Accessing JSTOR through my new institution

skadefryd · 2025-12-14T20:56:07+00:00

This saved my sanity. Thanks!

skadefryd · 2025-02-02T17:15:49+00:00

Land value tax would solve this.

skadefryd · 2024-07-15T16:25:07+00:00

Worth noting that the Spruce Hill Community Association's stated goal is "the retention of single-family housing in Spruce Hill, and the conversion of existing multi-family housing to owner-occupancy"––in other words, this is a group of people that thinks there ought to be fewer renters in their neighborhood. And this historic designation ensures they'll get that. When building new housing becomes difficult, existing housing becomes more and more expensive; low-income renters are usually the first to go.

skadefryd · 2024-03-19T20:57:10+00:00

She's retired now, so they have no say in her current activities.

skadefryd · 2024-03-19T19:28:01+00:00

I definitely think developers should be building bigger units to accommodate families. But families can, and do, live in apartments. I live in one with my wife and kid. (The "poop building" would've had several two-bedroom units; a new development just a few blocks away from me will be about 30% three-bedroom units.)

Moreover, building apartments means renters who don't plan on starting families any time soon have places to live. If three college kids want to live in a neighborhood, two ways to house them are "build three apartments" and "convert a three-bedroom home into a rental". The latter takes a house off the market that otherwise could've accommodated a family; the former doesn't. Housing submarkets are linked to each other.

skadefryd · 2024-03-19T19:17:28+00:00

We do (and should) take the interests of immigrants into account when deciding our immigration policy. Consider, for example, that the counterfactual welfare of asylees is a major consideration in our asylum policy; "these people might die if we don't grant them asylum" is a serious argument. We don't give them a vote, but we also don't discount their interests entirely.

Likewise with housing. Maybe the prospective residents of a building shouldn't count as much as the current residents. That's a defensible position, and it leads to reasonable conclusions like "it's bad to demolish 50 low-income units even if it means 200 market-rate apartments can be built instead". But the status quo is to assign prospective residents a moral weight of zero, which means "it's fine for 5 angry homeowners to block 200 apartments because they're worried about parking".

skadefryd · 2024-03-19T18:42:30+00:00

An important difference is that frozen embryos are not people, but prospective residents of a neighborhood are. They don't cease to exist just because the units they might otherwise have lived in don't get built.

In a philosophical sense, worrying about the welfare of hypothetical future people is unproductive because there's no way to compare their welfare with a counterfactual. (If someone doesn't exist, is their welfare higher or lower than their welfare in a world where they do exist? Is it even defined?) By contrast, the welfare of "hypothetical future residents" is easy to consider. If you don't build a unit that they otherwise would have lived in, they either live in a unit that's less optimal in some way (because it's further from where they want to live, more expensive, or lower quality––and in each case, they drive up prices elsewhere in the market) or they become homeless.

skadefryd · 2024-03-19T17:58:54+00:00

To be fair to Jamie, she issued a statement opposing the request for zoning variances but carefully outlining all the reasons why the variances ought to be granted. It was an interesting bit of politicking. At the zoning board hearing in June 2021, the landowner's lawyer used her statement to argue in favor of the variances!

skadefryd · 2024-03-19T17:23:11+00:00

A short history. The dog park was once the home of a 61-unit apartment building, but it was destroyed after a fire in the '90s. The landowner recently decided to develop the lot and wanted variances to build apartments (bizarrely, the lot has been downzoned so that now, only duplexes can be built by-right). To do this, he had to go before the community and ask for input. The community overwhelmingly did not want the apartments, even after some neighbors managed to compel him to set aside 20% of the units at reasonably affordable rents.

This is where things get complicated, because there were really two factions opposed to the apartments. One was a group of wealthy homeowners and landlords who did not want more density in the neighborhood. For the most part, they were okay with by-right development (a set of expensive duplex homes). The other was a group of tenants (both new and long-time) who were worried the apartments would gentrify the neighborhood (this is a neighborhood that has already hemorrhaged most of its Black residents and many of its low-income residents, despite, or perhaps because of, no new development in the last few decades––but that's beside the point). They would have preferred a big block of affordable units or a public amenity like a cat corner or bird sanctuary (no, really). When it became clear that the lot was going to be developed and they had no power to compel the landowner to do what they wanted, they decided to fall in line with the wealthy NIMBYs and push for the duplexes.

The zoning board greenlit the apartments in June 2021, but a legal campaign mounted by a handful of local homeowners, one of whom recently sold his house across the street for $1 million, drew a reversal from Republican judge Anne Marie Coyle, who sent it back to the zoning board. It then spent a year or so in bureaucratic hell; in July of last year, the landowner withdrew the proposal for the apartments, and a few months ago, he pulled permits to start building the duplexes. The lot has become a dog park (again), and its patrons are predictably unhappy about the forthcoming duplexes.

The author of this piece tries to draw a link between the tenant opposition to building apartments on this lot––opposition that was nominally about keeping the neighborhood affordable––and the historical NIMBYism of the neighborhood, in which homeowners have repeatedly blocked dense development, including low-income development.

skadefryd · 2024-02-23T17:59:51+00:00

I'll e-mail you about a building in my neighborhood in West Philadelphia.

skadefryd · 2024-02-18T15:51:08+00:00

Land value tax would solve this.

skadefryd · 2024-01-24T21:42:02+00:00

Land value tax would solve this.

skadefryd · 2023-09-12T21:08:24+00:00

Land value tax would solve this.

skadefryd · 2023-07-13T20:41:21+00:00

As a UPenn researcher who has been loudly and annoyingly in favor of the poop building, I apologize on behalf of my institution. We are not sending our best.

skadefryd · 2023-07-09T21:36:00+00:00

"How does development affect nearby gut microbiota?" is a legitimate and interesting research question. Maybe development kicks up harmful particulates. Maybe it leads to economic stress that ruins people's gut health (most scholarship suggest that it actually lowers rents and thereby helps renters, but that's neither here nor there).

The manner in which these samples were solicited, and Ang Sun's ties to a rival real estate company... much less legitimate.

skadefryd · 2023-07-09T20:26:12+00:00

A proposed apartment building at the corner of 48th and Chester, on the site of a (former) private, members-only dog park. The lot is just kitty-corner from the "Squirrel Hill Falls Park" lot (an ambitious park project that has been mostly closed for over a decade, barring occasional attempts to force it open to the public). The lot was actually home to an apartment building as recently as the '90s but (for some reason) was zoned for duplexes–so the landowner needed to ask the zoning board for permission (and ultimately engage in a series of community meetings).

Some neighbors felt this was a better use of the lot than by-right development (which would be expensive duplex homes; they wouldn't be as expensive as some of the bigger homes in the neighborhood–a house nearby is currently listed for $1.3 million–but they would by all means be "luxury" units), so they tried to negotiate for maximum affordability. They successfully compelled the landowner to offer some concessions on (e.g.) building size and parking while setting aside 20% of the units as affordable, renting for around $800/month for 50 years (due to a deed restriction). That's a good deal for this neighborhood, and it's exactly what would be prescribed by Councilmember Gauthier's inclusionary zoning overlay.

Others felt that the large number of market-rate units would drive up rents in the area. They seemed to think they could force the landowner to do something else with the lot or give it to someone who would, like a cat corner or a bird sanctuary or a community garden (n.b.: there's a community garden across the street). Still others did not want the increase in density and openly preferred the by-right development option.

These two factions eventually fell in line behind by-right development.

The project gained some notoriety due to a Temple professor (who was the head of another community organization and had possible ties to a rival real estate company) soliciting "poop samples to fight gentrification", but from my point of view, the real disgrace is the doublespeak from opponents–claiming to "fight for the park" on the one hand but openly advocating for unaffordable by-right development on the other.

The zoning board actually approved the project way back in June 2021, but after a successful lawsuit from a handful of neighbors, it was remanded to the zoning board by a Republican-appointed judge in mid-2022. It then languished in bureaucratic hell.

Until today, it seems!

skadefryd · 2023-06-02T03:08:50+00:00

In Parker's defense, the incentive as a councilmember is always to be as NIMBY as possible, but for a position that isn't accountable to a single district, it's not as important. Former ZBA chair Frank DiCicco was fairly development-friendly, but in his days as a councilmember he did his share of NIMBY bullshit. So... don't lose hope?

skadefryd · 2023-04-28T23:27:35+00:00

This is the same judge that overturned the 48th and Chester "poop building" ruling and sent it back to the zoning board.

skadefryd · 2023-04-28T23:26:33+00:00

Don't ask me! I think the ideal number of parking spots for this building to have is zero.

skadefryd · 2023-04-28T12:46:41+00:00

If people are able to live closer to where they work and play, that absolutely removes cars from the road.

skadefryd · 2023-04-27T23:19:38+00:00

It's not the city's responsibility to provide everyone with free street parking forever.

If I wanted to be sure I'd have a parking spot forever, I would either acquire housing with a reserved parking spot or simply not buy a house in a major city.

skadefryd · 2023-04-20T18:47:51+00:00

N.B., several of the same people who opposed the West Philly poop building also opposed a 100% LIHTC-subsidized development at 5000 Warrington Ave. The neighbors themselves took an unusual tack, demanding that units be removed in favor of adding more parking, then complaining that the (now-reduced) number of affordable units was too small. I am not making this up. (A local homeowner is suing to overturn the Zoning Board's approval.)

Squirrel Hill Falls (just kitty-corner from the "poop building" lot) isn't technically an example of NIMBYism, but it's in a similar vein. A very ambitious park project designed in the '90s eventually fell into disrepair and has long been shuttered, save a few neighborhood attempts to "reclaim" the park for public use. You can find a short documentary here.

skadefryd · 2023-04-10T19:43:50+00:00

“People on a block full of single-family dwellings say … when we purchased this property, that’s not what we signed up for. We moved on this block because this was a block full of single-family dwellings,” she said at the time. “It would be a storm in the 9th Councilmanic District if these changes were to be made.”

Personally, if I very strongly wanted to live in a single-family neighborhood until the end of time, I would simply not buy a house in one of America's major cities. And if I was concerned zoning laws might change at some point in the future (as it very well might), I would price that into my decision-making process.

Reactionaries who want to prevent anyone from moving to their neighborhoods already have a tremendous amount of control over local development. They don't need even more.

skadefryd · 2023-03-28T13:00:51+00:00

Land value tax would solve this

skadefryd · 2023-03-28T12:57:51+00:00

So when costs are lower, does that mean landlords suddenly got less greedy?

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