Sprawl's spread speeds up - Sacramento Business, Housing Market News | Sacramento Bee
All told, more than half the population growth in the region during the last decade occurred in freshly converted farmland. The region's urban footprint – areas with at least 1,000 people per square mile – nearly doubled from 1980 to 2010. Only 1 percent of last decade's population growth took place in the urban core that existed before 1980.
Regional planners expect the next census report in 2020 to be different. They have spent years hammering out a blueprint that would encourage high-density growth in already-established areas. Local governments across the region back the plan.
"We project a land-use pattern that's going to flip the old pattern on its head," said Mike McKeever, executive director of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments. "Seventy percent of new housing will be attached or small lot."
Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/11/05/4033576/sprawls-spread-speeds-up.html#ixzz1czcNDCzd
----------------
And of course "attached or small lot" means condos, townhomes, and HOAs. In other words, that high-density land-use pattern will be entirely dependent on the institution of common interest housing. That is the plan. So, while CID owners' rights advocates make their case to state legislators, and while condo associations and HOAs face impending collapse due to foreclosures, local governments are planning a new era of growth based on condos and HOAs and townhomes. Think that one over.
Thanks to Fred Pilot for this link.
1 comment:
In the first half of the last century, most newly constructed high density, attached housing was investor owned rental property. The landlord maintained it and took the risk of any economic downturn. In the last 50 years much of the new attached housing has been individually-owned condominiums. The individual unit owners are responsible for maintenance and take the risk of any economic downturn or faulty construction. Both housing types are privately governed and both impose rules on residents. Municipalities collect property taxes from both but have little responsibility for the infrastructure in either. The new urban plans that I've seen are not entirely dependent upon common interest developments, but rather include a mix of both types of high-density housing--rental apartments and condos. The only real difference between them is in who makes the rules and who takes the risk--the landlord or the community association and its members? Providing owned housing as an alternative to rental housing gives residents a choice and provides decent housing at all income levels. But choice carries economic risks and trade-offs. When making a housing choice, the question should not be whether community associations are good or bad, but rather, am I a better risk manager than my landlord?
Post a Comment