
Architect explains why large development in LA seems to be luxury development - intull
https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/6lvwh4/im_an_architect_in_la_specializing_in_multifamily/
======
RealityNow
It blows my mind that virtually every major city in the developed world is
facing this same problem, yet nobody is doing anything about it.

It's a pretty simple problem with a pretty simple solution. The problem is
that local city councils have restricted the freedom to build through
excessive zoning laws and regulations in order to increase housing prices for
their own private investment benefit.

The solution is to relinquish them of this self-interested tyrant-like
overbearing power and set these policies on the national level - basically how
Japan does it. The more localized the power, the more self-interest is going
to favor a minority of private individuals at the expense of society.

~~~
whiddershins
_A solution_ is to regulate it nationally. However, for the US I loathe that
idea. I firmly believe communities have the right to regulate themselves in
this way, which naturally produces wonderful diversity and character and
autonomy and all that good stuff.

I like the option of looking at how/why entrenched landowners control those
communities. If the city councils were more broadly representative, that might
solve the problem.

If anything, New York City is the poster child for too-centralized regulation.
Why are the codes not far more locally governed? Who knows.

~~~
davidf18
While it might be ideal to have local control, cities such as my city of NYC
respond to special interests -- in this case wealthy landlords. The local
government serves wealthy landlords by making land artificially scarce and
scarcity is reflected in higher prices. In microeconomics this is called
"rent-seeking" which in this case is using politics to create profits far, far
higher than costs. Thus Donald Trump and other wealthier landlords are getting
huge sums of money from renters who are paying far, far more than they would
in an efficient market. By responding to the campaign donations of wealthy
landlords the local city councils have created a regressive tax and this is
also a major form of inequality.

The local city councils respond to lobbying on the part of wealthy landlords
by 1) zoning density restrictions, 2) overregulation and amount of red tape
needed for approvals, and 3) overuse of historic landmark status.

Harvard Economist Edward Glaeser has written extensively about these problems.
For example: Build Big Bill [http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-
bill-article-1....](http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill-
article-1.1913739)

See also: 40 Percent of the Buildings in Manhattan Could Not Be Built Today
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty-...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty-
percent-of-manhattans-buildings-could-not-be-built-today.html)

The solution is to use the one in used by Japan which is to have the federal
government override the "rent-seeking" local city councils. The honest truth
is that these city councils make renters and younger people pay far, far more
for housing while giving Donald Trump and his fellow wealthy landlords far,
far more money than their costs.

~~~
jpace121
I wonder how this would practically work in somewhere like America, where the
cities are so diverse. I have a hard time believing that the rules that are
the best for a big city like LA and San Francisco are the same rules that
would work for middle of nowhere Iowa.

~~~
undersuit
I don't see why we can't just make some modifications to Japan's model. There
may be a smaller population and land area, but how many cities of 13 million
people with 43 million people in the metro area do we have?

I think the only problem with adopting Japan's model is we are so established
with the current one.

~~~
davidf18
There are just a few major metro areas in the US where much of the rent-
seeking for wealthy landlords is much of a problem starting with SF, LA, SD,
Boston, NYC, DC. Not all cities bow to the wishes of wealthy landlords by
making land scarce through artificial political means with the resulting huge
financial windfall for wealthy landlords at cost to renters and millennials
trying to buy a home.

~~~
undersuit
And the Japanese zoning model mitigates more than just the problem of
exploitative rentiers buying and corrupting local government

------
ThePadawan
From my European point of view, I find the whole hangup about the parking
space regulations very interesting.

Here in Zurich, there are the same sort of complaints about parking for new
buildings going up, however there is now a different trend: Because rent for
the parking space is typically charged separately from the apartment's rent,
some parking space simply can't be rented out because residents don't have
cars.

In case you speak German and are interested in this sort of stuff, the
regulations are available at [https://www.stadt-
zuerich.ch/content/dam/stzh/portal/Deutsch...](https://www.stadt-
zuerich.ch/content/dam/stzh/portal/Deutsch/AmtlicheSammlung/Erlasse/741/500/741.500_Parkplatzverordnung_16_V4.pdf)
.

It also shows a table on page 3 that explains how you actually are allowed and
required to build less and less parking spaces the closer you get to the city
center, so much so that if you look at the maps on pages 6 to 7, you can see
that that grey area allows <= 10% of the parking of the white area.

~~~
jaclaz
Just to confirm the European viewpoint, it is pretty much normal in Italy,
France and Spain to have similar requirements.

But they are "logical" and at least here in cities, beyond and besides the
building codes, having more parking space can be a resource, i.e.
unused/excess parking places are commonly rented as there is anyway great
scarcity of them for the people leaving in historical buildings that of course
at the time they were built had no such requirements.

Of course it is a cost since, just like it is in the US, in the words of the
architect:

>But wait, there’s more! That parking space for each unit either has to be at
ground level (which is the most valuable real estate on the whole project), or
it has to be above or below ground.

we cannot make them float in the air ;).

And of course requirements are not the same in city centres as they are in the
outskirts, where areas are larger and building density allowed is much lower.

I don't fully agree with the added cost for parking to be the main reason for
high costs of the building, I find the culprit to be more "the market" and
also (within limits) the higher standards (and expectations of the customers).

I heve seen dramatic increasings in the costs of plumbing (not only the
plumbing in itself, but also the kind of stuff that is installed, "design"
basins, taps, showers, etc.), and electricity (here it is BOTH pricey
switches, plugs, etc, and greatly increased number of them), besides safety
related items.

As a side note, and it depends of course on specific zones, having an
underground parking under the building may actually help with seismic
compliance and with getting rid of radon, so some of it is not only "added
cost", the real cost issues come when the size of the parking is big enough to
"trigger" stricter fire safety provisions.

The EXACT same thing happened/is happening here, all the part starting from:

> All that was manageable to an extent before the crash of 2008.

is entirely accurate on this side of the pond, and has been described
perfectly.

Before or around 2008 you couldn't find reliable people/contractors because
they were 100% busy (while you could find a lot of only half-professionals),
now you cannot find them simply because they became almost extincted.

~~~
kpil
Having lived in both central Stockholm and central Madrid, I wholeheartedly
support the requirements for parking spaces. People will own cars, and they
need to be somewhere.

The regulation could be relaxed to allow separate garages or parking lots
within a reasonable walking distance, but the books should be balanced.

In Stockholm some builders have argued that people might soon drive electric
box carts or some other environmental camouflage for getting rid of the
parking lots and cram in more expensive flats.

This spin was successful in one area but the sales prices were as high as
usual and the savings where just added to the builders profit which is
considerable to begin with.

~~~
Decade
I wholehearted disagree with regulations that require parking spaces. People
are less likely to own cars if they knew they were paying extra to park them.
Parking spaces should have prices, so we can use the market to distribute them
in their scarcity. We call that: unbundled parking.[0]

As it is, paid parking is being tremendously undercut by free parking. People
will go very far out of their way, roaming the streets for hours every week
looking for a rare free parking spot, but there is almost no will to build a
guaranteed spot in a paid parking structure.

This contributes to traffic, greenhouse gas emissions, wear on infrastructure,
noxious gases emitted in residential neighborhoods, and poisonous relations
between neighbors.

A related issue is that cars require a tremendous amount of space for what
they provide, and there is no way we can afford to build enough spaces for all
the cars that we think we can own because the parking is free. Even if the
parking was adequate when new, it is not adequate anymore. And even when new,
adequate parking was enormously expensive.[1]

My own neighborhood in San Francisco was built in the 1950s for single-family,
single-earner households. Then women joined the workforce. Then children grew
up needing cars. Then families doubled up in one house, or landlords turned
the homes into rooming houses; and a house with a 1-car garage is now
associated with 5 cars or more.

The price to sell is not directly connected to the cost to build.[2] Depending
on the location, I think the no-parking micro-unit is actually more valuable
to me than the suburban mansion, if it means I can reach everything I need by
foot or bicycle and avoid paying all the fees and wasted time in traffic of
car or bus.

I don’t care whether the developer makes a profit; except insofar as a
developer should be paid for doing work that I think benefits society, and
also as most of the income goes to the developer’s investors, that is,
schoolteacher pension funds and such.

[0] [http://www.thegreatermarin.org/blog/2015/8/8/unbundling-
park...](http://www.thegreatermarin.org/blog/2015/8/8/unbundling-parking-isnt-
simple-but-its-worth-it)

[1]
[https://www.strongtowns.org/parking/](https://www.strongtowns.org/parking/)

[2] [https://artplusmarketing.com/market-rate-housing-isnt-a-
bad-...](https://artplusmarketing.com/market-rate-housing-isnt-a-bad-word-and-
we-won-t-solve-the-housing-crisis-without-it-ce67c06aff4d)

~~~
jaclaz
>This contributes to traffic, greenhouse gas emissions, wear on
infrastructure, noxious gases emitted in residential neighborhoods, and
poisonous relations between neighbors.

Which are exactly the problems that in a perfect world where ALL cars have
their own spot to be parked at near home (and near office, etc.) would not
exist, and that can be solved EITHER by making adequate parking spots OR
getting rid of the cars.

I presume that if every home owner signs an affidavit where he/she promises
he/she would NOT ever buy or use a car near the house, the parking area
requirements could be lowered.

As you might know in Japan they do something slightly different:
[http://www.reinventingparking.org/2014/06/japans-proof-of-
pa...](http://www.reinventingparking.org/2014/06/japans-proof-of-parking-rule-
has.html)

~~~
Decade
>>This contributes to traffic, greenhouse gas emissions, wear on
infrastructure, noxious gases emitted in residential neighborhoods, and
poisonous relations between neighbors.

>Which are exactly the problems that in a perfect world where ALL cars have
their own spot to be parked at near home (and near office, etc.) would not
exist, and that can be solved EITHER by making adequate parking spots OR
getting rid of the cars.

The perfect world where every car has a parking spot _without_ traffic,
infrastructure, etc., CANNOT exist. We need to get rid of the cars.

[https://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21720269-dont-let-
pe...](https://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21720269-dont-let-people-park-
free-how-not-create-traffic-jams-pollution-and-urban-sprawl)

------
gxs
My dad is in construction and I thought I'd chime in with another practical
reason.

Once you're building at larger scales, the cost of materials between a luxury
condo and a subluxury condo are different, but not astronomically so.

Developers will go to China, Mexico, etc. and source some really nice stuff
very cheaply. Sure, there are exceptions, i.e., materials that are expensive
no matter what, but once you figure out a way to use cheap labor, the actual
building materials are cheap.

It's similar to luxury cars - the "luxury" part doesn't necessarily cost a lot
more (but yes does cost a bit more) but it can be marked up a lot, lot more.

~~~
jaclaz
>It's similar to luxury cars - the "luxury" part doesn't necessarily cost a
lot more (but yes does cost a bit more) but it can be marked up a lot, lot
more.

This is also correct, but there is an additional twist to it.

Non-luxury may be not marketable (besides bringing less margin).

It is a curious market, I have seen more than one case of building companies
that were put on their knees by the lack of buyers because they built "too
basic" houses, believing that the relatively low price would have procured
lots of willing buyers and this simply didn't happen, and they had to apply
rebates over rebates, thus losing money in real terms to be able to sell them
(if/when this actually happened).

------
panic
This is an interesting point about college education:

 _Traditionally, contracting was the best paying "blue collar" job out there,
and to a certain extent it still is. If you were smart, hardworking, but
didn't go to college, you started hauling bricks on a construction site and
then worked your way up to general contractor over the course of years. Lots
of the best GCs out there did this. But, as less and less of super capable
kids DON'T go to college, there are less super capable 18 yearolds hauling
bricks and 10 years later, less super capable GCs._

As more and more kids are going to college, who will do these high-skill blue-
collar jobs?

~~~
Joe-Z
Probably the same super capable kids just starting 10 years later as - still
super capable - adults, realizing that their college degree has brought them
virtually zero advantage over everyone else in the labour market.

~~~
jaclaz
Well, it's not the same thing.

When you are 20 and you are given an opportunity of growing fast through
learning from experience, you are willing to do _anything_ including brick
laying and if you are actually super-capable by the time you are 30 or 35 you
have no matches (and not in just brick laying).

But this is _because_ you moved by hand thousands of bricks, and tons of
mortar, and lots of double shifts and working weekends, and you did that
because it was an opportunity to grow AND you were a blank sheet to begin
with.

When you get 30 you have some 5 years of college, if in US a huge student
debt, and 5 years of failures in getting an adequate job, possibly a family,
you simply won't be able to put in the energy and the time that you already
spent.

In a nutshell if you start from the bootom at 30 in this field you need to be
super-super-capable, and it is rare enough, because if you were really super-
super-capable you would have alredy found another job, another field, etc. and
be successful at it.

~~~
FLUX-YOU
>because if you were really super-super-capable you would have alredy found
another job, another field, etc. and be successful at it.

Job markets aren't efficient at matching supply to demand. Trying different
opportunities takes a large amount of time. I can't hit up construction, IT,
healthcare, physics, retail, banking, and academic industries in a week to
find out if I'm cut out for at least one of them.

~~~
jaclaz
> I can't hit up construction, IT, healthcare, physics, retail, banking, and
> academic industries in a week to find out if I'm cut out for at least one of
> them.

Sure, but the hypothetical 30ish super-super-capable would have had roughly 5
years (not just one week) to find something _better_ before starting brick
laying, and this is the typical CATCH 22, if you are super-super-capable it
doesn't take you 5 years to fail to find something.

------
jeffbax
LA, and most US cities, need to be more like Tokyo -- which has much better
zoning/building regulations (as in, less onerous).

> Here is a startling fact: in 2014 there were 142,417 housing starts in the
> city of Tokyo (population 13.3m, no empty land), more than the 83,657
> housing permits issued in the state of California (population 38.7m), or the
> 137,010 houses started in the entire country of England (population 54.3m).

[http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/08/lai...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/08/laissez-
faire-in-tokyo.html)

[http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/08/the...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/08/the-
japanese-zoning-system.html)

~~~
wodenokoto
The thing is, in Tokyo most housing projects are just replacing already
existing houses. In California they are adding houses.

------
dankohn1
The parking minimums are destroying our cities. Nevertheless, even luxury
developments lead to more affordable housing do to filtering:
[https://www.vox.com/cards/affordable-housing-
explained/filte...](https://www.vox.com/cards/affordable-housing-
explained/filtering-vs-gentrification-a-key-housing-concept)

------
jeffdavis
Short version: affordable housing is illegal to build.

A bunch of people sit around thinking "Wouldn't rooftop gardens be nice? Hey,
let's make it a law that you have to build them on all new towers!". And then
they are surprised that the housing costs more and excludes lower-middle
class.

------
tomjakubowski
Here's the relevant regulation:
[http://netinfo.ladbs.org/ladbsec.nsf/d3450fd072c7344c882564e...](http://netinfo.ladbs.org/ladbsec.nsf/d3450fd072c7344c882564e5005d0db4/72f24c5fab8bd39788256a160067e2e2/$FILE/Summary%20of%20Parking%20Regulations%20final.pdf)

Note that historic buildings converted into residential are exempt from any
parking requirement. Downtown LA is teeming with historic buildings that are,
if not actually then practically, vacant. Many of the commercial building
conversions I'm aware of in downtown are becoming luxury lofts; a minority
have been or will be converted into SRO or otherwise "non-luxury" housing.

But that's all anecdotes. If anyone has data on historic building conversions
since, say, 2000, in downtown LA, or knows how I could get data like that, it
would scratch an itch I've had for a while now.

------
givemefive
they only build luxury developments in dallas too.. it's not exactly rocket
science as too why.. the land is expensive and they need a ROI.

they take care of parking with prefabricated 5 story garages.

------
thecopy
Government policies and regulations working against what their benefactors
originally planned for, where have i seen this before?

~~~
mtanski
Yeah, it's a case of I got mine. Different side of the same I got mine RE coin
(rent regulated units).

------
pbreit
I'm confused. $165/sf is very inexpensive ($200k for the 800sf condo with
parking). Even $200-300/sf is not bad.

~~~
mtanski
He's talking about LA not SF. Building anything in SF is even whackier then in
LA.

~~~
suhastech
I think he means square feet.

