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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

#111

Post by toomuchgov »

mywittyname wrote: post #57
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?

I think it's time for eminent domain. Local landowners are using their wealth and political influence to deprive others of shelter for personal profit. The federal government forcing the sale of land for high-density development would probably be enough to spook landowners into seeing reason.

F*ck you.

Let me take your personal property and redistribute it as I see fit.

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

#112

Post by epistasis »

briandear wrote: post #99
epistasis wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 li…

This is a large topic change from Prop 13 being a very conservative policy, and not liberal or leftist, but I'd like to challenge it a bit.

As far as liberals being contrary to markets, I disagree 100%. In most parts of the world "liberal" means using market based approaches to solving problems. The neo-liberals are extremely pro-market, and though I'm not one, that's definitely a thing.

There are some leftists who are anti-markets, just as there are lots of rightists that are anti-markets. NIMBYism crosses both liberal and conservative, and is mostly homeowners. Homeowners in California are highly enriched for conservatives.

Being anti-housing is something that has crossed party lines in California and it's not terribly useful to analyze it in the terms of national politics. Remember that California was the home of both Nixon and Reagan, and their policies have had long lasting effects on the state, so it's not a strictly liberal place.

Prop 13 which is decidedly against liberal values (basically a Grover Norquist anti-tax by any means possible policy), and that's the particular policy that the original poster was talking about. I don't think it's the biggest impediment, though it may be a small one for motivating people, IMHO.

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

#113

Post by [deleted] »

wahern wrote: post #98
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…

[deleted]

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

#114

Post by refurb »

mywittyname wrote: post #57
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?

I think it's time for eminent domain. Local landowners are using their wealth and political influence to deprive others of shelter for personal profit. The federal government forcing the sale of land for high-density development would probably be enough to spook landowners into seeing reason.

That makes no sense at all. It's gov't policies that created the high prices. So the gov't then turns around and says "we're taking your property because the price is too high"?

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

#115

Post by refurb »

alangpierce wrote: post #45
coding123 wrote: post #3

And the freeways can support this how?

Most people I know in San Francisco don't own cars and certainly don't make use of freeways as part of their commute. With high-density cities and good public transit, you really have much less need for cars. Also, given that cars are inherently dangerous, cause environmental harm, and take up a lot of space, it seems like it's in the public interest to discourage car ownership/use.

Most people I know in San Francisco don't own cars

You must not know a big cross section of people then. Maybe in the downtown core, but a trip across the city will show very little available street parking and most houses with garages filled with cars.

It's a small minority of the city that don't have cars.

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

#116

Post by Spooky23 »

rb808 wrote: post #30
sampo wrote: post #25

Just quoting the last paragraph. This is the kind of honesty people need. > Intellectual honesty requires taking numbers seriously. Either we prioritize making the Bay Area affordable for all of us or we don’t. The less housing we build, the more wealth will be trapped in high housing prices. Unless we decide to grow our housing stock to accommodate our economy, we are continuing to choose the interests of those who…

If density increases the people who will benefit the most are current landowners. If you have single family home on a big lot, its value will go up many times if you can suddenly build an apartment building on it.

That's not the way it works.

The reality is that the apartment building goes up and you house is worth nothing unless the government allows an eminent domain for your property or a developer with the bucks to buy out the neighborhood shows up.

Until that happens, your house lost a third of its value because there's an apartment next door. If you're unlucky, rates go up and you're stuck.

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

#117

Post by rmk »

weeksie wrote: post #38

Just a reminder that the growth rates for SF, SV, Seattle, Portland are all pretty puny compared to the growth rates of, e.g. Detroit at its peak. Hell they're not even that crazy compared to growth rates those cities have handled before. People just aren't interested in any perceived threat to their property values so they're strangling growth based on an entitlement mindset. No, sirs and ma'ams, your home's price a…

There are some key differences between Detroit and the Bay Area (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=San+Francisco-Oakland-F...):

1. Less room to spread out in the Bay Area. Detroit does not have many high-rises, and as far as I can tell, it has had a large number of single-family dwellings condemned/abandoned etc. during the recession. Also, Detroit is in a seismically stable zone.

2. Large number of incoming people who do not have a say in local politics in the Bay Area. To my knowledge, many of the incoming workers are here on visas, and they are largely apolitical, unable, or uninterested to cast a vote. Most of the busy workers do not have the time or the inclination to participate in local politics. I imagine this must not have been the case in Detroit, where unions were strong.

The other problem is that many Bay Area residents who bought their properties when interest rates were quite high (I had an older colleague who bought his house at 24% or so interest rate --- unimaginable nowadays), and the Federal Government had not embarked on a protracted QE, QE2 ... phase of pumping money into the economy, so to a certain extent, buying a house in the Bay Area has always been hard (not impossible, though, which it is now, for most people); as a result these existing homeowners (who ploughed a significant portion of their incomes into their homes) feel entitled to keep their insane property values that way.

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

#118

Post by [deleted] »

joejerryronnie wrote: post #110
briandear wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A total repeal of Prop 13.

This will never happen. If you want to see a single issue unite hard right wing conservatives and far left wing liberals or single handedly bring down a political party, try taking on Prop 13. Just about every homeowner in the state views this as an existential threat and will bring hellfire and damnation down on any politician that so much as mentions repealing Prop 13. Plus, there are so many other options that hav…

[deleted]

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

#119

Post by chroem- »

The housing crisis is fundamentally a transportation problem. The bay area has intentionally made it impractical to own a car, so everyone is forced seek housing within walking distance of a limited number of public transit lines. The "war on sprawl" and lack of affordable housing are two sides of the same coin.

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

#120

Post by sjsjxhhc »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #73
ajross wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

While there's no denying there's a strong bias towards property owners, it doesn't have to be this way. Renters can and should vote to change policies to favor them. SF is 63% renters! It is unfortunate that the most disenfranchised demographics are the ones least likely to vote/organize.

A large portion of those renters have rent control, so they are insulated from the crisis.
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