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Living In A Van in Google's Backyard

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Re: Living In A Van in Google's Backyard

#81

Post by mochomocha »

thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #76
mochomocha wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No space? Yet I'm driving on 280 every morning and all I see are green fields. Yet 75% of San Francisco land has zoning rules that prevent buildings of more than 2 stories. What you really meant is: no space for you, I got mine

This. 580 Westbound is jam packed to a slow crawl, on a 7 lane highway! With people making commutes 100 miles every day! You would think there'd be sky scrapers everywhere, at least close to the highways. Nope. NOt a single building or house for miles and miles, nothing but green and yellow slopes of nothingness. It's such a waste. With commute distances x10 more than normal and most global C02 coming from commuting,…

Oh but don't worry, Cali boomers think about the environment: they're forcing all new constructions (not their own properties, mind you) to have solar panels on their roof - another thinly disguised NIMBY policy to make construction harder and more expensive, under the pretense of helping the environment... When increased density would be a much more efficient solution to this problem too.

Re: Living In A Van in Google's Backyard

#82

Post by conanbatt »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #68
conanbatt wrote: post #40

Just remember when talking about this topic that public employees like Firefighters and policemen make 300k+ https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=firefig...

Those figures (which include benefits) are like, what a junior software engineer costs in the bay area. They don't seem outrageous to me. I've also seen three entries for "Thomas G McKenzie" on the first few pages of this source.

> what a junior software engineer costs in the bay area

What. Not even close.

> I've also seen three entries for "Thomas G McKenzie" on the first few pages of this source

The incompetence of Transparent California is the incompetence of the state.

Re: Living In A Van in Google's Backyard

#83

Post by conanbatt »

chasingthewind wrote: post #39
conanbatt wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Henry George has better land value models. I truly believe california has it all wrong talking about housing: people asking for more construction don't understand what is going on when they campaign for that, and people that complaing about boards also dont understand it. California does not need housing reform, it needs tax reform.

I became interested in Georgist tax models a few years ago but at one point I came across something that didn't seem to be Georgist exactly but perhaps a later modification that seemed terrifying. The idea was that you were responsible to tell the tax authority what the taxable value of your land was. The catch was that anyone could come and (forcibly?) purchase the land at that price. It struck me as an incredibly d…

It's a fun idea, but i don't think its practical.

There are other Georgist ideas that are more interesting, like preference voting.

The idea is that tax expenditures affect people disproportionately, so for the spending to pass you hold a vote where yayers accept paying the nayers (or the economic equivalent, pay an extra tax and nayers pay less tax for the policy) so the law passes.

For example, if SF wanted to improve golden gate park its a great benefit for people that live near the park, and great disservice to those away. If yayers paid the nayers, then they wouldnt get the benefit of taxing people that don't use the park.

You could implement this on land taxes rather easily.

Re: Living In A Van in Google's Backyard

#84

Post by conanbatt »

rabidrat wrote: post #69
chasingthewind wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I became interested in Georgist tax models a few years ago but at one point I came across something that didn't seem to be Georgist exactly but perhaps a later modification that seemed terrifying. The idea was that you were responsible to tell the tax authority what the taxable value of your land was. The catch was that anyone could come and (forcibly?) purchase the land at that price. It struck me as an incredibly d…

That is a fascinating idea, and I think it would work for anything except a primary residence. (How can you tax "I'm 83 and will only leave in a coffin?") For everything else, particularly investment or rental properties, it seems like a perfect setup. Like bringing the dynamics of the stock market to the property market. For primary residences, maybe it could be a "half-tax" setup (with actual exemptions for people…

> (How can you tax "I'm 83 and will only leave in a coffin?")

Easily. All the people that work on tax money that give value to that tax are not working for free. If you can pay them with sympathy it could work, but it won't.

Re: Living In A Van in Google's Backyard

#85

Post by wcunning »

chasingthewind wrote: post #39
conanbatt wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Henry George has better land value models. I truly believe california has it all wrong talking about housing: people asking for more construction don't understand what is going on when they campaign for that, and people that complaing about boards also dont understand it. California does not need housing reform, it needs tax reform.

I became interested in Georgist tax models a few years ago but at one point I came across something that didn't seem to be Georgist exactly but perhaps a later modification that seemed terrifying. The idea was that you were responsible to tell the tax authority what the taxable value of your land was. The catch was that anyone could come and (forcibly?) purchase the land at that price. It struck me as an incredibly d…

The version of that that I recall was from Heinlein's Number of the Beast. The detail he added in his version was that you could reassess your property at any time, but you had to pay 5 years of back taxes at the new value immediately. This means you can sit at a low value until someone comes along to buy you out, but you have to have the money set aside to avoid immediate purchase.

Re: Living In A Van in Google's Backyard

#86

Post by jedberg »

pcwalton wrote: post #75
jedberg wrote: post #59

A big part of this is prop 13 and tax policy. My anecdote is not unique: My mom inherited my grandfather's condo when he died. Because of Prop 13 (and it's follow ups) she gets to keep his original tax rate from his original home, which was set in 1978 . She makes about $500/mo profit on the condo only because her tax rate is about $500 less per month than if it were purchased new. If we didn't have Prop 13, it would…

> And then to make matters worse, a local developer is trying to tear down our old mall and build "more housing" on it, but if you look closely, what they're really building is a huge office park with the bare minimum of housing to call it a housing project. They want to put in space for 15,000 workers and 4,000 people to live. That will not solve any housing problems. A lot of the Vallco project will be affordable h…

> A lot of the Vallco project will be affordable housing

This is not true. The majority is market rate, with the bare minimum of affordable housing to just meet SB35 (and they played games with the SB35 calculation by including parking lots in the "housing" square footage, which the City Attorney pointed out and then was fired for "unknown reasons" right after). The developer is super shady and is using legal tricks to make themselves tons of money at the expense of the community. They don't care one iota about affordable housing.

There are plenty of other ways for them to be both profitable and provide below market housing without building millions of square feet of office space.

Re: Living In A Van in Google's Backyard

#87

Post by pcwalton »

jedberg wrote: post #86
pcwalton wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And then to make matters worse, a local developer is trying to tear down our old mall and build "more housing" on it, but if you look closely, what they're really building is a huge office park with the bare minimum of housing to call it a housing project. They want to put in space for 15,000 workers and 4,000 people to live. That will not solve any housing problems. A lot of the Vallco project will be affordable h…

> A lot of the Vallco project will be affordable housing This is not true. The majority is market rate, with the bare minimum of affordable housing to just meet SB35 (and they played games with the SB35 calculation by including parking lots in the "housing" square footage, which the City Attorney pointed out and then was fired for "unknown reasons" right after). The developer is super shady and is using legal tricks…

> The developer is super shady and is using legal tricks to make themselves tons of money at the expense of the community.

The developer bent over backwards to please the "community" only to see Better Cupertino torpedo the whole process out of rage at having to live by poorer neighbors. SB 35 is precisely the "legal trick" that was needed to force bad actors like Cupertino to do their part.

> There are plenty of other ways for them to be both profitable and provide below market housing without building millions of square feet of office space.

Cross-subsidy of affordable housing with office space is how affordable housing gets built. There is almost no funding available. Look at how long it took to get a paltry 211 units of affordable housing built in Oakland: https://twitter.com/LibbySchaaf/status/1128872869771980800?s...

Anyway, Vallco is an embarrassing blight on the South Bay. Virtually anything would be better than the decaying mall that's there today.

Re: Living In A Van in Google's Backyard

#88

Post by jedberg »

pcwalton wrote: post #87
jedberg wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of the Vallco project will be affordable housing This is not true. The majority is market rate, with the bare minimum of affordable housing to just meet SB35 (and they played games with the SB35 calculation by including parking lots in the "housing" square footage, which the City Attorney pointed out and then was fired for "unknown reasons" right after). The developer is super shady and is using legal tricks…

> The developer is super shady and is using legal tricks to make themselves tons of money at the expense of the community. The developer bent over backwards to please the "community" only to see Better Cupertino torpedo the whole process out of rage at having to live by poorer neighbors. SB 35 is precisely the "legal trick" that was needed to force bad actors like Cupertino to do their part. > There are plenty of oth…

> The developer bent over backwards to please the "community"

I was part of those meetings. Not a single thing the residents asked for was offered in their plans.

Furthermore, if you look at their track record, it's terrible. They don't deliver on anything they promise. Did you know that there was supposed to be a park at Main Street? They somehow got the City Council to approve a variance after the project went forward (and coincidentally raised a bunch of money for one of the city council members). I suspect they would do the same with that park roof they suggested, which every engineer you ask will tell you is most likely impossible to build.

The crux of the issue here is that there was some major corruption between the city council and the developer, which seems to have been solved with the most recent election, and now someone needs to clean up the mess.

> Cross-subsidy of affordable housing with office space is how affordable housing gets built. There is almost no funding available.

That's fine, but how about building less office than housing, and then put in an amount of affordable housing commensurate with the income from the offices? Or how about no office at all, and instead put an extra tax on the retail businesses to pay for affordable housing? There are lots of other options besides building a mega office park that would create a housing deficit. That solves nothing.

> Anyway, Vallco is an embarrassing blight on the South Bay. Virtually anything would be better than the decaying mall that's there today.

It's only decaying because the developer wouldn't renew the leases of the people who were in there, so they could push the "abandoned" narrative. It sucked for the business owners who were forced out. Yeah, a lot of them were behind on rent, but that was because the developer put no resources into the mall. They manufactured its accelerated demise for their narrative.

So yeah, I agree, it's a blight now, but a blight the very same developers brought upon us.

Oh, and did I mention those developers break city ordinances all the time with seemingly no consequence? They were doing construction at 3am on Sunday at one point. How do I know? They banged so hard my kid was scared awake. I have video of them bulldozing at 3am on a Sunday. I called to police, who said they couldn't even identify if they had a permit. But they were at it again the next weekend!

Re: Living In A Van in Google's Backyard

#89

Post by rtkwe »

opwieurposiu wrote: post #61
chasingthewind wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I became interested in Georgist tax models a few years ago but at one point I came across something that didn't seem to be Georgist exactly but perhaps a later modification that seemed terrifying. The idea was that you were responsible to tell the tax authority what the taxable value of your land was. The catch was that anyone could come and (forcibly?) purchase the land at that price. It struck me as an incredibly d…

We have a model like that in racing sports, it's called a claiming race. If you enter a $500 claims race you better not spend more than 500 bucks on your car or else someone will buy it out from under you. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15365342/yes-24-hours-of-...

That model works way better on something that isn't as important or hard to move/replace as your home...

Re: Living In A Van in Google's Backyard

#90

Post by rtkwe »

idlewords wrote: post #17

There's a huge RV park at San Francisco Airport, too, in a lot near I believe the United hangar. Some of the vehicles look like they've been there for decades, and all of them look abandoned. I've often wondered what the story is there.

It's a group of LAX employees. It's been a while since I watched this [0] doc about it or read [1] about it but there's some pilots in that group too iirc. Some more recent posting about it on a forum seem to indicate they're trying to just quietly snuff it out by not accepting new 'residents' and will eventually shut it down.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000004630021/long-t...

[1] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-jul-20-me-lax-c...

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