#Zoning Reform

[cazort]

I see a ton of posts here on Tumblr blaming "landlord greed" for soaring rents.

I explain in this post that landlords have minimal control over rent prices. The market punishes landlords who price their units above the market rate, and it does so in the form of vacancies, which can cause a landlord to lose money rapidly. When landlords are able to raise rents dramatically, it is because the market price of apartments is rising. Greedy and exploitative landlords often do what they do by other mechanisms than raising the rents.

The market price is a function of the behaviors of renters and apartment-seekers, and is driven by supply and demand.

I talk from personal experience about what this experience looks like both from the perspective of renters, and the perspective of landlords, as I myself have a great deal of experience renting but I also personally know a number of landlords and have seen some of their finances when doing taxes professionally.

I also explain that a large portion of landlords are actually doing their best to keep housing prices low, often renting their units below market value, and I talk about how I and others have benefitted greatly from these landlords.

There are also A LOT of factors that are much bigger than landlord greed. Two of the big ones I explore in this video are people occupying underutilized properties (empty nesters and/or widows/widowers living alone in big houses, or wealthy people owning multiple homes and not even renting them out) and restrictive zoning ordinances which makes it hard or even impossible to build new units. Such zoning includes single-family housing restrictions, bans on subdividing properties, bans on accessory dwelling units, bans on building apartment buildings, bans on more than a certain number of unrelated people living under one roof, parking minimums per unit, and single-room occupancy bans. These are only some of many examples.

Both of these factors are much larger in terms of their effect on rising rents than the individual actions of greedy landlords.

[jodiduby]

Five Takeaways from Richmond's Zoning Refresh Panel on Housing

Richmond, VA is going through a zoning code re-write in the wake of a comprehensive plan update. The city is in the midst of hosting a series of open houses and panels to update the public on progress. At a panel hosted on March 11, 2025, four panelists discussed the implications of the Code Refresh on housing production and affordability.

Diversity of housing types in a neighborhood means more choices for more people. Don't do anything to limit your market.

Building smaller houses closer together will get us to our goal faster, provide right-sized housing for modern-day household sizes, reduce strain on infrastructure, and bolster our walkable neighborhoods.

Smart growth = using what you already have. Infill vacant lots and surface parking lots with "missing middle" housing.

A pattern book / form-based code approach to zoning places the emphasis on designing a better streetscape experience, which is how most people interact with most buildings.

As an independent municipality, we need a coordinated regional approach. The need for housing affordability and diversity doesn't stop at the city line.

[stakeholders-sgv]

The Case for More Housing: Shaping Sustainable Communities

The Case for #AffordableHousing: Shaping #SustainableCommunities: #SmartGrowth #YIMBY #Sustainability #InclusiveCommunities #UrbanDevelopment #ZoningReform #HousingForAll #CommunityRevitalization #BuildMoreHousing #ClimateAction #FutureReadyNeighborhoods

A Position Paper: Embracing Smart Growth for Our Community January 2025 Our neighborhoods are at a crossroads. The decisions we make today about housing and development will shape the future of our community for decades to come. In the face of escalating housing costs, increased displacement, and a climate crisis demanding action, we must embrace forward-thinking policies that prioritize…

[byberbunk2069]

[Boys (Summertime Love) intensifies]

There’s a bit of AU lore around the new look I gave for River (aside from being inspired by low budget DTV sci-fi movies).

[vonlipvig]

ok hold on.....i'm gonna load the last checkpoint and do this tripartisan meeting again tomorrow cause i need to go make dinner AND i was too busy enjoying them fighting with each other to understand what they're saying to me wHOOPS. i love me some constitutional law, babes, but i have no idea what you just said.

[saprophetic]

um. cole . :)

[21st-century-minutiae]

In 2007, a cascade of failures caused by unethical market actions and mindless aggressive investment caused the Housing Market to burst. This drastically reduced the price of real estate, which brought the general world economy down with it, due to how incestuous the under-regulated financial industry had become. The blows of this major global recession have impacted all of the early twenty-first century for all of the world in some manner.

Sticker prices for houses in 2008, therefore, were quite low relative to the overinflated prices of any other time since. The naive interpretation would be that purchasing a home in 2008 would have been the best time to do so. This is disingenuous, as the entire market had crashed. Any individual who might have desired to buy a house at its low point in 2008 likely had some of their money tied up in investments, meaning they lost money at the same time as when prices dropped (it is important to recall that returns on investment were good so people were incentivized to place their money in riskier investments (that were illegally being referred to as safe)), leaving them unable to take advantage of the 'opportunity.' Or perhaps they might have been one of the millions of people laid off in 2007 or 2008, and lacked any sort of income security in order to make a big investment.

If a person had spontaneously emerged into existence with a stack of cash in 2008, or if they were a rare person who had a good supply of cash that wasn't invested (thus avoiding the crash) and did not fear for their job security, then 2008 would have been a great time to purchase. But for the most part, only people who had an excess of wealth, who could shoulder the financial hit of the crashing market without fear, were able to take advantage of the low prices.

Children, of course, were not in a position to purchase, and have grown up seeing housing prices get worse and worse. This is indicated in the sarcastic image macro above.

[primepaginequotidiani]

PRIMA PAGINA The Guardian di Oggi mercoledì, 05 febbraio 2025

[latestnews-now]

Romanian ultranationalist George Simion is making waves as he aims to become Europe’s next hard-right leader. Inspired by Giorgia Meloni and Donald Trump, Simion promises to reform the EU while defying rules that harm Romania. Learn how his rise could reshape Europe’s political future.

[ericacinotti-thehostilezone]

“The 8th Amendment affords the people the right to reasonable Bail”

The United States is currently facing a critical decision point, as the urgent matter of bail reform

gains significant attention in broader talks on criminal justice reform. This critical movement

seeks to eliminate the deeply rooted deficiencies in the pretrial system, which perpetuate

socioeconomic inequalities and unnecessarily overcrowd prisons with individuals accused of

minor offenses, many of whom are innocent UNIL PROVen guild by a jury of the accused peer;

moreover, bail is meant to secure a defendant to court, and to protect the general public if the

accused is "Determined" to be a flight risk or a risk to themselves or the community at large. The

core of this movement revolves around questioning the constitutionality and fairness of cash bail

systems, which disproportionately harm individuals with low incomes, resulting in their

imprisonment simply because they cannot afford bail. This is not a situation encountered by

wealthy individuals.

An essential aspect of the case for bail reform revolves around the opposition to cash bail, which

is seen as an unfair obstacle to freedom and worsens inequalities within the legal system. There

is a strong demand for a fundamental change in how risk assessments are conducted, focusing on

using objective variables rather than financial capabilities to predict the probability of a prisoner

fleeing or committing another crime if freed before trial. This move holds the potential for a

more fair and unbiased approach to making judgments about detention. It is reinforced by the

increase in pretrial services that try to decrease the likelihood of reoffending by providing

reminders for court dates, counseling for substance addiction, and other helpful tools.

The core of this effort lies in enacting legislative and policy reforms, which are being

implemented extensively throughout several states and local governments. These modifications

aim to reduce the dependence on cash bail and implement alternative conditions for release that

do not include money. They provide judges with a structure that combines explicit standards

with the ability to make individualized assessments for each case.

Although there is a lot of excitement about change, detractors express apprehension about

possible dangers to public safety and an increase in failure-to-appear rates. However, proponents

of reform present data from areas where bail reform has been put into effect, demonstrating the

potential for promoting fair justice outcomes without compromising public safety.

The discussion regarding bail reform explores profound inquiries regarding justice, the impact of

wealth on legal results, and the intricate equilibrium between protecting individual rights and

guaranteeing community safety. As this discourse progresses, it represents a crucial chance for

the criminal justice system to self-reflect and experience significant and positive reform. The

shared objective is evident: to provide a path towards a future in which the principles of fairness,

equity, and justice form the fundamental basis of our legal system, mirroring the enduring

commitment of the 8th Amendment. This purpose requires a collective dedication to confront

and tackle these urgent concerns, aiming for a restructured bail system that better conforms with

America's fundamental principles of justice for everyo

[jodiduby]

Three Ways to Remove Barriers to Affordable Housing in Urban Neighborhoods

Note: this post was originally published on the FORM Coalition blog in January 2021. Since then, Strong Towns has launched their Housing Ready Cities resource, which includes these three policy initiatives as well as three others that together make it easier to build more homes on a local level.

Here are three things every city can do to help make it easier to build more affordable homes:

1. Eliminate minimum lot size requirements

Minimum lot sizes are an outdated holdover from single-family zoning, designed to space houses apart from each other and avoid density. Green space has been shown to be essential to public health and wellness, but instead of prescribing a minimum lot size, require a percentage of open, green space. Let the market drive unit size and quality design--look up cottage cluster housing for some inspiration. 

2. Legalize up to four units on any residential lot

Why four? Financing. Multi-family homes up to four units can be purchased with a conventional mortgage. Once you hit five units, you’re in commercial real estate territory.

Also, four units is a nice, inoffensive scale for many urban American neighborhoods. My own city of Richmond has fourplexes sprinkled throughout its most desirable neighborhoods; your city probably does too. Check out missingmiddlehousing.com for some more charming examples.

Painted brick fourplexes in Church Hill, Richmond VA

3. Eliminate minimum parking requirements

Minimum parking requirements drive up the cost of a project and therefore rents by reducing the amount of leasable space on a parcel. Not all neighborhoods are equal in their need for parking--factors like walkability, access to daily essentials, and quality of public transit will allow more people to opt out of driving, or reduce the number of cars they own. Let the market drive the demand for parking spaces.

American cities of all sizes and stripes are facing affordable housing shortages, many at crisis levels. There are many reasons for this, but one of them has to do with the way that our zoning laws were written and enacted throughout the middle of the 20th century. In most of the US, it's effectively illegal to build anything other than a single-family home in many residential zones.

The result is the world we inhabit today: large swaths of single-family homes not within walking distance of basic amenities like grocery stores, libraries, post offices, schools, shopping, and entertainment. As American culture has seen a surge in popularity and desirability of walkable urban neighborhoods, it’s become clear that there’s not enough housing in these neighborhoods to meet the demand.

Here’s the rub: in nearly every municipality in the US, those zoning laws are still in place. So, while duplexes and quadplexes may still exist because they are “grandmothered” in, you can’t build new ones without asking the city for an exception to the zoning laws, which means added time and expense. Added time and expense means the project costs more, which means it has to sell or rent for more, so you end up with either A. “missing middle” housing at a high price point relative to its market context, or B. another large single-family home that can be built “by right.” In either case, new housing is more expensive than it otherwise needs to be, either because of the cost to execute the project or because of sheer square footage.

Common sense tells us that larger homes are generally more expensive than smaller ones in the same market. However, family sizes are smaller than they were 50 years ago. The average American household size in 1960 was 3.29 people; in 2019 it was 2.61 (in Richmond it went from 3.3 to 2.37 over a similar time period). In Kronberg Urbanists + Architects' analysis of their own Atlanta market, they discovered that a staggering 77% of households are made up of 1 or 2 people (as of 2014). Building smaller homes means we can build more homes and house more people in the same area than if we are building large homes. It also means that the homes are more affordable, relative to larger homes in the same market.

Source: Kronberg Urbanists + Architects (Click the image to view their website)

In summary: to build smaller, more affordable homes in urban neighborhoods, get rid of minimum lot size requirements, allow up to four units on any residential lot, and eliminate parking minimums. It won’t solve all of our urban housing problems, but it will make it easier to build quality, affordable housing in desirable neighborhoods.

Sources & More Reading:

Minimum Requirements for Lot and Building Size, American Planning Association (APA)

Missing Middle Housing

The Affordable Housing Crisis Explained, Curbed

Cities Start to Question an American Ideal: A House With a Yard on Every Lot, New York Times

Richmond 300: Land Use, Housing, & Demographic Analysis

Housing Choice & Healthy Neighborhood Development, Kronberg Urbanists + Architects

[novelistwriter]

The Reformed King

DP x DC Prompt

Danny is done with his home dimension. His identity was revealed after the "Dan" incident, and he has been constantly on the run. The GIW, all the adults, his parents included, were hunting him down, and no one was helping him. He doesn't know that the GIW has captured basically his entire school and his sister to interrogate them all about him. So he hopped into a Natural Portal and left it for the Infinite Realms/Ghost Zone.

His half-life started going downhill after Pariah's attempt at conquering his dimension, as after that happened, Vlad was making more attempts to make him his son, which caused him to have arguments with his parents about Vlad. His Ghostly Rogues began to attack/play fight with him a lot more, which caused his grades to decline even more.

He freed Pariah again. But to fight the Tyrant in what's basically a suicide attempt, he's depressed because he thinks no one has his back and is against him.

The fight between the two lasted a long time, but eventually, the fight ended with both of them changed. Danny had managed to instill some changes within the Tyrant King during their fight because he was shouting at the King what he did to his life, and since Danny is basically a Ghost Baby, Pariah's Ghostly instincts won over his desire to battle. Things only escalated from there, as Danny became the son to Pariah, making him the Ghost Prince, and Pariah himself is going through some positive changes because of Danny, albeit slowly.

He managed to close the portal that his parents have after learning that the portal is connected to his core. He is now living with Pariah in their keep. The Observants tried to do anything to regain control of the power they lost when Pariah became Ghost King again and to try and make Danny lose his title of Ghost Prince. They instead lost almost all of their powers because of Pariah's new Royal decree on them when he learned of what they were going to do to his son.

It had been a few years, and Danny's human half began to affect his Ghost Half. He needs to take care of his human half, or he will cease to be. Pandora, his current fighting instructor, recommended her home dimension to Danny and Pariah to live in for a few years. The King and Prince went to the dimension, with a mortal body Clockwork had given Pariah to become a Halfa himself.

The Father and Son are living in a city called Gotham, which has enough ambient ectoplasm for them to survive. Occasionally, they will travel around the world when they have enough ectoplasm stored in the Thermos' Danny made for them. He made other things since he practically made most of the inventions his former parents used.

In their travels, the Father and Son have gotten the attention of three individuals, Bruce Wayne, Diana Prince, and Clark Kent, due to Danny's resemblance to Bruce and Clark, and the way Danny fights for Diana.

[nightingale-prompts]

Ghost Diet-DCxDP prompt

Ghosts and spirits have a wide-ranging diet. They are mostly ectovores which are found in their main habitat. They are highly cannibalistic because the concentrated/processed ectoplasm that is in other ghosts is better from them. Although they eat one another they don't kill each other because they don't eat the cores of other ghosts but do weaken them. The eaten ghosts then have to build up their strength again to reform and gain back their lost ectoplasm. This creates a food chain where the strongest ghost consumes the weaker until they too are consumed.

This isn't always the case of course. While ectoplasm is a substance they can all consume they can easily supplement it with other foods. In fact, the ghost realm has a cornucopia of foods that they cultivate. These food however are not very friendly to mortals.

Danny often brings delicacies back from the ghost zone.

Ghoul Gelato from Frostbite: Ice cream infused with the essence of moonlight and frost.

Spirit Spritz from Ember: A fizzy drink made from ectoplasm and tears of joy.

Ectoplasm Eclairs from Desriee: Pastries filled with glowing, gooey ectoplasm.

Phantom Pudding is a special dish made by Nocturne: A shimmering, translucent dessert that tastes like forgotten memories.

Danny often eats them at lunch.

He ended up bumping into Tim between classes and sitting to eat with him when Dick had to drop Damian off for "Family Bonding" time.

So they ate lunch together. Which was awkward because Danny and Tim were kinda...you know having a moment and having a kid here was ruining it. Especially a very scary-looking one that looks like he bites.

Danny had a bag of gummies he had gotten from Jazz on the way out of the house. Danny had assumed it was safe and offered it to Damian as a peace offering since he wanted Tim's family to like him.

But those were Graveyard Gummies. A special tombstone-shaped treat that was similar to gushers but filled with ectoplasm. Jazz must have gone on a grocery run (yes they do have a grocery store in the ghost zone. You'd be surprised how normal some spaces there are) to stock up on snacks for the family. Dan and Dani also need their ghost foods.

Danny realized way too late when Damian actually tried the ecto gummies what he had done. But instead of Damian spitting out the acidic death fluid or...dying, the kid liked it. Loved it even.

"Where did you get these?" Damian said interrupting whatever Tim was saying.

"Oh...uh my sister got them."

"What are you so excited about? Let me try one." Tim reached for the bag only for Damian to smack his hand away.

"Get your own. Did you see Fenton give it to me?"

Danny had a bad feeling about this.

[randomfandomisuppose]

Custody battle for the ages thought dump:

-Selling your soul USED to mean that you had to do whatever the person who bought your soul wants you to, but after the defeat of Pariah Dark the Ghost Zone had some massive judicial reforms. Danny isn’t the Ghost King but that’s because he was like “Uh, what? I’m 14 why don’t you guys have an election or something?”

-Pandora is the current prime minister of the Ghost Zone

-I am not coming up with an in depth system of government for a silly idea but I see them as having a parliament and local governments for different parts of the ghost zone and working on a judicial system and all that fun stuff.

-I’m not sure who exactly Danny’s “Ghost Parent” would be but I think it’d be fun if it was Pandora

-Constantine sold his soul to her after the reforms and she’s just like “Ah a little brother for my halfa son how lovely”

-Younger ghosts acknowledge the fact that Constantine is a grown ass man (and a kinda terrifyingly powerful one at that) but the ancients think he’s adorable

-“Awwwwww baby’s first immortality spell 🥺”

-They think him doing magic is cute the same way little kids making mud potions is cute

-Constantine hates it but will also take any advantage he can get, sometimes they’ll do magical favours for him

-Danny calls him baby brother specifically to piss him off

-Danny has been learning ghost magic but isn’t that good at it yet, Constantine mostly only really knows non ghost magic but is slowly picking it up through osmosis

-Danny gets the Fenton tall gene and grows up to be slightly taller than Constantine (To Constantine’s absolute dismay and displeasure as the baby brother jokes increase in frequency)

-Danny just randomly starts showing up at the watchtower whenever Constantine is there to bother him

-The JL is just like “whose lost sassy floating child is this and how the fuck did they get here?”

Bonus:

The bat siblings: “There’s no fucking way they’re siblings they look and sound nothing alike.”

Danny and Constantine: (Have a full blown magical duel because Danny hid Constantine’s cigarettes, Constantine accidentally lands a hit on Danny and immediately regrets it.)

Danny: I’m gonna tell mom!

Constantine: (Panicked English bargaining)

The bat siblings: “Oh, nevermind.”

[stars-obsession-pit]

Another undead Fenton?!

The Fenton family has had an extremely eventful time as of late.

First, Jack and Maddie found out that their son was a half-ghost, meaning they had to go back and correct years of research on ghost sentience.

Then they found out about his clone/sister Dani, whom they of course took in (after tearing Vlad a new one and starting his path to improvement (and becoming the family’s weird uncle)).

And then Clockwork showed up with a redeemed version of Dan, giving them a fourth kid.

And then Danny found out that Vlad’s other clones of him had reformed in the zone as baby half-ghosts, meaning the Fentons were adding yet more undead kids.

But surely that was the end, right? There were no other clones of Danny, no major alternate timelines to pull from.

That was the end, right?

Nope!

One day their portal suddenly flared and yet another undead kid emerged to join their family.

He was in terrible condition, but by now they were well used to treating the undead. And by the time he recovered and introduced himself as Jason Todd, they already considered him another addition to the Fenton family, even if he wasn’t theirs by blood.