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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

#171

Post by JeffreyKaine »

gojomo wrote: post #106

News from 2029: Skylynr, the 'Uber of nanoassembled highrises', last night replaced 44 San Francisco Victorians with apartment buildings. Reached for comment, SF's Planning Department said the overnight construction violates a city moratorium, to study displacement issues, now in its 14th year. The Board of Supervisors plans to address the issue in an emergency session next Tuesday. A Skylynr spokesperson says over 4…

I love this. Both for it's tongue and cheek attitude, and for it's not unlikely depiction of the future.

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

#172

Post by floatingatoll »

How much of San Francisco’s billion dollars of debt would be mitigated by tax revenue associated with a 50% increase in taxable population? Would the tax revenue over 20 years make up for the infrastructure buildout costs and the legal costs of fighting NIMBY folks to increase density?

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

#173

Post by thaumasiotes »

rmk wrote: post #127
weeksie wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. This is not the issue. If it were, suburban low density Palo Alto would be absorbing new people at a fine clip. The problem is the lack of building. 2. This is much closer to the heart of it. Local politics allows homeowners to veto good housing policy in the interest of protecting their investments. However, Detroits expansion had nothing to do with the unions lobbying for housing policy, there just wasn't much i…

Yeah, I think the way the 5 boroughs are organised is great for New York. People who are okay with high-density housing flock to Manhattan and those that want to have suburbs, leafy streets and green lawns stay in Long Island, West Chester etc. The key enabling factor is the (now decrepit) public transportation system. The Bay Area, again, has nothing like it (once again, possibly due to the crazy geography of the pl…

> The key enabling factor is the (now decrepit) public transportation system. The Bay Area, again, has nothing like it (once again, possibly due to the crazy geography of the place).

I'd put this more on the Bay Area's low population than on the geography.

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

#174

Post by swebs »

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…

Also: It's literally on top of a fault line, most of the land is unsuitable for skyscrapers due to soil liquefaction during an earthquake, 80% of the area surrounding downtown is water

>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

Agreed. SF is just a bad location to build a large city.

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

#175

Post by saosebastiao »

The entire current population of the bay area (~9M) would fit within 165 of the 10,000 square miles of the CSA, if built at Parisian densities. That is less than 2% of the land.

This is what boggles my mind: despite such a minimal land requirement, nobody in the entire fucking region will budge. Put it somewhere else, they say. It has become a game of musical chairs where nobody gets up for the next round.

State intervention is the only thing that will solve this problem.

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

#176

Post by [deleted] »

refurb wrote: post #115
alangpierce wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#177

Post by s73v3r_ »

TomVDB wrote: post #70
rb808 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Most current home owners have no interest in selling to a developer or developing ourselves. We just want to continue live in conditions that were present when we bought it: a nice house with a garden on a quiet street. Yes, that is selfish, but I'm not going to apologize for not wanting an apartment complex next door. That said, I'm not going to vote against a state level politician who wants to relax zoning laws to…

I don't think that's any more selfish than someone wanting to move into the Bay Area from somewhere else.

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

#178

Post by s73v3r_ »

briandear wrote: post #71
api wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point I'm strongly in favor of the nuclear option: a state-level proposition to implement uniform pro-density zoning reforms. It should also include at least a selective repeal of proposition 13 for non-occupant residences and a re-assessment of all such residences to tax those who are using our real estate as a financial instrument rather than a place to live. I'd also be in favor of an extra tax on out-of-s…

A total repeal of Prop 13.

Unfortunately doing so will just reintroduce the problem it was meant to combat: People being forced out of their homes because of property tax. That's definitely not a desirable thing, either.

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

#179

Post by s73v3r_ »

pound wrote: post #138
joejerryronnie wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's correct, so I think the only chance we have is phased approach. Not repealing prop 13 as of now but start with excluding new homeowners from it (or at least increase limits on annual reassessments for them (from current no more than 2% a year)). There is an idea of excluding commercial properties from Prop 13 too (I think they shouldn't have to be covered to begin with, the whole idea of prop 13 was to "keep t…

"again against original idea of prop 13 to just help elderly with living in their places when retired"

But if that isn't the case, then wouldn't a home have to be sold to cover the tax increase? So you couldn't keep a home in the family, either.

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