• grue@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    In order for housing co-ops to exist, the land needs to be zoned to allow dense multifamily. If you want to fix housing affordability, that’s where you have to look.

    • moonbunny@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      You need both ideally, especially since real estate developers tend to stall or shelve housing projects if they feel like they’ll get less of a return on investment and wait until prices go up again before doing anything

  • rbesfe
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    1 month ago

    We need far fewer condos in this country. They’re practically a scam that lures people in with the promise of “equity”. The vast majority of condos have terrible energy performance because first cost is all that the buyer cares about.

    • Cyborganism
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      1 month ago

      I disagree. The problem is the construction regulations that require buildings of more than x stories to have two staircases per floor. This leads to poor design architecture with small units with no ventilation. Also we don’t need 45 storey condo buildings either. 4-6 storeys can be plenty to increase density in some surrounding neighborhoods.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Also we don’t need 45 storey condo buildings either. 4-6 storeys can be plenty to increase density in some surrounding neighborhoods.

        The 45 story condo towers exist mostly because those surrounding neighborhoods are zoned single-family. If density weren’t literally illegal everywhere outside the downtown cores, there wouldn’t be so much pent-up demand to make those high-rises necessary in every minuscule scrap of land where the density is legal.

        • Cyborganism
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          1 month ago

          That depends on the city. That may be true for Toronto, but not Montréal for example.

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Full disclosure: I’m an American whose impression of Canada comes mostly from Canadian urbanist youtubers, specifically “Oh the Urbanity” and “Not Just Bikes.”

            From that, I get the impression that Montreal is indeed way better than other Canadian cities – but that it’s basically the only one that is (give or take other cities in Quebec, maybe?). Like, the French-Canadian attitude towards zoning and city design is an outlier compared to the rest of Canada (and the anglosphere in general, possibly because mid-century American city planners with bad car-centric ideas had less influence).

      • Avid Amoeba
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        1 month ago

        If there’s nothing stopping me from cramming more shoebox units in place of that second staircase you let me remove, I will do just that and pocket the margins.

        BTW, my building has two staircases per floor, with 10 1400sqft units per floor, with fine ventilation. It was built before I was born.

        But yes about the 4-6 rises. Even a bit higher should be fine, as long as complexities are kept low.

        • Kelsenellenelvial
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          1 month ago

          It gives more options to customize layout. Removing the second staircase also removes the need for a hallway all the way through the middle between staircases. Since bedrooms need windows, removing the staircase also opens up space to add 1-2 more bedrooms per floor. Part of the issue with the hallway and 2 stairs is you get a corner unit on each one and everything in between gets just one outside wall. Making a bigger building footprint doesn’t help a lot because the floor area increases more than the wall space(which you need to put windows so your apartment doesn’t feel like a dungeon. Which is why apartments tend to be long and narrow, or sometimes wrapped around a central courtyard.

          I read somewhere about North American vs European apartments, particularly the smaller 2-4 floor/3-4 units per floor ones, and the European ones tended to have a smaller footprint, but more wall space and more practically usable space than the North American designs.

          • Avid Amoeba
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            1 month ago

            I light up my dungeon with 11W, 1600lm bulbs. Gotta keep that circadian rhythm adjusted.

  • acargitz
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    1 month ago

    – Wait so it is socialism or barbarism?

    – Always has been.