Friday, November 30, 2018

The Man-Made Affordable-Housing 'Crisis'

November 29, 2018                      By: Kevin D. Williamson

Rules that prohibit cheap housing lead to ... a lack of cheap housing.

Houses in a suburb of Denver, Colo. (Rick Wilking/Reuters)
In Los Angeles, they are “back houses.” In Connecticut, they are “garage apartments.” In Philadelphia, the grander ones are “carriage houses.”

In Dallas, they are “granny flats,” and they are, for the first time in a generation, legal.

In Mandarin English, these domiciles are “accessory dwelling units,” smaller secondary residences built on the lots of other houses. They have different origins: In places where detached garages are common, many homeowners built small apartments above them, sometimes to house elderly relatives or other family members who could not quite manage on their own (an arrangement that became much more common during the Great Depression); these eventually became popular short-term residences for older teenagers, the domestic quarantine of whom is generally found to be desirable. In older and tonier neighborhoods, many began as servants’ quarters. I don’t suppose I need to explain how carriage houses got their name.........................Read More

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