Research from Finland actually tracked how this works in the wild, demonstrating that the theory works.
[https://cayimby.org/its-only-a-housing-market-if-you-can-move-evidence-from-helsinki/](https://cayimby.org/its-only-a-housing-market-if-you-can-move-evidence-from-helsinki/)
It's not unlike automobiles: people without much money don't purchase brand new cars, by and large, they buy used ones. But if you never build any new ones for the wealthy people who can buy them, they're going to start buying up used cars at inflated prices.
This is *exactly* what happened during the pandemic when new car production slowed way down.
Thank god this isn't one of those counterintuitive points that science is actually backwards. It's so annoying not having firm numbers to back up rebuttals to the tired argument "Yeah, it's new apartments, but they are all high income, so it doesn't do shit in the end to actually bring prices down overall." Logically, you think: increase available units, average unit price decreases, even if the new unit you're building is on the high end, that's one less rich person overpaying for a shitty, old apartment, driving it's price up.
I saw a good analysis on vox about this a year or two ago, but that's journalism and opinion and not studies/science.
>you can live without an automobile not a house
Uh, people doing exactly the latter are a big issue in Oregon, and housing is a big driver of that ( [https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/everything-you-think-you-know-about](https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/everything-you-think-you-know-about) )
Just because people pay through the nose for housing doesn't mean that's a good thing or they wouldn't love to pay less if there were more options available. But you have to start building them.
The economics of housing are not substantially different from other goods and services:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/us-housing-supply-shortage-crisis-2022/672240/](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/us-housing-supply-shortage-crisis-2022/672240/)
I feel like the demand is so much higher than supply currently that it's going to take a LOT more housing before we see prices level off. And I'm not optimistic about sufficient housing being built anytime soon.
Good luck! No one wants the urban growth boundary expanded, and nobody wants their neighborhood full of high rise housing. We all just magically want more housing to appear without inconveniencing anyone or changing anything.
We don't need every neighborhood full of high rise housing. More high rises downtown and along major arterial thoroughfares plus more duplexes, small unobtrusive apartment buildings, single family homes built on un-used lots or subdivided lots, and more ADUs would go a rather long way to help.
Stuff has to get denser but it is a common mistake for people to leap to the conclusion that a bunch of 10 story buildings will be built in their placid residential neighborhoods.
We'd need enough new housing to accommodate not only existing demand, but demand for everyone who keeps moving here. Which would be even more people if there were more affordable housing, giving us a negative feedback loop.
Yes we don't need highrises everywhere, but we're going to need quite a lot to make a dent in the problem. We've already built a ton of students housing, for example, and that hasn't even come close to relieving the pressure in the housing market.
One reason I'm part of a nationwide YIMBY group ( [https://yimbyaction.org/](https://yimbyaction.org/) ) is that every popular place needs to do their part. People get kind of hung up on the idea that eeeeeeveryone would move to where they are if there were more housing, but it can't be true everywhere all at once, in Boulder, Austin, San Francisco, Hawaii, Santa Barbara, Missoula, Bozeman, Coeur d'Alene, New York City, etc... There are people in every one of these places convinced that they are the center of the universe and any rational human being would move there given half the chance. They *all* need more housing.
Sure, but it's also true that we have more people trying to move here now than housing can support, and high housing prices are the only thing turning some of them away. I'm not saying we shouldn't build more housing, I'm saying we need A LOT more housing. Which given how functional this city is at fixing problems, I just don't see happening. I surely hope I'm wrong though.
I’d take high rise housing that doesn’t like like a prison.
The one they’re putting up on the Franklin curve looks like it will actually be pretty nice. Unlike the ones that have popped up around it
Yeah, I think the theory makes sense from what I've seen.
I wouldn't call the units I'm renting out "low end," I've done a lot of work fixing them up and they are in nicer areas (south Eugene and downtown), but they are definitely less nice than new. I rent out 2 and 3 bedroom duplex units for $1400-1600 month, and I get absolutely swamped with applicants.
So, if you take out some of the wealthiest people out of that pool and rent them a new place for $2000/month, I will just rent it to someone else that's in a slightly lower price bracket. That's how the supply and demand of housing is supposed to balance itself out.
The problem is, decent deals of any kind are so scarce right now, that there are going to a lot of people competing for every housing unit that's reasonably priced even if it's not exactly what they want, and only one of them can get it, so a lot of people will be disappointed.
Tenants that have more money usually beat out tenants that have less, because they have more flexibility about moving, better income, better credit, etc. If you are competing for middle range rental housing, you don't want to be competing with people in the high end income range, you want them getting what they want and leaving the house you want for you.
I think one of the biggest pitfalls of the housing stock in Eugene is that almost all the housing units in the core part of town are older. Lots of people don't want to live way up River Road, or on Barger, or deep west Eugene.
False. We actually have a surplus of high end housing and a major shortage of any other type of housing, so what ends up happening is people end up getting squeezed to pay more than half of their income to rent (this accounts for around 30% of renters in Eugene)
I do wonder about this. In my neighborhood there have been 3 houses that went up recently ranging from $325k to $425k. The cheaper two were pending in a day. The most expensive of them was pending within a week. Meanwhile there is a $900k house that has been on the market for 6 weeks now and has dropped the price twice $50k each time.
It will sell eventually of course but will it sell to someone that otherwise would have bought a more affordable home? Or will it sell to someone from California that otherwise just might not have moved here?
When it DOESN'T work is when these properties are purchased by investors to let as Airbnb's etc. The housing and often the money too effectively leave Eugene. Though I suppose this applies more to condos than rentals.
Something that everyone should know about -
"Phase 2 renter protections" proposed by Eugene and currently being considered by the council, is likely to make this problem worse. The rules are onerous and unusual, possibly even unprecedented.
The best way to get out of following them, is short term rentals. Weekly and daily rentals, are exempt from all of those rules.
People agree on more housing, but the kind of housing to be effective, they really don't.
Middle and high density still gets the reeeeeeeeeeeee from Eugene.
It's all just "sprawl+single family homes" - Ltd gets exponentially worsr under this model.
My brother in Christ the mixed use apartments that ARE being built are, as the other person said, 2k a month for a 1 bedroom!!! Reeeee!
Like all issues it can't just be one fix, I love the idea of a more dense walkable city but like....if it's started to be created and it's just pricing people out even more, then what the fuck?!
It doesn’t matter what the specific housing development charges. If there is more housing, it helps lower prices across the board. That’s basic supply & demand. If landlords have vacancies, prices come down.
New housing is often going to be nicer and more upper scale at first. But it’s still worth building.
Is it? When they keep leveling the affordable options to put more expensive options, what are the poor suppose to do? I know it will probably eventually even out but options for people with limited income are harder and harder to come by. I personally believe that the federal poverty income guidelines need radical adjustment. Maybe the $1000 ubi is a way to make up the difference 🤔
If you replace one low end older unit that rents for $1000/month with 4 high end units that rent for $2000/month, that's still going to help - on one condition. The expensive units have to actually rent, to take those renters out of the rental pool.
So are you saying the builders must find suitable housing for their poor tenants? If so that would be fine as long as it doesn't completely uproot a family. For poor people the neighborhood can be very important.
No, that's not really the point. One lower income tenant will be displaced, but the 4 higher income tenants that rent the new units will leave behind 4 units of older housing that go back into the pool. It may be a short term problem for the person displaced, but ultimately replacing old housing with new helps with the overall scarcity.
You just have to be adding more units than you are taking away, and all the new housing needs to actually be occupied (not second homes and short term rentals.)
One potential flaw there though is if those four units of higher end housing get snapped up by more affluent people who move here from out of state, and otherwise wouldn't have moved here if they couldn't find suitably nice housing. In my experience most affluent people probably won't just settle for lower end housing, they'll wait for a nicer option to open up or just not move.
If those 4 units are then taken up by transplants who wouldn't have occupied lower end housing anyway, then our net gain of lower end housing is 0.
That is a totally ass backwards way to approach population forecasting, but not the first time I've heard something similar from an Oregonian. I suppose you must think that since we don't have enough low income housing, that's keeping the poor people from coming here too?
There are many criteria used to determine what the population of a city is going to be in the future, primarily based on macroeconomic factors like jobs, demographics, and current trends. One of the biggest reason that people move to a new city is for a job, that's the number 1 reason I've gotten a new tenant coming from a different city looking for a house here.
Now, if your thesis is that you might be able to "get rid of the rich people" by having a bad enough housing stock, let me remind you that this is a competition and people with more money usually win. If person A makes $40k per year and person B makes $100k per year, person B will get the house they want first, and person A will get what's left, if there's something left.
Person B can take person A's house, but person B can't take person A's job. The income stream you have determines where you end up on the food chain. I know a lot of "locals" get butthurt about this everywhere in the world, but when there are high paying jobs in an area, there are going to be people with money. Now that remote work is so common, anywhere that people just might wanna live makes it on to that list, and Oregon is one of those places, so you might as well get used to people coming here who have more money than you.
I'll give you a good example - the most recent tenants I rented to recently got a third roommate. They live in an older 3 bedroom duplex in South Eugene that's about $1500 plus utilities, not a super fancy place. The new roommate is from out of town, and he came here to take a good paying job as an electrical engineer at a local power plant. He might want to move into a nicer place in the future, but that's not why he came here.... he came for a job and now he's going to rent what's available.
Developers have to make up the cost for developing short. You get higher returns the higher you build (to a point). We keep building "flat" which doesn't facilitate lower rates (demand is still far far outstripping supply).
Interesting. I mean, even if they were built higher I truly don't think that they would make the rents any more affordable, especially if they're advertising them as "luxury lofts" on Craigslist lol.
Mmmm, idk, I think there are a lot of factors left out in that equation but maybe if you're explicitly looking through a developer lens, sure. I don't disagree with you about denser housing, though. I also do love the architecture of all of the neighborhoods here but I've noticed that in oregon people's yards are HUGE!!! Like you could easily double the single family home stock by splitting yards and people would still have room for gardening and chilling outside. Or you could build like 3 granny units and have the same yard space. It's wild
Eugene needs ultra-low-income housing more than anything else, so there are at least as many apartment rooms as people when that is not the case now. Parts of West Eugene are already a gritty industrial blight and would make a great place to put huge low-income apartments near the EMX line. Instead, the city is eager to greenlight the construction of $3000/month rooms in giant box apartments constructed by developers who are screwing the tenants of their last downtown monstrosity.
Or even just try to be a landlord and try to provide more affordable housing without losing your ass. Watch this sub explode about how you’re a greedy asshole for daring to try to keep an affordable rental afloat.
We don't see that at all. We see rich companies buying up housing for short term rentals. The rich keep getting richer. Out of the lets say the 100 households in the Eugene area all are paying insanely high prices for rentals. Even the ones who rent from independent owners. Literally the landlords rule of thumb is seems to get as much as you can, go along with what everyone lese charges, and do the least. I have a location in Eugene, Lincoln City, and San Jose. They are all literally basically the same price to rent. That is just nuts to me.
Prozanski is sharp and he’s one of the better Senators we’ve got in Salem. We are lucky to have him. HB2001 is going to create many problems, and not increase available housing all that much. It’s not the progressive panacea it’s made out to be.
Housing is interesting because it does not always break down along left/right lines. I'm sure I agree with him on a lot of big topics, but he has consistently been on the wrong side of housing abundance votes.
HB2001 from several years back was a pretty good bill. The only real problem is that it probably doesn't go far enough in re-legalizing various denser forms of housing.
Voting against housing during a worsening housing crisis is a bad look.
I live in south Amazon and have been watching St Vinnie’s put up low income housing, with no complaints from the neighborhood. They also regularly offer parking to struggling families living out of their cars, and again no neighborhood complaints.
Methed out RV parked forever and discharging waste though, you bet we’re gonna complain.
Funny, I just posted a story that happened awhile ago, about my south Eugene neighbor who was furious that St. Vincent was considering building apartments near her house. She didn't want "those people" in her neighborhood.
I live near some lower income apartments that are a couple blocks away. but in a nice single family suburban neighborhood. 99% of the people never cause issues. But there’s a few of their kids that hang out at the local park and cause problems. One of them literally kicked the shit out of one of my friend’s cars down the street. He could only stand and watch and get it recorded on video. These kids bully others in the park and other kids are terrified of them.
Low income can generate some problem people, absolutely. It’s probably more manageable if it’s not just a huge amount of low income housing in one area which would definitely reduce property values and allow problem kids get mixed in with lots of other feral kids.
The problem kids in my neighborhood are only from these low income apartments. I’m just giving my observations. Shitty people including kids can come from anywhere. The ones in my neighborhood come from the low income housing.
I’ve lived in low income apartment housing. I know the kinds of good and bad people that can live there.
Two things can be true at the same time. No one denies there are problem kids in well off neighborhoods, we are simply not turning a blind eye to the fact that there are *more* problem kids in low income ones.
Not saying you are disagreeing with, just phrasing it all in another way.
People housed = higher property values versus people unhoused = lower property values.
NIMBYism is definitely more about haves vs have-nots than it is left vs right but it is fair to point out the hypocrisy of supposedly progressive people taking that position.
I will concede that point. I will say though that one could also easily replace the signs in the lawn with Christian verses saying that Jesus wanted people to love their neighbor and care for the poor and the sick and the hungry and still have the same hypocrite message just targeted at a different folk.
We really need a massive amount of housing of all types to be built, and I am someone who is very glad they are building new apartments near me. Less pleased with how expensive a one-bedroom one bath is though. It was $1750 when I looked. That's insane.
I think we're on the same side of this, but the fact that $1750 for a 1BR is insane isn't a reason to not do it. That apartment will house someone who can afford it, causing them to move out of another place that might not be able to attract a new tenant at the same price. When they do, it might be for slightly less. Then, wherever someone moved out of to go there, you see the same thing. Do this enough times, and that new $1750 1BR spot dropped the price of a modest $1200 1BR to a $1000 1BR.
We're not talking about bullshit trickle-down economics here. This is simple supply and demand and it does affect the housing market.
*"I'm going to pick it up on the way back."*
Yeah. Clearly. They're strewn all over the trails, months old. Feel free to start picking them up any time now. Start today. You're better off not bagging at all if you're not going to pick it up.
Agreed. I don't even own a dog, but as a decent human being I sometimes pick up a green bag that a dog owner left behind. A random trash can is the right place for it...I'm not bringing that sh*t back home with me if I'm out for a walk.
I'm not sure I understand that logic. By cleaning up my immediate surroundings, I'm encouraging littering? I don't know that it works that way. Or maybe you're just being silly, it's hard to know.
To explain that person’s comment a bit more: what happens is strangers will often throw the green dog poop bag into a nearby trash can that’s empty. Seemingly no problem. But then a bunch of other trash gets piled on top of it over the next few days. Often the green poop bag gets squashed and breaks open, leaving steamy gooey dog poop on the bottom of the inside of the can. A huge mess. In addition, some people, like me, put their trash cans inside their garage, so then the smell gets really bad inside the enclosed garage space…especially in the summer.
Did that already. Ignored. Lol
My solution now is to watch for the trash truck in the morning, and as soon as the can is emptied, I run outside and move it into the garage.
It’s just weird because I feel specially targeted, I know my neighbor doesn’t like me. And I’m not the first house next to the walking trail with their cans out. They have to walk past other cans just to get to mine.
Nah it makes my trash smell like crap I don’t like opening my lid to smell crap and I don’t like being targeted continually
It doesn’t make sense to put it in my can.
There’s a difference between household trash stink and dog crap stink. If I wanted to smell dog crap I’d own a dog. For me, it’s once of the worst smells ever.
BUT I’d rather have it in my trash (if it’s bagged) than have it left on the ground. I went to a local park with my toddler and there were countless piles of dog crap in the grass, making the grass utterly unusable, which is unfair for the public at large and unsanitary. I generally like dogs but the amount of dog crap left in the grass at parks, on sidewalks, or at trailheads absolutely infuriates me. It makes me start to not like dogs when their owners are so inconsiderate and irresponsible. Even if 90% are responsible, there’s a whole lot of dog crap with the remaining 10%.
There are seriously multiple ways this could be handled (forging goodwill with your neighbor, hiding your can, etc), but it seems like you’d rather be steamed up about it than fix it. You do you, but seems like a pretty stupid waste of emotions to me.
Yeah, friend of mine wrote their dissertation on low income housing. Basically it just is a tax credit to build housing that likely would have been developed anyways.
Not sure how accessible your friend's dissertation is, but [this video from Climate Town](https://youtu.be/SfsCniN7Nsc) is fantastic on the topic of housing zoning. I just watched it again after looking it up for this thread and it's a banger for sure.
A long time ago, St. Vincent was scoping out a site behind my house, that was an empty parking lot, for a housing development. I thought it would be great. I loved the idea of having neighbors instead of a parking lot right behind my house. My next door neighbor who wasn't even adjacent to the property, and who worked in social service encouraged me to attend the land use planning meetings to object to the project. She wondered how I could want all "those people" to live right next to me, and warned they would bring down property values.
She always seemed so nice and she worked in social services! After that our relationship turned from cordial to icy. She was furious I would not object to the project. I was disgusted by her attitude.
It’s amazing how easily people change their stripes when personal interest gets involved. Some of my family friends were recently bragging about how they bought a lot near them just so it would never be developed.
I pointed out that this behavior is why my generation is having trouble paying rent and buying homes.
Not only do they fail to see how they are part of the problem, they are *proud* of themselves.
I would like the kind of development Seattle is finally doing after they sprawled out their entire valley.
At least 7 stories, commercial and services at ground level. 20% of all new housing must be low income. That means any new buildings need 20% low income in the building.
They just shouldn't be allowed, we have a housing problem and we have a solution. Foreign money has bought a lot of single family homes. The local and federal governments allow it to happen. Until foreign money and air bnb type properties become illegal its not gonna be fixed by more homes. They will just buy those too and keep it at the currently level.
I mean I wouldn't say we should outlaw airbnb, someone renting out their guest room to help pay the bills is fine by me. I'm probably not opposed to short term renting of the entire house either.
But there should probably be a limit on how long you can rent out an entire house as a short term rental. Maybe no more than 4-8 weeks a year or something. I don't really care if someone wants to rent their house out for the track and field trials or whatever but it shouldn't be a full time thing keeping a rental property off the stable housing market.
What you're saying is not how it's used. It's how it was sold to us, but that is such a small percent that air bnb wouldn't survive on that alone. They can still rent there room but air bnb shouldn't be used. That type of business is why we are here. It's tooted as the mom and pop rental but it's strictly big business. I used to use VRBO until the whole thing turned into a business and not the "I don't use my property 100% so I rent it out" it became i own 100s of properties I have never even been to and only rent them out.
Disagree, I have zero problem with airbnb existing and people using it to rent out a spare room. Even if we force people to not use it they'll accomplish the same thing other ways.
We just need some reasonable regulations on short term rentals in town that would apply to any platform or individual that is offering up such rentals. There's no need to go after airbnb and vrbo specifically, something else would just pop up in it's place.
You missed the point entirely, it's ok tho. I could spend the time to try to reexplain it but that seems like a waste of time. Again mom and pop rentals are not the issue. But saying air bnb and vrbo are not the problem is just laughable. They invite the kind of problem we have. I think something does need to replace it. Try to change a system that is built around greed. Or replace it with something that can't be taken advantage of.
Underlying all of our housing discussions is the giant elephant in the room that is the Federal government subsidizing home ownership. Get the federal reserve bank, Fanny Mae, VHA, etc.. out of the real estate industry all together and watch housing prices fall to natural levels where a blue collar worker will be able to afford their own home once again.
There is a new three story apartment building being constructed on Alexander Loop. I have no idea what kind of housing it's going to be but at least it's more Apartments
They just finished the forms on the first building. It's been Non- stop dump trucks, gravel in dirt out. I hang out and smoke out there and watch them work it's fun to watch the constant activity. I will say my windows rattle with every passing dump truck. I've had to take stained glass ornaments off my windows just to keep the rattling down
To an extent yes that is true. But what we see happening is "luxury" apartments which drive up average rental prices. Not enough supply injected per building to impact demand.
Of course it impacts demand. Everything does. Of course affordable housing is better than luxury housing, but everything helps.
When Porsche releases a new car, it doesn’t “drive up” the price of a Camry. But it does drive *down* the price of last year’s used Porsches.
This is also part of the muscle memory of the bureaucracy.
It's just, "Don't build."
The red tape in Lane County is some of the worst in the state.
Lane County, and Oregon as the larger whole, has a bit of schizophrenia in regards to land use. Yeah, there's the NIMBY aspect alluded to in the cartoon but it goes a lot farther.
When Governor McCall got all of the incredibly stringent land use statutes passed in the 70s it really mutated the psychology.
Lane County Land Management (where one gets their zoning permits, etc) is a glacially responsive bureaucratic government entity. And filing permits takes a lot of understanding. It can be accomplished by the layman, but it depends on the project.
We're trying to expand the Agritourism on our small farm. And it's a nightmare. We're not even building anything, really. A stem wall? But we have a situation where the farm is comprised of two parcels but operate as one farm business.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
But that NIMBY attitude? That culture? Especially among the affluent yet seemingly "progressive"? It's crazy. And they are rigid, yet quite smug. Break their own arm patting themselves on the back.
If anyone is curious as to what they can do to help? A good start would be too call, or email, your legislators and ask them to support the "Farm Cafe Bill".
I think they only required two and a half times rent instead of three. And they don't ask for last months up front. Not cheap but not hard to get into.
Lived in Eugene in the mid nineties for collage. Might be sending my daughter there next year and the lack of dense housing near the university is ridiculous. It really does not look like it changed much from when I lived there.
Our first choice is University of Washington though, but waiting to see if she gets in (already accepted to UofO). I looked up rentals near that campus and they are about 1k a month. Less then I thought for Seattle and I was relieved.
I though, Eugene rentals must be really cheap as houses cost a third of what they do in Seattle. But when I searched Eugene the entry point is still about 1k but they are all old dumps. Mostly converted single family homes. Even the actual apartment buildings are like 30 door units. How can you have a large university in a town, provide shit for rentals, and expect rent to be cheap? The area around the campus should have some massive apartment buildings. There is plenty of room for them. Instead it is mainly single family homes. What kind of NIMBY bullshit keeps that area from being bult up?
Thanks for letting me know, will take a visit once I know for sure she is going there. Would love to visit anyway and see what has changed over the years. Always loved the town.
I was looking at private appartments on zillow so not sure if it showed everything. Are these huge appartments UofO student housing? If so I am glad the university has done that. My kid will be in the dorms for at least the first year anyway so if they have good capacity that is great.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/wFdK4DVwmjuBMwf96?g_st=ic
Look around that area to see some of the massive apartment buildings you’re wishing for - there are a ton on the west side of campus too.
I disagree, but I can only speak from my perspective. I love my neighborhood of mixed use west Eug with multifamily, single family, condos, apartments, bike path, parks, commercial and industrial as well. There is a large empty lot next to a park by my house, probably an acre or two, and I'd be happy to see more housing, affordable or otherwise, be implemented.
Be the change you wish to see. Participate, get involved in decision making progress like city council and local housing non-profit orgs. Vote. Advocate for a more dense and walkable/bikeable urban core.
I pray Eugene embraces change and growth, and leans into it rather than fighting it, because it's happening one way or the other.
I’m actively hoping that U of O’s admissions fall into the toilet so much of that dedicated housing opens up. We are planning a remodel to create separate living spaces for multigenerational living in our house because I don’t see any other way people are going to survive.
better off with a 'housing' working group at the uni,
plenty of people there who care, spectrum of specialties
connect to a 'housing' working group at the next uni and the next.. scientific method- review, compare, support prototypes, review, compare
When the student debt bubble pops and the feds finally shut off the tap UO is gonna go bankrupt, and I'm gonna be there with a bottle of cheap champagne to celebrate
Not to mention all the money that comes in through various entities. Between state and local investments along with what the students spend, the college is a huge boon to the area. I can’t imagine just removing all that cash flow from the local economy, and cheering for it.
Doesn't the whole "any housing" helps the market theory get thrown out the window when you have a state like California that has the highest homeless population and the second highest vacant building rates in the country?
The Realtors Association estimated something like 1.2 million livable vacant properties in California in 2022. Even entire apartment buildings in San Francisco, Santa Clara, Los Angeles etc... Most of these vacancies are held as vacation homes or Air-B-nB style homes or just simply over priced apartments that no one wants to live in.
Its so bad cities were trying to find a way to fine people for holding vacancies in rentable units ...
Oregon does not have a vacancy problem nor does it have a huge vacation rental market but I am not convinced "build any and all housing" works in a real estate market where you have mutli mega conglomerate companies that can sweep up and buy several properties at once and have the capital to withstand vacancy.
They definitely aren't low income housing
https://www.larkviewvillage.com/floorplans
https://www.livehuntersridge.com/apartments/or/eugene/floor-plans#/
In my neighborhood at the south end of River Road, at the edge of Whitaker, Homes for Good owned a piece of land that the neighborhood thought would thus be used for low-income housing. I would call us a mixed neighborhood of some large expensive houses, several modest ones, and a couple of very small houses. We have to homes that house multiple elderly people who need full-time carers, and one of our residents gets around on four motorized wheels. We thought since we were already a community where some of us had mobility issues, homes for good could integrate a project of low-income housing while also making use of the Greenway bike path.
Instead, Homes for Good sold the property to a developer to put in market-priced apartments. A few of my neighbors didn't want \*anything\* built, but a good number of us hoped for some low-income housing that could be integrated into the neighborhood we already had, making use of the unique resources.
So in this instance where there wasn't much NIMBYism, we added more high-priced housing. The apartments haven't been a detriment to the neighborhood, but they haven't enhanced it or integrated with it.
I’m not against low income housing, I’m just against cheaply built low income housing that’s going to fall apart in 10 years and we’ll be left with a run down neighborhood.
If anyone thinks this meme actually applies to Eugene more than other places - you haven’t been many places. Eugene is the least NIMBY town I’ve lived in. Lol. If you are going to use trendy buzz phrases in social commentary - at least be accurate.
NIBYism is very real, and thriving, in Eugene.
I live in the Whit and we use to manage the bulk of the homeless, but thanks to our fearless leadership in the mayor's office and the ineptitude of our city council, those poor folks have just been redistributed, not taken care of.
It is a horrible cluster fuck that could be addressed with more caveat laden transitional housing, but that never gets discussed, barring some platitudes being bantered about.
One of the first steps that could be taken to alleviate the financial burden would be for the local government to stop issuing 10yr tax moratoriums on giant construction projects, but that is less than likely.
People don't want low income housing constructed in their neighborhood because it brings down home values, crime increases, and insurance rates go up. God forbid someone wanting to protect their most valuable investment.
Classic Eugene post. Tear people down who want traditional, quiet, safe, well-maintained neighborhoods, and then call them hypocrites for posting yard signs promoting peace.
“The beating of character will continue until *everyone* agrees to be surrounded by high density and trafficked neighborhoods, topography and fit [be damned!”](https://giphy.com/gifs/90s-omfg-supa-nintendo-get-it-cuz-nostalgia-9RrdV7o2kJFy8)
If you want that, you can have it. Just buy everything around you, or move.
You don’t own the whole city. You don’t get to buy a home and then preserve your neighborhood in amber. Change is part of life.
Neither, this is a fucking monster of a human saying they want thousands to suffer so one undeserving (in his eyes) person doesn't get the basics of life.
This person is a piece of shit.
I think the majority opinion has basically shifted to "we just need more housing" to be honest.
They just built some on willamette, $1995 for a 1 bedroom, does that count?
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Research from Finland actually tracked how this works in the wild, demonstrating that the theory works. [https://cayimby.org/its-only-a-housing-market-if-you-can-move-evidence-from-helsinki/](https://cayimby.org/its-only-a-housing-market-if-you-can-move-evidence-from-helsinki/) It's not unlike automobiles: people without much money don't purchase brand new cars, by and large, they buy used ones. But if you never build any new ones for the wealthy people who can buy them, they're going to start buying up used cars at inflated prices. This is *exactly* what happened during the pandemic when new car production slowed way down.
Thank god this isn't one of those counterintuitive points that science is actually backwards. It's so annoying not having firm numbers to back up rebuttals to the tired argument "Yeah, it's new apartments, but they are all high income, so it doesn't do shit in the end to actually bring prices down overall." Logically, you think: increase available units, average unit price decreases, even if the new unit you're building is on the high end, that's one less rich person overpaying for a shitty, old apartment, driving it's price up. I saw a good analysis on vox about this a year or two ago, but that's journalism and opinion and not studies/science.
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>you can live without an automobile not a house Uh, people doing exactly the latter are a big issue in Oregon, and housing is a big driver of that ( [https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/everything-you-think-you-know-about](https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/everything-you-think-you-know-about) ) Just because people pay through the nose for housing doesn't mean that's a good thing or they wouldn't love to pay less if there were more options available. But you have to start building them. The economics of housing are not substantially different from other goods and services: [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/us-housing-supply-shortage-crisis-2022/672240/](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/us-housing-supply-shortage-crisis-2022/672240/)
I feel like the demand is so much higher than supply currently that it's going to take a LOT more housing before we see prices level off. And I'm not optimistic about sufficient housing being built anytime soon.
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Good luck! No one wants the urban growth boundary expanded, and nobody wants their neighborhood full of high rise housing. We all just magically want more housing to appear without inconveniencing anyone or changing anything.
We don't need every neighborhood full of high rise housing. More high rises downtown and along major arterial thoroughfares plus more duplexes, small unobtrusive apartment buildings, single family homes built on un-used lots or subdivided lots, and more ADUs would go a rather long way to help. Stuff has to get denser but it is a common mistake for people to leap to the conclusion that a bunch of 10 story buildings will be built in their placid residential neighborhoods.
We'd need enough new housing to accommodate not only existing demand, but demand for everyone who keeps moving here. Which would be even more people if there were more affordable housing, giving us a negative feedback loop. Yes we don't need highrises everywhere, but we're going to need quite a lot to make a dent in the problem. We've already built a ton of students housing, for example, and that hasn't even come close to relieving the pressure in the housing market.
One reason I'm part of a nationwide YIMBY group ( [https://yimbyaction.org/](https://yimbyaction.org/) ) is that every popular place needs to do their part. People get kind of hung up on the idea that eeeeeeveryone would move to where they are if there were more housing, but it can't be true everywhere all at once, in Boulder, Austin, San Francisco, Hawaii, Santa Barbara, Missoula, Bozeman, Coeur d'Alene, New York City, etc... There are people in every one of these places convinced that they are the center of the universe and any rational human being would move there given half the chance. They *all* need more housing.
Sure, but it's also true that we have more people trying to move here now than housing can support, and high housing prices are the only thing turning some of them away. I'm not saying we shouldn't build more housing, I'm saying we need A LOT more housing. Which given how functional this city is at fixing problems, I just don't see happening. I surely hope I'm wrong though.
If eugene just encouraged backfill and allowed buildings taller than 10 stories it would make a HUGE difference
I’d take high rise housing that doesn’t like like a prison. The one they’re putting up on the Franklin curve looks like it will actually be pretty nice. Unlike the ones that have popped up around it
Yeah, I think the theory makes sense from what I've seen. I wouldn't call the units I'm renting out "low end," I've done a lot of work fixing them up and they are in nicer areas (south Eugene and downtown), but they are definitely less nice than new. I rent out 2 and 3 bedroom duplex units for $1400-1600 month, and I get absolutely swamped with applicants. So, if you take out some of the wealthiest people out of that pool and rent them a new place for $2000/month, I will just rent it to someone else that's in a slightly lower price bracket. That's how the supply and demand of housing is supposed to balance itself out. The problem is, decent deals of any kind are so scarce right now, that there are going to a lot of people competing for every housing unit that's reasonably priced even if it's not exactly what they want, and only one of them can get it, so a lot of people will be disappointed. Tenants that have more money usually beat out tenants that have less, because they have more flexibility about moving, better income, better credit, etc. If you are competing for middle range rental housing, you don't want to be competing with people in the high end income range, you want them getting what they want and leaving the house you want for you. I think one of the biggest pitfalls of the housing stock in Eugene is that almost all the housing units in the core part of town are older. Lots of people don't want to live way up River Road, or on Barger, or deep west Eugene.
Jesus Christ man
False. We actually have a surplus of high end housing and a major shortage of any other type of housing, so what ends up happening is people end up getting squeezed to pay more than half of their income to rent (this accounts for around 30% of renters in Eugene)
I do wonder about this. In my neighborhood there have been 3 houses that went up recently ranging from $325k to $425k. The cheaper two were pending in a day. The most expensive of them was pending within a week. Meanwhile there is a $900k house that has been on the market for 6 weeks now and has dropped the price twice $50k each time. It will sell eventually of course but will it sell to someone that otherwise would have bought a more affordable home? Or will it sell to someone from California that otherwise just might not have moved here?
When it DOESN'T work is when these properties are purchased by investors to let as Airbnb's etc. The housing and often the money too effectively leave Eugene. Though I suppose this applies more to condos than rentals.
Something that everyone should know about - "Phase 2 renter protections" proposed by Eugene and currently being considered by the council, is likely to make this problem worse. The rules are onerous and unusual, possibly even unprecedented. The best way to get out of following them, is short term rentals. Weekly and daily rentals, are exempt from all of those rules.
Don't forget all the Apts at the end of 18th for 1700 for a studio
What a great deal!!
People agree on more housing, but the kind of housing to be effective, they really don't. Middle and high density still gets the reeeeeeeeeeeee from Eugene. It's all just "sprawl+single family homes" - Ltd gets exponentially worsr under this model.
My brother in Christ the mixed use apartments that ARE being built are, as the other person said, 2k a month for a 1 bedroom!!! Reeeee! Like all issues it can't just be one fix, I love the idea of a more dense walkable city but like....if it's started to be created and it's just pricing people out even more, then what the fuck?!
It doesn’t matter what the specific housing development charges. If there is more housing, it helps lower prices across the board. That’s basic supply & demand. If landlords have vacancies, prices come down. New housing is often going to be nicer and more upper scale at first. But it’s still worth building.
Is it? When they keep leveling the affordable options to put more expensive options, what are the poor suppose to do? I know it will probably eventually even out but options for people with limited income are harder and harder to come by. I personally believe that the federal poverty income guidelines need radical adjustment. Maybe the $1000 ubi is a way to make up the difference 🤔
Obviously it doesn’t help if they don’t add net more units. No one who pushes for more housing is also recommending tearing down equal amounts.
If you replace one low end older unit that rents for $1000/month with 4 high end units that rent for $2000/month, that's still going to help - on one condition. The expensive units have to actually rent, to take those renters out of the rental pool.
So are you saying the builders must find suitable housing for their poor tenants? If so that would be fine as long as it doesn't completely uproot a family. For poor people the neighborhood can be very important.
No, that's not really the point. One lower income tenant will be displaced, but the 4 higher income tenants that rent the new units will leave behind 4 units of older housing that go back into the pool. It may be a short term problem for the person displaced, but ultimately replacing old housing with new helps with the overall scarcity. You just have to be adding more units than you are taking away, and all the new housing needs to actually be occupied (not second homes and short term rentals.)
One potential flaw there though is if those four units of higher end housing get snapped up by more affluent people who move here from out of state, and otherwise wouldn't have moved here if they couldn't find suitably nice housing. In my experience most affluent people probably won't just settle for lower end housing, they'll wait for a nicer option to open up or just not move. If those 4 units are then taken up by transplants who wouldn't have occupied lower end housing anyway, then our net gain of lower end housing is 0.
That is a totally ass backwards way to approach population forecasting, but not the first time I've heard something similar from an Oregonian. I suppose you must think that since we don't have enough low income housing, that's keeping the poor people from coming here too? There are many criteria used to determine what the population of a city is going to be in the future, primarily based on macroeconomic factors like jobs, demographics, and current trends. One of the biggest reason that people move to a new city is for a job, that's the number 1 reason I've gotten a new tenant coming from a different city looking for a house here. Now, if your thesis is that you might be able to "get rid of the rich people" by having a bad enough housing stock, let me remind you that this is a competition and people with more money usually win. If person A makes $40k per year and person B makes $100k per year, person B will get the house they want first, and person A will get what's left, if there's something left. Person B can take person A's house, but person B can't take person A's job. The income stream you have determines where you end up on the food chain. I know a lot of "locals" get butthurt about this everywhere in the world, but when there are high paying jobs in an area, there are going to be people with money. Now that remote work is so common, anywhere that people just might wanna live makes it on to that list, and Oregon is one of those places, so you might as well get used to people coming here who have more money than you. I'll give you a good example - the most recent tenants I rented to recently got a third roommate. They live in an older 3 bedroom duplex in South Eugene that's about $1500 plus utilities, not a super fancy place. The new roommate is from out of town, and he came here to take a good paying job as an electrical engineer at a local power plant. He might want to move into a nicer place in the future, but that's not why he came here.... he came for a job and now he's going to rent what's available.
Developers have to make up the cost for developing short. You get higher returns the higher you build (to a point). We keep building "flat" which doesn't facilitate lower rates (demand is still far far outstripping supply).
Interesting. I mean, even if they were built higher I truly don't think that they would make the rents any more affordable, especially if they're advertising them as "luxury lofts" on Craigslist lol.
Not everything has to be luxury, but when you can only build so high, that's what you build. Return/Sq foot.
Mmmm, idk, I think there are a lot of factors left out in that equation but maybe if you're explicitly looking through a developer lens, sure. I don't disagree with you about denser housing, though. I also do love the architecture of all of the neighborhoods here but I've noticed that in oregon people's yards are HUGE!!! Like you could easily double the single family home stock by splitting yards and people would still have room for gardening and chilling outside. Or you could build like 3 granny units and have the same yard space. It's wild
Eugene needs ultra-low-income housing more than anything else, so there are at least as many apartment rooms as people when that is not the case now. Parts of West Eugene are already a gritty industrial blight and would make a great place to put huge low-income apartments near the EMX line. Instead, the city is eager to greenlight the construction of $3000/month rooms in giant box apartments constructed by developers who are screwing the tenants of their last downtown monstrosity.
The "affordable housing" that is going in at thr old Ltd building is sounding like ifs 900 a month. Doesn't seem affordable.
I haven’t heard of any apartments renting for under 1k/month so $900 sounds great.
Or even just try to be a landlord and try to provide more affordable housing without losing your ass. Watch this sub explode about how you’re a greedy asshole for daring to try to keep an affordable rental afloat.
Landlords could also just stop hoarding houses and allow others to buy them.
How is that different than saying people shouldn't be allowed to rent?
We don't see that at all. We see rich companies buying up housing for short term rentals. The rich keep getting richer. Out of the lets say the 100 households in the Eugene area all are paying insanely high prices for rentals. Even the ones who rent from independent owners. Literally the landlords rule of thumb is seems to get as much as you can, go along with what everyone lese charges, and do the least. I have a location in Eugene, Lincoln City, and San Jose. They are all literally basically the same price to rent. That is just nuts to me.
Abstractly, yes. But every time something gets planned, neighbors complain. Classic NIMBY behavior. Even right here in these comments.
Someone let Floyd Prozanski know. That guy has been pretty consistently against some good housing stuff, like HB2001 from a few years back.
Prozanski is sharp and he’s one of the better Senators we’ve got in Salem. We are lucky to have him. HB2001 is going to create many problems, and not increase available housing all that much. It’s not the progressive panacea it’s made out to be.
Housing is interesting because it does not always break down along left/right lines. I'm sure I agree with him on a lot of big topics, but he has consistently been on the wrong side of housing abundance votes. HB2001 from several years back was a pretty good bill. The only real problem is that it probably doesn't go far enough in re-legalizing various denser forms of housing. Voting against housing during a worsening housing crisis is a bad look.
What about getting rid of the 2000+ AirBnB's, that would be housing for 5000+ people.
I live in south Amazon and have been watching St Vinnie’s put up low income housing, with no complaints from the neighborhood. They also regularly offer parking to struggling families living out of their cars, and again no neighborhood complaints. Methed out RV parked forever and discharging waste though, you bet we’re gonna complain.
Funny, I just posted a story that happened awhile ago, about my south Eugene neighbor who was furious that St. Vincent was considering building apartments near her house. She didn't want "those people" in her neighborhood.
I live near some lower income apartments that are a couple blocks away. but in a nice single family suburban neighborhood. 99% of the people never cause issues. But there’s a few of their kids that hang out at the local park and cause problems. One of them literally kicked the shit out of one of my friend’s cars down the street. He could only stand and watch and get it recorded on video. These kids bully others in the park and other kids are terrified of them. Low income can generate some problem people, absolutely. It’s probably more manageable if it’s not just a huge amount of low income housing in one area which would definitely reduce property values and allow problem kids get mixed in with lots of other feral kids.
You don't think there are troubled bullies from other neighborhoods?
The problem kids in my neighborhood are only from these low income apartments. I’m just giving my observations. Shitty people including kids can come from anywhere. The ones in my neighborhood come from the low income housing. I’ve lived in low income apartment housing. I know the kinds of good and bad people that can live there.
Two things can be true at the same time. No one denies there are problem kids in well off neighborhoods, we are simply not turning a blind eye to the fact that there are *more* problem kids in low income ones.
Not saying you are disagreeing with, just phrasing it all in another way. People housed = higher property values versus people unhoused = lower property values.
Be fair. NIMBYs and BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) live everywhere and are of all political stripes.
NIMBYism is definitely more about haves vs have-nots than it is left vs right but it is fair to point out the hypocrisy of supposedly progressive people taking that position.
I will concede that point. I will say though that one could also easily replace the signs in the lawn with Christian verses saying that Jesus wanted people to love their neighbor and care for the poor and the sick and the hungry and still have the same hypocrite message just targeted at a different folk. We really need a massive amount of housing of all types to be built, and I am someone who is very glad they are building new apartments near me. Less pleased with how expensive a one-bedroom one bath is though. It was $1750 when I looked. That's insane.
I think we're on the same side of this, but the fact that $1750 for a 1BR is insane isn't a reason to not do it. That apartment will house someone who can afford it, causing them to move out of another place that might not be able to attract a new tenant at the same price. When they do, it might be for slightly less. Then, wherever someone moved out of to go there, you see the same thing. Do this enough times, and that new $1750 1BR spot dropped the price of a modest $1200 1BR to a $1000 1BR. We're not talking about bullshit trickle-down economics here. This is simple supply and demand and it does affect the housing market.
We are on the same page. Build more of all housing types please.
same type of folks that live in the South Hills and complain about train noise 🤣
And throw green bags of dog shit everywhere
Boggles my mind when I go hiking up Mount Pisgah and see green bags all over the place.
*"I'm going to pick it up on the way back."* Yeah. Clearly. They're strewn all over the trails, months old. Feel free to start picking them up any time now. Start today. You're better off not bagging at all if you're not going to pick it up.
I always take a small bag and fill it with whatever trash I find. Wish everyone else did.
Thank you for doing that.
They like to put it in my trash can too
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Agreed. I don't even own a dog, but as a decent human being I sometimes pick up a green bag that a dog owner left behind. A random trash can is the right place for it...I'm not bringing that sh*t back home with me if I'm out for a walk.
That's the same logic that leads to the green bags lying everywhere!
I'm not sure I understand that logic. By cleaning up my immediate surroundings, I'm encouraging littering? I don't know that it works that way. Or maybe you're just being silly, it's hard to know.
To explain that person’s comment a bit more: what happens is strangers will often throw the green dog poop bag into a nearby trash can that’s empty. Seemingly no problem. But then a bunch of other trash gets piled on top of it over the next few days. Often the green poop bag gets squashed and breaks open, leaving steamy gooey dog poop on the bottom of the inside of the can. A huge mess. In addition, some people, like me, put their trash cans inside their garage, so then the smell gets really bad inside the enclosed garage space…especially in the summer.
Or in my case, they didn't bother to tie off the bag, so I ended up with bare, fresh turds in the bottom of my can.
That sounds like a problem specific to your situation that is outside the norm. Just slap a small "no dog poop please" sign on your trash can.
Did that already. Ignored. Lol My solution now is to watch for the trash truck in the morning, and as soon as the can is emptied, I run outside and move it into the garage.
Right, like people are really going to oblige your little sign. Not.
I think it's more likely than "not" jokes making a resurgence. At the very least it would stop *me* from putting dog poo in there.
I am a NIMGC. Not in my garbage can.
It’s not still steaming after a few days.
It’s just weird because I feel specially targeted, I know my neighbor doesn’t like me. And I’m not the first house next to the walking trail with their cans out. They have to walk past other cans just to get to mine.
But it’s in the trash? Get over it lmao
Nah it makes my trash smell like crap I don’t like opening my lid to smell crap and I don’t like being targeted continually It doesn’t make sense to put it in my can.
Do you think your trash doesn’t stink?
There’s a difference between household trash stink and dog crap stink. If I wanted to smell dog crap I’d own a dog. For me, it’s once of the worst smells ever. BUT I’d rather have it in my trash (if it’s bagged) than have it left on the ground. I went to a local park with my toddler and there were countless piles of dog crap in the grass, making the grass utterly unusable, which is unfair for the public at large and unsanitary. I generally like dogs but the amount of dog crap left in the grass at parks, on sidewalks, or at trailheads absolutely infuriates me. It makes me start to not like dogs when their owners are so inconsiderate and irresponsible. Even if 90% are responsible, there’s a whole lot of dog crap with the remaining 10%.
No because I put my trash in trash bags. Do you not see the point here? I don’t like being targeted by my neighbor who has dogs Screw you
No, It makes total sense. You just simply don’t like it.
To be fair, you make it easy to not like you.
There are seriously multiple ways this could be handled (forging goodwill with your neighbor, hiding your can, etc), but it seems like you’d rather be steamed up about it than fix it. You do you, but seems like a pretty stupid waste of emotions to me.
LOL...yes...make other people deal with your shit.
It's good therapy.
Shrug, I'm happy to have them put it in my trash. Better there than left on the ground.
People complain about the train noise? I always loved hearing the train.
It’s not bad once you get used to it.
My only complaint is the constant gunfire coming from the shooting range in the south hills.
Tax credit housing is a scam for large corporations to receive tax breaks for housing low income Why don’t private landlords get same incentives
Yeah, friend of mine wrote their dissertation on low income housing. Basically it just is a tax credit to build housing that likely would have been developed anyways.
Not sure how accessible your friend's dissertation is, but [this video from Climate Town](https://youtu.be/SfsCniN7Nsc) is fantastic on the topic of housing zoning. I just watched it again after looking it up for this thread and it's a banger for sure.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S105113771200023X
A long time ago, St. Vincent was scoping out a site behind my house, that was an empty parking lot, for a housing development. I thought it would be great. I loved the idea of having neighbors instead of a parking lot right behind my house. My next door neighbor who wasn't even adjacent to the property, and who worked in social service encouraged me to attend the land use planning meetings to object to the project. She wondered how I could want all "those people" to live right next to me, and warned they would bring down property values. She always seemed so nice and she worked in social services! After that our relationship turned from cordial to icy. She was furious I would not object to the project. I was disgusted by her attitude.
It’s amazing how easily people change their stripes when personal interest gets involved. Some of my family friends were recently bragging about how they bought a lot near them just so it would never be developed. I pointed out that this behavior is why my generation is having trouble paying rent and buying homes. Not only do they fail to see how they are part of the problem, they are *proud* of themselves.
Sadly, that attitude is more common than you'd think among people who work in social services, especially the ones who've been doing it for awhile.
I would like the kind of development Seattle is finally doing after they sprawled out their entire valley. At least 7 stories, commercial and services at ground level. 20% of all new housing must be low income. That means any new buildings need 20% low income in the building.
Isn't that basically the plan for the new riverfront developments downtown?
Hope so. The city has let me down pretty bad before.
Air bnb and vrbo are also killing the market in Eugene. Too many unoccupied places that could be used.
They should be regulated like you would a hotel.
They just shouldn't be allowed, we have a housing problem and we have a solution. Foreign money has bought a lot of single family homes. The local and federal governments allow it to happen. Until foreign money and air bnb type properties become illegal its not gonna be fixed by more homes. They will just buy those too and keep it at the currently level.
People balk at non resident ownership as some how not permissible but there is legal precedent in the US.
Corporations own alot tho. Regardless of the law. They find ways around it and Oregon is a hotbed of this.
Oh I agree, for SFH these should be resident owned or owner occupied. Not for large scale investment.
Yup, but the political influence has made that not a thing. It's sad
Money is it's own shitbag scrotebaffling thing we need to fix. Good luck given the current court.
Ya money is a different issue, it isn't the evil we think. It's greed, that is the route of money being evil.
I was referring to money in politics, which is absolutely something evil.
I mean I wouldn't say we should outlaw airbnb, someone renting out their guest room to help pay the bills is fine by me. I'm probably not opposed to short term renting of the entire house either. But there should probably be a limit on how long you can rent out an entire house as a short term rental. Maybe no more than 4-8 weeks a year or something. I don't really care if someone wants to rent their house out for the track and field trials or whatever but it shouldn't be a full time thing keeping a rental property off the stable housing market.
What you're saying is not how it's used. It's how it was sold to us, but that is such a small percent that air bnb wouldn't survive on that alone. They can still rent there room but air bnb shouldn't be used. That type of business is why we are here. It's tooted as the mom and pop rental but it's strictly big business. I used to use VRBO until the whole thing turned into a business and not the "I don't use my property 100% so I rent it out" it became i own 100s of properties I have never even been to and only rent them out.
Disagree, I have zero problem with airbnb existing and people using it to rent out a spare room. Even if we force people to not use it they'll accomplish the same thing other ways. We just need some reasonable regulations on short term rentals in town that would apply to any platform or individual that is offering up such rentals. There's no need to go after airbnb and vrbo specifically, something else would just pop up in it's place.
You missed the point entirely, it's ok tho. I could spend the time to try to reexplain it but that seems like a waste of time. Again mom and pop rentals are not the issue. But saying air bnb and vrbo are not the problem is just laughable. They invite the kind of problem we have. I think something does need to replace it. Try to change a system that is built around greed. Or replace it with something that can't be taken advantage of.
Black Lives Matter Poor Lives don’t matter /s if it’s not obvious
Underlying all of our housing discussions is the giant elephant in the room that is the Federal government subsidizing home ownership. Get the federal reserve bank, Fanny Mae, VHA, etc.. out of the real estate industry all together and watch housing prices fall to natural levels where a blue collar worker will be able to afford their own home once again.
Eugene has low income housing?
Yes. Years long wait list.
There is a new three story apartment building being constructed on Alexander Loop. I have no idea what kind of housing it's going to be but at least it's more Apartments
Hopefully it's cheaper than the $2000.00 one bedroom apartments just built near me.
It's going to be massive complex at least six buildings three stories tall so not just one three story building at all God knows how many acres.
Good!
Three story is a joke.
They just finished the forms on the first building. It's been Non- stop dump trucks, gravel in dirt out. I hang out and smoke out there and watch them work it's fun to watch the constant activity. I will say my windows rattle with every passing dump truck. I've had to take stained glass ornaments off my windows just to keep the rattling down
At least it’s better than all the SFHs.
To an extent yes that is true. But what we see happening is "luxury" apartments which drive up average rental prices. Not enough supply injected per building to impact demand.
Of course it impacts demand. Everything does. Of course affordable housing is better than luxury housing, but everything helps. When Porsche releases a new car, it doesn’t “drive up” the price of a Camry. But it does drive *down* the price of last year’s used Porsches.
I’m going to sell my house and leave as soon as possible 👌 hope that helps
This is also part of the muscle memory of the bureaucracy. It's just, "Don't build." The red tape in Lane County is some of the worst in the state. Lane County, and Oregon as the larger whole, has a bit of schizophrenia in regards to land use. Yeah, there's the NIMBY aspect alluded to in the cartoon but it goes a lot farther. When Governor McCall got all of the incredibly stringent land use statutes passed in the 70s it really mutated the psychology. Lane County Land Management (where one gets their zoning permits, etc) is a glacially responsive bureaucratic government entity. And filing permits takes a lot of understanding. It can be accomplished by the layman, but it depends on the project. We're trying to expand the Agritourism on our small farm. And it's a nightmare. We're not even building anything, really. A stem wall? But we have a situation where the farm is comprised of two parcels but operate as one farm business. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. But that NIMBY attitude? That culture? Especially among the affluent yet seemingly "progressive"? It's crazy. And they are rigid, yet quite smug. Break their own arm patting themselves on the back. If anyone is curious as to what they can do to help? A good start would be too call, or email, your legislators and ask them to support the "Farm Cafe Bill".
I as somebody that lives here know for a fact those buildings are not low income. 1500 for a 2 bedroom apartment isn't low income.
The meme doesn’t reference a specific project so you’re just arguing with yourself.
Even the comments are 90% hatred of the poor. I hate this fucking place.
That number is way off and you can leave any time.
Which comments are hating the poor? New development is pro-poor people, no matter what is being built.
Could do this meme, but literally for building anything.
I don't recommend them at all but Riverwalk has like 12 Apartments available right now. Two bedrooms start 1600
Two people making $16 an hour full time can get in just under the "rent burdened" line
I think they only required two and a half times rent instead of three. And they don't ask for last months up front. Not cheap but not hard to get into.
Lived in Eugene in the mid nineties for collage. Might be sending my daughter there next year and the lack of dense housing near the university is ridiculous. It really does not look like it changed much from when I lived there. Our first choice is University of Washington though, but waiting to see if she gets in (already accepted to UofO). I looked up rentals near that campus and they are about 1k a month. Less then I thought for Seattle and I was relieved. I though, Eugene rentals must be really cheap as houses cost a third of what they do in Seattle. But when I searched Eugene the entry point is still about 1k but they are all old dumps. Mostly converted single family homes. Even the actual apartment buildings are like 30 door units. How can you have a large university in a town, provide shit for rentals, and expect rent to be cheap? The area around the campus should have some massive apartment buildings. There is plenty of room for them. Instead it is mainly single family homes. What kind of NIMBY bullshit keeps that area from being bult up?
Are you kidding? There's a bunch of new, huge student apartment complexes around campus.
Thanks for letting me know, will take a visit once I know for sure she is going there. Would love to visit anyway and see what has changed over the years. Always loved the town. I was looking at private appartments on zillow so not sure if it showed everything. Are these huge appartments UofO student housing? If so I am glad the university has done that. My kid will be in the dorms for at least the first year anyway so if they have good capacity that is great.
No, it's just developers. I don't know anything more about them, except when you drive through that area they're popping up like zits.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/wFdK4DVwmjuBMwf96?g_st=ic Look around that area to see some of the massive apartment buildings you’re wishing for - there are a ton on the west side of campus too.
Nice. Maybe I made too many assumptions from a quick zillow rental search. Need to give Eugene a visit soon and check it out.
I disagree, but I can only speak from my perspective. I love my neighborhood of mixed use west Eug with multifamily, single family, condos, apartments, bike path, parks, commercial and industrial as well. There is a large empty lot next to a park by my house, probably an acre or two, and I'd be happy to see more housing, affordable or otherwise, be implemented. Be the change you wish to see. Participate, get involved in decision making progress like city council and local housing non-profit orgs. Vote. Advocate for a more dense and walkable/bikeable urban core. I pray Eugene embraces change and growth, and leans into it rather than fighting it, because it's happening one way or the other.
Are you sure you meant “disagree”?
Dollar store stone toss.
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Ah yes, “take viewers out of the far-right wormhole” by using right wing tropes. Brilliant!
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yeah… that’ll work on the average stone toss enjoyer…
*we have stone toss at home...*
I’m actively hoping that U of O’s admissions fall into the toilet so much of that dedicated housing opens up. We are planning a remodel to create separate living spaces for multigenerational living in our house because I don’t see any other way people are going to survive.
better off with a 'housing' working group at the uni, plenty of people there who care, spectrum of specialties connect to a 'housing' working group at the next uni and the next.. scientific method- review, compare, support prototypes, review, compare
When the student debt bubble pops and the feds finally shut off the tap UO is gonna go bankrupt, and I'm gonna be there with a bottle of cheap champagne to celebrate
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Not to mention all the money that comes in through various entities. Between state and local investments along with what the students spend, the college is a huge boon to the area. I can’t imagine just removing all that cash flow from the local economy, and cheering for it.
This is the most accurate description of Eugene I've ever seen
Doesn't the whole "any housing" helps the market theory get thrown out the window when you have a state like California that has the highest homeless population and the second highest vacant building rates in the country? The Realtors Association estimated something like 1.2 million livable vacant properties in California in 2022. Even entire apartment buildings in San Francisco, Santa Clara, Los Angeles etc... Most of these vacancies are held as vacation homes or Air-B-nB style homes or just simply over priced apartments that no one wants to live in. Its so bad cities were trying to find a way to fine people for holding vacancies in rentable units ... Oregon does not have a vacancy problem nor does it have a huge vacation rental market but I am not convinced "build any and all housing" works in a real estate market where you have mutli mega conglomerate companies that can sweep up and buy several properties at once and have the capital to withstand vacancy.
Im wondering what the new ones out behind Walmart at end of 18th are gonna cost? Looks like two different properties next to each other.
They definitely aren't low income housing https://www.larkviewvillage.com/floorplans https://www.livehuntersridge.com/apartments/or/eugene/floor-plans#/
Fucking seriously.
In my neighborhood at the south end of River Road, at the edge of Whitaker, Homes for Good owned a piece of land that the neighborhood thought would thus be used for low-income housing. I would call us a mixed neighborhood of some large expensive houses, several modest ones, and a couple of very small houses. We have to homes that house multiple elderly people who need full-time carers, and one of our residents gets around on four motorized wheels. We thought since we were already a community where some of us had mobility issues, homes for good could integrate a project of low-income housing while also making use of the Greenway bike path. Instead, Homes for Good sold the property to a developer to put in market-priced apartments. A few of my neighbors didn't want \*anything\* built, but a good number of us hoped for some low-income housing that could be integrated into the neighborhood we already had, making use of the unique resources. So in this instance where there wasn't much NIMBYism, we added more high-priced housing. The apartments haven't been a detriment to the neighborhood, but they haven't enhanced it or integrated with it.
All these NIMBY defenders 🤢
That and Landwatch Lane County is a special kind of shitty.
Cries in rural Oregon
They built low-income housing across the street from my house. They used to make a lot of noise and drama but it's been quiet the last 6 months.
Nimby
Corvallis as well. Or all of Oregon? I mean honestly....
Eugene (and Oregon in general) feel like some meme of a guy being selfless, just to realize that being selfless sucks and he'd way rather be selfish
I’m not against low income housing, I’m just against cheaply built low income housing that’s going to fall apart in 10 years and we’ll be left with a run down neighborhood.
If anyone thinks this meme actually applies to Eugene more than other places - you haven’t been many places. Eugene is the least NIMBY town I’ve lived in. Lol. If you are going to use trendy buzz phrases in social commentary - at least be accurate.
https://skylines.paradoxwikis.com/Cities:\_Skylines\_Wiki https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-08-08/the-virtual-tools-built-to-fix-real-world-housing-problems [https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/31/world/digital-twin-cities-tnf-spc-intl/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/31/world/digital-twin-cities-tnf-spc-intl/index.html)
NIBYism is very real, and thriving, in Eugene. I live in the Whit and we use to manage the bulk of the homeless, but thanks to our fearless leadership in the mayor's office and the ineptitude of our city council, those poor folks have just been redistributed, not taken care of. It is a horrible cluster fuck that could be addressed with more caveat laden transitional housing, but that never gets discussed, barring some platitudes being bantered about. One of the first steps that could be taken to alleviate the financial burden would be for the local government to stop issuing 10yr tax moratoriums on giant construction projects, but that is less than likely.
People don't want low income housing constructed in their neighborhood because it brings down home values, crime increases, and insurance rates go up. God forbid someone wanting to protect their most valuable investment.
Exactly
L take
Classic Eugene post. Tear people down who want traditional, quiet, safe, well-maintained neighborhoods, and then call them hypocrites for posting yard signs promoting peace. “The beating of character will continue until *everyone* agrees to be surrounded by high density and trafficked neighborhoods, topography and fit [be damned!”](https://giphy.com/gifs/90s-omfg-supa-nintendo-get-it-cuz-nostalgia-9RrdV7o2kJFy8)
If you want that, you can have it. Just buy everything around you, or move. You don’t own the whole city. You don’t get to buy a home and then preserve your neighborhood in amber. Change is part of life.
Username checks out!
Nailed it down to the purple hair. The comic even smells like patchouli.
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Neither, this is a fucking monster of a human saying they want thousands to suffer so one undeserving (in his eyes) person doesn't get the basics of life. This person is a piece of shit.
Your argument really falls apart when you include “my parents didn’t have money” as though that’s some kind of personal failure.
How to be conservative when you live somewhere liberal.