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To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

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Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#91

Post by gizmo385 »

ardit33 wrote: post #89
rb808 wrote: post #8

Because big dense cities like NY are affordable?

I live in NYC, you can find cheap places if you look around Queens, Brooklyn, or Jersey City. None of them have the troubles of Oakland (crime). Eg, Queens is very safe, but kinda "boring", hence the cheap prices. All within 20 mins of subway within Manhattan. https://streeteasy.com/for-rent/queens/price:-2500%7Cbeds:1 Also, if you want something a bit more trendy and family friendly, you can find plenty of apt. in P…

Is $1800 really "cheap"? That might be cheap to people who are making close to 6-figures, but that isn't remotely affordable for a large percentage of the population.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#92

Post by pascalxus »

I know we'd all love to fix the bay area housing problem here. The most obvious answer is to increase the supply. But, fixing the zoning laws and allowing developers to build isn't the only thing that's standing in the way. The problems are too numerous to fix: NIMBYs sueing developers, CEQA, Proposition 13, AND don't forget about the underlying labor cost (all our middle class people's aren't going to come back, after having been forced out). The bay area has forever lost it's ability to produce cost effective housing. One article I read, said that San Jose rents would have to increase another 25% to 4.75$ per sq foot, just to allow developers to break even on high rise construction! This points to some serious fundamental problem with our economy here in the bay area and it's not going to fixed with just one or two adjustments to the above reasons. We've kindof Venezuela'd our bay area economy here.

Edit: here is the link (4.25 - 4.75$/sq foot to build in San jose!): https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/04/27/construction-costs-co...

By all means, let's work to fix the problem. But, for anyone who wants to get cost effective housing in the next 30 years: I'm sorry to say it, its time to bail out. We need to start lobbying software companies to get the heck out of the bay area and CA in general.

Let's get Elon musk to build one of those hyperTubes to some city like Austin, Denver, Albuquerkee, or madison, WI. maybe some of us could commute in for 4 days a week or something.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#93

Post by justherefortart »

downrightmike wrote: post #86
tabtab wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell you what, we'll send all the jerks to TX and keep the non-jerks ;-)

Then there wouldn't be anyone left.

But I was told Austin is the SF of Texas?!!?!

I used to laugh my ass off at ignorant Californians that would say that. It's still fucking Texas.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#94

Post by eecsninja »

Let's not forget this article from a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16704501

The great irony is that there are plenty of people in the SF bay area who think Tokyo is more expensive than SF just like it was decades ago, even though it's not true anymore.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#95

Post by seabrookmx »

justherefortart wrote: post #93
downrightmike wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then there wouldn't be anyone left.

But I was told Austin is the SF of Texas?!!?! I used to laugh my ass off at ignorant Californians that would say that. It's still fucking Texas.

It's not a _terrible_ analogy though. I haven't been to all the major US cities but I got a bit of a Portland vibe from Austin. It's definitely not what I expected from my first time in Texas (I'm a West Coast Canadian).

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#96

Post by pkaye »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #13

If this is true then I think the Bay will need to let go of it's ideas towards rezoning. Deregulatory zoning adjustments just won't be able to stimulate this level of building. Why not just build out and do greenfield development but put some mandatory density requirements in place for new building?

All the new construction I see in the south bay area are 3-4 story townhouses, condos and apartments. However they are still going to be expensive given the demand. However the bigger problem is transportation. The roads are getting worse during peak rush hour and I don't see much room to improve it further. I've been a long time resident of the bay area and a lot of neighbors are complaining of the traffic leaking into the surface streets to shortcut the packed freeways. Some are voicing complaints to protest additional housing until the transportation is improved.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#97

Post by Moseman23 »

pascalxus wrote: post #92

I know we'd all love to fix the bay area housing problem here. The most obvious answer is to increase the supply. But, fixing the zoning laws and allowing developers to build isn't the only thing that's standing in the way. The problems are too numerous to fix: NIMBYs sueing developers, CEQA, Proposition 13, AND don't forget about the underlying labor cost (all our middle class people's aren't going to come back, aft…

"The bay area has forever lost it's ability to produce cost effective housing."

Strong statement, if slightly ungrammatical. I think this is a challenge to visionary thinkers and leaders to change the game. Engineering is one part, as is regulatory capture and regressive real estate laws and norms, weak state government in the state, and highly atrophied political participation. What could change that? I can think of one thing, and one thing only, that would "shake up" the status quo.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#98

Post by wahern »

pascalxus wrote: post #92

I know we'd all love to fix the bay area housing problem here. The most obvious answer is to increase the supply. But, fixing the zoning laws and allowing developers to build isn't the only thing that's standing in the way. The problems are too numerous to fix: NIMBYs sueing developers, CEQA, Proposition 13, AND don't forget about the underlying labor cost (all our middle class people's aren't going to come back, aft…

High-rise construction is expensive, but high-rises aren't necessary for density. Wood-built low- and mid-rise is far more cost efficient, especially when you don't require 1-2 parking spaces per unit.

The reason why we get too many high-rises and too few low-rises is because of regulatory burden. In particular, the long, drawn-out, and capricious manner in which the laws are administered and challenged. In that kind of environment high-rises become more common simply because of the economy of scale--a high-rise developer has resources and the wherewithal to see the project through where developers of smaller developments do not.

The most important thing for commerce and especially real estate development is consistency and predictability. Proposition 13 and the cost of labor can be dealt because they're known quantities. Zoning boards and CEQA[1] are the real killers as the unpredictability compounds, many fold, the nominal regulatory burden.

[1] Compare NEQA to CEQA. The Federal NEQA law isn't much of an impediment to development anymore because an efficient ecosystem has developed--specialized assessment agencies that do the work quickly and cheaply, and relatively efficient administration of the regulatory regime. The cost of a NEQA impact statement is a known quantity and is easily budgeted. By contrast, under CEQA it's much easier for NIMBYs to challenge impact statements, which means the time and budget required for getting over the CEQA hurdle can be indefinite.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#99

Post by briandear »

epistasis wrote: post #63
conanbatt wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the cities in california are failing to build for the demand. SF and LA are obvious because they are the biggest, but its a state level problem. The core problem to me is taxation: California should have a Land value tax, but instead of that, it rewards owners with things like prop 13, and punishes workers by using sales taxes and income taxes. Just changing that taxation would change everything: owners would not…

Totally agree that Prop 13 is a huge problem, it's a hugely regressive tax that seems completely out of place in a state that's supposed to be liberal or even leftist. California's liberalism is only skin deep, particularly among the wealthy, who pull their kids of out public school increasingly too. This report from 2015: http://lao.ca.gov/reports/2015/finance/housing-costs/housing... has a section titled "Why DO Co…

Modern liberalism is contrary to the free market. If the market were allowed to work, you wouldn’t have a housing shortage. The housing shortage is because of liberalism, not despite it. You don’t have housing shortages in Houston. High density projects are typically opposed (in Houston) by the NPR-listening liberals inside the loop. For example, the Houston Heights, Upper Kirby District and other enclaves of very liberal, higher income people. In Katy, Texas (a Houston suburb,) if you want to build a 25 story condo development — you build it. Try the same thing inside of liberal areas of Houston, no way, they’ll fight it with all they’ve got while proudly displaying campaign signs from Democrat politicians.

Democrats, in my experience, are very anti-development, using hot-button words like “environment” or “historic preservation” as tools to support their NIMBYism.

I was at a restaurant in Cupertino last week and overheard some gents talking about a proposed new housing project in San Francisco and they said that the meeting consisted of people making arguments like, “but this project would anger Mother Earth.” Apparently, there is a Druid constituency with whom the Bay Area has to contend.

This isn’t an indictment of “liberalism” — merely an observation that rich liberals can be the worst sort. The vast majority of Silicon Valley are self-styled liberals, without a conservative within 100 miles, yet despite the name, the folks in charge are about as regressive as they come.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#100

Post by dsfyu404ed »

ajross wrote: post #67
charlesdm wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who could have guessed, policy makers that serve the hand that feeds them?

Actually no, or not the way you mean. This is a legitimate moral trap: the "policy" at hand is construction permitting and land zoning, and those are almost exclusively local laws and regulations set at the city and county level. Those governments, by design, serve the interests of their local citizens. That is, the population they serve is inherently skewed toward existing property owners. You can't fix this by comp…

>The solution has to be at the broader government level (i.e. in Sacramento in this case), wrenching back some of the control that has traditionally been local in the interests of the broader population and not just, say, Palo Alto residents.

The current hole was dug by local governments being very involved in telling property owners what they could and couldn't do over many decades.

Why will recursion fix the problem?

The bay area is rich enough and enough of that is tied up in property that if it perceives it needs to buy influence in government in order to keep it's wealth it will probably be able to do so then the problem will be even more entrenched because it will be entrenched at the state level.

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