How are they going to build houses for 50k apiece? You'd be hard-pressed to throw up a trailer park that cheaply.
$1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes
371–380 of 547 posts
Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes
#372How were they allowed to rezone their land to residential ? Are they getting preferential treatment?
Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes
#373Bay area voters have made their intentions abundantly clear, in numerous elections and voting: they don't want growth. So much so, that local politicians even brag about how much housing developments they've stopped. Why fight such a huge uphill battle in trying to get housing in the Bay area? Wouldn't it be easier to start from a city or town outside of CA? or at least outside the bay area? Maybe somewhere in the mi…
> ...it would be a lot cheaper to create a highly effective transportation system then spending 1.5 million dollars per lot!
wait. why would that be? looking back at cost overruns on transportation projects from LA's metro red line to the Bay Bridge rebuild to California's high speed railway, i don't feel confident at all that an effective transportation system would be a lot cheaper. that has to come out of government budgets and go to government employees and union scale labor. that's expensive. and it might require new taxes. IDK -- are you talking about a bus line on a two lane road or something?
Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes
#374Bay area voters have made their intentions abundantly clear, in numerous elections and voting: they don't want growth. So much so, that local politicians even brag about how much housing developments they've stopped. Why fight such a huge uphill battle in trying to get housing in the Bay area? Wouldn't it be easier to start from a city or town outside of CA? or at least outside the bay area? Maybe somewhere in the mi…
The problem is the weather sucks everywhere else.
The problem is the weather sucks everywhere else.
Only if you've never been anywhere else.
San Diego is the paragon of lovely weather in California, not the Bay Area.
SF is enshrined in a song made famous by Sinatra with the line, "She hates California/It's cold and it's damp."
Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes
#375It'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…
Here's a solution: have tech companies settle in other regions. I know the benefits for being in the bay are substantial, but this problem is entirely brought about by tech companies, not the resident. Employers need to setup shop in less populated places and grow there.
tech companies didn't block housing
Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes
#376As a thought experiment, lets say Google owns a significant percentage of the housing market in the areas they operate in. They thereby receive both rent from their own employees, and others in the area. Lets see how this gives them leverage: * Want to fully choke out competition on salaries, while leveraged against it by taking in the rent money those salaries provide for? * Why not invest in housing, when you're th…
Yup, this definitely feels like Company Town 2.0. A gentler version, but still mostly favoring the Company. Might not be bad for the area though.
Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes
#377It'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…
> SF doesn't want to allow taller buildings and denser housing complexes.
Pretty much. When I lived in SF I received fliers in the mail urging residents to oppose new apartment construction literally on the basis that it was too tall.
If you want to see how difficult it is to build there, check out this story[1] of a laundromat owner who spent almost 5 years and $1.4 million attempting to convert to an apartment building.
This is even though it was already zoned for housing, didn't have any units above it (wouldn't displace anyone) and eligible for streamlined approval since it was close to public transit. And yet...
Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes
#378There's a bunch of people saying "why not going out of the Bay?" This doesn't work because for most of the foreign workers with H1B visa job security matters more to them. With H1B visa, you gotta find another job in 60 days when there's a trouble with your employer. Otherwise you'll be kicked out. Also note that Chinese and Indian people are typically stuck at H1B for 5~10 years and they're the majority of SWE H1B h…
> take a day off, go to interviews and get a job.
but you can go pretty far in a day. for example, a one day round trip from LA to San Jose, including time for a full work day, is within reach. people do that routinely.
Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
FWIW I think it would be illegal if Google tried to make the housing exclusive to its employees in the same way that the buses are.
So far in my quick bit of research since this story came up I have not found a law that would prevent it. There are laws about discrimination based on race, religion, Etc. but not about employee / non-employee. I have yet to find either a California law or Sunnyvale city ordinance that would disallow an owner from preferentially selling or leasing a house to someone who was employed by a specific entity, even if that…
Interesting looks like there is a specific permitting process for Employee Housing Programs (http://www.hcd.ca.gov/building-standards/employee-housing/in...). I hope that any zoning decisions are made with a written declaration of intent to / not to apply for such a permit.
Re: $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
Open offices with white noise generators don't exactly strike me as the paragon of ease of communication.
They work better than closed offices, in my experience, for the roles I've worked in (software engineering). I'm way more likely to ask a co-worker over to my desk to show them something or have a discussion if they're a few feet away within sight and earshot. In an open office I also overhear a lot of pertinent information -- I'm aware of issues that might be relevant to me as they develop, I don't have to wait hour…
So an open floor plan full of distractions for the occasional time you call someone else over audibly and immediately, while possible interrupting them and others? And when you want to work, wear headphones or go to an entirely different place?
Why does it make sense to optimize for the former instead of the latter? The benefits must be studied in context of how overall productivity and bottomline is affected, not just easy it is to start talking to someone.