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97% of California Cities Failed to Meet State Housing Goals

thebaycitybeacon.com

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

#151

Post by marnett »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #124
ChuckMcM wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both fair questions. Modest is $150K to $200K for a home. I get there this way; At a salary of $48,000 / year (take home $38,753) and allocating a bit less than a third of the take home to paying the mortgage that is about $1K/month or, at current interest rates a $150K - $200K house. $48K/year is about 60% of the median salary in California. As far as checking out the scene I look at things like how many days on the…

Thank you. My experience has been that people who are more comfortably well off than I am are not really looking very closely at the details of homes when they survey the lower end homes. I have had conversations with people who claim there is tons of affordable housing and they pull up some low priced listing in Detroit, a city in such a state of crisis that a woman created a non profit to pay water bills there. I h…

I have seen your comments on many threads here on HN. I just wanted to say I always come away more enlightened about difficulties and nuances of the housing crisis after each additional read. Thank you.

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

#152

Post by aeorgnoieang »

rsync wrote: post #96
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.

"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…

Ignoring 'crisis', not being able to 'afford' to live in many – most – 'attractive' places is a widespread systemic problem due to concentrated political power that significantly limits the supply of housing in 'attractive' places.

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

#153

Post by pascalxus »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #48
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.

I disagree. The housing crisis is caused by economic inequality concentrating capital to a handful of cities. Housing costs rise because that's where the money/power/jobs are. Instead of slapping a bandaid on it by increasing housing(which would just lead to further capital concentration and political polarization), we need to address capital concentration. edit: To those downvoting me, can you please explain why? Wa…

The reason you are downvoted, is because there's one part you're extremely wrong about: Increasing housing is not a "band aid". It's the lack of supply of housing which is the ENTIRE cause of the housing crisis. Any solution to the housing crisis MUST in some way increase the housing supply, or at least decrease housing demand (say by getting rid of jobs).

Even without lots of rich people/capital concentration, you would still have the same problem (housing prices wouldn't be as high), but the percentage of people able to afford a house would remain the same.

Supply/Demand is the problem -> Supply is not allowed to increase to meet demand and at the same time we're encouraging all kinds of demand by increasing the number of companies and jobs in CA. It's like playing musical chairs with 1000 people and only 5 chairs. No matter how you split up those chairs, there's gonna be a lot of unhappy people.

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

#154

Post by jread »

tdfischer wrote: post #149
jread wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

Thanks for responding here. I'll submit our project soon. We're hoping to have plans submitted and scheduled for the first hearing soon. We met 1:1 with 2 board members last year to solicit feedback, and we've made extensive changes already based on their input.

One point of contention has been ADU parking. SB1069 65852.2 states that ADU parking should be waived if the unit resides within 1/2 mile of public transit which our unit will. However, city staff made the decision that because the city's public transit is subject to seasonal schedule and occasional route changes, they will not allow it to be considered for ADU parking waivers. Instead, only the county (OCTA) route will be considered which services PCH only and is well outside of the 1/2 mile range for most of the city. I find this to be a very convenient way to get around this requirement, which effectively eliminates many potential ADUs due to the unfeasibility of onsite parking - e.g.

https://www.lagunabeachindy.com/lawmaker-presses-laguna-move...

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

#155

Post by mmanfrin »

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…

Progress is messy.

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

#156

Post by sampo »

phkahler wrote: post #25

The part about increasing density near public transit was interesting. It's true that high density is a must to make public transit viable. However, I presume there is little vacant land near public transit. In that case, a mandate to increase density would be telling people to demolish and rebuild with higher density than what's there. If that's the case then the comparison to Putin might be justified - and perhaps…

> a mandate to increase density would be telling people to demolish and rebuild with higher density

There is no need for a mandate. Just allow people to build more on their land if they want, and most of them will surely want because people like money. No need to force anyone to do anything. All that is needed is to remove artificial regulations and let the market run its course.

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

#157

Post by rsync »

marnett wrote: post #147
rsync wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

"Your ignorance within the space shows with some of your suggested 'solutions.'"

When I was growing up in a poor, semi-rural community in Colorado, my father drove a four hour round-trip every day to his job in Denver. I know of other people in my peer generation (late generation x) whose parents made similar decisions and sacrifices (second jobs, starter homes, relocation) that are now considered unthinkable and evidence of a crisis.

I reject that line of thought.

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

#158

Post by rsync »

tmh79 wrote: post #107
rsync wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Sounds very dystopian. Did not meet state's goals." This is worth considering. I find it despicable that otherwise liberal, progressive people are willing to immediately discard democratic results simply because they dislike them. There is nothing unconstitutional (CA) or unlawful about "NIMBY policies". However you may feel about them, they are valid, lawful policy goals in a democracy. If you don't like them, you…

> If you don't like them, you should organize to defeat them democratically. I spend my free time doing some advocacy in this space. Heres a few things you might not know. 1) Nimby's dont derive power from the ballot box, they derive power from distinctly undemocratic processes like courts and arbitrary middle of the day planning meetings. The biggest NIMBY tool is CEQA, the "california environmental quality act" whi…

"Nimby's dont derive power from the ballot box, they derive power from distinctly undemocratic processes like courts and arbitrary middle of the day planning meetings. The biggest NIMBY tool is CEQA, the "california environmental quality act" which allows anyone to sue a project for "environmental" reasons."

I agree that these things are annoying and selfish (and possibly mean-spirited) but they are not undemocratic. They adhere to the laws and regulations of our state. They are the (unfortunate) results of a democratic process.

I reiterate my objection to non-democratic solutions to these problems.

Further, as someone who lives in a design-reviewed community in a NIMBY county (Marin), my firsthand experience has shown me that these roadblocks and inefficiencies are applied equally to everyone ... it's not like there is some class of people who get streamlined approvals and fast-tracked homebuilding. Everyone has to deal with the same bullshit, as far as I can tell ...

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

#159

Post by tdfischer »

jread wrote: post #154
tdfischer wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

Thanks for responding here. I'll submit our project soon. We're hoping to have plans submitted and scheduled for the first hearing soon. We met 1:1 with 2 board members last year to solicit feedback, and we've made extensive changes already based on their input. One point of contention has been ADU parking. SB1069 65852.2 states that ADU parking should be waived if the unit resides within 1/2 mile of public transit w…

Oh dang, yeah, ADUs! We're actually launching a new ADU department this year dedicated to ADU law. This is extremely relevant to our interests! :]

Thats an odd determination for staff to make. I've not heard of that trick before but I'll certainly look into it!

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

#160

Post by marnett »

rsync wrote: post #157
marnett wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Your ignorance within the space shows with some of your suggested 'solutions.'" When I was growing up in a poor, semi-rural community in Colorado, my father drove a four hour round-trip every day to his job in Denver. I know of other people in my peer generation (late generation x) whose parents made similar decisions and sacrifices (second jobs, starter homes, relocation) that are now considered unthinkable and evi…

And I agree that for your father, while it was a sacrifice, it was not a crises. However, it is more than a major inconvenience if one 1) does not own a car, 2) was born within the city of discussion, 3) has literally no free time or free capital to spend 'finding a better job in a better COL area.'

I agree two software engineers in the bay area who want to raise their child in a single family home in the peninsula, but can't shell out the millions necessary to do so don't quite fit the bill for those affected by a housing crises. In fact, that scenario allows for all of the solutions suggested above (relocate, commute, etc).

The crises is that in a large number of American cities poor and minority populations were left in the urban core while wealthier families moved out into the suburbs. Several generations later, wealthy families now want to flight back to the urban cores, while plenty still occupy the suburbs. This leaves almost no area for the poor people to go. That sounds like a crises to me - and I am thankful I never have to be personally afflicted by it, but I do no good whatsoever making absolutist claims about how poor people just need to work harder. You are being ignorant of the single mother of two raising her children, the father isn't paying child support, and 80% of her ~$700 income (all welfare) goes to rent - and pretending these highly complex, largely ignored cases are not massively present in those afflicted by poverty, that is wrong. The above scenario is not an exception, but largely par-the-course.

What solutions do you have for her?

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