deferred maintenance (it's still holding up fine for the time being), but at 22 years old now, we know a full roof replacement is coming soon, so we've been trying to build reserves to avoid a special assessment when that $15K hit comes. it looks like we'll clear that hurdle.

we also have some back porch maintenance that needs addressing. the plan is to get some repair quotes in the spring. could be around another $5K in repairs.

so we're looking pretty ok <knock on wood>
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  #89  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2022, 5:40 PM
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Seattle SFR lots are a little bigger, and highly varied due to topography, changing standards as they were platted, subdivisions, etc. Tooling around the KC Parcel Viewer I'm seeing a lot in the 3,700 to 6,500 range in the pre-50s city limits. Outside that, 8,000 sf is common.

This has a benefit that might be counterintuitive: It makes infill easier! In the 20% of the city where density is allowed, you can buy one or two houses and put in a lot of units, whether apartments or townhouses. That must be tougher with three-flats (getting three owners to agree on anything?) or tiny SFR lots in other cities.
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  #90  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2022, 6:40 PM
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This has a benefit that might be counterintuitive: It makes infill easier! In the 20% of the city where density is allowed, you can buy one or two houses and put in a lot of units, whether apartments or townhouses. That must be tougher with three-flats (getting three owners to agree on anything?) or tiny SFR lots in other cities.
neighborhood chicago works in a different, more hierarchical way.

on the types of residential side streets that i'm talk about, you're not gonna be allowed to build more intensely than roughly 3 units per city lot anyway, so it's kind of a moot point.

what does happen in some cases is a developer buying one or two older forlorn SFHs and putting up a 3 or 6 flat, though the city has obtusely downzoned large swaths of the city (cough cough "bungalow belt") that it doesn't happen nearly as much as it should.

for larger unit count infill these days in neighborhood chicago, those are almost always found on the main streets, where there are literally thousands of (usually larger) underdeveloped commecial properties all across the city just waiting for more intensive redevelopment.

a few recentish examples from my area:

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9657...7i16384!8i8192

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9668...7i16384!8i8192

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9686...7i16384!8i8192

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9675...7i16384!8i8192

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9666...7i16384!8i8192

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9687...7i16384!8i8192


these types of larger midrise buildings with anywhere from 20 - 40 units along the main streets are absoluterly vital for maintining density in gentrifying areas like mine because wealthy people LOVE to buy-up old outdated 2-flats on the cheap and deconvert them into large luxury 3,000+ SF SFHs.

my specific block has been spared the worst of 2-flat deconversion thus far (we only have 6 on our block), but it's become a real problem in lincoln square overall, espcially parts a bit futher east of me, where nearly entire blocks of former 2-flats have had their unit density cut in half by 2-flat deconversions.

without the larger scale infill along the maint streets, my neighborhood would have almost certainly seen a population loss last decade from 2-flat deconversions (instead it had very modest population growth).
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  #91  
Old Posted Nov 19, 2022, 12:34 AM
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Seattle badly needs missing middle housing. Just 20% of the city allows real density and another 60% allows only SFRs and small accessory units (even that's only lately). The first 20% gets a mix from townhouse four-packs to big apartment buildings, with very high land costs.

We need to be more like 30% real density, 20% townhouse & small apartment, and 30% SFRs + ADUs. The latter can be the places with the worst transit. A new city plan and broad upzones will come out in 2024, so we might take big steps that way...
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  #92  
Old Posted Nov 23, 2022, 3:17 AM
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  #93  
Old Posted Nov 23, 2022, 4:27 AM
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Austin has the largest average residential lot size in Texas and the third largest in the country, at just over 8,600 square feet.

https://www.storagecafe.com/blog/lot...est-us-cities/

If single family structure zoning were the only use at that size, assuming 2.5 residents per lot, the population density would be 6,500 ppsm.
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BIGD: 1304k (+9%) + MSA div. suburbs: 3826k (+26%) + adj. CSA exurbs: 394k (+8%)
FTW: 919k (+24%) + MSA div. suburbs: 1589k (+14%) + adj. CSA exurbs: 90k (+12%)
SATX: 1435k (+8%) + MSA suburbs: 1124k (+38%) + CSA exurbs: 18k (+11%)
ATX: 962k (+22%) + MSA suburbs: 1322k (+43%)
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  #94  
Old Posted Nov 23, 2022, 4:46 AM
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
i rememebered yesterday talking about how lots out in chicago's bungalow belt tend to be a little bigger at 30' x 125', and even going up to 37.5' x 125' in some outer bungalow belt areas (those with the 1.5 lots), and i was curious to rerun the calcs to see how those small lot size changes might impact overall popualtion density in theoretical land.

30' wide lots yields 40 lots per 600' block, for a total of 5,120 lots per sq. mile. 5,120 x 2.5 = 12,800 ppsm

37.5' wide lots yields 32 lots per 600' block, for a total of 4,096 lots per sq. mile. 4,096 x 2.5 = 10,240 ppsm


i'm not aware of too many places in the US where detached SFHs are put on lots much smaller than 3,750 SF (30' x 125') at scale, which is why, with today's relatively small average household sizes, it's hard for areas of exclusively detached SFHs to ever climb higher than the low ten-thousands in terms of density, and that's at absolute peak intensity. unless we're talking about some SFH LA immigrant neighborhood where 10 people are crammed into every house, tightly packed detached SFH city neighborhoods seem to usually peak out in the 7,500 - 10,000 ppsm range in the real world when other land-uses are figured into the equation (parks, commercial buildings, schools, churches, etc.)
If you're talking about the density of a purely residential block, it's quite common for suburban Toronto to exceed 12,800 ppsm.

Ex Vellore is typically around 19,000-20,000 ppsm for purely residential blocks.
https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.83298...7i16384!8i8192

Burlington North averages 20,000-21,000 ppsm for purely residential blocks.
https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.40524...7i16384!8i8192

This area of Brampton is more like 23,000-24,000 ppsm. Mainly due to larger households.
https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.76512...7i16384!8i8192

This area of Markham is older, so kids have had time to move out, but also has a decent bit of basement apartments, and comes in around 25,000-30,000.
https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.83423...7i16384!8i8192

This area of Brampton is also not brand new, though probably even more basement apartments, and averages 32,000-35,000 ppsm for residential blocks.
https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.64521...7i16384!8i8192

Household sizes are larger than 2.5 in all of these, although it also depends how the households are counted. For Statistics Canada census purposes, many of these homes are counted as containing 2 dwellings due to basement apartments, but you can get the true number of people per house by counting lots. The ~20k neighbourhoods tend to have 3.5-3.8 people per house, while the lower density Brampton neighbourhood might have 5.2-5.5 per house, the Markham one 4.5 per house and the denser Brampton one about 6 per house.

Suburban Toronto typically does not drop to 2.5 people per house though. I'd say it's usually 3-4 per house (counting basement apartments as part of the house) for more mature (>20 year old) neighbourhoods, depending on the size of the house and demographics. However, working class immigrant neighbourhoods like Malton can get a bit upwards of 5 per house, despite the homes being old and relatively small.

Another noteworthy neighbourhood is this one in Surrey, BC.
https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.12983...7i16384!8i8192
The residential block has a density of 24,400 per square mile, despite what looks like McMansions on fairly large lots. That city block is home to 490 people according to the 2021 census, despite containing only 56 lots, which means 8.75 people per "McMansion", despite 9% of dwellings being unoccupied. However, also according to the census, these 56 lots are home to 148 dwellings, meaning most of the McMansions are actually triplexes. From real estate listings, it seems like most of these Surrey triplexes have a large unit on the upper floor (ex 5bed/3bath) and two small units on the ground floor (ex 2bed/1bath x2).

I was even able to find one real estate listing with floor plans for a 4 unit Surrey home:
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  #95  
Old Posted Nov 23, 2022, 5:04 AM
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i live on a block with 40 chicago-size lots (20 lots on either side of the street, anywhere from 25' - 30' wide x 125' deep).

it was built-out a century ago primarily with 2-flats, some 3 flats, and larger 12-unit buildings on all 4 corner double-lots. 6 of the 2-flats have since been de-converted to SFHs.

if my street were entirely SFH, it'd only have 40 housing units, but being a mixture of a few SFH and mainly small scale multi-family, we have a total of 106 housing units on our block, a 2.6x unit density increase.

my census tract, as it exists today, is ~26,000 ppsm, but were it 100% SFH like so much of our nation, the density would fall to only ~10,000 ppsm.

and nothing on my block stands taller than 3 floors, so it still has the scale and feel of a low-rise family-friendly neighborhood side-street, just with a lot more people living on it.

this site obviously spends a lot of time talking about the density-add of highrises, midrises, and other large-scale urban buildings, but if we could find a way to shoe-horn just an extra unit or two onto every single city lot, and do so across dozens and dozens of square miles, it really would add up to a significant difference all by itself, no highrises required.
Do you know what's the density of your city block (ie just a residential block, without schools, parks, commercial areas, etc)?
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  #96  
Old Posted Nov 23, 2022, 6:24 AM
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I don't think I'd put much stock in the data in that link.

They claim that the average residential lot size in the city of Chicago is 1,699 SF, but the standard Chicago residential lot is 25' x 125', or 3,125 SF.
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  #97  
Old Posted Nov 23, 2022, 7:38 AM
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
I don't think I'd put much stock in the data in that link.

They claim that the average residential lot size in the city of Chicago is 1,699 SF, but the standard Chicago residential lot is 25' x 125', or 3,125 SF.
Fair
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HTOWN: 2305k (+10%) + MSA suburbs: 4818k (+26%) + CSA exurbs: 190k (+6%)
BIGD: 1304k (+9%) + MSA div. suburbs: 3826k (+26%) + adj. CSA exurbs: 394k (+8%)
FTW: 919k (+24%) + MSA div. suburbs: 1589k (+14%) + adj. CSA exurbs: 90k (+12%)
SATX: 1435k (+8%) + MSA suburbs: 1124k (+38%) + CSA exurbs: 18k (+11%)
ATX: 962k (+22%) + MSA suburbs: 1322k (+43%)
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  #98  
Old Posted Nov 23, 2022, 6:09 PM
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The streetscape and the ratio of fence height to yard space seems characteristic of Latin America, IMO. Of those places you linked, Budapest and Bangkok seem like potential matches. The other places don't look like Latin America at all to me.
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  #99  
Old Posted Nov 24, 2022, 7:22 AM
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Here are 3-5 storey terraces in Inner London, originally built for the upper middle classes - not much yard space, plus a semi-basement. In effect 6 floors, back when live-in servants were readily affordable. Thus you get a deceptively higher density despite a narrow street front





For the middle classes the same applies, smaller homes but larger yards (and as one can see much more lax rules on building extensions round the back, that can make their homes larger than the class above)




Of course such is the housing market many of these homes have now been subdivided into small flats no matter the class, with the prices dictated by location. In effect going down a street of what looks like SFH in the city is often an apartment block, especially in the richer areas. Mid-range properties often house much smaller spaces for the equivalent middle classes, now forced into renting tiny bedsits in what was once designed to be their entire home. The average property rental in the city has 10 applicants as population grows by 100,000+ a year, yet with only 17,000 new homes ever being built - an algorithm developers maintain to keep the prices climbing.

The country houses the smallest housing in the West (25% smaller than the Japanese even), London multiple times worst -only Hong Kong demands higher prices. The density however doesn't really show up on paper due to the city being the greenest in the world of equivalent size -over a third is parkland and even more is open space, such as the river.


The density can better be gauged by how new builds fit in the same number of people into apartment blocks, 'disguised' at street level to look about the same height and width on street frontage





Here the subtle differences between the classes, the smaller homes at bottom of the pic rising to the richer at top, and an example of how Victorians mixed income levels




And the last of the working class terraces is in Waterloo -the rest were long cleared as notorious slums (Roupell St is now worth $1.6m a pop, often used as a film location).







At the turn on the 20th Century, London invented suburbia in the 'garden cities'- at first the same terracing but with much larger gardens, plus one out front. Note how the streets all abutt a main one with a parade of shops.






Then the 1930s building blitz came along, creating semi-detached housing en masse that doubled the city's size in the interwar period, although the population only grew by 10% (while the centre fell from 4.5 million to 4 million). These are London's version of SFH, though they differ in that they will have a 'high street' of local shops and mixed zoning.





They are generally boring and ugly AF, based on the Norfolk farmhouse (metro countryside vernacular) - brown, reds and grey because Britain's weather just isn't gloomy enough, though nowadays offset by resident's aspirational ideas on Greek stucco that goes chewing gum grey within the week, or those rosy Tuscan hues


Last edited by muppet; Nov 25, 2022 at 11:27 PM.
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  #100  
Old Posted Nov 24, 2022, 7:30 AM
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Upper class equivalents are 'mansion blocks' that dominate certain West London districts, once garrulous homes for Victorian families with 10 kids and armies of servants, now hotels, embassies and small apartments that sell for tens of millions each. They often had no greenery but shared a private gated park (key to get in). Interestingly enough these are some of the most densely populated tracts of the city, as high as any scudding tower block:







Look carefully and note the tiny mews houses in the middle street - converted stables with a room above for the stable boy, famed for the village atmosphere that's now more desirable than the master house. Also note on the mansion blocks, 4 storeys out front but 6 at the back.




Mews streets are typically hidden oases, and idealised for their community set up, sometimes with a local pub and restaurant. They are rare examples of how a lack of space has increased the value, by creating a village Third Place where everyone knows your name:




The largest mansion blocks are hundreds of millions, may not be subdivided and rarely come onto the market. However, many still are and can house just as crowded as any bedsit block, just the luxury versions.



The last time a Nash terrace came onto the market was 20 years ago, with the sale withdrawn from the corner house -being the most world's most expensive property on record wasn't good enough (every 5 windows along is a new property).




private park


Last edited by muppet; Nov 25, 2022 at 6:03 AM.
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