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Month February 2009

How to Sidestep FAR Restrictions: Mezzanine Floors

Most municipalities use the Floor Area Ratio (F.A.R.) metric to restrict development within their communities.  F.A.R. is calculated by dividing the total floor area of a building by the area of the site it is built upon.  In achieving planners’ and neighbors’ questionable objective of “preserving the character” of their communities, F.A.R. is a somewhat arbitrary metric that does little to effectively regulate “character”. In what I see as a great example of the silliness of FAR limits, a recent development in Brooklyn used an interesting, yet not unusual, method to build more space than allowed by zoning laws: mezzanine floors.  From Curbed NY: On the blueprints as "storage space" and not calculated into the building’s overall floor-to-area ratio, the zoning-busting half-floors can be converted to living space after the fact, as long as it’s kept reasonably hush-hush—though the broker in this case eagerly told the gadfly, "Those storage spaces can be converted into living spaces after the closing." Maybe a bump on the head is to blame? Photos from original source, Pardon Me For Asking:   The lengths developers are willing to go to subvert zoning, goes to show the extent that restrictions harm the marketplace.  Unfortunately, methods like this aren’t effective against more affordability-destroying restrictions such as limits on the number of units allowed on a piece of land.

Tagged (7 things about me)

Chris Bradford at Austin Contrarian tagged me back in December. It hasn’t fallen off my radar, and I’ve been meaning to get to it this whole time. I’m supposed to tell seven things about myself and tag seven other blogs to do the same.  (I probably won’t tag others.  Is that lame?)  It seems like a good opportunity to break from the usual seriousness of the blog… 1. Speaking of Texas, I’ve only been there once – the 2005 World Series in Houston. I had some great BBQ, but the friendly Houstonians were as memorable as the game. Many saw me with my jersey, smiled, and said, "welcome to Houston" when I was expecting, "go back to Chicago…" I now try to extend the same hospitality to visitors I see on the street – except Packers fans. (Sorry, I just can’t.  Someone wearing a Packers jersey could save my life, and I’d still probably cling to that rivalry.  Goes back to my two years of being a F.I.B. in Milwaukee…) 2.  In my past life, I was a structural engineer.  I worked for mostly public clients, none of whom impressed me at all.  This heightened my distaste for bureaucrats.  Rather than refocusing on private clients, I went back to school to study real estate development.  Studying economics in preparation for masters-level business classes opened my eyes to a new way of seeing the world.  This exploration continues here…. 3.  My first job was at Little Caeser’s Pizza.  It was fun for awhile back in my high school days.  I honestly don’t have any stories of disgusting things we did to people’s food.  But, I will say the tuna salad for sandwiches was not always fresh, and the quality of the ingredients decreased quickly while I worked there – especially the […]

Urban[ism] Legend: The Myth of Herbert Hoover

Herbert Hoover is not a man I consider a “Legend” – quite the contrary.  I use the words “Urbanism Legend” in the context of the series of posts intended to dispel popular myths as they relate to urbanism. Myths and fallacies about Herbert Hoover are abundant these days as the media discusses the Great Depression. Most of the myths incorrectly accuse Hoover of being a laissez-faire ideologue. However, Hoover is better described as a Progressive, and strongly believed in the power of government to shape society. (at the time Progressive elitists enjoyed a home within the Republican party and advocated vast social engineering programs such as alcohol prohibition) This was a significant departure from the relatively laissez-faire doctrines of previous Republican Presidents Coolidge and Harding. In fact, Hoover’s commitment to progressive programs prompted Franklin Roosevelt’s running mate, John Nance Garner, to accuse the Republican of “leading the country down the path of socialism” during the 1932 presidential campaign. I urge everyone to learn more about Hoover’s progressive interventionist policies on your own. (I also recommend Rothbard’s America’s Great Depression)  But, let’s look at Hoover’s anti-urbanist interventions, and legacy of sprawl. Hoover, an engineer by trade, was a strong supporter of the Efficiency Movement, a significant campaign of the Progressive Era.  He believed everything would be made better if experts identified the problems and fixed them, and that efficiency could be achieved through government-forced standardization of products. This helps explain Hoover’s zealous affection for planning, zoning, home ownership, and various objectives often shared by the (often conflicting) elitist-progressive strains seen in Robert Moses or Lewis Mumford (and later New Urbanists).   (not to be confused with the Roosevelt New Deal Democrats who preferred intervention to promote decentralization and ruralization) Hoover’s philosophy on planning and zoning could be exemplified by his praise of […]

The Nation’s mass transit hypocrisy

by Stephen Smith I was heartened to see an article about the need for mass transit in the pages of The Nation, though I was severely disappointed by the magazine’s own hypocrisy and historical blindness. The article is in all ways a standard left-liberal screed against the car and for mass transit, which is a topic close to my heart, though I’d prefer a more libertarian approach to returning America to its mass transit roots as opposed to the publicly-funded version that The Nation advocates. The first bit of historical blindness comes at the end of the second paragraph, when The Nation argues for government investment in mass transit on the grounds that it will “strengthen labor, providing a larger base of unionized construction and maintenance jobs.” But don’t they realize that the demands of organized labor were one of the straws that broke the privately-owned mass transit camel’s back during the first half of the twentieth century? Joseph Ragen wrote an excellent essay about how unions in San Francisco demanded that mass transit companies employ two workers per streetcar instead of one, codifying their wishes through a series of legislative acts and even a referendum. Saddled with these additional costs, the streetcar companies could not make a profit, and eventually the lines were paved over to make way for the automobile. Mass transit companies, whether publicly- or privately-owned, cannot shoulder the burden of paying above-market wages and still hope to pose any serious threat to the automobile’s dominance. The second, and perhaps more egregious error, comes a little later, when The Nation lays the blame on every group but itself for the deteriorating state of mass transit in America: Nonetheless, smart growth and transportation activists still have high hopes that the Obama administration and a Democratic Congress will revitalize […]

Density in the Animal Kingdom

Longtime reader, Dan M. wrote Hey Adam, I was on your site and saw that you posted a video about ant cities. ( I didn’t watch the vid yet, so my thought may or may not have anything to do with it) It’s funny that you posted it because it sounds related to something I’ve been thinking about. I know we have stats for population densities across the world for people, but I have been wondering, in terms of the animal kingdom, which species seem to thrive at which densities? It would seem to me that the purest form of survival would design the most ideal community in the wild. Termites don’t get vouchers, subsidies, or free health care and work until each unit has been totally expended (no retirement) so it would seem that whatever community they form would be the most efficient for their needs and means (though it would probably technically be a monarchy). I’m not saying the animal world is a particularly pleasant or good model of what we should work towards, but I would like to know what the correlations are. Anyway, just a tangent of something I have been wondering about, but if we scaled different animal communities to equate to the densities of different types of human communities, which animals would be considered city dwellers, suburbanites, or country folk? What could we learn from that? Thought that would be a fun project to work on… Make sense to you? -Dan M While you could call it a Monarchy because there is a queen, the queen is only the birth-giver, not a ruler. There is no ruler in an ant colony, it’s a completely emergent order. Well, we know ants are city dwellers. I thought I’d throw Dan’s questions out there to the readers. […]

NY Rent Control Revival

In an act of pure legislative idiocy in the face of overwhelming consensus among economists against rent control, the New York State Assembly started the ball rolling to strengthen rent regulation. NY Times: The Democratic-led Assembly passed a broad package of legislation designed to restrain increases on rent-regulated apartments statewide. The legislation would essentially return to regulation tens of thousands of units that were converted to market rate in recent years. In addition, the legislation would reduce to 10 percent, from 20 percent, the amount that a landlord can increase the rent after an apartment becomes vacant; limit the owner’s ability to recover a rent-regulated apartment for personal use; and increase fines for landlords who are found to have harassed their tenants as a way of evicting them. The legislation would also repeal the Urstadt Laws’ provision that in 1971 effectively took away most of New York City’s authority to regulate rents and transferred it to the state. Opponents of the legislation are concerned that the New York City Council, known for its pro-tenant leanings, would enact laws that are unfavorable to landlords. Expect some amazingly ignorant quotes from legislators while this is debated: Linda B. Rosenthal, an assemblywoman who represents the Upper West Side, said that unless rent-regulation laws were changed, middle class people were at risk of being driven out of the city. Actually, rent control drives out the middle class, making housing only affordable to the rich and beneficiaries of subsidies and rent controls. New housing will be nearly impossible for middle class tenants to find. Plus, for those who favor one particular class of people over others, rent control increases class tensions… “Pretty soon we’re going to end up with a city of the very poor and the very rich,” Ms. Rosenthal said. “Our social fabric […]

Illinois Court Rules Against Chicago’s “Vague” Landmark Ordinance

Chicago Real Estate Daily: An Illinois appellate court has struck down the city of Chicago’s landmarks ordinance, saying it is unconstitutionally vague, putting in jeopardy the city’s protection of more than 250 buildings and 50 historic districts. Judge James Fitzgerald Smith of the three person Appellate Court wrote, “We believe that the terms ‘value,’ ‘important,’ ‘significant,’ and ‘unique’ are vague, ambiguous, and overly broad”, and thus found the ordinance in violation of the state constitution. The case involved two plaintiffs and two landmarked districts where attempts to downzone the areas failed before landmarking. However, once the case (including appeals) is over, Chicago’s entire landmarks ordinance would be completely invalidated. Wow! I am surprised this isn’t making bigger waves in Chicago, and other cities. What should we expect to happen if appeals by The City should fail? Would property owners rush to tear down their landmarks before The City enacts a new landmarks ordinance? Per Tribune Architecture critic, Blair Kamin (who calls the ruling wrong-headed, but fielded some good comments): The laws are based on a 1978 U.S. Supreme Court ruling which stopped the bankrupt Penn Central Railroad’s attempt to pile a 55-story office building atop New York City’s Beaux-Arts Grand Central Terminal. In that ruling, the court held that communities have the right to safeguard significant pieces of property, so long as they do not trample the rights of the properties’ owners. The key word is “significant,” a word that appears frequently in Chicago’s seven criteria for landmark designation, as in the site of a significant historical event or a building that is the work of a significant architect. It makes you wonder if there is a more robust solution to landmarks that does less to compromise the property rights of the land owners, and isn’t vulnerable to unforeseen court […]

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