NYC already has such a ban.
Edinburgh (and Scotland) also has one but it got challenged in court.
They are modifying the legislation to account for some issues raised by the judge and I expect it to pass shortly.
Edinburgh has a horrific housing problem due to Airbnb. Same with Glasgow now.
Its because of the avalanche of students and visitors coming in. Prices have increased so much which is now pricing many locals out.
I don’t expect much to happen in England until the Tories are given the boot in 2024.
There has been a noticeable uptick in Vancouver in the number of condos for sale that were formerly short-term rentals. It may be partially because of the looming ban on such rentals or it could also be that it is harder to make money on rentals when your financing cost has risen to 6% from the 2% of early 2022. Unlike the US, variable interest rate mortgages were very popular in Canada.
Kudos to Houston for its progress on homelessness. However even Vancouver might make progress if we could provide 1 bedroom apartments for $100K.
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Makes some sense to me?
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Canada simply doesn’t have enough workers to construct homes,
Presumably this is verified by comparing construction workers’ salaries to actuaries’ salaries.
Interesting article on the “hollowing out” of London as younger people move further out to escape London housing costs. My daughter certainly had to move further south from London to find (barely) affordable housing.
Same phenomenon happening in Vancouver. Young people cannot afford to buy in Vancouver without very high paying jobs or significant parental assistance. However zoning has been greatly liberalized in Vancouver so there should be much more densification going forward if we can find enough construction workers to build the houses.
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Our province of British Columbia has mandated minimum 20 story residential buildings within 200 metres of transit train stations and minimum eight-storey buildings within 800 metres. Other mandates include permission for four-plexes in residential areas. Many other provisions were introduced to increase housing and increase affordability in their new housing blueprint.
The house next door will be torn down and replaced by a four-plex. Since we will soon to be next to a construction site, we are contemplating building a lane house in our backyard for our son or to rent out.
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If I understand this correctly, the words " the B.C. government has introduced a new set of bills " mean something much stronger than “Some members of the US Congress introduced a new set of bills”. Even if those members have the President’s support, they are unlikely to pass. In B.C., does “introduce” pretty much guarantee “pass”?
I like the idea of having the very tall buildings within 200 metres as it can get you high enough to not hear the train noise so much. The eight-storey within 800 metres I think is an overkill.
Once you go above four or five storeys (which is common in Europe) it loses the human scale and a sense of community. You can’t see facial expressions or hold a conversation with someone on the top floor anymore and it starts to feel like a soulless canyon. This is the missing middle that urban designers talk about and is very rare in North America.
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What are you basing this comment on? In my experience when you’re forced to share an elevator with your neighbors you end up getting to know them a lot better.
Huh? I can confirm that human eyeballs work just fine at heights well above the top of residential high rises.
Ah, by spending time in Europe. If you can hold a conversation with someone eight storeys above and see their facial expressions, more power to you.
You’re only meeting people in your own building that way, not people in your other buildings which you can if the buildings are lower.
I can hold a conversation with a person who resides 8 stories above me equally as easy as I can hold a conversation with someone who lives 1 story above me… which is to say that I can converse with them in the common areas.
If I’m actually in my unit I can’t converse with anyone who’s not also in my unit, except maybe if they’re in the hallway and my door is open or we’re on the phone.
You can hold a conversation with anyone in the world if you meet them in a common area. You can’t have a conversation with someone while they’re standing on their own balcony from the street unless the balcony is within three or four storeys of the ground. Sounds like you’ve never tried it (I believe you have been to Europe).
I have been to Europe. I don’t think that having a conversation with a neighbor on a balcony while you’re on the ground (or vice versa) is something that would happen much in a busy city in the United States due to the ambient noise.
I agree that it would be harder. I have experienced it when I lived in downtown areas in New York and midwest college towns but it is very rare. One of the reasons it works in Europe is that by having medium density (closer to everything and good public transit), there is less need for frequent car trips so the neighborhoods are quieter.
IMO the market would have figured out that there are people who want to live close to rail stations (at least before COVID there were; more WFH now).
In SoCal, the issue was allowing it, which they have. Speculators were buying up land around subway stops in the 90’s.
Is this a common phenomenon? I’ve never liked in like, NYC, but I’ve had a first-story balcony in a mid-size city and the closest to a “conversation” was somebody shouting to ask if I can buzz them in.
People talking at my balcony seems like something you’d have to pay extra to avoid.
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It would depend on how open the culture is. In my experience, you might be walking down the street, you see someone on their balcony, you wave, they wave back. After a few times you might exchange a few pleasantries and you can give each other a heads up about the latest community news. It feels more like a community rather than a bunch of impersonal glass apartment buildings.
Of course, if they don’t wave back, nothing needs to be said.
Added, for societal pressures of small-town life.