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In Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to Build, Baby, Build

nytimes.com

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Re: In Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to Build, Baby, Build

#31

Post by llamataboot »

hodwik wrote: post #2

I say this as a conservative: Building limits are systemically classist and racist. They maintain a geographical segregation system. If you want to fix the country then remove all limits, let developers develop whatever and whereever they deem there is demand. Remove occupancy laws where they're not about safety. Remove property line setbacks. End parking requirements. End requirements about private kitchens and bath…

Arguably though, people are implicitly willing to pay quite the premium for racial and class segregation. Why would a purely 'free market' approach (hard when there are so many externalities involved) work better than an inclusionary zoning approach? (rather than the exclusionary zoning regimes of, for example, most suburbs in he US) - Encourage/demand high-density infill mixed-income housing.

Re: In Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to Build, Baby, Build

#32

Post by hodwik2 »

pj_mukh wrote: post #17
hodwik wrote: post #2

I say this as a conservative: Building limits are systemically classist and racist. They maintain a geographical segregation system. If you want to fix the country then remove all limits, let developers develop whatever and whereever they deem there is demand. Remove occupancy laws where they're not about safety. Remove property line setbacks. End parking requirements. End requirements about private kitchens and bath…

As a liberal, I agree. One problem, foreign money. It is mentioned in passing in the article but Vancouver (even with more sensible building laws) is still getting screwed because foreign money keeps pouring in.

Could you please explain why the foreign investment is a problem? Every time I've heard this discussed, it's mostly been people saying "The CHINESE are buying up houses" with a racist glint in their eyes.

I don't get the impression these people would be as worried if the foreign investors were of French or Irish parentage.

If I've misunderstood the issue, people correct me.

Re: In Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to Build, Baby, Build

#33

Post by mountaineer22 »

ec109685 wrote: post #27
mountaineer22 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"By putting those infrastructure costs exclusively on the developer, you're basically taxing poverty, because those costs will all have to go on to the new poor residents." Can you explain that? I don't understand..you lost me.

Instead of the burden of paying for additional services to support additional housing being spread around to all residents, if you bake the cost into the permitting process, developers will be forced to charge more for the new housing to make up the cost.

I guess we are not on the same page.

So, how does this work?

More specifically, what ensures the new development is "affordable"?

Surely, the deciding factor is not the permit cost.

Re: In Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to Build, Baby, Build

#34

Post by Retric »

ec109685 wrote: post #27
mountaineer22 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"By putting those infrastructure costs exclusively on the developer, you're basically taxing poverty, because those costs will all have to go on to the new poor residents." Can you explain that? I don't understand..you lost me.

Instead of the burden of paying for additional services to support additional housing being spread around to all residents, if you bake the cost into the permitting process, developers will be forced to charge more for the new housing to make up the cost.

Or build smaller homes 40k @ 6% is only 200$ a month. Further people would be paying this anyway and new development directly competes with normal home sales.

It may promote smaller homes, but that increases affordability.

Re: In Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to Build, Baby, Build

#35

Post by stcredzero »

llamataboot wrote: post #31
hodwik wrote: post #2

I say this as a conservative: Building limits are systemically classist and racist. They maintain a geographical segregation system. If you want to fix the country then remove all limits, let developers develop whatever and whereever they deem there is demand. Remove occupancy laws where they're not about safety. Remove property line setbacks. End parking requirements. End requirements about private kitchens and bath…

Arguably though, people are implicitly willing to pay quite the premium for racial and class segregation. Why would a purely 'free market' approach (hard when there are so many externalities involved) work better than an inclusionary zoning approach? (rather than the exclusionary zoning regimes of, for example, most suburbs in he US) - Encourage/demand high-density infill mixed-income housing.

People can pay for class segregation. I suspect if we let them, it would become separated from race segregation over time.

Re: In Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to Build, Baby, Build

#36

Post by stcredzero »

hodwik2 wrote: post #32
pj_mukh wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a liberal, I agree. One problem, foreign money. It is mentioned in passing in the article but Vancouver (even with more sensible building laws) is still getting screwed because foreign money keeps pouring in.

Could you please explain why the foreign investment is a problem? Every time I've heard this discussed, it's mostly been people saying "The CHINESE are buying up houses" with a racist glint in their eyes. I don't get the impression these people would be as worried if the foreign investors were of French or Irish parentage. If I've misunderstood the issue, people correct me.

There was a time when people would've been just as worried.

Re: In Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to Build, Baby, Build

#37

Post by ktRolster »

hodwik wrote: post #2

I say this as a conservative: Building limits are systemically classist and racist. They maintain a geographical segregation system. If you want to fix the country then remove all limits, let developers develop whatever and whereever they deem there is demand. Remove occupancy laws where they're not about safety. Remove property line setbacks. End parking requirements. End requirements about private kitchens and bath…

If you want to fix the country then remove all limits, let developers develop whatever and whereever they deem there is demand.

That's a bad idea, too. For example, in Fremont right now, there's a development that was built without being placed in a school district. So the students who will live there have no real school.

Also, there are serious environmental impacts that need to be considered every time you build a new housing unit.

Outlawing zoning completely is a bad idea too: you'll end up with housing units built next to noisy factories or smelly plants, and then the people in the new houses will complain to get the factory shut down, even though the factory was there before they were, and it was making noise when they moved in.

Furthermore, when you build new housing, you need to consider how those people are going to get transportation, water and electricity (and heating in most places). You can't just throw up a housing unit anywhere and expect those things to be built magically.

Re: In Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to Build, Baby, Build

#38

Post by raldi »

The audio clip from the Lafayette city manager smears BARF by implying the group is trying to destroy the Bay Area's wilderness.

In actuality, the efforts over there involve a large area of land that Lafayette wants to use for a single-family-housing development, whereas BARF believes that state law requires it to be used for apartment buildings.

Also, if you want to preserve the region's wilderness, the last thing you want to do is obstruct housing density in the urban center. That just pushes people to sprawl outward into the surrounding countryside.

Re: In Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to Build, Baby, Build

#39

Post by techsupporter »

hodwik2 wrote: post #10
Retric wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is infrastructure costs associated with new construction (schools, roads, etc.) Ideally a permit should add ~40k to cover those cost per additional dwelling which scales based on actual costs. Otherwise you keep having people who live in an area pay for new schools, water treatment plants, etc several times.

People averse to low income and brown people moving to their nice little town will just weaponize those permit costs to block developers. By putting those infrastructure costs exclusively on the developer, you're basically taxing poverty, because those costs will all have to go on to the new poor residents. We already have an income tax system, it spreads the burden well. If the city needs more taxes to pay for infra…

> If the city needs more taxes to pay for infrastructure they should raise their local income taxes.

Difficulty: Not every locality is allowed to impose an income tax.

Example: Seattle is having what one might charitably call an infrastructure problem due to its massive population growth. Washington State does not permit an income tax at any level and further imposes some rather stout limits on the amount of any other taxation.

Follow-up: What now? Washington State voters--to change the law would need to pass at a state level, including in an inevitable referendum--have repeatedly turned down both an income tax and repealing tax limits. In fact, they do the exact opposite and vote in more draconian limits (which, because the drafters of the initiatives are usually either poorly-informed or paid initiative campaigners who want initiatives to keep going to the ballot, keep getting tossed by the state Supreme Court as of late but the earlier ones stand).

Re: In Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to Build, Baby, Build

#40

Post by raldi »

hodwik wrote: post #2

I say this as a conservative: Building limits are systemically classist and racist. They maintain a geographical segregation system. If you want to fix the country then remove all limits, let developers develop whatever and whereever they deem there is demand. Remove occupancy laws where they're not about safety. Remove property line setbacks. End parking requirements. End requirements about private kitchens and bath…

We don't have to remove all limits; we can get a ton of benefit just by adjusting the stupid ones.

For example, the ones that require seas of single-family houses around most of San Francisco's major transit hubs: https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/3qu9uv/i_made...

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