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$1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

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Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#341

Post by danans »

nostrademons wrote: post #304
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's weird. I was driving around MV and Sunnyvale this weekend and was surprised by how much more residential (apartment complexes/townhoses) building seemed to be happening in Sunnyvale (along Evelyn Ave) than MV. Could it be that these Sunnyvale developments were just issued permits earlier (2016 or 2017), and we're just seeing it further down the pipeline?

I think that's largely it. MV was radically anti-housing until there was a big shake-up in the city council in 2014 (IIRC 4 grey-haired NIMBYs lost their seats in favor of 20- and 30-something techies and progressive activists). The flood of permits followed after that, and construction lags permitting by several years. Sunnyvale has been reliably pro-housing since about 2010, which means that a lot of new supply cam…

Sunnyvale and Mountain View aren't really different rental markets, though, so I'd be surprised if the difference in rent increases you saw between the two are related to differences in new housing permits.

Put another way, restricting housing supply in Mountain View likely impacts rents its socioeconomically similar neighbor, Sunnyvale.

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#342

Post by greglindahl »

shereadsthenews wrote: post #285
rconti wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen the absolute explosion of skyscrapers/mid-rise condo buildings in San Jose, Redwood City.. Hell, even San Carlos and Menlo Park have quite a few higher density units going in. I'm glad there's more density, and it's near transit, for the most part. Of course, it will still increase traffic, but by going with density and near transit, it'll reduce the impact vs building more single family homes.

Putting the "explosion" in context, Redwood City built new housing at an annual growth rate of 0.8% between 2010 and 2017, the latest available data. This is far below the historical rate of new housing starts. At no time between 1958 and 2008 did the USA fail to start building at least 10 million dwellings per year, even when the population was much smaller. For example when the US population was half what it is tod…

Are you sure you aren't looking only at single family housing? RWC built a ton of downtown apartment/condo buildings.

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#343

Post by elgenie »

rsync wrote: post #296
caymanjim wrote: post #75

It's great that Google wants to increase housing, but is this really going to work? The housing shortage in the Bay Area is not a money problem. If it were possible to build 20,000 houses in the next 20 years, it would absolutely happen without Google's help. The problem with housing there has one simple cause: NIMBYism. SF doesn't want to allow taller buildings and denser housing complexes. It's vastly worse in the…

"The people living there don't want that, though, so the laws prohibit it." ... which is the definition of democracy.

In this case, a representative demos would need to include the people who’d like to live there as well.

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#344

Post by elgenie »

Shivetya wrote: post #310
caymanjim wrote: post #75

It's great that Google wants to increase housing, but is this really going to work? The housing shortage in the Bay Area is not a money problem. If it were possible to build 20,000 houses in the next 20 years, it would absolutely happen without Google's help. The problem with housing there has one simple cause: NIMBYism. SF doesn't want to allow taller buildings and denser housing complexes. It's vastly worse in the…

Will not matter if zoning laws do change, though I to agree they need to and posted something similar. What will happen is in many of these same areas they will force rent control upon builders and existing landlords which will do the same work that zoning and political games did before. California will require a state wide referendum to fix their government created housing problem.

A statewide referendum (Prop 13) underlies the housing problems and is a huge enabler of Bay Area NIMBYism. Multi-decade homeowners can bask in a $5M house values and agitate for inefficient land use while paying taxes off a $30K purchase price.

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#345

Post by foolfoolz »

gesman wrote: post #321

Why don’t allow employees to WFH full time and only come to office as necessary? Why don’t government stimulate and encourage corps who promote full time (not 1 day a week for good behavior) WFH policies? There is absolutely no need for 2/3 of all high tech employees in Bay Area to drag their physical bodies into their statically assigned corporate chairs. Lots of meetings, conf calls and work can be done remotely. T…

this is already happening and a big part of the problem.

when you separate work location from living location, that opens up people to live farther away from work. so you end up with more people living in places with less housing because its "cooler". like san francisco. even though tons of people work at businesses outside the city.

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#346

Post by yeahitslikethat »

caymanjim wrote: post #75

It's great that Google wants to increase housing, but is this really going to work? The housing shortage in the Bay Area is not a money problem. If it were possible to build 20,000 houses in the next 20 years, it would absolutely happen without Google's help. The problem with housing there has one simple cause: NIMBYism. SF doesn't want to allow taller buildings and denser housing complexes. It's vastly worse in the…

Or simply stop allowing people to over-consume real estate in the bay area, what with 10x as many vacant apartments as there are for sale, to the tune of roughly 100,000 homes that could have families in them.

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#347

Post by 2tab »

hangonhn wrote: post #302
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's weird. I was driving around MV and Sunnyvale this weekend and was surprised by how much more residential (apartment complexes/townhoses) building seemed to be happening in Sunnyvale (along Evelyn Ave) than MV. Could it be that these Sunnyvale developments were just issued permits earlier (2016 or 2017), and we're just seeing it further down the pipeline?

MV is issuing permits mostly for townhouses, IIRC. In my neighborhood alone a number of townhouse communities have gone up. One single family home is being replaced by a 4 unit townhouse. So I wonder if that explains the difference. I also think that higher density housing is where we need to go. We don't need to go to high rises just yet but townhouses is much more efficient use of the limit space.

It probably doesn't matter long term. Any growing city serious about affordable housing long term need to figure out how to develop new areas essentially indefinitely. Whether you look like Boston, Vancouver or Hong Kong is in reality less of an issue.

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#348

Post by fkdo »

ijpoijpoihpiuoh wrote: post #268
PascLeRasc wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's something about that style of construction that feels like "Amazon Basics", like what you get when you don't care about craftmanship or longevity and just want the least expensive option. Those 5-story apartment buildings just have such a soulless cheap feeling to them, like they're made to have the illusion of being taller than they are. I really don't understand why they're so popular.

Some people don't have the luxury of living in bespoke housing, and legitimately do want a roof over their head for the minimum price possible. Some others are not architecture aficionados, and would prefer to save, even if they could afford "nicer."

If building codes were increased to force these nicer buildings how much of an increase of rent tenets would see.

My understanding is most of the price of housing in West coast cities comes from the value of land, the building permits, and the low supply. How much does construction cost really factor into rent?

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#349

Post by [deleted] »

scarface74 wrote: post #177
caymanjim wrote: post #75

It's great that Google wants to increase housing, but is this really going to work? The housing shortage in the Bay Area is not a money problem. If it were possible to build 20,000 houses in the next 20 years, it would absolutely happen without Google's help. The problem with housing there has one simple cause: NIMBYism. SF doesn't want to allow taller buildings and denser housing complexes. It's vastly worse in the…

The only solution is changing the zoning laws, and that requires changing peoples' minds. There is another solution - don’t locate on the west coast or build out satellite offices that aren’t on the west coast.

[deleted]

Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes

#350

Post by ryandrake »

SilasX wrote: post #237
PascLeRasc wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's something about that style of construction that feels like "Amazon Basics", like what you get when you don't care about craftmanship or longevity and just want the least expensive option. Those 5-story apartment buildings just have such a soulless cheap feeling to them, like they're made to have the illusion of being taller than they are. I really don't understand why they're so popular.

Amen. I think I live in such a building (in Austin) now, and the cheapness of the construction shows. I have 15 foot ceilings and I can hear conversations of people above me ... through the side walls.

It’s like the McMansion craze of the late 90s / early 2000s: fancy looking boxes with no architectural chops, built as cheaply and flimsily as possible, faux-everything, windows and landscaping only in front, and random roof gables everywhere. Pure phony, surface-deep and designed to appeal to buyers who only care about looks. Basically the Instagram version of housing.
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