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

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

#101

Post by dsfyu404ed »

conanbatt wrote: post #82
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> California's housing crisis benefits existing homeowners, and this group has the greatest sway with legislators Because they vote. New York renters are a powerful contingent. Because they vote. A large fraction of California has self-selected out of the political process. That is the root of a lot of its problems.

Large fraction of renters are foreigners. Around 27% CA population, twice the national average. If they could vote, they would change this. 2 things that would wreck california here are: 1) restricting immigration (they lose suckers) 2) liberalizing immigration (suckers get bargaining power)

Add "restricting emigration" to the list. If the upper middle class couldn't plan on cashing out their house and leaving for a low CoL area they'd get serious about fixing things.

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

#103

Post by refurb »

baggy_trough wrote: post #76

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.

Your explanation may be a reason why it failed, but doesn’t explain why it’s a bad bill.

Don’t you want to put more housing where the jobs are?

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

#104

Post by jonas21 »

anon1m0us wrote: post #63
ars wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> limiting the number of houses a person can own So your plan is to outlaw ..... renting?? Why?

No. It's to outlaw the purchase of more than 2 pieces of real property. Renting is fine by me.

May I suggest you think this through a bit more carefully?

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

#105

Post by chrisdhoover »

anon1m0us wrote: post #61
dgzl wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's my opinion that if the proposed resolution is to strip people of their rights, then the resolution isn't worth the brain power used to discuss it.

Buying something is not a right. It's a privilege. You can't buy drugs. You can't buy lots of things. It's not "life, liberty, and the right to buy stuff." It's "the pursuit of happiness" which clearly is an inalienable right that is being taken from people. It's no different than a bully on the playground taking the ball from a weaker kid. They both have a right to play with that ball, right? The bullying force just…

Property rights are the foundation of the US. Calling it a privilege is a complete misunderstanding of history. We are not serfs subordinate to a lord. We are not comrades subordinate to a politburo. We are citizens. As it was written in its early form, we believe in life, liberty and property.

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

#106

Post by deogeo »

refurb wrote: post #103
baggy_trough wrote: post #76

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.

Your explanation may be a reason why it failed, but doesn’t explain why it’s a bad bill. Don’t you want to put more housing where the jobs are?

Jobs can move as well. And there's a good argument that more housing won't significantly ameliorate California's housing crisis: More housing results in lower prices only if it reduces demand. But if the pool of people competing to live there is much larger than the increase in housing (drawn from the entire US, plus some immigrants), then it won't make a dent in demand, and the prices will stay high.

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

#107

Post by conanbatt »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #101
conanbatt wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large fraction of renters are foreigners. Around 27% CA population, twice the national average. If they could vote, they would change this. 2 things that would wreck california here are: 1) restricting immigration (they lose suckers) 2) liberalizing immigration (suckers get bargaining power)

Add "restricting emigration" to the list. If the upper middle class couldn't plan on cashing out their house and leaving for a low CoL area they'd get serious about fixing things.

Or not even that: selling your primary home gives you income tax exemptions!

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

#108

Post by conanbatt »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #96
conanbatt wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 aw…

>That said, the unfairness of single family house subsidies will have tremendous impact on the long term suitability of the state So? Let them crash and burn and serve as an example to the other 49. There will always be some states poorer than others. What's the harm in CA going from the top to the bottom? The only thing that worries me about CA crashing and burning is that the upper and upper middle class who advoca…

California residents are right to want to change that course! Renters and land-owners alike, even on antagonistic positions in this topic.

I think the core policy issue is not housing though, its taxes. Single family homes pay less taxes than what they consume: building more housing will increase density, but if my model is right, it will expand public spending and keep rents high.

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

#109

Post by paulddraper »

mreome wrote: post #99
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…

By that logic we should abandon all minimum wage and employee rights laws. People wouldn't do the jobs unless the pay and conditions were acceptable, so it would resolve itself one way or the other right? The unfortunate reality is that many people have little to no real choice in where they work or what they make. They live paycheck-to-paycheck and do jobs that do not come with any bargaining power. If they quit the…

> By that logic we should abandon all minimum wage and employee rights laws.

Yes.

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

#110

Post by anon1m0us »

magduf wrote: post #60
anon1m0us wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No, because there's nothing requiring people to live in the Bay Area. They can live in other, cheaper locales. You do realize there's an entire continent out there, don't you? If lesser-paid people would just leave the area, leaving that area without service workers (or having to pay ridiculous wages for them, driving prices way up for the wealthy homeowners there), the problem will solve itself.

That's not actually what happens though. Ask someone trying to staff a restaurant how easy it is to find employees.

Basically the service industry just ... evaporates. I've seen it happen in areas with a lot of foreign ownership.

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