the_lamou t1_jcfxrt0 wrote on March 16, 2023 at 3:33 PM

Reply to comment by n3vd0g in Nearly 1,500 buildings ban Airbnb and other short-term rentals by fluffykintail

Most of Austria's social housing stock isn't owned by the government, but rather by private companies who operate a landlords within a tightly regulated system. It's no different than NYC's affordable housing lottery, albeit with a larger percentage of new units being allocated and better regulation. But it's not remotely accurate to say "the government owns the housing." Private landlords own the housing. They just lease it under the government's watch.

n3vd0g t1_jcg9358 wrote on March 16, 2023 at 4:45 PM

> Vienna’s city government owns and manages 220,000 housing units, which represent about 25 percent of the city’s housing stock. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_article_011314.html

Yet still a substantial amount is owned by the government and the program is wildly successful. It is very very different.

the_lamou t1_jcgchn9 wrote on March 16, 2023 at 5:06 PM

It's about half of all subsidized units, and has been in major drawdown mode for a while, shifting more units from government-owned to private-owned-but-regulated.

Their biggest advantage when it comes to housing prices is the ability to grow outwards. The city is essentially surrounded entirely by farmland, and as their population grew they were able to easily build new developments on what was formerly empty fields on the outskirts of the city. This is where a lot of the subsidized units come from - relatively recent new development undertaken as a public/private partnership.

NYC is not only incredibly densely populated (about 3x Vienna) but that population density extends out throughout the immediate metro area. For NYC to replicate it would require either deploying large swaths of small homes in the outer borroughs and converting them to midrises (which will cost billions upon billions of dollars and piss off a ton of long-time New Yorkers,) OR start building city-subsidized units in Duchess County and out near Dover, NJ.

n3vd0g t1_jcgm66t wrote on March 16, 2023 at 6:06 PM

> It's about half of all subsidized units, and has been in major drawdown mode for a while, shifting more units from government-owned to private-owned-but-regulated.

If this is true, then it doesn't seem to be doing them any favors. Housing prices are rising sharply as a result. https://www.globalpropertyguide.com/Europe/Austria/Price-History

> NYC is not only incredibly densely populated (about 3x Vienna) but that population density extends out throughout the immediate metro area. For NYC to replicate it would require either deploying large swaths of small homes in the outer borroughs and converting them to midrises (which will cost billions upon billions of dollars and piss off a ton of long-time New Yorkers,)

So just do nothing then? That's your solution? Our country is in crisis and all we seem to do is virtue signal about homelessness while only actually caring about landowners. Do you know how much we spent on the Iraq war alone? Billions upon billions is quite literally nothing to the American government and that money would be cycled into people's pockets as people would be employed during this process to build these things.

the_lamou t1_jcgyrqt wrote on March 16, 2023 at 7:25 PM

>Housing prices are rising sharply

Housing prices are rising sharply everywhere because we literally cannot keep up with demand. What do you want the government to do about that? Forcibly seize land and force people to build houses on it? Or would you rather we sterilize half the population to prevent demand growth?

Home prices generally go up over time, if for no other reason than inflation goes up over time, and there's absolutely no way to stop that short of extremely unpleasant solutions.

>So just do nothing then? That's your solution?

No, it's not. I've outlined several solutions throughout this thread. Some are temporary stop-gaps. Others are actual solutions. But the only long-term solution is to build more housing (probably outside the city) and increase wages. That's it. It's not magic, and it's the only thing that'll really work. Supplement that with subsidization for people incapable of working, and you're done. BUT that might mean that you live in Poughkeepsie and have an hour and 45 minute commute into the city. Which, frankly, you can already do.

>Do you know how much we spent on the Iraq war alone?

Yeah. About two trillion dollars direct by the federal government. What I don't understand is how you think federal spending has any bearing on state and city spending.

But even assuming that this comparison made sense, let's say you wanted to build some apartments in NYC. We'll assume that the average zoning district in NYC is R6, and we use the smallest possible minimum lot size as a proxy for average apartment land cost. So that's 1,700 square feet, of which at least 40% has to be open space, leaving us with a building of 1020 square feet. That allows you to build about 1.5 units of housing per zoning regulations at a land cost of about $78,000 per unit.

NYC is (conservatively) short 1,000,000 units. That's about $8 billion JUST in land cost. Even if we upzone like crazy, and can cut that in half, we're talking $4 billion in current land cost. And if the city actually tried to do this, the land cost would go up significantly due to supply and demand pressure.

The actual building is going to cost about $350 per square foot. At 1.5 units per 1020 square feet, we're talking about an extra $240,000 per unit. So now we're at $316,000 in costs per unit, or 1/3rd of a trillion dollars, and that's being extremely conservative. Even if you assume the federal government pays for all or part of it, that solves one small problem in one small corner of the country while doing nothing to address everywhere else. And if you take this model and sissy it throughout the US, that $300 billion turns into $30 trillion easy, which is about double the annual US federal budget.

Plus, your plan requires us to forcibly kick people out of their family homes to make room for other people, which is a truly shitty thing to do.

One possible way around this is a combination of the Austrian system with the Athenian antiparochi system: the city partners with developers to go to low-density homeowners and say "you give us your land to develop, we build multifamily housing on it, in return you get a couple of units in the new building to do with what you want, some of the units are market rate, and half are subsidized housing, and we'll also upzone the property to make sure the developer has enough profit motive to handle the building." Combine that with a gradual upzoning of neighborhoods from the center out and within a decade or two, we might get to a point where supply meets demand.

In the meantime, we should continue fighting for a living wage. And, if you want cheap rent, you may just have to live outside the city, because unfortunately there are not enough units for everyone that wants one, and the only fair way of dividing resources when demand exceeds supply is to price some people out. Because no matter how good it may feel, hysterics on Reddit don't actually stove anything.

n3vd0g t1_jch17z5 wrote on March 16, 2023 at 7:41 PM

> Because no matter how good it may feel, hysterics on Reddit don't actually stove anything.

Lol hysterics? So rude jfc

> Housing prices are rising sharply everywhere because we literally cannot keep up with demand. What do you want the government to do about that? Forcibly seize land and force people to build houses on it? Or would you rather we sterilize half the population to prevent demand growth? Home prices generally go up over time, if for no other reason than inflation goes up over time, and there's absolutely no way to stop that short of extremely unpleasant solutions.

First off, you're gonna claim hysterics while putting that genocide straw man on me? ok. Second, yeah, I have no problem with seizing land that people are just sitting on. It's called eminent domain and I support it when necessary. inb4 "it's been abused in the past"

> Plus, your plan requires us to forcibly kick people out of their family homes to make room for other people, which is a truly shitty thing to do.

When did I ever say I'm kicking families out. Since when is a giant landlord that owns multiple buildings in nyc a "single family"? Again, straw man. It's naive to think this doesn't happen already anyways. It happens by landlords on a scale that is plainly ridiculous. And many times, the landlords don't even do substantional renovations or add units. They paint over shit, fix a few cabinets, add some appliances and hike the rent up by another grand a month.

> Yeah. About two trillion dollars direct by the federal government. What I don't understand is how you think federal spending has any bearing on state and city spending.

You do realize that part of a state's budget comes directly from federal allocations too, correct? You know how government works right? Like, not all infrastructure spending in a state is solely financed by that state.

I mean, whatever man. It's not like either of us will get our way anyways

the_lamou t1_jch3dag wrote on March 16, 2023 at 7:55 PM

>First off, you're gonna claim hysterics while putting that genocide straw man on me? ok.

Check your sarcasm detector, buddy.

>Second, yeah, I have no problem with seizing land that people are just sitting on

Well, if by "just sitting on" you mean "living in with their families," and you're still ok with it, that's a pretty shitty attitude. Not to get all hyperbolic on you or anything, but maybe we shouldn't endorse forcibly seizing people's family land given this country's history.

>When did I ever say I'm kicking families out. Since when is a giant landlord that owns multiple buildings in nyc a "single family"?

You didn't say that, but nevertheless that's what it's going to take. Why would we seize a giant landlord's multiple densely-zoned buildings? Those are already providing plenty of housing, and demolishing them isn't likely to increase density in any meaningful fashion.

No, the only way to get the city to have enough residential units is to go out to Queens and Brooklyn and the Bronx, go to the neighborhoods which are currently single-family, duplex, and triplex homes, demolish every single one of them, and replace them with 4+ story 12+ unit housing. I know you're dead set on making this entirely an "ooga booga big landlord" problem, but it isn't. Big landlords build big buildings because that's how they maximize returns. The current housing shortage is a SMALL landlord, family-owned small building problem.

>It's naive to think this doesn't happen already. It happens by landlords anyways on a scale that is plainly ridiculous.

Sorry, WHAT happens? You need to provide a little more clarity, because the "it" here can refer to a number of different things.

>And many times, the landlords don't even do substantional renovations or add units. They paint over shit, fix a few cabinets, add some appliances and hike the rent up by another grand a month.

What do renovations have to do with substantial new development? You're going all over the place, because I suspect what you want isn't actually affordable housing. What you want is a bright, spacious, freshly-renovated apartment with all the latest amenities, in a cool neighborhood, for 1/10th market rate.

>You do realize that part of a state's budget comes directly from federal allocations too, correct? You know how government works right? Like, not all infrastructure spending in a state is solely financed by that state.

Yes, I actually am very well of where infrastructure spending comes from. Given that I actually showed you the math, which you seem to not have understood in the least, I would say I likely understand it a lit better than you do. For example, I understand that in FY2019 (the last year before shit hit the fan,) the federal government provided about $711 billion dollars in grants to states. Which would pay for a massive upzoning and new construction project in two major cities, while leaving zero federal dollars for any other state programs. You ready to tell people they're going to have to give up their Medicaid so that you can have a shiny, new apartment?