$1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes • Hacker News Board

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

#541

Post by thrownaway954 » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 5:01 PM UTC

tomatotomato37 wrote: post #368

thrownaway954 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you visited South Florida lately? It sucks here now cause of the amount of people that keep moving into this area. The traffic is horrible, the stores are crowded and people's attitude in general is becoming increasing hostile. The world doesn't need to be denser, we need some elbow room, we need SPACE. Thanos was right.

The only applies for the 50 or so miles next to the Everglades conservation area, everything north of that is sprawl; I think Jacksonville literally ranks #1 as the largest US city by land area

"50 or so miles next to the Everglades conservation area, everything north of that is sprawl" - which is what the area of SOUTH Florida is.

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

#542

Post by smsm42 » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 6:01 PM UTC

smus wrote: post #351

smsm42 wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it were possible to build 20,000 houses in the next 20 years, it would absolutely happen without Google's help. Depends on definition of "possible". There is space, physically. But getting all the paperwork, lining up the money, placating all the NIMBYs and the special interests and politicians may be non-trivial. For Google it may be easier than for other developers, and Google may be more motivated to do it, s…

>You'd have to start you commute previous day to get to the office by the morning. Or, you know, build actual public transit

So far they couldn't even pull off something as obvious as getting BART (or something like it) down to San Jose. Imagining that they can figure out full proper coverage of Silicon Valley with public transit adequate for getting so many people at least to work and back (not counting all other needs) is pretty much hopeless.

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

#543

Post by smsm42 » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 6:02 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #454

smsm42 wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it were possible to build 20,000 houses in the next 20 years, it would absolutely happen without Google's help. Depends on definition of "possible". There is space, physically. But getting all the paperwork, lining up the money, placating all the NIMBYs and the special interests and politicians may be non-trivial. For Google it may be easier than for other developers, and Google may be more motivated to do it, s…

Let me point out what apparently isn't obvious to everyone: The more housing is built near jobs in Silicon Valley, the LESS traffic there should be there, as people get shorter commutes!

I don't think it's as obvious as you think. If you know where major employer campuses are located (Google, Apple, etc.) you can see it's not likely there would be a lot of housing within walking distance of it. And public transit... best not to speak about it, it's too sad.

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

#544

Post by ikiris » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 8:27 PM UTC

TulliusCicero wrote: post #391

pwinnski wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extremely lax zoning alone isn't enough. Houston is a large city with no zoning at all, and it's still not population-dense.

Houston still has minimum parking requirements, plus local/state road development patterns incentivized car-friendly buildings. It's harder to build denser if you have very little good public transit (or walk/bike infra) to speak of. Density doesn't exist in a vacuum. I mean, Houston is the principal city of a metro area of 7 million people, and has no subway, no mass transit that's separated grade whatsoever. That's…

You don't get public transit until things are dense. :)

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

#545

Post by BurningFrog » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 1:38 AM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #543

BurningFrog wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me point out what apparently isn't obvious to everyone: The more housing is built near jobs in Silicon Valley, the LESS traffic there should be there, as people get shorter commutes!

I don't think it's as obvious as you think. If you know where major employer campuses are located (Google, Apple, etc.) you can see it's not likely there would be a lot of housing within walking distance of it. And public transit... best not to speak about it, it's too sad.

It doesn't have to be walking distance to be shorter than where people are currently driving from!!

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

#546

Post by hangonhn » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 2:41 AM UTC

Gibbon1 wrote: post #510

phamilton wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Due to Prop 13... I'm not following. Prop 13 doesn't apply to new residents. It only applies to existing residents. Building new homes increases revenue. Or an I missing something?

Prop 13 cut the tax rate below the cost of services the city provides residents. Building more housing, especially cheap housing makes the cities financial situation worse. One of the ways cities try to make up for this is by charging fees for new construction. Which also drives up the cost of housing. Also doesn't help that prop 13 limits property tax increases for commercial property. And corporations live forever.

In the Bay Area, commercial property is often owned by shell companies. When commercial property is purchased or sold, the shell company is sold instead of the actual property so the property value is never reassessed for tax purposes.

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

#547

Post by TulliusCicero » Sat, Jun 22, 2019, 8:40 AM UTC

ikiris wrote: post #544

TulliusCicero wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Houston still has minimum parking requirements, plus local/state road development patterns incentivized car-friendly buildings. It's harder to build denser if you have very little good public transit (or walk/bike infra) to speak of. Density doesn't exist in a vacuum. I mean, Houston is the principal city of a metro area of 7 million people, and has no subway, no mass transit that's separated grade whatsoever. That's…

You don't get public transit until things are dense. :)

Really, if you're talking about new cities/neighborhoods, it should be done in parallel.

If you wait until things are very dense to actually start planning good transit, that means you'll have many years where it's too dense for just cars and so things are borked, plus by then building tunnels or acquiring right of way will be much more expensive.