Comments on: A hole in the literature?

By: white label seo reseller program

white label seo reseller program — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 11:19:53 +0000

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By: Wad

Wad — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 10:27:00 +0000

Emily, think of Hollywood as L.A.’s equivalent of Brooklyn or Queens. It has long been an urban neighborhood and was so even when it was a suburb in the late 1800s.

You’re right that the tenants have an incentive to oppose the change. It’s not really a density issue per se, but the biggest quality of life issue there is all the added automobile traffic the recent developments have brought. It’s gotten to the point that Angelenos have become so spooked by the specter of traffic that they now oppose any activity that might lead someone, somewhere to get in a car and partake in it. Even in Hollywood, which has one of the highest public transit utilization rates in California.

As for the tenants not wanting the places to go market-rate, it’s deeper than economics. It’s a personal level. Many of them don’t see a good outcome. They dread a Hollywood of W Hotel clones because projects like these banish them from their own neighborhoods. About 90% of Hollywood’s current residents cannot afford market-rate TOD projects. It’s a Pareto nightmare for them — 90% of these projects will go to the top 10% of the market who can pay those rents.

It’s like a modern version of “Death and Life” playing out, only with transit oriented development instead of suburban colonialism as the pretext for deracination.

If you want to follow specific development projects, Curbed LA (http://la.curbed.com) is a great site to follow.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 02:12:00 +0000

“However, land that is not economically viable for redevelopment and
perhaps some land near this margin would fall in value due to the
increased supply permitted.”

If we’re talking about mixed-use development, yes, supply will rise, but so will demand, so land values won’t necessarily fall as a result of the increased supply.

By: Charlie Gardner

Charlie Gardner — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 17:58:00 +0000

I guess I would be a bit skeptical of awp’s claim that an upzoning could result in drastic value declines elsewhere in a city. At the time an upzoning takes place, all that has changed is the potential for certain land to host higher intensity uses, which may be reflected in speculatively higher per acre land prices (depending on local demand). The added supply may not materialize at all, or make take years to appear, and when it does, it may simply absorb population growth rather than poaching demand from existing places. Property values in built-up areas shouldn’t be affected greatly, if at all, by this initial zoning change. My guess is that other more immediate factors are much more important in determining base value: the presence of city services and infrastructure, transportation options, the quality of local schools, local governance, etc. There are other complicating factors, too. The precedent set by a rezoning in one area may set off speculation in a adjacent neighborhood that such an upzoning could occur there, too, causing prices to spike rather than fall (I have witnessed this phenomenon at work in Nashville, where one neighborhood’s opposition to the rezoning of nearby land for a major condominium development fed on fear of increased values, not decreased values). If the markets for single-family homes and apartments are discrete, the pending loss of homes in the rezoned area may through scarcity increase the value of others nearby. If upzoning does eventually increase the appeal of a central area through increased supply of high-quality dwellings, that appeal may carry over into adjacent areas as well (I’ve seen this too, reflected in realtors’ pitches for single-family homes). Even were zoning somehow abolished in an entire city, I don’t think the effects on suburban values would be as significant as some would imagine. Low-density suburbanization was proceeding rapidly long before the first zoning codes came on the books. The highways would still be there, and the ease of adding new greenfield development compared the difficulty of urban infill and redevelopment would continue to encourage expansion at the fringes. Houston may be the closest thing to an example, but even there the intense redevelopment of the neighborhoods in and around the downtown has only absorbed a tiny fraction of the net population increase from 2000-2010.

By: Emily Washington

Emily Washington — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 03:10:00 +0000

Interesting, it’s great to have more details on the proposed changes to Hollywood and the current landscape. The article I had seen on it made it sound like many single family lots would be upzoned. The interest group of tenants in rent-controlled apartments face double incentives to oppose the change, it sounds like, since they might not want more density and certainly wouldn’t want the neighborhood to go market-rate.

By: Wad

Wad — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 23:42:00 +0000

Those old buildings are spoken for. The mid-rise at Hollywood and Vine on the southwest corner is now a condo complex. The other buildings are offices that are still reasonably occupied. The W complex, which I pointed to in the map, replaced what had been low-rise and low-value land. When Metro built the subway, it was essentially an open courtyard for more than a decade with a parking lot in the back for bus layovers. The residential part, on Vine and Selma (where the Trader Joe’s is), used to be a DMV office with its neighbors being single-story storefronts. It was easy to clear out these buildings, and that’s why the project wraps around the old mid-rise on the southeast corner.

The affected areas that would be upzoned are all around and in between these places. The midrises would likely stand, as they are built from more durable materials built for commercial environments. It’s the smaller stucco, crackerbox and multiplexed ex-SFRs that would be affected.

The goal would likely to be orienting the megaprojects around Hollywood and Sunset boulevards, which would affect everything from Franklin Avenue (or the 101 Freeway) to the north to Fountain Avenue to the south. It would basically follow the subway’s route. West of the subway (where it turns north toward the San Fernando Valley), Hollywood is already very dense and high-income and harder to redevelop. East of Western Avenue, it’s harder to redevelop because of the institutional landholders in the Church of Scientology and three major medical facilities near Vermont Avenue.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 11:33:00 +0000

Heh– I can’t help but notice that the neighbors of these new highrises are… old highrises. Is it correct to say that before the upzoning, the old buildings would not be permitted?

Regarding the long-time renters, looking at that map I see no shortage of lots that could be built on without touching any existing housing.

At least in San Francisco, the question of longtime renters has been dealt with by requiring the new buildings to contain designated replacement “voluntarily” rent-controlled units, so that there’s no reduction in rent-controlled housing.

By: Wad

Wad — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 07:51:00 +0000

I’m an L.A. resident and I’ll give background on the Hollywood upzoning plans.

Hollywood is already a dense, urban neighborhood with mostly apartments and condos and a small and dwindling number of single-family homes. The remainder of non-rental residences are large-lot estates that are north of Hollywood Boulevard, at the base of the hills or in the hills. This is not affected by upzoning.

The plans call for upzoning for high-rise residential and commercial density near the subway stations and along Hollywood and Sunset boulevards. The goal is for more commercial development on the scale of Hollywood & Highland ( http://g.co/maps/2e3ua ) or the residential-commercial mixed use like the one at Hollywood & Vine ( http://g.co/maps/44m6z ). These two are massive projects built atop subway stations, and they are to serve as catalysts for similar developments nearby.

The biggest pushback comes not from property owners, but from longtime renters in the neighborhood. Hollywood is largely low-income renters, transient tenants and owing to the show business, a great deal of flake renters (those who can’t pay on a regular basis). What the tenants fear is the loss of pre-1977 rentals.

L.A. has a rent stabilization policy in effect on all properties that existed when the law was passed in 1977. Any property newer than that is unaffected and tenants pay market rates. The pre-1977 buildings set a fixed percentage at which rents can be raised for existing tenants, and it applies to both leased and month-to-month units. Rents can rise to market rates when the apartment is vacated, but the stabilization applies to the new tenant as well.

Hollywood has mostly absentee landlords who would love to cash out their property to a luxury developer, especially to get out from rent stabilization laws and because the buildings have outlived their usefulness.

Residents, naturally, are afraid they’ll lose their homes and priced out of the neighborhood market altogether.