Mildly Interesting

21369 readers

911 users here now

This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.

This is obviously an objective criteria, so the mods are always right. Or maybe mildly right? Ahh.. what do we know?

Just post some stuff and don't spam.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

This obscure rule is one reason San Francisco can’t build more housing (www.sfchronicle.com)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

29 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It's true, it's still a bit more expensive to build, but the profit motive is removed. Public housing doesn't need to recoup its costs. People need housing, you build housing.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It's important for public projects to manage their costs as well, as it affects how much can be built using the limited public funds available. I think we can all agree that we need large amounts of public housing in constrained places like San Francisco, to alleviate the current situation.

It is in fact one of the major advantages of building public housing - you unlock the lower costs of building at scale, which reduces costs in several ways:

Building the same type of units makes workers familiar with the product and allows them to complete them faster
Pre-fabricated modular units can be constructed off-site and shipped in, and making them at scale drives costs down
Large contracts are more lucrative and can hence be negotiated to better rates with contractors

For a wildly successful example, look to Miljonprogrammet that took place in Sweden during the 60s and 70s. Following that project, a vast supply of housing was available for the population, with housing costs below 1% of income being common.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I don't dispute any of that. More housing, modular construction, all great. It's just separate from the issue of this staircase requirement. I don't have any stake in staircases. If building technology makes the requirement obsolete, great. If the fire department is happy with one staircase, great. It just doesn't sound plausible that 6-15% premium for additional staircases is a root cause of the housing crisis, when developer profit opportunity is clearly the greater constraint.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

If the fire department is happy with one staircase, great.

Fire departments make for very poor authorities on these matters, unfortunately. See the issue of them mandating completely oversized roads, since they can't imagine smaller fire engines that have precedent around the world.

It just doesn't sound plausible that 6-15% premium for additional staircases is a root cause of the housing crisis, when developer profit opportunity is clearly the greater constraint.

That's the thing though - there is no single root cause for the housing crisis. It's just a bunch of small issues stacked on top of each other, and each has to be addressed individually.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

I'm still not sure if we're disagreeing even. Yeah, there are lots of issues at play, and I don't have strong feelings about stairs either way. I just think among all the issues, start with the most egregious, which is the commodification of housing. Beyond that, sure, tackle all the issues of inefficiency including outdated stair laws. The stair issue just feels like a scapegoat to avoid talking about societal issues.