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The Shame of Palo Alto: An Interview with Kate Downing on Affordable Housing

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Re: The Shame of Palo Alto: An Interview with Kate Downing on Affordable Housing

#121

Post by jurassic »

I get depressed every time I think about the Bay Area housing situation. As half of an early-30s professional couple looking at our baby clock and anxious to start a family, I don't see how I can possibly provide a middle-class lifestyle for children while staying here. The choices are to join the bleeding edge of gentrification by moving into a slum like East Palo Alto or commit to severely degraded quality of life that comes with a megacommute.

I don't mind leaving and I probably will, but I do resent it when people act like two highly-educated and gainfully employed young people wanting to live where they work is some kind of unreasonable millennial self-entitlement.

Re: The Shame of Palo Alto: An Interview with Kate Downing on Affordable Housing

#122

Post by karma_vaccum123 »

all2well wrote: post #99
bufordsharkley wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "technically correct" way to fix this would be to remove the investment potential of housing by taxing away land value (the grand old panacea of the Land Value Tax[0]). I think this is a good idea, but it's a disruptive one, and one unlikely to happen soon. But in the meantime, we might as well fix the policy that's in direct contradiction to this ideal: 1) Repeal prop 13. Full stop. 2) Intervene with exclusionar…

The thing about getting rid of prop 13 is you'd price out a lot of residents that bought a long time ago for something they don't have a whole lot of control over. If you thought that gentrification is bad now, churn in residents would got through the roof. Not to mention that you wouldn't solve the issue of shorter-term investments in land, or investments that include new constructions. Honestly, the real issue in t…

You could simply revert people to market rate taxes over a decade, 10% a year.

Re: The Shame of Palo Alto: An Interview with Kate Downing on Affordable Housing

#123

Post by lindenksv1 »

dekhn wrote: post #94
lindenksv1 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I can rent. I can rent until I die. But how bizarre is it that you are telling me and everyone else who isn't wealth enough to have bought a house yet that we "insist" on buying and we should be happy to rent forever when we spent decades telling the baby boomers the exact opposite? As a country, we recognize the wealth building aspect of home ownership. We recognize the stability it gives people who don't have…

Hey, I think you're being unfair here, attributing a wide range of beliefs to me that I never stated, nor do I believe. That's really unfair. I said in another post: I hear that you're angry, but it's not OK to lash out or claim that I'm arguing something I'm not. Anyway, with regards to home ownership: I'm personally of the belief that home ownership has been massively oversold as a benefit. I've been in the Bay Are…

I think you're missing the forest for the trees. Yes, I personally can go live 30 minutes away. So how far away should the teachers live, then? The police? Because if I can afford San Mateo, then that means they largely can't. So where are they going? Is it acceptable for them to be coming up to PA from Gilroy? Tracy? Stockton? At what point do we say that we've created a ridiculous system in which people are needlessly spending years of their lives in traffic and throwing rent money in the toilet all because we can't build some more apartment building next to our jobs centers? I'm not insisting that city work live or own in PA, I'm highlighting that they can't own anywhere near PA, since, as you state, even 30 minutes out of PA is where two-income professionals can afford, not them.

Re: The Shame of Palo Alto: An Interview with Kate Downing on Affordable Housing

#124

Post by seanp2k2 »

all2well wrote: post #99
bufordsharkley wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "technically correct" way to fix this would be to remove the investment potential of housing by taxing away land value (the grand old panacea of the Land Value Tax[0]). I think this is a good idea, but it's a disruptive one, and one unlikely to happen soon. But in the meantime, we might as well fix the policy that's in direct contradiction to this ideal: 1) Repeal prop 13. Full stop. 2) Intervene with exclusionar…

The thing about getting rid of prop 13 is you'd price out a lot of residents that bought a long time ago for something they don't have a whole lot of control over. If you thought that gentrification is bad now, churn in residents would got through the roof. Not to mention that you wouldn't solve the issue of shorter-term investments in land, or investments that include new constructions. Honestly, the real issue in t…

s/residents/home owners have always been opposed to that. Renters would be thrilled about it, but home owners love seeing their home values skyrocket. Multiply this if they've been in the area for a while, and again if they're currently renting out their place(s).

A lower-end but not ghetto apartment in SJ is around $2200 for a 700sqft 1bedroom. This would not be in a place walking distance to a train station or to a downtown area. The mortgage on a 4 bedroom 1200sqft house valued at 800k (i.e. What most people would call a normal average single-family home) would be about $2800/month (assuming you had the 125k or so down payment). You can then rent 3 of the 4 bedrooms and end up making money on the house you live in vs flushing >$2k a month.

This is why normal people can't get ahead out here and end up moving away. The way things are is massively skewed toward home owners and property investors. Building more apartments won't necessarily help, since all the apartments built after the rent-control cut off are getting renovated or demolished to be replaced with brand new units which are "luxury" ($2800/month and up for a 1br).

Apartment places almost always have units available where I've looked. It's not like you can't find a place out here, just not a place for under about $2k a month. Apartment places would much rather rent out 85% of their units at exorbitant prices vs 100% at half that. I don't believe that adding more housing (which won't be under rent control and will undoubtedly be "luxury" housing) will lower average rents. I don't know what it would take to get the Bay Area back to rents in the $1000/month for a 1br range. I'm not even sure that it's realistic anymore.

Does anyone have a link to or know of a place built in the past 15 years in Santa Clara, Cupertino, Palo Alto, Mountain View, San Jose, Saratoga, Los Gatos, etc with units under $2k a month? My pessimistic side just thinks that adding more new apartments will just drop the price on the high end, so that $3k/month loft in the glass tower in downtown SJ might only be $2800 next 11-month lease term, or maybe only go up by 12% a year instead of 18%.

We need to do something drastic if this is to be again under control, but I suspect that due to the very large sums of money involved, the entrench interests are attempting to prevent that by whatever means necessary, and we're basically screwed until this bubble bursts, if that even happens this time.

Re: The Shame of Palo Alto: An Interview with Kate Downing on Affordable Housing

#125

Post by karma_vaccum123 »

vadym909 wrote: post #93
JoshTriplett wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Housing prices depend on availability, and housing density is controlled by regulation. No amount of innovation can fix a zoning problem.

That is why a startup is needed. Airbnb and Uber showed how to get past regulations.

Sorry you aren't going to build a multi-unit dwelling in Palo Alto in secret.

Re: The Shame of Palo Alto: An Interview with Kate Downing on Affordable Housing

#126

Post by bufordsharkley »

nwenzel wrote: post #116
bufordsharkley wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "technically correct" way to fix this would be to remove the investment potential of housing by taxing away land value (the grand old panacea of the Land Value Tax[0]). I think this is a good idea, but it's a disruptive one, and one unlikely to happen soon. But in the meantime, we might as well fix the policy that's in direct contradiction to this ideal: 1) Repeal prop 13. Full stop. 2) Intervene with exclusionar…

Given that a full repeal may be difficult politically, I wonder if Prop 13 could be limited to owner-occupied houses. Seems like that would hold true to its original purpose of not taxing someone out of their home, make investment in property somewhat less appealing, and provide a more predictable funding source for schools.

Prop 13's effects for primary-resident housing have been less problematic than its effects for commercial land and purely speculative real estate, but it isn't good-- if we allow this subsidy strictly for housing, we'll still run out of developable land (just not quite as quickly.)

Too, the policy that reassesses the site upon re-sale takes away mobility for Bay Area residents-- this lock-in is extremely destructive for the housing stock (not to mention transportation), and will continue as long as Prop 13 exists in any form.

The idea that "being taxed out of your home" is a bad thing is extremely overblown (remember that any person to suffer this malady is suffering from overly valuable land). Rather than the heavily distortionary effects of Prop 13, better approaches would be:

* Building more. That's what the folks who suffered high property taxes in the 1970s should have done. The property tax burden for each housing unit would be driven down.

* Community land trusts offer the possibility of stability for residents who want to be completely removed from the rises and falls in housing value.

* For the "poor widow" situation, a direct subsidy on an as-needed basis (food stamps for property taxes, as it were) is a better solution than what Prop 13 does.

Re: The Shame of Palo Alto: An Interview with Kate Downing on Affordable Housing

#127

Post by URSpider94 »

dekhn wrote: post #105
lindenksv1 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're moving to Santa Cruz because we wanted to live in a walkable area. If you travel up and down the peninsula, any house near the walkable downtown area is going to be $2M+. Yeah, sure, you can buy for less and have to travel by car absolutely everywhere. But why spend $1.5 to live in a dead cul de sac when you can spend the same money to live in a lively walkable area near the beach? If you're going to hang an al…

As I've pointed out elsewhere on this post, you've setting up a ton of requirements that can't be met. While I appreciate that you want to live in a "walkable area", that's pretty much the first requirement you should drop. That's a "want to have", not a "must have" in housing. Like I've pointed out elsewhere, you're setting up specious arguments when you insist of a bunch of details, like living directly in PA, livi…

Dude, where do you get off telling her what choices to make about where to live?

Re: The Shame of Palo Alto: An Interview with Kate Downing on Affordable Housing

#128

Post by ScottBurson »

Kim-Mai Cutler's excellent and thorough analysis from a couple of years ago [0] is still broadly relevant, though I think there have been some changes -- the whole Google bus thing blew over, I guess, and Mountain View's city council got largely replaced, the new council being more housing-friendly. But there's still a lot in here that's applicable.

ETA: Oh, and here's a great piece on Henry George [1].

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/29/nothing-like-this-has-ever...

Re: The Shame of Palo Alto: An Interview with Kate Downing on Affordable Housing

#129

Post by nradov »

hkmurakami wrote: post #3

It seems that we made a pact with the devil by positioning housing as an investment asset. By doing so, we've encouraged people to commit a very large fraction of their net worth into a rather illiquid asset, tying their financial fates to the future assessment of that asset. As a result, protecting the price and appreciation of this asset has come to overshadow the other crucial roles that housing plays in our socie…

Have you actually talked to many Bay Area homeowners? The primarily reason that many long-time residents oppose new denser housing developments has little or nothing to do with property values. The real reason is concerns over quality of life, such as traffic, noise, pollution, school overcrowding, etc. You're not going to convince them to support higher housing density without addressing those concerns.

Personally I think denser housing developments in some neighborhoods would be a good idea. But the infrastructure improvements need to be constructed first, not as a reactive afterthought.

Re: The Shame of Palo Alto: An Interview with Kate Downing on Affordable Housing

#130

Post by karma_vaccum123 »

dekhn wrote: post #107
lindenksv1 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're moving to Santa Cruz because we wanted to live in a walkable area. If you travel up and down the peninsula, any house near the walkable downtown area is going to be $2M+. Yeah, sure, you can buy for less and have to travel by car absolutely everywhere. But why spend $1.5 to live in a dead cul de sac when you can spend the same money to live in a lively walkable area near the beach? If you're going to hang an al…

If you hate driving, you're really gonna hate being on the wrong side of Highway 17. Many of my coworkers commute over the hill (I used to go to UCSC, too) and it's a really bad commute: there's effectively a single path, with 2 lanes, and a high rate of accidents that block both lanes.

Formerly America's deadliest highway (prior to the dividing barrier)

As you say, lane-closing accidents daily...but also hillbillies in huge 4x4s from Redwood Estates who also hate tech people and are often high

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