I like the comic, and I understand where the author is coming from and how they feel about the rising cost of living in the city. However, replacing one single family house with 8 new townhouses is part of the solution to the high cost of housing - not the cause.

Manifest into reality = murder the woman to inherit the house. Hence the sigh.

@1 is EXACTLY right. Even replacing it with a triplex would help.

The five townhomes that went onto the standard parcel behind Chez Vel-DuRay sold for $680,000 each.

The 44 units that are coming to the undeveloped block to the north of us (ten parcels) are pre-selling for 700k.

Who is that affordable to?

@5 No one I know, that's for sure. But if we want to preserve even the possibility of housing ever being more affordable than it is now, we've gotta build. There is no other way.

Building is only part of it. I think there has to be some curb on speculation. The council constantly allows itself to be played - or paid off - by developers and landlords. The latest thing is to allow absentee landlords to buy houses and create multiple ADU's and then letting them sell them off.

@7: You got it. The so-called urbanism movement is nothing but Reaganomics for nice people.

@7&8 I don't disagree. More housing in the aggregate is only one part of the solution, albeit an essential one. (And I didn't know it was legal to sell an ADU separately from the main dwelling. If that's true, it absolutely needs to change.)

CKathes dear, it's exactly what happened on the lot across from Chez Vel-DuRay: A standard 5000 square foot lot, with three "Single Family Homes", and two "DADU's". All sold separately.

The newest atrocity is to buy a house, divide it into as many ADU's as you can, and then build a structure with DADU's, and sell them all off.

Sounds like a 20 year old having a tantrum. --But I want the golden ticket now Daddy!