There's a lot of this in the Boston area too- Concord, Needham, Newton. I agree that par of the problem is lack of density closer to the city to absorb some of the demand. In some of these places, there has also been some interesting subdividing, where an existing home on a large lot will build a new home on an old back or side yard, allowing for slightly more density while still being single family homes. We don't have the space here for massive subdivisions of new homes, so that demand is often captured in little additions to older lots.
I'm not sure if this is the most current ADU regulation, but this is from Fairfax County's site:
"[O]nly properties with at least two acres may apply for a detached accessory living unit. All detached units require a special permit application and a public hearing with the Board of Zoning Appeals."
I'd assume the places where you have two-acre zoning are more hostile to ADUs, and also less sensible places for people whose budget is an ADU to live.
Yikes! Yeah, in our area, they aren't ADUs but big McMansions on tiny plots- similar to what you described. I've been contemplating writing something about it for a while, but haven't found the right hook yet.
I have a Zillow alert for the Boston Metro West and I remember seeing a 900k place in Newton pop up and think "man, under a mill, that's a steal!" Then I looked and saw it was a complete teardown. Like not "needs elbow-grease" at all, pretty much unsalvagable.
I'm in Watertown and just got turned down to enclose my back porch (eking out a few more square feet that my 5 year old can play) because it's within 10 feet of my garage and thus "doesn't meet fire code" which is such a huge bummer. The only thing I can do to "grow into" my current place (the top half of a two family) would be to get dormers on the roof and try to finish the upstairs, which is probably conservatively a $75k investment.
Yeah, that's rough for sure! When we bought in 2008, we ended up way outside the city because of affordability. It wasn't bad when I worked in the suburbs, but now I have to commute downtown a fair amount, which has been tough.
If you're not familiar with her work, you may want to check out architect Sarah Susanka. Her speciality is making smarter use of small spaces and making houses more functional. She has a bunch of books on the topic and I recently interviewed her for my podcast: https://heathracela.substack.com/p/97-architect-sarah-susanka-on-living#details
We can't complain too much, but we did buy a small (1350sqft) place right on a bus route back when we each had to commute in every day. But we ought in Summer 2019, with a two-year-old, and now after 3 years of not getting out much the place feels *really* small with a going-on-six-year-old and the bus access is still good, but not nearly as big a benefit as it used to be.
Our next move is almost certainly going to be to the Southeast to be near aging parents...I'm not hopeful on finding anything nearly this walkable given our constraints on that, heh.
This is particularly interesting to me. I've been in this area for about ten years, and spent close to half of that time in Fairfax County. I noticed this as soon as I moved to the area, but thought nothing of it - I grew up in Central Florida where this has been commonplace at least since the 1980s. This article exactly describes the neighborhood I grew up in, hence why it was an afterthought to me coming up here. Interesting that this sort of wave in the housing market that may have started in a place like Florida has finally made its way up here (for better or worse).
As a resident of one of these many 1960s Fairfax County neighborhoods, I often find myself in the odd position of WISHING I had an HOA to help keep these teardowns under control (and otherwise help preserve the character of the neighborhood).
Perhaps that just makes me part of an unremarkable NIMBY majority (the HOA certainly wouldn’t help the push for multi-family units), but there is a lot of history and sense of place and community being bulldozed in service of unlocking the value of the land. We need better advocates in local government (or HOA pseudo local government) to support that.
Quick follow-up to say I just read your post on Culpeper and - wow! - you captured there wonderfully much of what I feel on this topic. More focus on smaller towns (cities), return to the “urban” core among the rural, and anything to break us out of this cycle of sprawl (sorry Fairfax).
"A lot of people look at this and think, this is what happens when we let developers run wild, and conclude that the answer is to throttle developers. I am much closer to thinking that we should, in fact, permit developers to run wild, and not force them to build only one type of building."
Framing the problem as "zoning" is a conceit pushed by developers, who always and everywhere just want to build the largest structure possible. The problem in the USA (IMO) isn't the size of buildings, or multi vs. single-family, but that everything is scaled and engineered around the car rather than people. Street widths, setbacks ("green space" is dead space), ponderously oversized lots, and minimum parking rules all contribute.
Giving architects and developers freedom is great, but whatever they produce needs to be right-scaled and appropriately integrated into the surroundings - and this is what zoning rules and building codes should enforce.
"Framing the problem as 'zoning' is a conceit pushed by developers, who always and everywhere just want to build the largest structure possible. The problem in the USA (IMO) isn't the size of buildings, or multi vs. single-family, but that everything is scaled and engineered around the car rather than people. Street widths, setbacks ('green space' is dead space), ponderously oversized lots, and minimum parking rules all contribute."
I take your point, but everything you just listed is an element of the typical zoning code!
Fair enough - I suppose my point is that zoning reform or 'densification' in practice means keeping all of the car-focused rules, scale, and streetscape while just grafting more people on top of it. It's readily apparent that the movement (again in actual practice) isn't driven by people trying to instantiate a particular vision of a place's urbanism - how it should look, feel and function - but rather by an alliance of corporate developers who care only about building and 'social justice' activists who (as they see it) are fighting a meta-struggle over class and race.
"Framing the problem as "zoning" is a conceit pushed by developers, who always and everywhere just want to build the largest structure possible."
Accurate. The trouble is that here, due to zoning, that means McMansions, rather than multi-plexes, apartment buildings, or 3 over 1 mixed use developments, because we don't allow that. All of our charming downtowns were built pre-zoning by developers as well, after all.
That being said, because those aren't allowed as the next level of development in most places, the industry isn't designed for it anymore. Nor is the finance world. Regulation is very powerful in shaping market forces, and then those forces shape regulation. It's a vicious cycle.
And even if you relax those rules today, builders will just keep building what they already know how to do. So you're right that new zoning codes would need to account for that. Theoretically, that's what Form-based zoning gets you, but even that can be suspect. But it may just be that to fix the mess that zoning gave us, we may need to lean into zoning to change the market back. If that's possible.
With regard to market forces in the absence of zoning restrictions, I think "more units" would happen when investors (at any scale) are the operators. But if individuals (who will live there) are the operators I think there will be "more size". I believe there is a huge demand for suburban/exurban style housing in first ring suburbs because it's the best of both worlds where you can still drive with relative ease, but also not drive with relative ease. This is what people, especially older and affluent who have spent time in autocentric places and realized the downsides, desire. As you pointed out, with current zoning the later is what happens. This is what is happening in Annapolis despite efforts by a minority of the City Council (and some residents of all stripes - but not enough to change the majority's minds) to allow denser and multi family housing everywhere.
"I believe there is a huge demand for suburban/exurban style housing in first ring suburbs because it's the best of both worlds where you can still drive with relative ease, but also not drive with relative ease."
That's really interesting - I wonder if that preference is so strong that it would survive a liberalized zoning regime, and bigger houses in quasi-walkable settings would still at least sometimes win out over densification. I think you're right about individuals vs investors/developers/builders, but I wonder which way prices would tilt in a different regulatory atmosphere.
I think the more liberal the environment, the more likely to attract institutional investors who will gladly overpay to make the purchase as long as they can make enough units high $ units to still make a profit. I think there is a sweet spot here because after a certain density (ie into non "luxury" apartment zone, the overall profit will start to diminish. Perhaps after that sweet spot you're more likely to attract apartments that use subsidies like low income tax credits. Not really sure on that end of the spectrum.
Zoning is in itself not a terrible concept. Most of my fellow Arlington citizens felt really put off by being told that if we supported zoning we must be "classist and racist" or "just old".
The messaging has to get better to avoid alienating people.
I don't really care for that messaging, but it has nothing to do with the underlying point about land use and land values. You can arrive at the same place via property rights arguments. But yes, housing advocates need to know their audience.
I absolutely hate that new style. It looks cheap and garish, despite costing a fortune. You can just tell they're going to age terribly
There's a lot of this in the Boston area too- Concord, Needham, Newton. I agree that par of the problem is lack of density closer to the city to absorb some of the demand. In some of these places, there has also been some interesting subdividing, where an existing home on a large lot will build a new home on an old back or side yard, allowing for slightly more density while still being single family homes. We don't have the space here for massive subdivisions of new homes, so that demand is often captured in little additions to older lots.
I'm not sure if this is the most current ADU regulation, but this is from Fairfax County's site:
"[O]nly properties with at least two acres may apply for a detached accessory living unit. All detached units require a special permit application and a public hearing with the Board of Zoning Appeals."
I'd assume the places where you have two-acre zoning are more hostile to ADUs, and also less sensible places for people whose budget is an ADU to live.
Yikes! Yeah, in our area, they aren't ADUs but big McMansions on tiny plots- similar to what you described. I've been contemplating writing something about it for a while, but haven't found the right hook yet.
I have a Zillow alert for the Boston Metro West and I remember seeing a 900k place in Newton pop up and think "man, under a mill, that's a steal!" Then I looked and saw it was a complete teardown. Like not "needs elbow-grease" at all, pretty much unsalvagable.
I'm in Watertown and just got turned down to enclose my back porch (eking out a few more square feet that my 5 year old can play) because it's within 10 feet of my garage and thus "doesn't meet fire code" which is such a huge bummer. The only thing I can do to "grow into" my current place (the top half of a two family) would be to get dormers on the roof and try to finish the upstairs, which is probably conservatively a $75k investment.
Yeah, that's rough for sure! When we bought in 2008, we ended up way outside the city because of affordability. It wasn't bad when I worked in the suburbs, but now I have to commute downtown a fair amount, which has been tough.
If you're not familiar with her work, you may want to check out architect Sarah Susanka. Her speciality is making smarter use of small spaces and making houses more functional. She has a bunch of books on the topic and I recently interviewed her for my podcast: https://heathracela.substack.com/p/97-architect-sarah-susanka-on-living#details
I'll definitely check that out, thanks!
We can't complain too much, but we did buy a small (1350sqft) place right on a bus route back when we each had to commute in every day. But we ought in Summer 2019, with a two-year-old, and now after 3 years of not getting out much the place feels *really* small with a going-on-six-year-old and the bus access is still good, but not nearly as big a benefit as it used to be.
Walking to school is nice, though!
Don't underestimate walking to school and having bus access! If you go further out, you may lose that!
Our next move is almost certainly going to be to the Southeast to be near aging parents...I'm not hopeful on finding anything nearly this walkable given our constraints on that, heh.
Don't overlook the schools component. The frenzy of teardowns in Fairfax is linked to certain school pyramids.
It is. Although there are some very highly rated schools whose districts don't seem quite this bad housing-wise.
This is particularly interesting to me. I've been in this area for about ten years, and spent close to half of that time in Fairfax County. I noticed this as soon as I moved to the area, but thought nothing of it - I grew up in Central Florida where this has been commonplace at least since the 1980s. This article exactly describes the neighborhood I grew up in, hence why it was an afterthought to me coming up here. Interesting that this sort of wave in the housing market that may have started in a place like Florida has finally made its way up here (for better or worse).
As a resident of one of these many 1960s Fairfax County neighborhoods, I often find myself in the odd position of WISHING I had an HOA to help keep these teardowns under control (and otherwise help preserve the character of the neighborhood).
Perhaps that just makes me part of an unremarkable NIMBY majority (the HOA certainly wouldn’t help the push for multi-family units), but there is a lot of history and sense of place and community being bulldozed in service of unlocking the value of the land. We need better advocates in local government (or HOA pseudo local government) to support that.
Quick follow-up to say I just read your post on Culpeper and - wow! - you captured there wonderfully much of what I feel on this topic. More focus on smaller towns (cities), return to the “urban” core among the rural, and anything to break us out of this cycle of sprawl (sorry Fairfax).
"A lot of people look at this and think, this is what happens when we let developers run wild, and conclude that the answer is to throttle developers. I am much closer to thinking that we should, in fact, permit developers to run wild, and not force them to build only one type of building."
Framing the problem as "zoning" is a conceit pushed by developers, who always and everywhere just want to build the largest structure possible. The problem in the USA (IMO) isn't the size of buildings, or multi vs. single-family, but that everything is scaled and engineered around the car rather than people. Street widths, setbacks ("green space" is dead space), ponderously oversized lots, and minimum parking rules all contribute.
Giving architects and developers freedom is great, but whatever they produce needs to be right-scaled and appropriately integrated into the surroundings - and this is what zoning rules and building codes should enforce.
"Framing the problem as 'zoning' is a conceit pushed by developers, who always and everywhere just want to build the largest structure possible. The problem in the USA (IMO) isn't the size of buildings, or multi vs. single-family, but that everything is scaled and engineered around the car rather than people. Street widths, setbacks ('green space' is dead space), ponderously oversized lots, and minimum parking rules all contribute."
I take your point, but everything you just listed is an element of the typical zoning code!
Fair enough - I suppose my point is that zoning reform or 'densification' in practice means keeping all of the car-focused rules, scale, and streetscape while just grafting more people on top of it. It's readily apparent that the movement (again in actual practice) isn't driven by people trying to instantiate a particular vision of a place's urbanism - how it should look, feel and function - but rather by an alliance of corporate developers who care only about building and 'social justice' activists who (as they see it) are fighting a meta-struggle over class and race.
"Framing the problem as "zoning" is a conceit pushed by developers, who always and everywhere just want to build the largest structure possible."
Accurate. The trouble is that here, due to zoning, that means McMansions, rather than multi-plexes, apartment buildings, or 3 over 1 mixed use developments, because we don't allow that. All of our charming downtowns were built pre-zoning by developers as well, after all.
That being said, because those aren't allowed as the next level of development in most places, the industry isn't designed for it anymore. Nor is the finance world. Regulation is very powerful in shaping market forces, and then those forces shape regulation. It's a vicious cycle.
And even if you relax those rules today, builders will just keep building what they already know how to do. So you're right that new zoning codes would need to account for that. Theoretically, that's what Form-based zoning gets you, but even that can be suspect. But it may just be that to fix the mess that zoning gave us, we may need to lean into zoning to change the market back. If that's possible.
This is a good answer
With regard to market forces in the absence of zoning restrictions, I think "more units" would happen when investors (at any scale) are the operators. But if individuals (who will live there) are the operators I think there will be "more size". I believe there is a huge demand for suburban/exurban style housing in first ring suburbs because it's the best of both worlds where you can still drive with relative ease, but also not drive with relative ease. This is what people, especially older and affluent who have spent time in autocentric places and realized the downsides, desire. As you pointed out, with current zoning the later is what happens. This is what is happening in Annapolis despite efforts by a minority of the City Council (and some residents of all stripes - but not enough to change the majority's minds) to allow denser and multi family housing everywhere.
"I believe there is a huge demand for suburban/exurban style housing in first ring suburbs because it's the best of both worlds where you can still drive with relative ease, but also not drive with relative ease."
That's really interesting - I wonder if that preference is so strong that it would survive a liberalized zoning regime, and bigger houses in quasi-walkable settings would still at least sometimes win out over densification. I think you're right about individuals vs investors/developers/builders, but I wonder which way prices would tilt in a different regulatory atmosphere.
I think the more liberal the environment, the more likely to attract institutional investors who will gladly overpay to make the purchase as long as they can make enough units high $ units to still make a profit. I think there is a sweet spot here because after a certain density (ie into non "luxury" apartment zone, the overall profit will start to diminish. Perhaps after that sweet spot you're more likely to attract apartments that use subsidies like low income tax credits. Not really sure on that end of the spectrum.
Zoning is in itself not a terrible concept. Most of my fellow Arlington citizens felt really put off by being told that if we supported zoning we must be "classist and racist" or "just old".
The messaging has to get better to avoid alienating people.
I don't really care for that messaging, but it has nothing to do with the underlying point about land use and land values. You can arrive at the same place via property rights arguments. But yes, housing advocates need to know their audience.