In this post on his Substack, The Column, Adam H. Johnson discusses the problems with real estate developers building windowless housing under the guise of solving the homelessness crisis. Johnson points out that over the last few years “calls for gutting regulations” in construction have become “not only mainstream, they’re elite conventional wisdom in Democratic-aligned media circles.”
Importantly, this is not something new. “Real estate interests have said regulations stand in the wage of housing supply, and kept rents artificially high, since the dawn of government regulation.”
One such regulation that seems to have become a target is the requirement for windows in bedrooms. Windowless abodes are passed off as necessary to solve the housing shortage. As Johnson writes:
“Like much of the housing discourse, one is baffled by how quickly the discussion goes from the perfectly sensible—albeit generic—axiom of “we need more housing” to the idea that maintaining standards for windows in bedrooms is a pro-homelessness policy.
The whole thing feels like a hostage situation, and in many ways it is. Taken to its logical end point, this reasoning means any housing standard that is a notch above homelessness would therefore be acceptable so long as it drove down development cost for real estate interests.”
Read the full article here.
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