Thank you so much to Small Housing for partnering with me on this video. Discover their work on missing middle housing policy at their website: smallhousing....
While many places in North America has upzoned single family home areas. There’s still many hurdles that don’t make it enticing to build these higher density developments.
The examples given were:
(California) Limited max useable sqft. Would result in something like 2000 sqft max on the plot of land which would mean only 500 sqft units if there’s 4 units.
(Vancouver) In some circumstances it can cost a extra 70k in fees per unit built. 280k extra for the aforementioned 4 units.
(Coquitlam) Requiring 2 or more parking spots per unit. Be 8-9 spots for the 4 units.
He estimates with all these limitations developers would need to sell those 500 sqft units for 1 million dollars for it to be viable. A notable point is that for developers to even get a loan from banks for housing projects they need to demonstrate they can have a 15-20% profit margin.
The video like most of Utae’s is pretty short and to the point. Well worth the 10 minutes watch.
For anyone who just wants a summary.
While many places in North America has upzoned single family home areas. There’s still many hurdles that don’t make it enticing to build these higher density developments.
The examples given were:
(California) Limited max useable sqft. Would result in something like 2000 sqft max on the plot of land which would mean only 500 sqft units if there’s 4 units.
(Vancouver) In some circumstances it can cost a extra 70k in fees per unit built. 280k extra for the aforementioned 4 units.
(Coquitlam) Requiring 2 or more parking spots per unit. Be 8-9 spots for the 4 units.
He estimates with all these limitations developers would need to sell those 500 sqft units for 1 million dollars for it to be viable. A notable point is that for developers to even get a loan from banks for housing projects they need to demonstrate they can have a 15-20% profit margin.
The video like most of Utae’s is pretty short and to the point. Well worth the 10 minutes watch.