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California bill to add more housing in single-family neighborhoods blocked

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11–20 of 175 posts

Re: California bill to add more housing in single-family neighborhoods blocked

#11
post #4

"We'll do anything to solve the housing crisis!" "How about building more housing?" "Anything but that!"

This can go for just about any social problem.

"We have to do something about X!"

"Here's what sacrifices you can make to help..."

"Oh, I meant we need to help, not me."

Re: California bill to add more housing in single-family neighborhoods blocked

#12

This bill would have created enormous resentment on behalf of homeowners, the ones who would have watched ugly four-story boxes go up in their neighborhoods. They would have wondered why the problems of the big cities were being dumped onto them, and the answer is found no farther then Weiner's list of campaign contributors. https://votesmart.org/candidate/campaign-finance/129655/scot...

The McMansions are uglier anyway. Is your right to not look at ugly boxes more important than other people’s right to have a home for less than $2 million?

Re: California bill to add more housing in single-family neighborhoods blocked

#13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does "crashing down" mean, exactly? Do you mean economic development will stall? Then that would imply that home prices will decline and/or people will start leaving the state. If so, then that's the market at work, solving the problem without government intervention.

By 'crashing down' I mean a stiff housing price correction. There's already heavy government intervention in the housing markets, that's the problem: developers can't simply buy land and develop it to it's maximum potential. There are regulations that prevent the market from meeting demand, hence the skyrocketing prices that can't be addressed by increasing supply.

Hasn’t happened in London yet, or Hong Kong or Bombay or any other world class city open to the elite. The wealth my change hands, but the number of elites is monotonically increasing. It doesn’t matter if none of the locals can afford it.

Re: California bill to add more housing in single-family neighborhoods blocked

#14
> But opponents of the legislation argued that the changes anticipatedunder SB 50 would have unalterably diminished the quality of life in many California neighborhoods dominated by single-family home development.

Interesting. The quality of life in such neighborhoods seems to me to be some of the lowest in the nation. Sure there are worse places but overall, in my experience, such neighborhoods have no stores, no desirable public lands where people spend any time, and really nothing at all other than houses and ghost streets. One needs a car to go anywhere. There is nothing to do, no one to see, and no one to interact with. It's no wonder people who live there end up using drugs and coping with a ton of anxiety and depression. It's one of the worst places to raise teenagers and young adults especially ones not old to drive. Having lived in such neighborhoods all my life, I still can't understand what people are talking about in regards to the quality of life. The quality of life is shit. But I can see putting up with that for more money. I guess that's what they mean by quality of life. Low taxes and home value appreciation.

Re: California bill to add more housing in single-family neighborhoods blocked

#15

This bill would have created enormous resentment on behalf of homeowners, the ones who would have watched ugly four-story boxes go up in their neighborhoods. They would have wondered why the problems of the big cities were being dumped onto them, and the answer is found no farther then Weiner's list of campaign contributors. https://votesmart.org/candidate/campaign-finance/129655/scot...

If it were truly only addressing the problems of big cities, then why would developers feel the demand to build in more suburban areas? Clearly this isn't only a big city problem.

Re: California bill to add more housing in single-family neighborhoods blocked

#17

California's housing crisis benefits existing homeowners, and this group has the greatest sway with legislators. It seems like a ponzi scheme, even if it's not intentional: people who can't afford to live here move away, and are replaced by wealthier people who can. Eventually we're going to run out of wealthy people and the whole thing will come crashing down.

The thing is, there's so much capital floating around with nowhere to go that it's not clear to me when it's going to come crashing down. It's not just real estate speculation, it's also venture capital feeding exploding tech valuations which results in all these new millionaires who buy up what little real estate there is.

Re: California bill to add more housing in single-family neighborhoods blocked

#18

This bill would have created enormous resentment on behalf of homeowners, the ones who would have watched ugly four-story boxes go up in their neighborhoods. They would have wondered why the problems of the big cities were being dumped onto them, and the answer is found no farther then Weiner's list of campaign contributors. https://votesmart.org/candidate/campaign-finance/129655/scot...

The McMansions are uglier anyway. Is your right to not look at ugly boxes more important than other people’s right to have a home for less than $2 million?

This bill doesn't propose upzoning the kinds of neighborhoods where the "McMansions" are. Those houses are generally speaking way out in the suburbs and exurbs. SB 50 targets regions close to major cities, and most of that are "old growth" neighborhoods.

And, to your second statement: if people do indeed have a "right" to a home less than $2 million, they can exercise that right. It just might not be in Palo Alto.

Re: California bill to add more housing in single-family neighborhoods blocked

#19
post #16

The bay area will lose more experienced older workers if the only way to exist here is to share an apartment with other young single people. Companies should care about this.

Companies should move out of the Bay Area.

Re: California bill to add more housing in single-family neighborhoods blocked

#20
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By 'crashing down' I mean a stiff housing price correction. There's already heavy government intervention in the housing markets, that's the problem: developers can't simply buy land and develop it to it's maximum potential. There are regulations that prevent the market from meeting demand, hence the skyrocketing prices that can't be addressed by increasing supply.

Hasn’t happened in London yet, or Hong Kong or Bombay or any other world class city open to the elite. The wealth my change hands, but the number of elites is monotonically increasing. It doesn’t matter if none of the locals can afford it.

Property crashes do happen from time to time. Even in HK, Mumbai, London, etc...
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