Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A Bay Area developer wants to build 4,400 homes where they may be sorely needed

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 111 posts

Re: A Bay Area developer wants to build 4,400 homes where they may be sorely needed

#81

Post by getemback »

dragonwriter wrote: post #77
s73ver wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem being, a lot of people would get absolutely screwed by that, and end up losing their home. There needs to be a way to fix that, without going back to the original problem Prop 13 was intended to fix, which was people being unable to afford the property tax on homes that they had been living in forever.

> Problem being, a lot of people would get absolutely screwed by that, and end up losing their home. Would there be many? Certainly, there were some cases pre-prop 13, but prop 13 wasn't narrowly focussed on protecting homeowners. Those were exploited as pretext, they weren't the motivation. And you could make it protect homeowners while fixing the local government incentives by providing a refundable state income ta…

In retrospect, even the pretext was bunk. It turns out that turfing old people out of their giant, valuable houses is a benefit rather than a problem. Today, thanks to Prop 13, Boomers are massively over-housed.

Re: A Bay Area developer wants to build 4,400 homes where they may be sorely needed

#82

Post by erentz »

kafkaesq wrote: post #46
epistasis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They're long-term residents looking out for what's best for their community. No, they're just looking out for themselves. The community is hurt by their greed for massively inflated property values, low taxes, and keeping the younger generation from living the lives they want. If that makes me negative, fine. But if they are white-washing their behavior by pretending to be concerned for "the community" when really t…

The community is hurt by their greed for massively inflated property values, low taxes, Or maybe they see positive tradeoffs. Either way it's for them to assess, not you. Keeping the younger generation from living the lives they want. As if they have some inalienable right to live in places like Brisbane. If that makes me negative, fine. I doubt they care what you think, actually.

> As if they have some inalienable right to live in places like Brisbane.

So the folks who live there now do because they were born earlier and got to buy a house first?

Re: A Bay Area developer wants to build 4,400 homes where they may be sorely needed

#83

Post by erentz »

oneshot908 wrote: post #58
sdenton4 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I do feel sorry that the younger generation is not going to get to live the life that we did,” she said. “But it’s a different time.” An excellent encapsulation of what I call the "fuck you, got mine" mode of American politics.

If Silicon Valley were serious about solving its housing crisis (which it's not), there are solutions. Because while you're concern trolling that Brisbane doesn't feel any sort of civic duty to create some sort of Gibsonian tech ghetto with their valuable (but really smelly) land, the valley could solve this problem on its own by relaxing zoning laws (which they won't). https://www.citylab.com/equity/2014/02/heres-wh…

Gibsonian tech ghetto? That's a bit exaggerated. We are talking about building medium density housing and mixed use around a railway station versus commercial property and office parks. Sounds more like what Brisbane wants with the commercial property is closer to a Gibsonian tech ghetto to me.

Re: A Bay Area developer wants to build 4,400 homes where they may be sorely needed

#84

Post by deathanatos »

pizzetta wrote: post #67
cylinder wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "small town" ... 7 miles from the center of a major global city and metro area ... even closer to a major international airport. These people are assholes.

But why put the onus on a small village when the city of SF itself is unwilling to allow normal city development & construction. If anyone are assholes, it's the city of SF itself --who, by the way, typically rally behind "we don't want to Manhattanize SF." If SF is unwilling to do their part, why would we expect a small village compensate ofr the city's unwillingness to support development?

I (as someone who supports building more in the Bay Area) don't want the onus to be just on Brisbane. I want it to be on the whole Bay Area, and all of its townships.

That one of the major issues I think the Bay Area faces: each township passes the buck to the next: "Why should we build housing, when township X is completely unwilling to do so?" Yes, and they say the same thing about you! With this attitude, nothing will ever get built, anywhere.

Re: A Bay Area developer wants to build 4,400 homes where they may be sorely needed

#85

Post by pizzetta »

deathanatos wrote: post #84
pizzetta wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why put the onus on a small village when the city of SF itself is unwilling to allow normal city development & construction. If anyone are assholes, it's the city of SF itself --who, by the way, typically rally behind "we don't want to Manhattanize SF." If SF is unwilling to do their part, why would we expect a small village compensate ofr the city's unwillingness to support development?

I (as someone who supports building more in the Bay Area) don't want the onus to be just on Brisbane. I want it to be on the whole Bay Area , and all of its townships. That one of the major issues I think the Bay Area faces: each township passes the buck to the next: "Why should we build housing, when township X is completely unwilling to do so?" Yes, and they say the same thing about you! With this attitude, nothing…

I think we should recognize that SF and Brisbane are not in the same league. Anything Brisbane would build would be a drop in the bucket. SF can potentially add a hundred thousand units --two hundred thousand units, no problem without changing the character from village to full-blown city. 4,00 units more than doubles the pop of Brisbane. If we added 200,000 units to _only_ SF, that would add 25% to their pop. Another 200,000 would add 20% to SJ.

The Problem is SF, Oakland and SJ --localities which can/could build if they wanted to but simply don't.

Re: A Bay Area developer wants to build 4,400 homes where they may be sorely needed

#86

Post by oneshot908 »

erentz wrote: post #83
oneshot908 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Silicon Valley were serious about solving its housing crisis (which it's not), there are solutions. Because while you're concern trolling that Brisbane doesn't feel any sort of civic duty to create some sort of Gibsonian tech ghetto with their valuable (but really smelly) land, the valley could solve this problem on its own by relaxing zoning laws (which they won't). https://www.citylab.com/equity/2014/02/heres-wh…

Gibsonian tech ghetto? That's a bit exaggerated. We are talking about building medium density housing and mixed use around a railway station versus commercial property and office parks. Sounds more like what Brisbane wants with the commercial property is closer to a Gibsonian tech ghetto to me.

Sounds to me like they want to max out tax revenue and that's their right. Were you jumping up and down and holding your breath when San Jose built office space and very little housing for exactly the same reason during the first dotcom boom?

All this developer has to do is make building that housing a no-brainer for Brisbane, but I suspect in doing so the profitability plummets or somebody would have already done this, no?

Re: A Bay Area developer wants to build 4,400 homes where they may be sorely needed

#87

Post by wbl »

pizzetta wrote: post #85
deathanatos wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I (as someone who supports building more in the Bay Area) don't want the onus to be just on Brisbane. I want it to be on the whole Bay Area , and all of its townships. That one of the major issues I think the Bay Area faces: each township passes the buck to the next: "Why should we build housing, when township X is completely unwilling to do so?" Yes, and they say the same thing about you! With this attitude, nothing…

I think we should recognize that SF and Brisbane are not in the same league. Anything Brisbane would build would be a drop in the bucket. SF can potentially add a hundred thousand units --two hundred thousand units, no problem without changing the character from village to full-blown city. 4,00 units more than doubles the pop of Brisbane. If we added 200,000 units to _only_ SF, that would add 25% to their pop. Anothe…

It also increases the built area of Brisbane.

Re: A Bay Area developer wants to build 4,400 homes where they may be sorely needed

#88

Post by wbl »

jpao79 wrote: post #79
santaclaus wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> B.) Approve high density office and then see the value of their current house skyrocket, see additional community benefits from developer concessions and no impact to their current community amenities. The state of California needs some sort of Beds for Butts in Office Chairs legislation. Want to build office space and expand your tax base? Pony up the space to house those employees.

Agreed! Even then though you still need to get it past the existing NIMBY population. I think buying them out via cash payments is really the only way to get existing NIMBYs on board with high density residential units which were not zoned when the bought into the community. Basically the issue is that the developers are changing the rules of the game AFTER the existing NIMBYs bought into the community.

Nope. Zoning codes that existed when NIMBYS bought are no protection against opposition to housing.

Re: A Bay Area developer wants to build 4,400 homes where they may be sorely needed

#89

Post by erentz »

oneshot908 wrote: post #86
erentz wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gibsonian tech ghetto? That's a bit exaggerated. We are talking about building medium density housing and mixed use around a railway station versus commercial property and office parks. Sounds more like what Brisbane wants with the commercial property is closer to a Gibsonian tech ghetto to me.

Sounds to me like they want to max out tax revenue and that's their right. Were you jumping up and down and holding your breath when San Jose built office space and very little housing for exactly the same reason during the first dotcom boom? All this developer has to do is make building that housing a no-brainer for Brisbane, but I suspect in doing so the profitability plummets or somebody would have already done th…

> Were you jumping up and down and holding your breath when San Jose built office space and very little housing for exactly the same reason during the first dotcom boom?

Yes. The sprawling office parks and snakey 8 lane roads of northern San Jose are a fucking miserable mess. But the concentration of offices and condos in downtown San Jose is probably the only thing resembling sensible urban planning in the whole South Bay.

Post reply on HN