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MrsBeansAppleSnaps t1_j5ag8h7 wrote

Reply to comment by SabbathBoiseSabbath in MaineHousing ready to spend $21 million to provide overnight shelters this winter by Shake-Spear4666

You genuinely have no idea what you're talking about. And why would you? Being 2,000 miles away from here...

Maine has been underbuilding for a long time. We were short thousands of units already in 2019. Now of course it's much worse in the remote work/airbnb world we live in. And no, Portland was not that affordable before Covid. While it looks like the population hasn't been growing fast, what your little analysis doesn't include is that's because many people, particularly smart young people, simply leave the state for better opportunities. If there were jobs and reasonably priced homes here, they might stay. Not to mention people delaying having children because of the cost of living, which keeps the population low.

Even now, with a tremendous amount of demand for housing, there is very little construction taking place. If you were actually from here you could drive around and see for yourself. Portland is building some units; great. But pretty much every other town kills every project in sight for no reason at all. Let me know if you want me to send you the articles, there are dozens.

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SabbathBoiseSabbath t1_j5azz34 wrote

Maybe I don't. That's why I asked.

But historic housing prices and population growth rates would suggest otherwise, even in Portland, up until around 2019-ish.

Unlike where I'm from (Boise) which has had one of the highest growth rates over the past 20 years, even more so over the past 5, and the surge in prices reflect that. And even so we weren't dramatically under built until maybe around 2019. Certainly wasn't in most of the rest of that, which had a more flat (or declining) population and low housing prices (sub $200k) until 2020, and now most stuff is above $300k.

There's something else going on. There's no way Rupert Idaho has ubderbuilt homes over the past 20 years when people were literally leavong, population was declining, and house prices were cheap (but not now).

And I recognize you from some of the planning forums... and you're a complete ideologue about this stuff.

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AssumptionLivid6879 t1_j5b2jhy wrote

How do armchair urban planners end up on these kind of threads?

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SabbathBoiseSabbath t1_j5b63f4 wrote

Well, except I'm actually an urban planner (for over 20 years) and I actually mod the urban planning forum, but nevermind all that, right....?

I'm curious. It's why I asked the question. I don't presume to know much about Maine.

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AssumptionLivid6879 t1_j5b72o6 wrote

Then what happened to Boise LOL

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SabbathBoiseSabbath t1_j5b9r7s wrote

Probably something similar to Maine...

In a very short time a whole bunch of people moved into Boise from wealthier states and drove the median price from about $240k to over $560k... that's in just under 3 years.

Meanwhile our minimum wage is still $7.25/hr and wages simply haven't kept pace.

We still do build a lot, more and more year over year, but we've just hit a limit on how much we can pump out. Partially because of the number of construction workers we have in the area, plus Covid-related shut downs, supply chain issues, developers not wanting to over leverage or carry risk, how long it took to restart construction coming out of the 2008 Recession, etc. A while bunch of reasons.

So we're behind and getting more behind, but it isn't a zoning or "NIMBY" issue either. We've capped out how much we are able to build. And over the past 6 months developers are pushing pause on projects.

It's not just a sprawl or density thing either. We're doing both. We have an entire downtown area (west downtown) which is mostly empty parking lots, that is already zoned for multiuse, multifamily, no height limit, high density development. Developers aren't bringing those projects (lots of reasons why).

So yeah, it's complicated. Far beyond what a single planner can do. But it's always fun when the actual armchair planners (like you) tell me what's what... especially when they're usually in their mid 20s and have just started watching Strongtowns or Notjustbikes over the last year or two and are now experts on everything. It makes for a good laugh.

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