• givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The reason for high cost of living in cities was that’s where the offices were…

    Now we don’t need offices. So convert them to apartments to lower housing costs in the short term, and telework means people won’t move to cities as much in the long term.

    This is actually a good idea…

    But the White House initiative will make more than $35 billion available from existing federal programs in the form of grants and low-interest loans to encourage developers to convert offices into residential.

    Developers will do this anyway if the offices are empty, why not use that money for a government program to guarantee down payments of first time home buyers?

    The developers are doing fine, it’s the average American that’s struggling, stop funneling money to the people who already have a shit ton of it, trickle down doesn’t fucking work

    • 353247532631@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Agreed. This is a good idea overall, but the implementation smells like a bailout of commercial real estate developers to me.

      • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Ding dong ding!

        But also to a point, it will take a significant amount of work to convert office space to residential. Just utilities alone will be an adventure, and you’d better hope the building was set up with decent truck lines down the core of the structure to begin with. It’s not like “hey let’s throw up some walls, boom, apartments.” You need adequate power distribution, and water/sewer connections to each apartment to fulfill each unit having it’s own kitchen and bathroom. Commercial spaces are generally build to accommodate different usage.

      • Tak@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        The President has also proposed a $10 billion down payment assistance program that would ensure first-time homebuyers whose parents do not own a home can access homeownership alongside a $100 million down payment assistance pilot to expand homeownership opportunities for first-generation and/or low wealth first-time homebuyers.

        I don’t think what they are doing is as strong as you imply.

        “Sorry your parents have a home they got in 1996 for basically nothing”

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Always happy to be pleasantly surprised.

        Even tho it’s half what developers are getting, it’s better than nothing.

    • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Refitting office space to make it liveable is actually super expensive. Commercial spaces don’t have the electric, plumbing, or insulation typically required or expected by residents. It can be cheaper to gut or even tear down the building in order to add the necessary MEP and framing, which is why you see developers are still building new rather than converting old commercial spaces. The money will encourage redevelopment which is far less wasteful and combats sprawl.

      That said, I agree with you that you could make the money available to buyers instead of developers, but developers are the ones paying the bribesdonating to campaigns.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Then those millionaire (from the examples in the link, billionaire) developers can let their building sit empty…

        This is America, where a single cancer diagnosis can bankrupt a family for generations. If we were a civilized country, sure, bail everyone out.

        But I don’t have sympathy for them when normal people are in such a tight spot.

        Like if you’re a cardiologist and you’re helping someone you saw sprain their ankle, you’d be an idiot to keep helping them when there’s five people having heart attacks in the same room.

        • ArbiterXero@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          The problem is that they are happy to let the building sit empty most of the time

          The value of the land and building continue to go up as an investment, even if they aren’t earning money today on the space .

          So they don’t actually give a fuck if it sits empty, but society does 

        • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I’m with you, but you’re kidding yourself if you think the billionaire is going to suffer. They have leveraged the value with banks, and would skip on down the road with their fortunes while the banks that make mortgage loans have to shore up their books at the expense of common folks. Homebuyers, small businesses, and taxapyers will be expected to cover the losses.

      • droans@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        $35B sounds more like it’s intended to find a way to make these conversions possible and create a “blueprint” to be used elsewhere.

        • someguy3@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          These conversions are already possible. It’s a big financial decision because you basically have to gut it, but it’s not hard work. (No you don’t have to demolish the whole building like the other guy says). Each building will be different so you can’t make a generic blueprint.

    • RedditReject@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Developers won’t do it though. Otherwise, we’d already have this happening. What they do now is call it a loss and get a break on their taxes.

  • auth@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    mixed offices and apartments in the same building sounds good… would cut the commute

  • Waluigis_Talking_Buttplug@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    There are 16,000,000 empty homes and 500,000 homeless. Office buildings aren’t going to be solving any real problem other than the people who own the building being shit out of luck

  • andallthat@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I like how this is finally acknowledging WFH as something that is here to stay but I’m not sure I understand the connection with the housing crisis. From the article:

    New York’s famous Flatiron Building will soon be converted from empty offices into luxury residences

    Luxury apartments in premium locations is the first thing I would think of too if I were a developer, but their target buyers don’t sound like the sort of people who currently suffer from the housing crisis. But maybe I’m wrong and there will also be developers converting less prestigious office space into affordable housing…

    The other thing I don’t get is this: I don’t know Manhattan but I did work in some (I assume) similar business hubs in the middle of overpriced cities and I wonder: are many people going to want to live in expensive converted office spaces if they don’t work near there any longer? I mean if they were given the chance to WFH from anywhere would they still choose Manhattan? Honest question and maybe the answer is yes, because of the restaurants, culture, good schools or whatever… I would personally make different life choices if I could work completely remote, though.

    • David_Eight@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      uxury apartments in premium locations is the first thing I would think of too if I were a developer, but their target buyers don’t sound like the sort of people who currently suffer from the housing crisis.

      It’ll have a domino effect, more apartments in Manhattan means less people in Brooklyn, Queens, etc. meaning prices go down in the latter boroughs. I live in Jersey City across the Hudson from Manhattan and a large part of the residents here are just people who can’t afford to live in Manhattan.

      are many people going to want to live in expensive converted office spaces if they don’t work near there any longer?

      Yes, I used to live in a converted office building in Newark NJ (not far from Manhattan) and really loved it. And yes people will always want to live in NYC and especially Manhattan. Many people, myself included simply prefer living in cities. I’ve also looked for apartments in Manhattan and it’s completely different than anywhere else.

    • Madison420@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      They use the flatiron building because it’s very famous but essentially a nuisance at this point having been vacant for iirc over a decade because of a lawsuit.

      Ed: since 2019 but that’s quite awhile for the most famous like 2sq miles in America. (Which is also weird but we’ll talk about that another time.)

      • andallthat@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Ah thanks for the context, I didn’t know! But doesn’t my point essentially stills stand?

        As more people work from home and more Flatiron-like buildings struggle to find businesses looking for offices, developers might find “ex prestigious office to luxury apartments” a more appealing conversion than “ex Walmart to affordable housing”.

        Also, my understanding of the housing crisis is that people can’t find an affordable place to live close enough to where they work. In my country there are plenty of small towns that used to be very pretty places to live, that have very affordable housing and that are turning into ghost towns because all the jobs are concentrated in a few big cities.

        If you take away the offices, less people are going to need to live in New York, San Francisco or London. Plenty of people might still choose to, of course, but there should be less competition to rent the last bed space in a filthy apartment at ludicrous prices. Or to buy a small flat in a converted former office.

        • SnowBunting@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Some people choose a location for the amount of things to do. Like the bigger cities offer more bars, fairs, gyms, and other niche stuff. Meet ups are also a bit easier. This could change as people move out of bigger cities.

  • nucleative@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    There are sometimes some strange issues with office construction.

    There might be no plumbing in the locations people will want for toilets and baths and kitchens in the individual suites away from the core of the building. Same goes for retrofitted laundry facilities.

    HVAC systems (in the US anyways) are often centrallized and might need a lot of retrofitting to make it work like a condo/apartment.

    Kitchen ventilation

    Windows might not open, can’t get to a fresh air source

    Aside from that stuff, the issue of empty office buildings while we are experiencing unsustainable housing markets is begging for a solution to address the demand.

    There will probably be a handy sum to be earned for construction companies who get efficient at conversions.

    • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      It’s not that there might not be plumbing, it’s that there is zero plumbing in most office buildings aside from one clustered section for floor where there’s 5 to 10 toilets for each gender.

      On top of that, you have completely different mechanical systems. An office building for instance may have one single mechanical system for the entire building, whereas an apartment would need separate mechanical systems for each individual apartment.

      Then you have the kitchens, bedrooms and interior partition walls that are vastly different than an office building, plus the requirements for exterior windows which precludes larger office buildings with deeper floor plates from being converted at all without demolishing the interior portion of the building. Curtain wall systems that may or may not be compatible between an office and residential building (non-operating windows)… Not to mention the stair and elevator systems are probably not going to work either.

      So in the end you’re probably looking at gutting the building down to the structure and removing every piece of the building including the outer envelope, roof, all of the electrical plumbing and mechanical systems… In the end it may or may not be cheaper just to build a new building from the ground up.

      Source: am architect. And yes, I have done conversions like this in the past.

    • ziby0405@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      it’d be a lot of work resolving all those issues… but definitely doable. just have to find the maniac with money and drive that wants to do that

  • spyd3r@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    And I want politicians to start living in trailer parks, projects, and section 8 housing in the parts of town that their policies are destroying.

  • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Fuck yes. As a libertarian it bothers me that I can’t make my home in any space I can own.

    I understand not building rendering plants next to houses. Some zoning is okay. But there is zero reason why I shouldn’t be able to run a 7-Eleven and sleep on a cot in the back if I so choose.

    • Crikeste@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Libertarians: Always finding the rarest of occurrences to continue their dismantling of government and the systems that gave them everything they have. lmao

      • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        The rarest of occurrences?

        Ubiquitous government meddling (in the form of, among other things, rules like “no more than one dwelling per half acre”) in the real estate market has resulted in this housing crisis we all face. People are dying of stress related illnesses and self inflicted gunshot wounds, and the survivors are dealing with enormous amounts of anxiety and hopelessness, because rents keep rising and rising,

        Supply is artificially, heavily suppressed and people wonder why prices skyrocket.

        Everyone attributes it to “landlord greed” but provider greed is regulated by market competition when supply is allowed to follow market forces.

        A person having to spend $1500/mo just to sleep when they’re trying to run a business, when they’re perfectly willing to crash on a couch in their office, means the threshold for going into business for oneself is artificially raised.

        I could rant about other markets too but there’s plenty of government-created horror to be found in real estate alone.

        Also the notion that the government “gave them everything they have” is ridiculous. The government gave us the Drug War and a nuclear-armed Israel. Other governments gave us The Holocaust, the Rape of Nanking, the Trail of Tears, and other unimaginably horrific acts of human savagery.

        Humans’ ability to negotiate and make deals to trade resources and cooperate on projects — willingly — is what gave us what we have today.

    • TAG@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      But there is zero reason why I shouldn’t be able to run a 7-Eleven and sleep on a cot in the back if I so choose.

      Why can’t you? I don’t believe that there is any law saying you need to have a home in a residential zoned area (anti-homeless laws say that you cannot use public space as a home).

      As far as I know, zoning laws just say that you cannot sell or rent out a property in a commercial district as residential. That is a false advertising/minimum allowable quality law, much like you cannot sell the meat of an a diseased animal. Commercial areas likely don’t have the infrastructure (schools, utilities, safety) for people to live in.

    • PeterPoopshit@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Oh, I’m sure they’ll charge a minimum of $2k/month even for the shittiest of the shithole office apartments. They’ll get their money don’t worry.

  • favrion@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Offices are actually chill if you take out the cubicles and stuff. They are spacious, neutral, and have a bathroom and roof access.

    • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I worked in a few skyscraper type offices and they are pretty awesome. The view was always crazy and there were always good food options nearby right in the middle of the city. You could make a nice house in there. Just need the bathroom and kitchen to be near the center of the building. You could probably fit 4 nice size units on each floor of my old building. But they would want to make a ton of tiny overpriced ones instead so they will say there isn’t enough plumbing lol.

  • pulaskiwasright@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Biden wants to give money to wealthy landlords so they can build luxury apartments using our tax dollars, so they can rent them out and increase their wealth.

    • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Anyone saying “We need to build more houses” rather than saying “We need to fill the existing houses” has no interest in solving the problem.

  • comfortablyglum@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    If utilized as it should be, this Is a really good idea. It creates desperately needed housing, indirectly supports work from home, rescues downtowns struggling from customer loss, helps prevent default on tons of property loans (and preventing something akin to the 2008 crash).

  • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    This should also help liven up downtowns that become ghost towns after 5/6pm.

    More people living there will support more of the things that keep an area lively.

  • n0m4n@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Many ideas here sound like the projects built, starting in the 1930s. They had many failures and a few successes.