Hector Arbuckle (ANC 5D01)
80 posts
Hector Arbuckle (ANC 5D01)
@HectorArbuckle
ANC Commissioner for Union Market! Tweets do not officially reflect ANC. I like housing and walkability :) Ames, IA ✈️ Washington, DC Iowa State University '22
Washington, DC Katılım Ekim 2022
47 Takip Edilen75 Takipçiler
This is a very strange real estate downturn.
Developers are going bankrupt without going through bankruptcy, projects are failing without going through restructuring.
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@aarmlovi As someone who grew up in the Corn Belt Midwest (Iowa), Chicago just... wasn't prominent in the zeitgeist. It's not really famous for anything except "crime" and deep dish pizza. An Iowan wanting to move to the big city would probably move to the more-familiar Minneapolis.
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This is the funny version (good memory)
If people are well-informed, then low demand for Chicago would imply some disamenity
But if we can't discern the implied disamenity, then perhaps most people just aren't well-informed about Chicago's value!
x.com/GoodGuyGuarant…
Repositioning Play@GoodGuyGuaranty
@aarmlovi My favorite Chicago-related tweet of yours, re-upping because it’s a gem
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We don't fully know why Chicago sustains a home price/income ratio of 4.3 amid the US housing crisis
Key Chicago hotspots are gentrifying, but median family can still buy median home on 4.3 years of income
California's expat wave swamped the West but didn't hit Chicago. Why?
𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖊 🕯@atlanticesque
As I’ve said before, eastern cities have *urban* affordability problems, but the cost of living quickly tapers off as you get out into the suburbs, where you can live pretty cheaply still. On the west coast, the crisis never stops. It just goes on and on.
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Here's the unit mix
So that $880,000 a unit turns into $1030 per square foot! For a 4-story wood frame building!
That's twice as expensive as a highrise in most markets
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And "per unit" is also not a good metric in housing
$880K for a 4000sf 5BR/4BA house is very different than $880K for a 800sf 1BR/1BA condo
Mark Dinan@markdinan
@bobbyfijan New “affordable” housing in East Palo Alto costs ~$880k per unit. “Subsidized” is a better word
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@aarmlovi I think you should note that this is a joke in the main text. Seeing this out of context was a bit jarring!
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Good thing interest rates are all that matter for housing--not zoning, permitting, or growth control broadly
That's how the US spent the ZIRP era building more apartments per person than ever before, yielding total housing abundance + low rents long before rates spiked
👀🔥
Joe Weisenthal@TheStalwart
I wrote about the big surge in bond yields all around the world.
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@houtsmaaa @WMATASoldier @HowEPhil The boxes on the top are probably full-glass to bring in light to the residents. The developer seems to have prioritized beautiful external aesthetics on the walking-human-visible part of the street, and prioritized modern interior aesthetics on the higher floors.
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@WMATASoldier @HowEPhil They definitely are! Why just not keep the same style as the brick ones below?
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Atlanta- we should build some streets like this 👀
The BeltLine is not enough.
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@mnolangray Hundred-foot-wide streets - really, Lystra? Glad you didn't get built!
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Plans for Franklinville and Lystra, Kentucky—two towns that don't exist.
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@mnolangray But if there were an attempt to do so, do you think it would be legal in most states? I heard that there are legal constraints to it in much of the South.
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@HectorArbuckle Conservatism of developers and county elected officials/bureaucrats.
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@brendanwhitsitt I hate to say it, but these Canadian facades aren't too attractive. If the aim is to encourage cities to allow these types of buildings, I don't think these aesthetics will help.
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@HectorArbuckle There are many old books like this that still work. There are some new versions, but they aren’t as focused on cost or beauty IMO.
housingcatalogue.cmhc-schl.gc.ca
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This is one of the least expensive storefronts that I’ve built. It sits at the base of a 100% affordable housing building.
Anyone can do good retail, it just takes some care and attention. 🧵
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@brendanwhitsitt Is this one still accurate or have methods moved too much by now? archive.org/details/Radfor…
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@brendanwhitsitt One day I'd really love to see a "pattern book" with examples of low-cost but elegant-looking façades. It's really hard for laypeople to know what's cost-effective and what isn't!
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@HectorArbuckle Not “cheap” exactly but compared to the Class A buildings I’ve done, very cost effective.
Everything was built on site, by hand, with standard materials. Conventional height storefront, etc.
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@brendanwhitsitt Is the first one actually cheaper to build than the second one!!!???
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This kind of storefront design and construction is not only higher quality, it can be more beautiful!
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@brendanwhitsitt To me this corning is giving "afterthought, I didn't really care about this part."
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This might sound weird but I have strong opinions about miter joints.
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@brendanwhitsitt @Hythacg As someone who was not trained in architecture, but who loves buildings, this seems obvious! Traditional buildings use a whole palette of "nice looking things" so that each individual builder doesn't have to reinvent the wheel. I'm worried about architecture schools now...
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If you spend your time reinventing the brick, you won’t have time to assemble them into a great building.
Tradition saves time. It helps you focus.
It’s not a constraint — it’s leverage.
(h/t @Hythacg for the photos)
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I heard someone call 101 Spadina “ersatz classical” — and it made me realize how weird architecture discourse has become.
A quick thread on why tradition isn’t the enemy in architecture 🧱👇
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@amongcarterboys @mnolangray Indeed - that made me cringe. I happen to think that people should indeed be prevented from building in floodplains - because when the flood happens, it becomes everybody's problem to find all the people who have been washed away.
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@mnolangray Agreed but also her 100 year flood plane comment is hilariously stupid though
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@mnolangray I actually have always wondered how much of the hostility to "the government" just comes from peoples' direct experience of local bureaucracies strangling their plans. Looking at the comments there, lots of people clearly did not distinguish levels of government.
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@itsahousingtrap Maxwell did a poor job explaining. He should have said: "The above was a joke, but seriously: it's cheaper and more convenient to allow continuous development in all directions adjacent to downtown; it's not good to confine all development to separate individual patches."
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@ebottcher Not really. The whole point of YIMBY is saying "yes" to more housing in your local area. Since Manhattan has very constrained land supply, it's important to maximize any site that comes up for redevelopment. Ask yourself, "would this look silly to a non-New Yorker?"
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Is it possible to be both YIMBY while also feeling that 60 stories is a tad bit tall for the West Village? Asking for a friend.
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I strongly believe in the need to build more housing in all neighborhoods, but a height of 600 feet (60 stories) is obviously out of scale for the Meatpacking District. I have asked the city to pause releasing this RFP and instead issue one with a more appropriate height.
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