This business is contingent upon
a) having at least 1 billion dollars in available capitol (e.g., pretend I started Facebook instead of the other dude).
b) you knowing where Kaimuki is. See below:
Kaimuki is a Honolulu neighborhood that has been developed for residential housing from the 1920s onward. I also live there and despair of ever being able to afford a home there, as the median home price is ~$750,000. Currently, this neighborhood is undergoing the same sort of teardown construction that’s prevalent elsewhere across the US. Hawai’i has limited space on which to build new residential housing, so tear downs are a logical way to refurbish existing residential areas. However, the building practice is coupled with the intent of landowners to maximize the development potential of their lots. Which means concrete – lots and lots of concrete to tear down houses like this and instead build houses like this.
There are a variety of problems that I see with this development strategy:
– Landlords trying to fit as many rental properties onto one lot, which sometimes involves skirting permitting laws and/or takes advantage of the fact that many people can only afford to rent housing, and will often rent terrible spaces because they are the only affordable ones. That’s why one of my neighbors has a studio in a garage… attached to another garage so that it doesn’t look like a studio… with a garage door as his entrance.
– The more impermeable concrete used to cover up land, the more runoff there is and the corresponding less fresh water there is to restock the water table.
– The more impermeable concrete used to cover up land, the less green space there is, whether in terms of trees, lawns (not my favorite thing either), and gardens. That means my semi-arid area will get hotter and drier, all the while flooding occasionally down the street (see runoff above)…
– This is a more personal objection, but one which I hope can also be generalized to other people: ugly houses don’t inspire me to live in or invest in areas with ugly houses. Sorry.
So if I had a billion dollars:
– I would create a company that would buy up residential real estate, meaning – for my purposes – primarily single-family homes (rather than apartment buildings or condos). These lots would not necessarily be coterminous (next to each other), but over time this company would continue to purchase land, adjoining where possible.
– I would (haha!) bulldoze houses that were so large as to block out green space and/or grossly maximize lot occupancy. Or that were not up to my aesthetic standards.
– I would build houses that satisfy green building criteria and maximize community connectedness (shared outdoor space, multipurpose spaces). Should I be able to acquire adjoining lots, there would be more potential to build houses that help foster a sense of community and neighborliness, perhaps by including shared play areas, bbq and eating areas, and communal gardens. Building more than one house would also help me build relationships with local contractors, the end goal being to increase the amount of green home building and, in doing so, decrease its costs.
– I would lease the houses to occupants – not rent – focusing only on long term leasehold arrangements. I.e., 20+ years.
– Leases would be affordable, tied in some way to lessee’s income. That’s my way of crafting affordable housing that’s relative to what someone earns.
– After the end of the lease, occupants would be able to stay in the house for free to the end of their lives. Houses would not be owned, and therefore not heritable. However, occupants would still have an incentive to care for and maintain the home according to company standards because…
– There would be a property management wing of the company that would inspect houses 1-2x per year. Leases would, in some part, be contingent on home upkeep. In other words, noncompliance with home maintenance would result in fines or loss of the lease. Yearly inspections would also help to catch infrastructure problems before they become big problems.
– There may be an option to decrease the amount of the lease-rent if occupants put additional work into their homes, such as actively maintaining a garden, an orchard, or helping to provide home maintenance for other lessees, such as the elderly.
– The money necessary to fund the property management would come from lease-rent and fines. All other profits would be reinvested in the company in order to continue buying more property and building better homes.
– This would be a nonprofit company. If I already have a billion dollars, I don’t need much more, even if I sink much/most of it into a crazy DIY affordable housing scheme.
Tell me what else I’d need to carry out this plan, pending, um, funding.
_____ I would _____ 
