Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

sf.curbed.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 175 posts

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

#71

Post by WillPostForFood »

cgy1 wrote: post #43
WillPostForFood wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s exactly what people did ~60 years ago. Bought some farmland way outside San Francisco, built houses and a community. No because a few billionaire execs want to keep their companies close to their houses, we are going to tear it all down? By all means, densify downtown San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. But I don’t understand the perverse desire to add density to far suburbs.

One big reason to densify the suburbs (speaking of the bay area in particular) is that they're in Silicon Valley and that's where most of the tech jobs are (e.g., Apple, Google, Facebook, etc.). These cities are willing to let companies come in and collect that sweet tax revenue but are not willing to allow sufficient housing to be built to house all of those workers.

What sweet tax revenue are you talking about? Cities would make more from a car dealership or an Apple store than a mega office complex. Regardless, it is easier to move the office than build housing for the office. Incentivize companies to be downtown SF/SJ/Oak near transit if density is the goal. Building medium density mid-peninsula is a mess of an idea that will end up creating as many commuters as local workers.

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

#72

Post by nordsieck »

u10 wrote: post #66
magduf wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't see the problem here. It's simple: teachers, nurses, baristas, garbagement, plumbers, etc. won't be able to live there. Nor do they need to. These people can live somewhere else, far away, and commute in. To entice them to make this ridiculous commute, their pay will have to be extremely high, and they'll probably want shorter hours too (so they can spend half their work-time commuting), so they'll h…

Viewing individual preferences in a utilitarian fashion... sure I guess you can argue there exists some wage-distance premium at a given price to make sure that a given job is filled. That being said non-pecuniary have strong effects, which is why individuals will pay out the nose to live in the city with amenities rather than commuting 2 hours a day. I think you will be hard pressed to find individuals who are willi…

>> It's simple: teachers, nurses, baristas, garbagement, plumbers, etc. won't be able to live there. Nor do they need to.

> I think you will be hard pressed to find individuals who are willing to spend 25% of their adult life commuting too and from work. Certainly, not enough will be willing to satisfy labour requirements.

To the extent that there are no people who will do the jobs (i.e. they won't pay $ + time to live close enough), those jobs will need to offer more money, or go unfilled.

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

#73

Post by Zombiethrowaway »

manfredo wrote: post #4

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

People currently living there don't see it as a "housing crisis". They see it as "too many people coming here, trying to change our single family house peaceful residential neighborhood into bigger buildings".

So "how about limiting influx of new people / new development?"

"Sure, let's do that"

I understand newcomers may disagree with that approach, out of understandable self interest.

But implying people currently living there are clueless or more selfish by defending their interests?? Trying to make newcomers sound morally superior? Come on.... You can do better that than that.

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

#74

Post by dgzl »

anon1m0us wrote: post #50
BlackRing wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly my thought. This isn't about needs, it's about economic rights. If I can afford two homes and choose to buy them, I'm within my rights to do so. Attempting to limit the rights of people isn't going to go very well.

I think access to shelter is a human right. I think access to an empty house is not a human right. If your family sits down for dinner and one person gobbles up all the food before anyone else eats, were they within their rights? Will the rest of the family ever invite that person to dinner again? No. We implement these controls on consumption in all areas of life. "Limit 2" when there's a coupon, for example. "All y…

> I think access to shelter is a human right.

Products and services can't be human rights.

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

#75

Post by thowfaraway »

sbov wrote: post #67
WillPostForFood wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and the effects of that on local schools as well.

Our local school in California busses in out of district students. By their claim, they can offer higher quality education with more students because the state funding scales faster than the burden.

That's atypical of most high income, high quality districts in California. E.g., Palo Alto is currently fighting with Stanford over a housing expansion because of the impact of additional students at local schools.

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

#76

Post by baggy_trough »

It was an awful bill. It removed density limits in any jobs-rich area (so basically all of the Bay Area). It forced any single family zoned area to allow fourplexes.

This would have greatly changed the character of neighborhoods that people have lived and invested in for decades. If you can't see the political problem with that, well, you might want to learn more about California politics.

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

#77

Post by malandrew »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #19
dangjc wrote: 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.

Yup. The more that move out of the Bay Area the better. There are a lot of other nice places to live. It would be awesome for those nice places to get good tech jobs.

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

#78

Post by clairity »

yholio wrote: post #44
xvedejas wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upzoning helps the homeowners who are upzoned, though I don't know how many of them realize it. Land can be sold at much higher values to developers if it's upzoned, and so its market rate is generally higher. It's those homeowners whose property isn't upzoned which are left out of the economic benefits.

Upzoning increases the value of the land, but decreases the value of pre-existing built square footage, since it's no longer an exclusivist area. If you have a brand new mansion built to the highest standards on the premise that it will be located in a tranquil neighborhood you might be on the net losing side if an apartment building is approved next door. In any case, you need to tear down your existing home in orde…

yes, the value of upzoning accrues to land value, not the real property that sits on it, but the rest of your conclusion doesn't follow.

when demand outstrips supply adding a different type of supply (like an apartment building) won't depress prices materially (for detached single family residences). they're different market segments.

also, you don't need to tear down the home to realize gains, since, as you yourself said, the value accrues to the land, not the building. the price would immediately incorporate that value, without the need to replace the structure atop.

if you also want to gain rental income, then yes, you'd need to replace the structure, but that's an investment to unlock a different income stream.

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

#79

Post by conanbatt »

magduf wrote: post #54
cgy1 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And where are we going to find teachers, nurses, baristas, garbagemen, plumbers, etc. to service the wealthy homeowners when none of these professions pay anywhere enough for people to live on in places like the Bay Area? Soon places like this will be a mix of billionaires, FAANG workers, the retired, and nobody else.

I honestly don't see the problem here. It's simple: teachers, nurses, baristas, garbagement, plumbers, etc. won't be able to live there. Nor do they need to. These people can live somewhere else, far away, and commute in. To entice them to make this ridiculous commute, their pay will have to be extremely high, and they'll probably want shorter hours too (so they can spend half their work-time commuting), so they'll h…

I agree with you: the angle of "helping lower income people" is weak and moralistic.

That said, the unfairness of single family house subsidies will have tremendous impact on the long term suitability of the state. CA does have a high homelessness and house poverty problem. San Francisco is already a dump: literal human poop on every street in front of million dollar condos built in the 70's.

Once tech diversifies away from CA they are toast.

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

#80

Post by conanbatt »

i_am_nomad wrote: post #5
mullingitover wrote: post #3

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.

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.

Its a market at work but it puts a cap on how much CA can grow. CA is already losing out enormously domestically. CA thrives demographically only on immigration, otherwise it would constantly lose people.

Also the quality of life is not guaranteed by prices: SF is the only place i know where millionaires step on human shit on their way to work daily.

Post reply on HN