97% of California Cities Failed to Meet State Housing Goals • Hacker News Board

Re: 97% of California Cities Failed to Meet State Housing Goals

#141

Post by dsfyu404ed » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 7:21 PM UTC

numbsafari wrote: post #32

yostrovs wrote: post #29

California always amazes with its goals, decade after decade of leadership among the states. Building is promoted to improve affordability. Building is discouraged to preserve the environment and maintain a local culture. Building is promoted to provide new transportation options. Building is discouraged to reduce congestion, contain sprawl. Building and not building at the same time helps California maintain its uni…

It’s as though California is a giant state with a diverse population, both politically and geographically, with lots of competing interests that, over time, has gone through various political and leadership changes that reflect that diversity.

That's not an excuse. CA is anything but politically diverse.

The people of LA, SF and surrounding cities have done a very thorough job of consolidating power and marginalizing everyone else.

The source of your problems is in the mirror.

Re: 97% of California Cities Failed to Meet State Housing Goals

#142

Post by mattnewton » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 7:24 PM UTC

ng12 wrote: post #102

rsync wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I think everyone's realizing that the solution to various housing crisis is to build more homes for all income levels." Of course this is correct. However, it is also correct that many, many of these are badly mischaracterized as "crises". It is not a crisis that you cannot afford to live in Aspen. It is not a crisis that you cannot afford an apartment in the very specific neighborhood in the very specific borough o…

Is it a crisis if I can't afford anything within an hour and a half commute of my job?

If that’s a sacrifice you are unwilling to make and you can’t find work elsewhere, maybe

Re: 97% of California Cities Failed to Meet State Housing Goals

#143

Post by kevinburke » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 7:25 PM UTC

gwbas1c wrote: post #43

I think everyone's realizing that the solution to various housing crisis is to build more homes for all income levels. Artificially manipulating prices via rent control mechanisms; or only building homes for a specific income level doesn't work.

If they're realizing it, local governments are still not acting on it

- Brisbane still does not want to build any housing at the Baylands, just south of SF. Developer wants to build 4400 new housing units.

- The Central SOMA Plan (in SF) as written would add 50,000 new jobs and only 7500 new housing units.

- San Mateo blocked new housing just last week: https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/local/council-denies-con...

- Local governments in Marin County and Beverly Hills are lobbying against SB 827, which would upzone large swaths of land near public transit.

Re: 97% of California Cities Failed to Meet State Housing Goals

#144

Post by dsfyu404ed » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 7:26 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #108

briffle wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really get this mentality. Yes, its good to have your home go up in value, but when you sell, are you moving to South Dakota? If not, then the houses your hoping to move into have ALSO gone up in value. The difference being that nobody can afford 'starter homes' at the low end, so people have a harder time selling them, and moving up to a nicer house.

In the Bay Area, they sell and move to Oregon, driving up our prices. And because they're retired, don't have kids in schools or anything, they mostly vote against taxes. There are also plenty of entrepreneurs and hackers and so on who move up here, so that balances things out to some degree. Still, though, California's NIMBYism has repercussions throughout the entire west coast.

I call that social pollution. It's no different than a resource boom decimating a landscape then moving on and leaving the place in a really bad situation.

It's almost as though people don't realize that lots of small things (like local zoning for example) add up to all the big differences that made the place so attractive that they moved there.

Specifically with regards to a bunch of retirees moving in, I'd take that over young couples any day of the week. People raising family will have much more impact than people who just want to enjoy retirement.

Re: 97% of California Cities Failed to Meet State Housing Goals

#145

Post by kevinburke » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 7:26 PM UTC

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #99

California doesn’t have a housing problem. It has “companies insist on paying higher taxes and refusing to deploy in the wide open spaces between the coasts” problem. Deploying between the coasts helped Amazon greatly leverage its early entry position.

Those same companies are responsive to where their workforce wants to live.

Re: 97% of California Cities Failed to Meet State Housing Goals

#146

Post by dang » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 7:28 PM UTC

viridian wrote: post #22

dang wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

For what it's worth, I partially agree with jnordwick's comment. I've noticed an uptick over the last couple of months in the comments that receive public callouts feeling ideological in nature. It may just be based on who flags posts, since a lot of non polemic low quality posts seem to go dead after a few hours without any flagging, but it may be worth looking into this pattern, because I imagine you don't want to…

It would be helpful if you (or anyone) would send links to us at hn@ycombinator.com when you notice comments that break the site guidelines and don't seem to have been moderated. Examples would be comments that are generically ideological or unsubstantive or uncivil.

Whatever our biases are, they're not strongly ideological. I know this won't persuade anyone, but the reason is that after slogging through hundreds of thousands of internet comments, one's only response to what people call their "opinions" is exhaustion. It's as if someone has sandblasted the inside of your brain. The result is tedium, except that word doesn't convey how deep it goes. Imagine an existential void of pure tedium, tedium all around, nothing but tedium—then repeat that phrase a thousand times, and that'll be how we feel about these arguments.

HN moderation isn't about suppressing opinions, though commenters who get moderated sometimes feel like it must be. It's about damping repetition in the faint hope of mitigating tedium. I believe that serves the community, because most people don't come here for rehashes of flamewars. They come for something less predictable.

Re: 97% of California Cities Failed to Meet State Housing Goals

#147

Post by marnett » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 7:29 PM UTC

rsync wrote: post #135

maxsilver wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is not a crisis that you cannot afford to live in Aspen It is a crisis if you work in Aspen and can not afford to live in Aspen. > It is not a crisis that you cannot afford an apartment in the very specific neighborhood in the very specific borough of New York City that you prefer. It is a crisis to work in NYC and are not be able to afford to live in NYC, which is real situation that actually exists for many pe…

"It is a crisis if you work ..." No, it's not. It's very inconvenient , certainly. Further, it is completely incompatible with many very fashionable life scripts. However it is trivially solved in any number of different ways (relocation, downsizing, commuting, etc.) and is therefore not a crisis. A starter home in a downscale neighborhood and a second job were, at one time, life scripts that were enthusiastically em…

Luxury ski resort cities aside, there are cities where a teacher at a public school downtown, who is a civil servant serving the community, cannot live in the very community they serve. That is problematic. It is not particularly healthy to have major service workers forced out of the communities they serve.

Your ignorance within the space shows with some of your suggested 'solutions.' You do realize some people are too poor to move, right? You do realize some cities were designed around cars and lack decent public transit, right? And downsizing? The people who are affected by housing crises spend their months in shelters and being evicted from apartments.

Your lack of care for fellow members of your community aside, you could at least recommend equally outlandish solutions that align more with your view of the people affected like, 'just give the serfs a shack and stop the whining.'

Re: 97% of California Cities Failed to Meet State Housing Goals

#148

Post by kevinburke » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 7:30 PM UTC

jread wrote: post #88

I've been attempting to get building permits for a small personal residence in a So Cal coastal town for nearly 3 years. The experience dealing with the city has felt very adversarial. The sense I have is that the city and most neighbors don't want new construction, and in that spirit put up as many roadblocks, opposition and red tape as possible to slow you down, and in many cases stop you through attrition. I've se…

I would encourage folks to apply for these boards (look for "Planning Commission" on your city website). They are appointed commissions usually looking for volunteers. I applied. I think it's the best way to change things.

Re: 97% of California Cities Failed to Meet State Housing Goals

#149

Post by tdfischer » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 7:30 PM UTC

jread wrote: post #106

tmh79 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

have you heard of the housing accountability act? The law was strengthened last year to protect you from having your project denied for arbitrary reasons. I'd reach out to CaRLA (california renters legal advocacy fund, http://www.carlaef.org/ ), and/or victoria fierce on twitter

We haven't been denied yet - we've been taking the friendly approach - meeting with board members, neighbors and attempting to address concerns before our hearing. CaRLA looks like a great resource if we were denied after all of this effort. We're attempting to build a small home and accessory apartment which will contribute in a small way to the supply of lower cost rentals which are scarce.

hello, victoria fierce here. CaRLA is collecting data on small projects like this so we know what parts of the state are friendlier to small homebuilders and not. If you've got a few minutes, can you submit your project here?

http://www.carlaef.org/submit/

we'd be happy to look over it and track your city council's actions on this as it moves along.

in particular, it sounds like your project is zoning compliant and follows all the objective standards. at this point there is pretty much no legal reason for the city to hold up your project in design review or even deny it for arbitrary things like "too much glazing" unless they've already sent you a letter explaining--with quantifiable numbers--how much glazing is "too much".

Re: 97% of California Cities Failed to Meet State Housing Goals

#150

Post by marnett » Mon, Feb 12, 2018, 7:34 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #105

bmmayer1 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being downvoted because your comment doesn't make any sense. To elaborate: > The housing crisis is caused by economic inequality concentrating capital to a handful of cities This is a pretty bizarre claim, since by definition a city's housing crisis is a local affair, so what does it have to do with capital being concentrated in a 'handful' of cities? But assuming your claim is that wealth in a city ---> housi…

The amount of money a household can spend on a mortgage increases drastically as income increases. Because, for the most part, the costs of raising a family doesn't have to increase in proportion to income. What this means is that a family making $100k/yr can spend dramatically more than one making $50k/yr, and making $200k can spend more on housing their the other two families make in a year. In most cities, this pl…

I most definitely agree with your last paragraph. Living in the urban core of a city should entail complete reliance on taxis, public transit, mopeds, and bicycles. Those in my city who are living downtown, yet willing and able to shell out $300+/month in parking fees shows there is room for more housing instead of parking spots.