[banana_sandwich]

I feel it’s a bit disingenuous to discuss that a developer might pay more for a lot with a house on it, to build more houses, but you don’t really touch on, at all, how much the resulting housing might cost. Surely 20 units on a single lot will be cheaper than the single family house.

Now you have potentially 20 families, or at least 20 individuals, paying taxes, participating in the local economy, etc instead of just one single family. Lots of economic benefits to consider here but saying “downzoning good, actually” because a developer might pay more? Idk. seems pretty poorly thought out.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Surely 20 units on a single lot will be cheaper than the single family house.

Those units will cost less -- largely because at scale they're resulting in more housing supply -- but the detached houses will decline in value in terms of housing but increase in value in terms of land because you can now build more on the lot.

> saying “downzoning good, actually” because a developer might pay more?

The argument is the opposite. Downzoning is bad -- even for existing homeowners -- because a developer would otherwise pay them more for their land than they'd be losing in the value of their house.