Squidworth89 t1_ja8ip4u wrote on February 27, 2023 at 5:10 PM

Reply to comment by Intru in That 44-unit tiny home development, built by employer who can't keep staff by GraniteGeekNH

Sorta.

Most employers in America aren’t “corporate America”. The other poster seems to not understand there’s a difference there. Majority of jobs are employed by small businesses.

Wages are certainly an issue however in a competitive economy (where most small businesses operate) individual businesses cannot wander too far from the pack with wages or they’re no longer able to compete. Wage reform needs to be system wide.

Zoning is the only real issue to focus on for affordability. I use my mums house in San Diego as a perfect example. She could get a million plus for it. The house itself is like 900sf… meh quality. The land is what’s driving the price. Those cities are god awful. Like mostly single family zoned which is why they’re so expensive. Could tear her house down and she still get most of the price for it. Even the article points out that to build larger units they’d have to pay an additional $13,000 per unit fee which is asinine.

Intru t1_ja8npet wrote on February 27, 2023 at 5:42 PM

I agree with you that zoning is probably the most practical of the systemic issue that could be used to address affordability. Land use reform touches a lot of areas and can be used to reduce economic burdens that have to do with wage stagnation and rising cost of services, increase transportation costs, and other "capitalistic" pressures. If land is disproportionately expensive in desirable areas due to its access to work,services and the restrictions placed on new development. There's only two ways realistically that you can create housing that has a modicum of affordability. One is government intervention, either directly through things like subsidies or rent controls, etc or more indirectly like supporting community developments like the german "Baugruppen". Or through increasing the efficiency of the property though thing like upping its density, which before exclusionary zoning (direct government intervention through developer lobbying and community pressures) of the 1900s was just part of the natural growth of a city.