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by JumpCrisscross 330 days ago
> We can work on reducing the barriers to building more housing of any kind while also advocating for more social housing development

One of the NIMBY lobby's greatest wins was putting these options on the ends of a policy spectrum.

They're not. They're complementary. If it's cheaper to build, it's cheaper to build social housing. And if you have a vibrant construction sector, you can build more public housing faster.
2 comments
tptacek 330 days ago
They're not always complementary. For instance, IZOs are a social housing intervention, and work against the goal of increasing supply.
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JumpCrisscross 330 days ago
> IZOs

This [1]?

[1] https://dhcd.dc.gov/service/inclusionary-zoning-iz-affordabl...

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tptacek 330 days ago
Sorry, yeah, IZO/IHO --- rules requiring some margin of AMI affordable units in new developments (which makes new development harder to pencil out, while giving warm fuzzies to locals who want to genuflect to affordability while still fencing out new neighbors).
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AnthonyMouse 330 days ago
Probably the best thing you could do in terms of social housing construction would be to have the government put up some capital to buy land and build new housing on that land, then immediately sell it and use the proceeds to do it again and again with exponential growth because it's actually profitable.

But that's also what construction companies would be doing regardless except for the subsidy, at which point you might be better off doing something like exempting construction companies from property taxes for two years if they at least double the number of housing units on their land in that time.

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larsiusprime 330 days ago
Could also just exempt the value of the buildings from taxation
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