101–110 of 329 posts
Maybe the answer is to stop growing and let other parts of the country grow. The brain drain to SV has been disastrous for other communities. It's contributed to inequality and deep geographic/political polarization. Yes, you can downvote me but consider formulating a counter-argument.
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That's... not really how it works. Or, you could also argue that's what the area has been doing for the past 40 years, and look at the current state of housing. EDIT: I didn't downvote you, but I will elaborate: there's very little you can do to stop people from moving to California, short of forcefully putting them on buses and sending them away (which is what some cities actually do[1][2]). What you can do is figur…
But how many people are going to move there to live in a bus? I certainly wouldn't. If property values get too high I'll just not move there. I don't understand this mentality where everybody thinks they should be able to afford to live in the best cities in the country, especially in California. It's just simple supply and demand. If housing prices get too high and people can't afford to live there they will live so…
It's not "supply and demand" until the supply caps come off. It's just policy set by the entrenched.
Some of us just wanted a 3 bedroom house on a 5000 sq ft lot -- so we could have a small yard with room for a dog and BBQ. Maybe a kid playing outside. Now we're being told we're greedy, and our neighborhoods should be replaced with 3 story townhouses on 1200 sq ft lots. No room for Fido. Makes me wonder what we're working insane hours for -- to settle for permanent apartment style living. At least we don't have cage…
Every person who moves into one of the new townhouses on the 1200 sqft lots is a person who is not outbidding you for the house on the 5000 sqft lot.
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Not at all. Renting with no road to purchase turns you into serf. Owning your dwelling is the most basic form a security a human needs. I own a condo that I rent and live renting in other part of my city. The rents cancel each other. It works very nice for me. I definitely wish more people own their homes. I also love highrises.
I'm not sure this rather dated precept is compatible with the exigencies of 21st century economics, and the flexibility, mobility and long hours demanded. For one thing, houses are cash sinks. It doesn't make sense for highly paid professionals to spend enormous amounts of time or money reshingling roofs, painting, mowing lawns, treating weeds, trimming hedges, repairing plumbing, etc. The deep specialisation and con…
So we pay HOA fees for high-rise condos.
Rents in SF grew $2000 over 5 years. I would be ecstatic if my worst-case housing market outcome were a measly $250/mo. My standard of living is going to fall every year at lease renewal time until I can't take it anymore, and then I'll go live out my days in a soul-crushing Midwestern cost center IT department, if any haven't been outsourced or automated by then.
Housing costs that can't increase are looking really good right about now.
For a bit of micro NIMBYism: my street in Palo Alto just instituted resident-only parking (I was the only one to object). Thus the people who cut our hair, serve our meals etc will have to walk even farther to work (my house is about 1.25 miles from downtown) while the wealthy shoppers park downtown for free. Yes it was a pain having a lot of cars on the street but I didn't feel it was a hardship that I couldn't park…
If SF housing politics has taught me anything, it's that the nastiest of human behavior is revealed by parking disagreements :( I never understood the residential parking permit argument anyway. Public dollars built the road, which now contains public parking spots. Implementing residential parking permits is a transfer of value from the public domain to private land owners. In Palo Alto (and the rest of the Bay Area…
Where it snows, homeowners are on the hook to shovel the portion of the public sidewalk along their property.
It's not exactly unprecedented for municipal governments to treat the properties nearest infrastructure as more responsible for it than the rest of the city. It's not unreasonable that they then have preferential access to it.
An RPP program is a formalization of, "look, it'd be a waste for us all to build off-street parking when there's perfectly good street frontage here, let's agree to be reasonable and share the street frontage equally."
It's a very anti-democratic move by California. They are willing to destroy local control of people in their communities to foster growth that will lead to further deterioration of living standards. Wouldn't it be better to try to grow tech outside of California in places like the Dakotas and Idaho where there is plenty of land and people in need of work? The American heartland could be a place rich in opportunity if…
Also I think you've forgotten we live in a free market. Tech has decided to base its industry in the Bay Area. And unfortunately the new participants in this industry have a higher purchasing power than the existing community. You can not tell people where they can and can not live or work. So if your strategy is to limit the supply of housing the only outcome possible is higher property prices with the existing residents pushed out.
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that is why if trump does manage to cut the EPA, it could drive down housing prices by increasing supply of new homes and apartments.
Pretty sure California's CEQA is independent of the EPA.
The reason why CEQA can't be amended or repealed is because it effectively gives the environmental lobby a veto over projects, and that lobby is a pillar of the governing coalition in California. Setting aside the wisdom of granting such leverage to non-state institutions, any amendments that cut down on NIMBY abuse would almost necessarily reduce the environmental lobby's de facto veto powers.
California can keep putting the screws to city councils, but unless they amend CEQA you'll see very little change in number of units built, except for large projects or well-heeled (i.e. well-lawyered) developers. Alternatively, the Supreme Court could step in. A possible silver lining of adding another conservative vote to SCOTUS would be that it might strike down CEQA as commonly applied. Likewise, they would hopefully crack down on the "community input" process that makes it difficult for developers to clear zoning hurdles. In particular, in cities like San Francisco zoning laws are so loosely defined and applied that it's impossible to submit a plan with any degree of confidence that it meets zoning and other regulatory requirements. In reality you're basically bargaining with the city like you would bargain with a corrupt city political machine in the 19th century, except it has the imprimatur of the courts.
It's a failure of Due Process, the most basic guarantee of Western constitutional law. Government is supposed to apply clearly defined laws. In particular, zoning boards and other instruments of government (courts in CEQA lawsuits) aren't supposed to be venues for democratic feedback. NIMBYs are free to lobby to change zoning and regulatory law to shape the character of their neighborhood; they shouldn't have a backdoor to change those rules on-the-fly as part of development plan approvals.
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You don't stop growth by limiting it, you slow it by creating more attractive alternatives. Consider start-up zones in the interior of the US wired with fiber and zero taxation for 10 years. It is something the federal government could do to start alternative hubs.
Seriously, if you offered 0-2% tax and high speed internet people would come out of the woodwork. But who is incentivized to do that?
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Wait, developers should pay for schools? What are property taxes for?
Property taxes pay for the schools that already exist. It's hard for a district to 'save up' because, well California, and 'surplus' money should be returned to the taxpayer. If developers don't cover the cost a district usually issues a bond but that's hard because, well, California, and direct democracy rarely votes to raise property tax mil rates whatever it would cost to cover the bond. And doesn't California bas…
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Every person who moves into one of the new townhouses on the 1200 sqft lots is a person who is not outbidding you for the house on the 5000 sqft lot.
Some are proposing state-forced re-zoning, converting residential neighborhoods into multi-family condos. Essentially the eminent domain taking of property. "Your land is too valuable; others need it". Kind of a slap in the face, after working a lifetime to afford a small home.