I'd love to hear your thoughts on retrofitting or retro-facading ugly buildings to fit with the local or acceptable aesthetic, to 'fix' current damage.
There will be some questions over who should foot the bill (current owner, future owner, central fund, etc) but it seems like it could be a relatively quick and affordable way to improve the aesthetic of the built environment. For some buildings, just a lick of paint will uplift the property, others could be covering with flora or panelling, even 'fake' brickwork.
Most cities already have something called “design review” which is intended to promote beautiful buildings. And yet, ugly buildings persist. The reason for this is that “beauty” is subjective. The buildings you see - ridiculous articulation, ugly mismatched siding - look like that _because of_ design review.
You should revisit this topic but include some architects/ developers who have experience with the design review process so they can explain how “banning ugly buildings” is put into practice.
Eroding property rights is what caused the housing shortage. Advocating for anything other than restoring property rights is poorly thought through contrarian wankery.
Yes. And any argument in favour of code compliant pattern books for the sake of aesthetics is arguing in favour of continued policy failure.
The lack of affordable housing has a single cause: market inefficiency. Only removing the regulations and taxes hindering market efficiency can restore market efficiency.
Skirting part of the approval process isn’t a solution because it still leaves all the efficiency-hindering building codes (which have never had a cost-benefit analysis) in place.
Insurance and liability are much better vehicles for safety standards than reducing the rights of property owners.
Something I’ve thought about that is somewhat related is listed buildings, and how to improve the situation with them. The owner of the listed building often faces huge maintenance costs and restrictions, but the beneficiary of these costs and restrictions is not the owner but the people in the town who get to have something more ascetically pleasing to look at.
The answer that I arrived at is that the owner of buildings should get some sweetener for providing beauty for the town. If you keep it in good order, you get an annual payment from the town for it. Or, you knock it down and don’t.
But I also think for this to work, you’d have to fund local authorities by council tax rather than mostly government grants, and to make planning more localised (this would also incentivise local authorities to build, which they don’t do because so little of their budget comes from council tax).
I'd love to hear your thoughts on retrofitting or retro-facading ugly buildings to fit with the local or acceptable aesthetic, to 'fix' current damage.
There will be some questions over who should foot the bill (current owner, future owner, central fund, etc) but it seems like it could be a relatively quick and affordable way to improve the aesthetic of the built environment. For some buildings, just a lick of paint will uplift the property, others could be covering with flora or panelling, even 'fake' brickwork.
I think very cool idea. My feeling is that this should be achieved through residential improvement districts.
See https://www.worksinprogress.news/p/fixing-retail-with-land-value-capture but imagine we're applying it to residential neighbourhoods. Or, alternatively: https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/dlj/vol48/iss1/2/
Most cities already have something called “design review” which is intended to promote beautiful buildings. And yet, ugly buildings persist. The reason for this is that “beauty” is subjective. The buildings you see - ridiculous articulation, ugly mismatched siding - look like that _because of_ design review.
You should revisit this topic but include some architects/ developers who have experience with the design review process so they can explain how “banning ugly buildings” is put into practice.
They discuss design review in detail beginning at 21:30.
Sam and Ben: You briefly mentioned the work of Sam Dimitriou(?) on offsetting. Could you point me to where to find some of that work?
https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/what-happened-to-backing-the-builders
This?
Eroding property rights is what caused the housing shortage. Advocating for anything other than restoring property rights is poorly thought through contrarian wankery.
Have you listened to the podcast?
Yes. And any argument in favour of code compliant pattern books for the sake of aesthetics is arguing in favour of continued policy failure.
The lack of affordable housing has a single cause: market inefficiency. Only removing the regulations and taxes hindering market efficiency can restore market efficiency.
Skirting part of the approval process isn’t a solution because it still leaves all the efficiency-hindering building codes (which have never had a cost-benefit analysis) in place.
Insurance and liability are much better vehicles for safety standards than reducing the rights of property owners.
Something I’ve thought about that is somewhat related is listed buildings, and how to improve the situation with them. The owner of the listed building often faces huge maintenance costs and restrictions, but the beneficiary of these costs and restrictions is not the owner but the people in the town who get to have something more ascetically pleasing to look at.
The answer that I arrived at is that the owner of buildings should get some sweetener for providing beauty for the town. If you keep it in good order, you get an annual payment from the town for it. Or, you knock it down and don’t.
But I also think for this to work, you’d have to fund local authorities by council tax rather than mostly government grants, and to make planning more localised (this would also incentivise local authorities to build, which they don’t do because so little of their budget comes from council tax).
Hi, fully agree. The only thing that doesn’t change is the dead. To “preserve” our cities means killing them.
Like Obama's Presidential Library? Yes definitely ban it.
Not the nicest design, sadly. GWB's is good though!