Density is only sustainable relative to public transportation. We need more light rail systems all over Austin or else we're all going to be stuck in traffic like LA.
Density means more units. More units means more competition for prices. Whether or not developers constructing these units is economically viable is a separate issue. This new initiative is a good first step. We'll see if developers pursue construction of these new units. If it turns out that it's not economically viable and we don't end up getting the units desired to create that density, the city council should work on measures that would help make it economically viable. The "pioneers" that Jeff talks about that go out and try this will be the first ones to test the hypothesis. I'd love to hear what they have to say.
I can understand the advantage for the City in terms of the civil engineering, and it is suppose to improve the tax base (which all would be developers claim). The social results are a different matter.
I support government regulations for safety only - not density. I’ve seen low density housing described as social justice, for reasons of protecting personal space - and *high* density housing described as social justice, for reasons of affordability. Any assumptions about the size of housing other people need is an act of projecting one’s own opinions on others. Supply and demand can work this out. Let someone build tiny homes & if they’re popular, more will appear.
Great Video Jeremy! As a long time Austin resident we need to acknowledge a few issues. Water is scarce here so we will need more water restrictions with this density. Austin metro is still expected to be one of the fasted growing metros over the next decade. So it would be better for the environment to put them closer in and encourage rail ridership. I seriously doubt inner city Austin land pricing will go down. There are only so many lots in this city. I always explain to outsiders that a lot of the land in Austin is owned by the state and UT as well as Camp Mabry. We have many parks and trails. Travis County just bought the last available large plots left to turn into a park. I chose Zilker carefully. The trails and Zilker Park and Butler were donated and have strict restrictions. Zilker neighborhood itself is built over springs and is why the rail is not running down S. Lamar as the issues of digging down. In my part of Zilker the developers are buying old duplexes and tearing them down to build single family homes so we are getting less dense. Also most on CC prefer to not tangle with ZNA who are the old timers who made this city the reason so many flock here. I think many will win. Those owning on higher density areas will see their prices rise from developers and those with more lot restrictions will see the wealthy want those lots for their larger homes. Newcomers will hopefully have more affordable options but smaller homes. As for me I continue to stay put and enjoy my neighborhood. Sadly only 2 original houses are now left on my street as my long time neighbor retired and sold off market last month. It's already being torn down.
I’d rather the Austin of the future look more Tokyo or Barcelona than like DFW, so freeing up the regulations seems like a good thing. Single family suburban sprawl may be preferable for a lot of people (especially high earning suburbanites) but it’s costly, wasteful, and as a former suburbanite resident, living there can be alienating as hell. Single family homes should never be the default land use, especially for cities. I agree with your point on affordable rent vs affordable ownership. If we’re going to build anything denser than Brooklyn/DC style rowhomes (which is the max density I think most families would be comfortable with. You share at least one wall but you can still get a decently large living space and often a back yard/garden/garage) then we need to create incentives for building condos and co-ops rather than apartment complexes, which are usually run as corporate wealth extraction machines.
As someone who lives in Dallas I agree with this. Lol have been saying all this about Dallas as well. More density, less building regs, less parking regs, more walkability and transit options.
Appreciate the content. Would you consider putting less effort into stock video and instead adding a glossary for terms and acronyms use during your conversations. Examples: Debt to income ratio, Extra territory jurisdiction.
A glossary?? Google and Siri know what an extra territory jurisdiction is as well as what DTI (debt to income) is…. use them. Jeremy Knight and his team already take time and energy to bring this content to you and you want them to hold your hand by providing a glossary?
Do you know how restrictive the zoning is outside of the city of Austin? I am graduating this year with a CS degree and want to find somewhere to move, but I am looking to build a garage as well and apply for my dealers license. I would be buying used cars, repairing and re selling them. I’m not sure if this is something I can do in more rural parts of Austin.
Yo brother good stuff. I bought in manor in shadowglen, mostly to be close to work but they finna get an HEB out there. Just need an in-n-out now. Thoughts on shadowglen?
I encourage you to look up 15 minute cities density allows for concentration of services, allows wallkability and helps reduce the need for automobile for every tiny thing
Does anyone ever stop to question why? Why is it the government's business to dictate whether something is affordable? No one has the right to move to Austin. I was born in Austin, but I chose to leave when I was in early adulthood to afford a much larger house for my family. Over the last two or three moves, we simply do not even consider Austin as where we will live. I've never once thought that the solution is to get the government to come in and force builders to build something at a price that I wanted at. The irony is, it's the city planners who have designed a city infrastructure with traffic and a housing shortage with zoning.
Considering Austin is #4/10 of the most moved out cities in the country, seems like this high-density housing is a complete waste of time and money. People are flocking out of Austin like there's no tomorrow.
I don't like this, or anything really happening to Austin. I get it, it has become a bigger city and a destination city. I have yet to see a large city that is more dense become more affordable. It happened when I was living in Portland, and it went from $150/sq foot ten years ago to now 400-400/sq foot.
I think that population growth is coming whether we like it or not. Building more and denser housing is going to be how we find homes for these people. The more we restrict housing, the more likely it is that locals will be displaced. Look what happened to California, they made it too hard and expensive to build almost anything and now there's countless issues. We should learn from this example and try to get ahead of it.
As an immigrant, I think Austin is a very green city at least compared to German cities. Additionally, if I look a few blocks behind main roads, there is a lot of space. Austin is growing, but of course this comes with some ugly things like much denser areas. Over the long term, I think it is unavoidable. On the other side, some movers like U-Haul reported that Austin is losing people. It is something I didn't expect at all and it has huge impacts on what builders will do. Currently, about 31,000 units are under construction and may be delivered in the next 4 quarters. This supply may exceed the demand by far, -> lower rents -> lower incentives to build even more. I think currently builders are very careful with planning and adding even more inventory.
This is a bit of a head scratcher. How is Austin 'very green' compared to German cities? Typically when I want to know what the latest trends are in 'being green' especially when it comes to housing, I always reference what's going on in Germany first and what they have going on over there would completely blow away anything in the US - and in any state.
@@dancox3251 Most cities in Germany are very densely packed because growth by taking more space is not possible due to environment protection laws. Some cities like Cologne have a green belt because that was part of the old city wall. But besides these areas, there are fewer parks and trees. Austin has a ton of small and big parks. German cities are greener in terms of energy consumption. Many homes are very well isolated and have solar or photovoltaic. Many people do not even have a car, most use a bike or public transportation. I never owned a car in my entire life. In Austin, doing the same is much more difficult.
First bids should always be for locals to build. And that should be encouraged by the local government. Keep out of state corps out as much as possible I've seen some stupid ugly versions of high density housing where because of government regulations, there are 2 feet between buildings and the units are built cheaply and it shows. Why not build some things like the beautiful townhomes and architecture of old New York apartments and condos. Also, dont neglect the sewer and water needs for higher density. Having saud that The urban sprawl is very costly in a lot of ways, and people don't live good lives. You want the benefits of living in the city while living in medium density neighborhoods and then cry about higher property taxes (most of which are paid by the business and people living IN the city)
“I've been to the mountaintop. Because it blocked my view and it never should been approved in the first place.” - Martin Luther King, Jr....or a NIMBY's revisionist quote
If you look at multi family. It’s bringing down the cost of rents in Austin. More options, less cost. If you have more options, then could cause prices to flatten out. Developers have too much red tape which gets passed on to the consumer. The thought is, lower costs. That gets passed onto consumers. Will that happen? I don’t know.
What proof do we have that homes will become more affordable with increased density? The most populous cities are LA, SF, and NYC, and they're not any more affordable.
LA and SF aren’t dense, NYC is expensive because of all the regs to build and they still have 7 times the population. More supply will eventually equate to lower prices if done in the right conditions.
@@anthony19721 it’s a supply and demand issue. If it doesn’t become more affordable, it’s because the density is in higher demand than you built for. Affordable is also a bit of a loaded term but supply and demand still work in this case and it’s easier and better to increase supply with density over sprawl.
People moved to Austin with the appeal of having large yard and space….just to then vote and ask for no backyard and and no space, then say that housing is ‘affordable’, even though the cost of the tiny home and no yard still cost more then a 2500 sq. ft home on a .25 acre lot…..all I can say is what a time we’re living in 😅
I know many native Texans who moved to Austin from Dallas and Houston. Not one of us moved here thinking we would get a large lot. These lots are small compared to other Texas cities. My lot in Houston was a 1/3 acre. My lot in Dallas was an acre. I sold both to afford my 8000 Sq ft lot and house here. It was quality vs quantity.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
Density is only sustainable relative to public transportation. We need more light rail systems all over Austin or else we're all going to be stuck in traffic like LA.
How’s the rail in California working out?
@@JeremyAKnight I don’t know, but in Europe and Asia it’s phenomenal. Austin needs a north and south line & east & west line.
Density means more units. More units means more competition for prices. Whether or not developers constructing these units is economically viable is a separate issue. This new initiative is a good first step. We'll see if developers pursue construction of these new units. If it turns out that it's not economically viable and we don't end up getting the units desired to create that density, the city council should work on measures that would help make it economically viable. The "pioneers" that Jeff talks about that go out and try this will be the first ones to test the hypothesis. I'd love to hear what they have to say.
It’s going to be interesting to see what happens. Do you think it will be a mess?
I can understand the advantage for the City in terms of the civil engineering, and it is suppose to improve the tax base (which all would be developers claim).
The social results are a different matter.
I support government regulations for safety only - not density.
I’ve seen low density housing described as social justice, for reasons of protecting personal space - and *high* density housing described as social justice, for reasons of affordability. Any assumptions about the size of housing other people need is an act of projecting one’s own opinions on others.
Supply and demand can work this out. Let someone build tiny homes & if they’re popular, more will appear.
👀
I agree remove the restrictions and let the market sort it out what it needed.
Density is good but with the density you need to be able to move those people and cars and roads just won’t keep up.
Great Video Jeremy!
As a long time Austin resident we need to acknowledge a few issues.
Water is scarce here so we will need more water restrictions with this density.
Austin metro is still expected to be one of the fasted growing metros over the next decade. So it would be better for the environment to put them closer in and encourage rail ridership.
I seriously doubt inner city Austin land pricing will go down. There are only so many lots in this city.
I always explain to outsiders that a lot of the land in Austin is owned by the state and UT as well as Camp Mabry. We have many parks and trails. Travis County just bought the last available large plots left to turn into a park.
I chose Zilker carefully. The trails and Zilker Park and Butler were donated and have strict restrictions. Zilker neighborhood itself is built over springs and is why the rail is not running down S. Lamar as the issues of digging down.
In my part of Zilker the developers are buying old duplexes and tearing them down to build single family homes so we are getting less dense. Also most on CC prefer to not tangle with ZNA who are the old timers who made this city the reason so many flock here.
I think many will win. Those owning on higher density areas will see their prices rise from developers and those with more lot restrictions will see the wealthy want those lots for their larger homes. Newcomers will hopefully have more affordable options but smaller homes.
As for me I continue to stay put and enjoy my neighborhood. Sadly only 2 original houses are now left on my street as my long time neighbor retired and sold off market last month. It's already being torn down.
78704 continues to be a place where developers find projects. It’s a beautiful area! Thanks for sharing!
Why are those developments being abandoned?
I live in the SF Bay Area. It sounds like Austin is adopting a California approach to housing. Translation: Declaring war on single-family homes.
Very hard to understand why people want to live like this.
I’d rather the Austin of the future look more Tokyo or Barcelona than like DFW, so freeing up the regulations seems like a good thing.
Single family suburban sprawl may be preferable for a lot of people (especially high earning suburbanites) but it’s costly, wasteful, and as a former suburbanite resident, living there can be alienating as hell. Single family homes should never be the default land use, especially for cities.
I agree with your point on affordable rent vs affordable ownership. If we’re going to build anything denser than Brooklyn/DC style rowhomes (which is the max density I think most families would be comfortable with. You share at least one wall but you can still get a decently large living space and often a back yard/garden/garage) then we need to create incentives for building condos and co-ops rather than apartment complexes, which are usually run as corporate wealth extraction machines.
As someone who lives in Dallas I agree with this. Lol have been saying all this about Dallas as well. More density, less building regs, less parking regs, more walkability and transit options.
Appreciate the content. Would you consider putting less effort into stock video and instead adding a glossary for terms and acronyms use during your conversations. Examples: Debt to income ratio,
Extra territory jurisdiction.
Thanks. I’ll send that to my editor.
A glossary?? Google and Siri know what an extra territory jurisdiction is as well as what DTI (debt to income) is…. use them. Jeremy Knight and his team already take time and energy to bring this content to you and you want them to hold your hand by providing a glossary?
@@randomone74 🙌❤️
Austin is in the weird little city but is becoming a big city phase. This is just a natural step as austin becomes a big city.
👆👆👆
agree... it is just natural... a growth from nice to ugly... but some areas are already very ugly with a low density
@@stefanforest7582 which areas?
Do you know how restrictive the zoning is outside of the city of Austin? I am graduating this year with a CS degree and want to find somewhere to move, but I am looking to build a garage as well and apply for my dealers license. I would be buying used cars, repairing and re selling them. I’m not sure if this is something I can do in more rural parts of Austin.
It depends on the area, yet there are many places you could do that.
If you're getting a CS degree why are you going into flipping cars?
Yo brother good stuff. I bought in manor in shadowglen, mostly to be close to work but they finna get an HEB out there. Just need an in-n-out now. Thoughts on shadowglen?
Y’all get an In N Out and you’re on the map! Shadowglen is a good location!
Great content, I moved from nyc to Austin specifically because I want to develop affordable housing (home ownership).
Thanks.
I encourage you to look up 15 minute cities density allows for concentration of services, allows wallkability and helps reduce the need for automobile for every tiny thing
Austin isn’t set up that way. I’ve seen it and that doesn’t fit Texas.
Austin is growing more claustrophobic.
It’s definitely more tight with all the bike lanes.
Can you do a video showing which neighborhoods would be affected
Pretty much all of central, north and east Austin.
all of austin... you think a certain neighborhood would be insulated from this?
Does anyone ever stop to question why?
Why is it the government's business to dictate whether something is affordable? No one has the right to move to Austin. I was born in Austin, but I chose to leave when I was in early adulthood to afford a much larger house for my family. Over the last two or three moves, we simply do not even consider Austin as where we will live.
I've never once thought that the solution is to get the government to come in and force builders to build something at a price that I wanted at.
The irony is, it's the city planners who have designed a city infrastructure with traffic and a housing shortage with zoning.
Ask Seattle if it got cheaper....average home is over $500
😜
Considering Austin is #4/10 of the most moved out cities in the country, seems like this high-density housing is a complete waste of time and money. People are flocking out of Austin like there's no tomorrow.
That’s because everyone is moving into the suburbs. Thats actually what the data shows.
@@JeremyAKnight Doesn't appear they're moving to Kyle though. 🙁
@@matteosummer79Why do you say this? Is Kyle a good place to live?
@@fayejordan175 The resale houses aren't moving (unless they're under 500).
It's mostly renters moving.
I don't like this, or anything really happening to Austin. I get it, it has become a bigger city and a destination city. I have yet to see a large city that is more dense become more affordable. It happened when I was living in Portland, and it went from $150/sq foot ten years ago to now 400-400/sq foot.
I think that population growth is coming whether we like it or not. Building more and denser housing is going to be how we find homes for these people. The more we restrict housing, the more likely it is that locals will be displaced. Look what happened to California, they made it too hard and expensive to build almost anything and now there's countless issues. We should learn from this example and try to get ahead of it.
As an immigrant, I think Austin is a very green city at least compared to German cities. Additionally, if I look a few blocks behind main roads, there is a lot of space.
Austin is growing, but of course this comes with some ugly things like much denser areas. Over the long term, I think it is unavoidable.
On the other side, some movers like U-Haul reported that Austin is losing people. It is something I didn't expect at all and it has huge impacts on what builders will do.
Currently, about 31,000 units are under construction and may be delivered in the next 4 quarters. This supply may exceed the demand by far, -> lower rents -> lower incentives to build even more.
I think currently builders are very careful with planning and adding even more inventory.
I think you’ll see a rubber band and forth.
This is a bit of a head scratcher. How is Austin 'very green' compared to German cities? Typically when I want to know what the latest trends are in 'being green' especially when it comes to housing, I always reference what's going on in Germany first and what they have going on over there would completely blow away anything in the US - and in any state.
@@dancox3251 Most cities in Germany are very densely packed because growth by taking more space is not possible due to environment protection laws.
Some cities like Cologne have a green belt because that was part of the old city wall.
But besides these areas, there are fewer parks and trees.
Austin has a ton of small and big parks.
German cities are greener in terms of energy consumption. Many homes are very well isolated and have solar or photovoltaic. Many people do not even have a car, most use a bike or public transportation. I never owned a car in my entire life. In Austin, doing the same is much more difficult.
Love the content!
🙌
Go to New York or L.A. if you want density , Don't Mess with Texas
👆
First bids should always be for locals to build. And that should be encouraged by the local government.
Keep out of state corps out as much as possible
I've seen some stupid ugly versions of high density housing where because of government regulations, there are 2 feet between buildings and the units are built cheaply and it shows.
Why not build some things like the beautiful townhomes and architecture of old New York apartments and condos.
Also, dont neglect the sewer and water needs for higher density.
Having saud that
The urban sprawl is very costly in a lot of ways, and people don't live good lives.
You want the benefits of living in the city while living in medium density neighborhoods and then cry about higher property taxes (most of which are paid by the business and people living IN the city)
There is no future of a city without increasing density beyond McMansions on giant lots.
Wrong. 😝
“I've been to the mountaintop. Because it blocked my view and it never should been approved in the first place.” - Martin Luther King, Jr....or a NIMBY's revisionist quote
👀
How does spending money on development and infrastructure end up costing less? Did density make NYC or San Fran less expensive? There’s your answer.
If you look at multi family. It’s bringing down the cost of rents in Austin. More options, less cost. If you have more options, then could cause prices to flatten out. Developers have too much red tape which gets passed on to the consumer. The thought is, lower costs. That gets passed onto consumers. Will that happen? I don’t know.
What proof do we have that homes will become more affordable with increased density? The most populous cities are LA, SF, and NYC, and they're not any more affordable.
LA and SF aren’t dense, NYC is expensive because of all the regs to build and they still have 7 times the population. More supply will eventually equate to lower prices if done in the right conditions.
@@AdamM where in history has adding more density made housing more cheaper?
@@anthony19721 it’s a supply and demand issue. If it doesn’t become more affordable, it’s because the density is in higher demand than you built for. Affordable is also a bit of a loaded term but supply and demand still work in this case and it’s easier and better to increase supply with density over sprawl.
People moved to Austin with the appeal of having large yard and space….just to then vote and ask for no backyard and and no space, then say that housing is ‘affordable’, even though the cost of the tiny home and no yard still cost more then a 2500 sq. ft home on a .25 acre lot…..all I can say is what a time we’re living in 😅
🤣
You're conflating a lot of things here. Mixing different groups, a fraction of people to make a point.
I know many native Texans who moved to Austin from Dallas and Houston. Not one of us moved here thinking we would get a large lot. These lots are small compared to other Texas cities. My lot in Houston was a 1/3 acre. My lot in Dallas was an acre. I sold both to afford my 8000 Sq ft lot and house here. It was quality vs quantity.
I hate how austin builds houses so close together.
That’s about to get worse!
Affordability or slavery. Tiny place for everything you have. Sounds like they want to ruin Austin.
More flooding. Great.