myths of luxury housing

[mindstalk]

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/4/27/are-new-homes-mostly-luxury-does-it-matter-if-they-are

* new construction does lower prices
* most homes are inhabited, and vacancy rates are low in high cost cities; keeping housing off the market isn't a big thing
* "luxury" is a meaningless marketing term, applicable to utterly banal stuff. Also a meaningless term of opprobrium, as when owners of $2 million homes sneer at $500,000 "luxury" condos.
* But what is normal now is more 'luxurious' than in 1971. New apartments come with amenity services like concierge, gyms, pools. Houses have doubled in size and are on larger lots.
* Actual cost of constructing housing hasn't changed much, but costs go up with land cost and size.

* Main thing driving all that is zoning laws: they require large lots, off-street parking, and low levels of density. And when stuff has to be expensive, you aim upmarket, thus gyms.

* Adding my own knowledge here: absuridities like 800 square foot studios can probably be explained by zoning laws requiring more parking for 1BRs than for studios.

Comments

[contrarianarchon]

... why would one bedroom places need more parking than studio apartments? If there's the same number of expected residents then the difference is just "we don't think people in studio's can afford cars", isn't it? and that's the kind of thing "parking that costs additional money" is meant to be able to control as a signal? I wouldn't be surprised if there were rules like that, it seems like a perfectly possible artefact of layered zoning rules, but it still seems wrong (even assuming e.g. that you think parking requirements are ever a good idea)

[mindstalk]

I'm not sure why it's a thing; maybe they think 1BR is more likely to house a couple than a studio is, especially with an assumption that studios are smaller.

But it is a thing. I first saw it in I think the Cambridge or Somerville code, and I found it last night in the Los Angeles code, seeking to explain a 830 sqft studio a friend had found.