Richard Morrill says that he predicted high housing costs in this area.
I told them so! Back in 1988, when the Legislature was debating growth management, I warned (again and again) of the risks of including the urban growth boundaries provision. I predicted that the results would be land and housing price inflation (Econ 100 supply and demand relation), leapfrogging to satellite towns and longer commuting. All this has happened.
Read the whole letter, and don't forget who we can thank for these problems; among others, we can thank Senator Maria Cantwell.
That these high housing costs are a consequence, in part, of political decisions made by our state legislature (and some local governments) is obvious when you look at the lower housing costs in other states.
(Which Richard Morrill? This one, I am nearly certain.)
Posted by Jim Miller at April 05, 2007 05:17 PM | Email ThisLand-use Regulation Makes Housing less Affordable, Harvard Study Finds
I wonder what the "tax" is now?
Posted by: Obi-Wan on April 5, 2007 05:51 PMTorquemada - It is wise to follow the links before commenting. if you had, you would have enventually reached this quotation from the New York Times:
"In high-profile places like New York and Los Angeles, home to many of the people who study and write about real estate, families buying their first home often must spend more than half of their income on mortgage payments, far more than they once did. But the places that have become less affordable over the last generation account for only a quarter of the country's population."
Unfortunately for those who want to buy a house in this area, we live in the 25 percent part of the country where houses have become less affordable, rather than the 75 percent part, where houses have become more affordable.
Some of the examples may interest you; check the numbers for Dallas, for instance.
Posted by: Jim Miller on April 5, 2007 06:52 PMJust because the Economist has been blubbering about a 'housing bubble' in the whole US for the last three years (while prices continued to rise), some folks justify blinding themselves to all the rest of the regional economic pressures. Assigning rising prices to a Seattle 'housing bubble' is a feeble conclusion to draw, where bloated planning departments hide their distortion of housing markets under the weasel words 'growth management'.
'Management' in this case means, access to single-family housing (the choice of most buyers)is curtailed by restrictions deliberately placed on urban growth. Those restrictions are designed to force folks to live in boxy rabbit-hutches going up into the air. And the forbidding and denying of free buying and selling and subdivision of ex-urban land has always had a predictable effect of sharply driving up housing prices.
Worse, the Growth Management Act skated around that certain inflation by just decreeing that there 'would be affordable housing' as part of its effects - without bothering how it was to be furnished (other than to imply that a hidden tax on all sales of new housing would levy itself on the builders in order to keep them from going broke). So yeah, there in itself is a guarantee that prices would rise inside urban areas, without even bothering to think of the shortage of new subdivisions furnishing single-family housing to those flush enough to afford its skyrocketing prices.
No matter how the lefties strive to 'manage' the laws of supply and demand, basic economics still follows them. And Richard Morrill, and many other folks who lived in the real world in the 1980s, was right on, no matter how loudly the Legislature shouted him down.
Posted by: Hank Bradley on April 5, 2007 07:10 PMMaria Cantwell. Ted Stevens' worst nightmare! Ted lies in bed every night shaking, and hoping he doesn't have to face her the next day.
Why should we manage growth anyway? Let the whole cast of Deliverance build shacks next to your house. How about a pig farm, say 200,000 hogs directly upwind to your house......
Posted by: Facts on April 5, 2007 08:43 PMThe warning that growth management will raise housing prices might well have tipped the political balance in favor of growth management: "A vote for Growth Management is a vote for increasing the value of land inside the urban growth boundary." Who is against that?
Posted by: David Sucher on April 5, 2007 09:17 PMIndeed, Morrill might well have offered the argument which tipped the balance in favor of growth management. "A vote for Growth Management is a vote for increasing the value of land inside the urban growth boundary." Who is against that?
Posted by: David Sucher on April 5, 2007 09:18 PMLet's imagine growth management didn't exist at all. Just how much buildable land is kept off the market by it, and at what point would that land all be gone anyway, say in King County? It would be interesting to know the number of homes on say 1/5th acre. Does anyone have the number? One of the challenges though is much of that land may be much more difficult to build on. It may be in flood plains or on hills, or require a lot of expensive infrastructure (roads, sewers, water etc).
I do agree not having inexpensive options locally leads to very long distance commuting from satellite towns. My hunch is growth management accelerated the process, but it would probably still have happened anyway.
Posted by: Stuart Jenner on April 6, 2007 06:47 AMThis really skewed things.
Back to Mr. Cynical, these people were visionaries, except after forcing their vision on the rest of us by passing GMA, they admitted they screwed up. A first hand quote from a large Dem donor regarding the prophet, Joe King, comes to mind. For those new to this issue, Joe King was prophet and pusher of GMA when he was in power.
Posted by: swatter on April 6, 2007 07:02 AMThis in turn would mean that the people who can afford to stay will not put up with the soaring tax rates and may just vote for candidates that will cut social program giveaways at the expense of their pocketbook.
Posted by: Ken on April 6, 2007 07:03 AMNew and improved building techniques are making it economically possible to build housing and roads for them in places within the UGA where it couldn't happen before, debunking claims that GMA would have everyone living in rabbit warrens called condos.
One benefit of GMA is less taxes required to subsidize developers. But that important feature of the law often gets out-yelled by the tug and pull of the property rights debate, which is really just about zoning, which is pretty common everwhere.
Posted by: redflag on April 6, 2007 07:38 AMBut those of us with functional eyes see those rabbit warrens under massive construction all over town, mostly in formerly happier neighborhoods of single family homes. Not easy to ignore, but apparently some folks can pull it off.
We need to have a more dynamic housing market, that allows flexibility, growth and affordability.
The house payment should be about $300 a year. Houses should be disposal, and rebuilt every 10 years to allow for intergration of the latest innovations in materials and building technologies.
Seattle is fast becoming stagnant. The smart people are leaving. All that's left are geezers and Liberals.
The above bill and this thread point to something far more insidious that is happening here and it is repeated continuously. That being: The government makes the rules that increase costs of everything from corn to housing. Using this thread (cost of housing) as an example: King County the state and local entities have radically driven up the cost of housing steadily for 3 or 4 decades now with regulation and fees. And NOW the drum is being beaten for government involvement to supply "affordable housing" or cure the affordable housing "crisis". Government creates the problem (and makes money from it) and then leftist activists and the government itself demand a solution that inevitably becomes a government solution. It has happened with automobiles, foods, health care, you name it.
This used to be recognized as slow motion Socialism but has increased in pace the last few years. As if they have realized the linkage and actively work toward it to further a Socialist society. Control is the ultimate power.
If this was about green, then cut off the growth of population.
I suspect it's more about getting more tax dollars than anything else...
Posted by: Ken on April 6, 2007 10:37 AM"Facts," @6 should be introduced to a few facts of his own. Maria Cantwell brags on her website, "She's remembered by many as a leading architect of the Washington's Growth Management Act, which she shepherded through a marathon 65-day session."
Cantwell.com
A Harvard study says that land use regulation leads to higher housing prices. The GMA is a land use regulation. Maria Cantwell brags about being a leading architect of the GMA.
I'd say that Jim is right, we can blame her, among others, for higher housing prices.
I had a nice conversation with a fellow conservative during lunch about Redflag's post. I realize that not everybody can't be a crack economist (and I'm not by any stretch) but not knowing the basic rules of supplyand demand in a supply and demand economy is something that most people, I would hope, would take pains to grasp. Both of us were astounded that somebody could be that out of touch (I'm being kind) with such a elemental principle of our country and the world in general.
So Redflag, this is for you: When there is less of something, either artificially (like via government fiat or, say, hoarding) or naturally just because there is less of something, like truffles, the price will be high if people want those articles. The more people want of them, the higher the price goes. Think gasoline. If there is a lot of something or demand is low, the opposite happens. This happens organically. Even animals follow this very basic rule.
The GMA makes an artificial shortage of land by taking 65% of it off the market. That means that the price of land that is left increases as more and more people move into the area looking for a house that sits on . . . . laaand. There are a few subtleties in that equation but those are the basic facts.
The government and whomever crafted the GMA horror is the responsible party. That's it. Those are the facts. Just remember as you go through life; Every time you make a law or regulation you take away people's rights. It is only a matter of time before you start losing enough of yours to care.
Redflag, you can stop reading now. Folks like Redflag, in my estimation, are victims (once again I'm being kind) of the horrible unionized command and control education system we are saddled with. If you were to craft a plan to destroy a nation, you could do no better than one to de-educate the young to be mind numbed dolts who are easy to control and that is what we have now.
I had a nice conversation with a fellow conservative during lunch about Redflag's post. I realize that not everybody can't be a crack economist (and I'm not by any stretch) but not knowing the basic rules of supplyand demand in a supply and demand economy is something that most people, I would hope, would take pains to grasp. Both of us were astounded that somebody could be that out of touch (I'm being kind) with such a elemental principle of our country and the world in general.
So Redflag, this is for you: When there is less of something, either artificially (like via government fiat or, say, hoarding) or naturally just because there is less of something, like truffles, the price will be high if people want those articles. The more people want of them, the higher the price goes. Think gasoline. If there is a lot of something or demand is low, the opposite happens. This happens organically. Even animals follow this very basic rule.
The GMA makes an artificial shortage of land by taking 65% of it off the market. That means that the price of land that is left increases as more and more people move into the area looking for a house that sits on . . . . laaand. There are a few subtleties in that equation but those are the basic facts.
The government and whomever crafted the GMA horror is the responsible party. That's it. Those are the facts. Just remember as you go through life; Every time you make a law or regulation you take away people's rights. It is only a matter of time before you start losing enough of yours to care.
Redflag, you can stop reading now. Folks like Redflag, in my estimation, are victims (once again I'm being kind) of the horrible unionized command and control education system we are saddled with. If you were to craft a plan to destroy a nation, you could do no better than one to de-educate the young to be mind numbed dolts who are easy to control and that is what we have now.
Whenever I hear conservatives discuss the cause of high housing prices, I notice the GMA and various environmental restrictions take almost 100% of the hits, while zoning is rarely mentioned.
However, zoning is the larger issue. Zoning affects all the land in the Puget Sound region, and 85%, I believe, of Seattle is zoned for single family residential with 25-35' height restrictions and no mother-in-laws.
Any city that is successful will experience a huge increase in the price of a house with a large lot. How much would it cost to buy a single family residence in Hong Kong, a place with no building restrictions? (that might have changed recently, but you get the point).
But a free market will absorb the demand, inducing some of the people who wanted to live in single family residences to live vertically by luring them with a much better price and perhaps a much better location.
If Seattle had no zoning, no height restrictions and no non-safety-related building regulations, there would be many tall residential towers with fairly affordable units along Lake WA, Alki, Green Lake, etc. People wouldn't be so quick to sneer at the idea of living in a tower.
But those spots have all been locked up into single family residential, not by us greenies, who are innocent here, but by upscale homeowners who want to preserve the feel of the neighborhoods they bought into.
If you look at all the land within a 10 mile radius of 1st & Pike, it is or will all soon be built. The free market has a solution for this, but not even the free market can create new raw land within a 10-mile radius of 1st and Pike. Going up is what the free market would like to do, and what would be good for the environment--but government is stopping this from happening with zoning in all the best locations for going up.
Thanks for your time, NLC#1
Posted by: newleftconservative#1 on April 6, 2007 05:07 PM
Also, just because zoning has happened in the past doesn't mean it was right. It only means it happened.
Your points are excellent and well stated.
I find it deeply sad and upsetting that property owners still have to pay taxes on land on which development is prohibited.
I believe we need to save land for nature, but I believe the strategy we in the env. movement have adopted to place all the costs on the private landowner is backfiring and having the unintended consequence of making people less appreciative of nature, since it only reminds them of all the various restrictions.
But as usual, you dismiss the problems with zoning too quickly. Urban Zoning raises the price of rural land significantly and is givings to rural landowners (where they're allowed to develop!) because people can't build and densify in the city in the places they would normally want to.
If the city were allowed to go dense as the free market would want it to, it would also result in much better and cheaper transit, which would create a positive feedback loop to make even more people want to live in the city.
Anyway, thanks for your time, NLC1
Posted by: newleftconservative#1 on April 6, 2007 10:39 PMThat's one way of putting it. We'll call it the imperial decree method by urban colonial masters.
To those who wanted to live in single family residences, and then found none within their budgets due to GMA and its cast-iron urban growth boundaries, they simply face being bullied by bureaucratic means into 'living vertically'.
They are allowed to spend the remaining years of their lives grinding their teeth at the authors of cynical assertions that they were 'lured' into their rabbit hutches by 'a much better price and perhaps a much better location'. Maybe so by top-down colonial cant, but that's not what the prospective home buyers were looking for.
Posted by: Hank Bradley on April 7, 2007 09:57 AM