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Employment, construction, and the cost of San Francisco apartments

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Re: Employment, construction, and the cost of San Francisco apartments

#111

Post by owlmonkey »

guelo wrote: post #79
capkutay wrote: post #16

Obligatory reminder: If you care about housing in the Bay Area, register to vote now. Scott Wiener is a housing and transportation advocate running for State Senate in this election. http://registertovote.ca.gov/ Show up to Planning Commission and Board of Supervisor meetings. Participate in public comment. We all talk about how NIMBYs rule SF, it's because they show up in full force at these gatherings.

Gentrification step 13: vote out the pre-existing population's preferred politicians and install new "free market" policies (since the "free market" works in favor of the people with the money the new policies will benefit the richer new comers).

Building is the one variable of the three he cites that is reasonable to encourage IMO. But the pre-existing population here has demonstrated a clear disdain for building. So who is really to blame then for the inflation and displacement and thereby the gentrification?

Re: Employment, construction, and the cost of San Francisco apartments

#112

Post by owlmonkey »

mgraczyk wrote: post #95
mikeyouse wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wiener is really good on housing, much better than the Peskin group of Supes. Read his post when he came out against the Mission Moratorium to get a sense of his housing views: http://www.scottwiener.com/more_affordable_housing_not_a_hou... Alternatively, read his post on Medium titled, "Yes, Supply & Demand Apply to Housing, Even in San Francisco": https://medium.com/@Scott_Wiener/yes-supply-demand-apply-to-... > Th…

As I said, these essays propose and defend additional restrictions on building new housing. His restrictions are slightly less sinister than moratoriums, and come in the form of affordable housing requirements. He is still adding regulatory burden to the legal code, just slightly less burden than some of his peers have proposed. I'd also like to point out that Wiener strongly advocated solar panel and beautification…

It's politics. You can't survive here politically proposing as-of-right building permits and across the board upzoning. But you can move the needle in the right direction.

Re: Employment, construction, and the cost of San Francisco apartments

#113

Post by eru »

sampo wrote: post #35
thescriptkiddie wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an interesting comparison. New York City's population density is 56% higher than San Francisco's, and the average height of a building in New York City is only 6.8 stories (in spite of skyscrapers pushing up the mean). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b... http://www.sunilmishra.in/2012/07/05/average-building-height...

> New York City's population density is 56% higher than San Francisco's And even New York City is not really that dense: San Francisco: 18 000 people per mi2 New York City: 27 000 Barcelona: 41 000 Paris: 55 000 Only Manhattan (72 000 per mi2) is dense.

Or look at Hong Kong and Singapore.

Re: Employment, construction, and the cost of San Francisco apartments

#114

Post by eru »

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #8
rayiner wrote: post #6

> It will be very hard. If the (first) model is correct, it would take a 53% increase in the housing supply (200,000 new units), Doesn't seem that hard in a city full of three-story housing.

I'm thinking the same thing. Is it physical limitations of building (such as earthquake proofing) that makes it difficult? Or is it the suffocating amount of bureaucratic red tape imposed by short-sighted interest groups?

> Is it physical limitations of building (such as earthquake proofing) that makes it difficult?

Can't be worse than in Japan. They manage to build plenty. So, definitely red tape.

Re: Employment, construction, and the cost of San Francisco apartments

#115

Post by eru »

DrScump wrote: post #69
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #9

Building straight into the sky is easy. You'd be amazed at how earthquake-proof skyscrapers are with modern technology. You want a challenge? Build in a city where you're required to post notice any time you cut down a tree on your own property.

Boosting housing by building vertically is virtually unlimited. The trickier part is supplying the added people with water, electricity, gas, food, and other supplies without augmenting infrastructure (which is failing left and right as it is) and convincing them to never travel out of or into the city using its already-at-capacity freeways and rail.

Infrastructure for dense cities is doable (and cheaper per-capita). Just do whatever other dense cities do. Look at Singapore for inspiration.

Re: Employment, construction, and the cost of San Francisco apartments

#116

Post by eru »

steffan wrote: post #78
forrestthewoods wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is worth mentioning that building into the sky is expensive. Easy sure. But expensive. Each floor is more expensive than the one below it. I'm not sure what the premium is though. Anyone know? What's the added cost for an apartment building as you go up? Seattle has a lot of 2+4 construction. Where it's 2 floor concrete and 4 floors wood. I believe the limit used to be 2+2 but they raised it. Cheaper construction…

I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. This article talks about housing in Japan depreciating rapidly: http://www.archdaily.com/450212/why-japan-is-crazy-about-hou... , a contrast to the U.S., where to some extent, properties gain in value. (Mostly the land value, but to a certain extent the structures as well). I think it's reasonable that a 2+4 building built today last 20-30 years, is depreciated, and then…

Nah, it's only the land that appreciates. Buildings don't appreciate in value. (Unless it's some fancy one-of-a-kind work of art.)

It's a common tax dodge to try and make it look like the building appreciates in value.

See http://www.masongaffney.org/publications/G2009-Hidden_Taxabl...

Re: Employment, construction, and the cost of San Francisco apartments

#117

Post by hkmurakami »

fsaneq2 wrote: post #62
capkutay wrote: post #16

Obligatory reminder: If you care about housing in the Bay Area, register to vote now. Scott Wiener is a housing and transportation advocate running for State Senate in this election. http://registertovote.ca.gov/ Show up to Planning Commission and Board of Supervisor meetings. Participate in public comment. We all talk about how NIMBYs rule SF, it's because they show up in full force at these gatherings.

Out of curiosity, is there a way for a non-citizen to vote? I see the logic of requiring you to be a citizen, but it does nevertheless feel a little unfair -- I live here too, and I pay my taxes like everyone else.

Apparently it depends on the state (within the United States). For California, it appears that Citizenship is required. Some states seem to have substantially lower requirements.

Re: Employment, construction, and the cost of San Francisco apartments

#118

Post by eru »

timr wrote: post #38
rayiner wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead, they build class I-III in the Mission and SOMA. These buildings will always be "luxury" units, because at $300+/sq.ft. construction costs the economics don't pencil out otherwise. In the long run, that isn't true. A skyscraper has a useful life well in excess of 50 years. If you look at places like Chicago, you'll see that luxury high-rises get renovated 20-30 years in to become mid-range places. Of course…

"In the long run, that isn't true. A skyscraper has a useful life well in excess of 50 years. If you look at places like Chicago, you'll see that luxury high-rises get renovated 20-30 years in to become mid-range places." It really depends. They just gutted 101 Van Ness (a pre-existing 1960s-era skyscraper) and turned it into housing. It's all luxury -- the cheapest units are upwards of $3000 a month for a tiny studi…

If you don't build luxury housing for wealthy people, they just bid up the existing housing stock.

Look up filtering down. As houses age, they become less luxurious.

See http://cityobservatory.org/what-filtering-can-and-cant-do/

Re: Employment, construction, and the cost of San Francisco apartments

#119

Post by eru »

gech wrote: post #93
harryh wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's fine, but it doesn't change the fact that new construction doesn't help anyone but wealthy people in SF, today. If you build more luxury housing it lowers the price of luxury housing so that a marginally less rich person can move to that tier. That marginal move reduces the demand on the next lower tier of housing which should reduce the price at that level. And so on, and so on...

Can you promise that

Happens all the time. http://cityobservatory.org/what-filtering-can-and-cant-do/

Re: Employment, construction, and the cost of San Francisco apartments

#120

Post by eru »

Camillo wrote: post #56
kafkaesq wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Build in a city where you're required to post notice any time you cut down a tree on your own property. That's because you're talking about one of the most beautiful cities in the world (despite the attempts of some people to decry otherwise) and, as expressed through the will of its electorate, intends to stay that way. It's also a city that's keenly aware of ecosystem dynamics and environmental issues generally, an…

The west side of the city (the Sunset and the Richmond) has little to recommend in terms of "visual character". It's also poorly connected to the rest of the city and has very poor walkability, save for the N corridor. They could just tear it all up and build mid-rises, if only they had better connections to stimulate demand.

They have enough demand. Zoning (and Nimbys) are bad.
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