Is transit-oriented development affordable? (Part I)

Urban planners have long decried suburban sprawl as wasteful and a primary cause for traffic. It makes no sense, they say, to build communities in which everyone has to drive everywhere. Some studies have even found that people in the 'burbs tend to be fatter than those in cities. Why? People in cities walk more.

The remedy that planners offer: new urbanism or smart growth. The idea is to build denser neighborhoods that can support neighborhood businesses. Such neighborhoods should be near mass transit -- so not everyone has to drive. (The photo at right shows NoHo Commons, a new building that's going up near the subway stop in North Hollywood).

Here's a video from the Congress for New Urbanism, arguing that such neighborhoods are also a remedy for climate change.

In the Southland, perhaps the most visible "smart growth" strategy is transit-oriented developments, also known as TODs. There is an increasing number of apartments, condominiums and town homes popping up near bus stops and train stations. Metro (also known as the MTA), the region's largest transit agency, has been selling development rights at its stations and many of those projects have been completed or are being built.

Of course, not everything that calls itself "smart growth" really is -- my colleague David Zahniser wrote an epic article about this in 2007 when he was with the LA Weekly. It's a must read. It has also been fairly well established that a lot of people who live in TODs don't take mass transit ,for a variety of reasons. My colleague Sharon Bernstein wrote about that last year. (The photo at right shows the apartments built atop the subway stop at Hollywood and Western).

The issue there is what's the alternative for locating residential growth? If cities don't put it near mass transit, where does it go? Or should they just not build anything?

However, I'm interested in a different issue: the affordability of TODs. If the idea behind TODs is to give a family an alternative to fleeing to the 'burbs -- or to return from them -- can said family afford to live in TODs? Or is the push for TODs really an excuse to cram more high-end development into the region?

Something I've noticed in recent months is that a lot of what's getting built near mass transit is labeled as "luxury" housing. But I don't know if this is a trend. So, I'm going to start visiting as many TODs as I can in the Southland and collecting brochures to see how much they cost.

Whenever I visit one, I'll post a photo or two and the prices and other information. Over the next several weeks, hopefully, we'll get a better idea what's happening and what course public policy is following. I'm going to start with a post later today about a new TOD in Pasadena adjacent to the Gold Line.

If you have thoughts or ideas on this topic -- or want to share your own TOD story -- leave a comment or feel free to e-mail me by clicking on my name below.

-- Steve Hymon

NoHo Commons image: J.H. Snyder Co.

Photo credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[waterboy]

To be fair your study needs to look at the bigger picture. A straight comparison of rent for a suburban home vs. city space is never going to be equal. Stick built single family homes on greenfield land will always be cheaper than an urban high rise on a SF to SF basis, but it's misses the big picture.

RIght off the top of my head TOD must overcome the added costs of structured parking, higher construction costs, and subsidized low income housing that is spread across the market priced units.

The cost of underground or structured parking mentioned by others is real and significantly impacts the housing price. Unfortunately, a reduction in required parking for development adjacent to mass transit is still difficult to justify. Until a number of these projects are built out and someone can quantify the reduced car traffic, we are all guessing at how much reduction is acceptable. An under parked TOD is useless. You will never rent the retail space, the housing will suffer, and utlimately the entire project will struggle.

As for construction costs a significant portion of the extra cost is related to life safety. A Type I / II building with fire sprinkers and fire rated walls is safer though much more expensive than a wood framed home.

My final observation concerning TOD is that someone should be WILLING to pay more to live close to work if the shorter commute saves time and money.

Housing + Commute costs = TOTAL living cost

I feel that, all to often Americans make living decision on only the monthly rent bill and the assumption of continual cheap gas. There's much more to the bottom line...and it's time we take a holistic aproach to this question.

[Joe Linton]

There are plenty of non-affordable transit-oriented developments locally... just like there's plenty of non-affordable non-transit-oriented development. In an overheated (at least until the recent downturn) market, with indequate political will for affordability (ie: minimal expenditures for affordable housing at the federal, state and local level) then the majority of all new development will not be affordable.

There are some excellent ways to make TODs more affordable. One of my favorites is to unbundle parking costs from housing costs. Right now, in the city of Los Angeles, a new condo requires 2 1/4 parking spaces. Renters and homebuyers pay for parking whether they use it or not. The cost of constructing a parking space can be $20,000-$50,000+ per space (above ground structures are cheaper, underground structures more expensive) , so the cost of the parking is passed on to the occupant - 2 spaces times $30K+ = $60K+ higher cost for someone buying a new condo. Assuming transit users could own fewer (or no) cars, unbundling parking costs from housing costs could make car-light or car-free households much more affordable.

I'd suggest checking out the affordable housing developments near the Avenue 26 (Lincoln/Cypress) Metro Gold Line Station: affordable first-time homebuyer subsidized condos at Puerta del Sol, and affordable apartments at Tesoro Del Valle, Flores Del Valle and Camino Al Oro. Another worthwhile project (full disclosure: I worked for the non-profit that developed this one - the now-defunct Livable Places) is Olive Court located one block north of the Pacific Coast Highway Metro Blue Line station in Long Beach.

[Eric]

It's basic economics that many others have alluded to. Transit lines are being placed where there is high density already, or soon will be. These places are already expensive (think Manhattan, downtown Chicago, etc).

The middle class will always feel 'squeezed' until much more housing is built. There was a study that showed the population of LA county grew by about 1.5million from 1990-2007, but only around 700,000 new housing units were built. So, until much more of these TOD's are built, and a bigger network of transit is built, we'll run into this problem. I see this simply as growing pains/transitionary period until we get to that point.

[Stephen]

Can't wait to read about your findings! I'm glad you're doing this because I've wondered about TOD's effectiveness in LA myself.

IMO, many TOD residents aren't taking transit because the transit lines aren't fully established. LA is in such an infancy stage with transit infrastructure that it simply cannot be an overnight success. If we can get Measure R to pass, we could see a big reduction in auto reliance in our future.

[Marcotico]

What you can expect to see is residential property "filtering". Where the TOD will be occupied by younger wealthier residents, freeing up older non TOD apartment complexes in the Valley and Hollywood for working class families, and of course freeing up suburban housing. Then as those residents age and have children they will vacate to the suburbs, replacing baby boomers, and leaving ageing TOD buildings for low income families to return to the neighborhoods that are currently being redeveloped.

Finally in 60 years you may possiblyl see the cycle repeat itself.

[Tony Fernandez]

Great idea Steve, I'm really interested in seeing what you find. There are two problems with TODs in LA, they include far too much parking and there are not enough of them. So when we get TODs, it's like opening up new housing in an area that already has a ton of demand (which is why we have exorbitant home prices in LA, we cannot saturate the demand until we build higher density). So because TODs are so sparse, they inevitably will be expensive. The proof of this is in the design. The wealthy are expected to mostly drive and not really rely on transit. So TODs are built with a ton of parking and most of the people drive to work instead of taking the real that's less than a minute's walk away.

If we want to fix the problem of expensive TODs, we have to eliminate parking and we need to build more of it. This is the only way we can reshape this city that the middle class is fleeing from.

[Antonio Pacheco]

I am really glad you're doing such an analysis, steve. It seems long over-due and potentially, really interesting and eye-opening. I agree with perks's post above that many of the areas in the city where development of a higher density would be favorable are already expensive places to live and likely located already near existing or maybe proposed metro lines (im thinking specifically about wilshire blvd).

I believe that a viable alternative to building where density already exists (essentially, to building expensive, higher density buildings for wealthy people above the purple line, for example),would be to begin to develop and create new places of density and pub trans demand in areas that already exist.

I'm wondering what sort of thought has been given out there in the design/development community towards creating a market for these higher density communities in areas that are being explored by metro for expansion. Specifically, I'm thinking about San Fernando Road in the SFV as an interesting example. This major north-south axis in the valley runs through not only several major population and employment areas in the valley, but is served by three Metrolink stations and is being looked at by Metro for expansion and serves the Burbank Airport. Wouldn't it be interesting to see Metro's response to the construction of a series of developments along SF road that could begin to inform future ridership patterns and community development.

Essentially what im saying is that there are certainly many areas in the city line san fernando road that are being looked at for expansion and actually have the land/space to accommodate the wholesale creation of new and well-designed, truly transit-oriented communities. Instead of converting every old building we can find into half million dollar lofts, we should perhaps look at different forms of adaptive reuse and new construction to meet this housing need.

Antonio

[robert]

What a great idea for a series of posts! I've always wondered.

Make sure you ask them about their "affordable housing" units, if they have any. Usually the developers have to include some modicum of affordable housing units that are basically impossible to get because you have to be on a waiting list for years and years, or must have 5 kids to meet the income requirements even if it seems like you might meet the paltry income requirements (like me, a single guy who makes 30k, and gets screwed from all sides).

Lemme know!

[Mike]

Almost all new development, even this TOD, does seem to be quite expensive. Most of the downtown conversions and the new Hollywood condos are out of reach for the middle class, and, the upperclass that would inhabit them are not too likely to use public transit on a regular basis.

Unless you are a hardcore believer, you'll only regularly take transit if it is in some sense better than driving. Better for most people means faster, more convenient, or cheaper. Now the bus and subway system is almost never "faster" or "more convenient", which leaves "cheaper" as a motivation. But since for those that can afford expensive condos or apartments, "cheaper" is not really a concern, they aren't going to be motivated to take the bus or subway.

[Rich]

The developers will charge whatever they want to keep their buildings occupied. Who says they have to be affordable? Unless they receive government loans or subsidies, no one.

People will pay a premium to not have to sit on the 10 or 405 all day long. And to Tombstone, working families make up a very small proportion of urban areas' demographics.

It's obvious by the success of those old banks Downtown that the developers are filling a demand that's there. So?

[M]

I have noticed that developments are luxury or else for very low income as well. The other problem is that these buildings are being created without really considering what people need overall to fully compensate for the lack of a suburban or rural dwelling: space outside, a place that is quiet and common areas for people to gather. For all of the new developments I've seen, I've not seen one new park or community garden created. The common areas that exist are frequently right outside someone's bedroom window or living room or next to a freeway or street. That is a problem. If you can find out any of that sort of info when doing these visits, that would be helpful.

Another big issue I see is the lack of consideration of how people in the surrounding areas that currently use the transportation will get to the train stations. When you add denser housing around public transportation and a majority of the residents in this housing still drive to work, this means more car traffic competing with foot and cycle traffic coming to and from the station from housing further away and for the people that live in the new housing that choose to walk/bike to surrounding areas. This makes life for those actually trying to use public transportation or walk around their neighborhood worse, which I think is the opposite of what would ideally happen. The actual construction is also very unsafe as iIt requires people to walk through construction zones every day or take long detours, which again, is not encouraging to those trying to use public transportation.

[Tombstone Realty]

Pasadena has several of these projects - one at Del Mar station, another at Memorial Park. We also have condos going up at Arroyo Parkway across the street from Del Mar Station. None of these properties are even close to being affordable for most working professionals. We're talking upwards of $2000 for a studio. I "only" make $49K a year....

But at least those places look swank - I can't begin to describe the hideousness of that project at Sierra Madre. Where would kids play there? The mall across the street? The adjacent parking garage? Or maybe play dodgeball with all the buses coming in and out of the station?

But in all cases these are small "condo-like" properties no bigger than 2 bedrooms. These are not family oriented. They are for the imaginary "loft-class" that supposedly fills all those bank buildings downtown, not for working families.

As for the other stations - Allen is right at the 210, so development is a bit hard to do there, and Filmore and Lake stations are in business zones. Not much in the way of development, and since they are right off the 210, most people just get on the highway. In this case it may have been worthwhile to consider better places to locate the stations.

[perks]

TOD is certainly not affordable in LA.

1. The most major transit hubs built so far in LA are in areas that already have a dense population of business and residents and, by their very nature, are more expensive to begin with.

2. Places very close to transit command a greater premium, since, well, they're near transit.

3. In LA, you pretty much still need a car even if you live on top of a subway station.

So, someone who's tight on money is financially better off living further from the major transit hubs, and either spending more time on the bus or burning a little more gas to get from home to work (or, at least, to a transit stop that has parking).