this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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I'm a engineer in the construction industry. Some regulations can be almost universally agreed to be good and useful, building codes for example. I could argue about how stupid some parts of a code are, but I agree adopting the codes are a crucial life safety regulation.
The problem is every single regulation/rule/law adds costs and time to a construction project, so there's absolutely no way to "regulate" a way out of this problem. The longer and more expensive the construction process is, the more and more design teams and contractors focus on the higher dollar projects. I just got done designing a 104 room hotel similar to a nice Holiday Inn. I've done low income housing projects in the past but right now large corporations are the only ones with the war chest to be able to fund the process of Zoning review, architectural review boards, random city review boards where they have implemented their own local standards.
I have a client where we design 4-7 similar sized commercial buildings per year. In one town it took over a year to go from final construction plans being submitted to the city, to getting final approval to break ground from that city. In the time it took to get that building permit we started and finished the next design, found a contractor, got a building permit(different city), and the building was half built.
Sounds more like it's an investment issue and less a logistics issue. Regulation can absolutely help shift markets. Getting all of the rich fucks out of residential realestate would be a wonderful step 1...
It certainly becomes a investment issues due to increasing costs. Regulations play a part in that. Freeing up existing inventory by banning STR's or taxing the shit out of 2nd homes would be a 1 time, short term relief, but it's not going to effect the construction industry costs for new construction.
It will definitely help by killing demand since many houses would actually see permanent occupancy.
The train of greed that permanent growth loves to accelerate will slow down if there is less money to make on the end product.
Briefly, and only for housing. All those permanent occupants need schools, grocery stores, malls, shops, infrastructure. And if you don't like people profiting off of building houses don't get me started on how much we make billing higher rates on government work. They are a headache, to work with but they pay way higher than commercial and private work.