Housing News Digest
Housing News Digest
The Tenants' Union Housing News Digest compiles our pick of items from all the latest tenancy and housing media, sent once per week, on Thursdays.
Below is the Digest archive from November 2020 onwards. From time to time you will find additional items in the archive that did not make it into the weekly Digest email. Earlier archives are here, where you can also find additional digests by other organisations.
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Archive
The Case Against YIMBYism
Michael Friedrich The New Republic (No paywall)Sonja Trauss, the charismatic founder of the YIMBY movement, recently spoke at a conference of fellow travelers about the importance of supporting small home builders. “Most neighborhoods are still zoned low-density, and so if you’re seeing new housing, it’s going to be small projects,” she said at Austin’s YIMBYtown 2024, a gathering of people who believe that saying “yes in my backyard” to private development will fix America’s housing crisis. Trauss bemoaned the onerous regulations, fees, and paperwork—not to mention meddling homeowners—that make it so hard for small firms to build. Her organization, YIMBY Law, sues cities that create barriers to new construction. “What we’re doing, a lot of it is really for the small developers,” she said, quickly adding, “I mean, and the future residents, of course, guys.” The audience laughed.
https://newrepublic.com/article/179147/case-against-yimbyism-yim…
# Hot topic International, Public and community housing, Rent.Economics is in 'disarray', having placed efficiency before ethics and human well-being, says Nobel laureate
Gareth Hutchens ABC (No paywall)Mainstream economics is in "disarray." It ignores the reality of power, it neglects questions of equity, and its policy recommendations can be "little more than a license for plunder." That's the opinion of Angus Deaton, the British-American economist who won the economics version of the Nobel Prize in 2015. The 78-year-old professor says he's recently been changing his mind about views he's long held and it's a "discomfiting process."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-17/nobel-prize-winning-econo…
# International, .Denmark will build social housing in Ukraine according to its standards.
Oksana Lysiuk UBN (No paywall)Denmark created the Ukrainian Housing for All fund to develop and implement affordable rental housing in Ukraine based on the Danish model. It is planned to implement three pilot projects in cities that have suffered the consequences of Russian aggression.
https://ubn-news.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/ubn.news/denmark-will-bu…
# International, Rent.Bronx landlord’s $25M unpaid tax bill renews call for stalled transfer program
David Brand Gothamist (No paywall)Tenants of a dilapidated Bronx apartment complex are demanding the city seize the building from an absentee landlord who owes nearly $25 million in property taxes after a roughly decade-long saga over control of the property. Residents of the 49-unit building at 2201-2205 Davidson Ave. said they’re planning to sue the landlord and the city after dealing with serious leaks, mold blooms and months-long elevator outages, despite the building cycling through the city’s various emergency repairs programs. Those who live there said rats still scurry through their apartments and intruders enter through the unlocked front door as they try to wrestle the building out of the landlords’ hands.
https://gothamist.com/news/bronx-landlords-25m-unpaid-tax-bill-r…
# Hot topic International, Rent, Security and safety.How Does Paris Stay Paris? By Pouring Billions Into Public Housing
Thomas Fuller The New York Times (Soft Paywall)The two-bedroom penthouse comes with sweeping views of the Eiffel Tower and just about every other monument across the Paris skyline. The rent, at 600 euros a month, is a steal. Marine Vallery-Radot, 51, the apartment’s tenant, said she cried when she got the call last summer that hers was among 253 lower-income families chosen for a spot in the l’Îlot Saint-Germain, a new public-housing complex a short walk from the Musée d’Orsay, the National Assembly and Napoleon’s tomb.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/17/realestate/paris-france-housi…
# International, Public and community housing, Rent.Moving back in with the ‘rents seems to be a growing trend
CBS News (No paywall)VIDEO: A new study by Cal State Fullerton shows that more young adults between the ages of 18 to 29 are living back at home with their parents or other relatives. Unaffordable home prices and rent is surging nationwide.
https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/video/moving-back-in-with-the-…
# Video International, Rent.‘Completely lied to’: horror trend hurting tenants
Taylor Troth realestate.com.au (No paywall)Demand is growing to amend no ground eviction laws as decent tenants are being pushed out of their homes for no reason and with nowhere to turn. Lauren Perry and partner Jason have been booted out of their rental property with no grounds, on two separate occasions. Ms Perry described the experience as “horrific” and that it had severely impacted her mental health. Both times, the couple were told the landlord needed to sell or move back into the property, only to find their property back on the market advertised for rent while they were in the middle of packing up.
https://www.realestate.com.au/news/completely-lied-to-horror-tre…
# Hot topic, TUNSW in the media NSW, .'Extremely worrying': rental vacancy hits record low
Benn Dorrington realestate.com.au (No paywall)It’s never been tougher for renters looking for a new home, as the national rental vacancy rate falls to a record low amid Australia’s housing crisis. New PropTrack data showed that the national vacancy rate declined 0.12 percentage points (ppt) to 1.07% in February. The crisis has worsened significantly since the pandemic, with national levels of available rental homes plummeting 60% since March 2020. PropTrack senior economist Paul Ryan said rental markets were proving extremely challenging for renters, with very limited availability across most of the country.
https://www.realestate.com.au/news/extremely-worrying-rental-vac…
# Hot topic, TUNSW in the media NSW, .