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One reason for the high cost of housing in California is overregulation

latimes.com

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Re: One reason for the high cost of housing in California is overregulation

#51

Post by gumby »

true_tuna wrote: post #32
voldacar wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the most important issue in modern governance that nobody ever talks about is the tendency for the number of laws and the size of the legal code to monotonically grow towards infinity

I’ve heard of the idea of baking expiation into any given law. Useful laws get renewed, useless ones get expunged.

It's historically been hard to do because there's a tendency to just automatically extend the sunsets when they arrive. Though a couple of other replies to your comment have a couple of nice examples.

Re: One reason for the high cost of housing in California is overregulation

#52

Post by gumby »

wahern wrote: post #40
true_tuna wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve heard of the idea of baking expiation into any given law. Useful laws get renewed, useless ones get expunged.

The article mentions that Rhode Island did that wholesale: "The Democratic-dominated Rhode Island government recently eliminated more than 30% of its rule volume by setting an expiration date for its entire regulatory code, forcing state agencies to start fresh."

I just learned that they did that to their state constitution as well a few years ago!

Re: One reason for the high cost of housing in California is overregulation

#53

Post by scarface74 »

adamredwoods wrote: post #26
liber8 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If construction takes longer, costs increase. This is indisputable. Imagine you buy a piece of land for $100,000 with the intention of developing it. Until the property is developed and sold, you have numerous carrying costs (taxes, insurance, debt payments, etc.). In California, your annual carrying costs may easily be $8,000-$10,000 per $100,000. If it takes you one year to develop the property, you need to sell th…

Regulations are known upfront. Good contractors and architects know each city's processes and how to navigate through them.

That may be true. But that means it makes much less sense to build “affordable homes”. Even though the home we had built (through a builder) 3 years ago was very reasonably price (Metro Atlanta) at less than 350K, we chose the smallest, cheapest floor plan available and still ended up getting 3100 square feet.

Re: One reason for the high cost of housing in California is overregulation

#54

Post by scarface74 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #50
scarface74 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if that’s the case, those cities don’t all have to be on the west coast. You could have more smaller “big cities”. But with the imbalance of power where rural America’s vote is worth more per capita than big cities/big states, do you really want to give that power to the federal government? There is nothing stopping tech companies from “rural sourcing” - opening smaller satellite offices in less populous areas.…

> Even if that’s the case, those cities don’t all have to be on the west coast. And they aren't. I mean, New York City exists, for instance.

Okay one city.

I live in Metro Atlanta, we are still building and growing like crazy, and there is no shortage of tech jobs that pay well considering the cost of living. There are plenty of other relatively affordable cities. If LA doesn’t want to grow. So be it.

Re: One reason for the high cost of housing in California is overregulation

#55

Post by Gibbon1 »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #7
tomohawk wrote: post #2

"If it moves, tax it. If it keeps on moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it." - Ronald Reagan Looks like we're well along that curve for housing in CA.

California's property tax is less than half of that of Texas, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Combine that with the fact that CA has prop 13, and one of the highest GDP per capita, and... Does anyone really think it's the regulation that's making prices high?? Sure, they're not helping. But high incomes and low taxes are a recipe for high prices. The only other state with high incomes and this…

If you lived in California through Prop 13 and were honestly paying attention one thing that becomes fairly clear. Property tax revenue is lower than the cost of government services. So there is zero incentive for built up cities to encourage more housing.

Point I'll make. If 'regulation' is what's causing high prices by restricting supply why isn't commercial construction effected? Explain that?

Re: One reason for the high cost of housing in California is overregulation

#56

Post by voldacar »

shaki-dora wrote: post #42
voldacar wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the most important issue in modern governance that nobody ever talks about is the tendency for the number of laws and the size of the legal code to monotonically grow towards infinity

I think that's mostly just cynicism. If you actually chart document lengths, you are far more likely to see logarithmic growth or something asymptotically approaching a (finite) value. More importantly: this is both to be expected and rather benign. It's expected because regulation simply grows with the complexity of society, which is increasing at a similar or even larger pace. Most of our wealth is due to specialis…

Logarithmic growth monotonically increases to infinity, no?

And I would be highly skeptical that it would ever approach a finite value, I mean, why would it? What is the incentive for politicians to just stop making laws once they reach a certain threshold?

Here is a quick chart I found with google that indicates, at least as the American federal govt is concerned, the growth is essentially linear: https://regulatorystudies.columbian.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/za...

Re: One reason for the high cost of housing in California is overregulation

#57

Post by voldacar »

true_tuna wrote: post #32
voldacar wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the most important issue in modern governance that nobody ever talks about is the tendency for the number of laws and the size of the legal code to monotonically grow towards infinity

I’ve heard of the idea of baking expiation into any given law. Useful laws get renewed, useless ones get expunged.

You could just make congressmen run a mile for each page of legislation they vote to pass :P

Re: One reason for the high cost of housing in California is overregulation

#58

Post by henvic »

In the article it says that one reason may surprise. Come on, really? It doesn't surprise no one but people who think the almight state should be everywhere and is the answer to everything.

If you search on-line you may find both opinions for and against housing regulation. I am totally against regulation but reading that the topic is a surprise is either a blant lie or the opinion of someone who doesn't live in this world and age.

https://reason.com/video/san-francisco-mission-housing-crisi...

Re: One reason for the high cost of housing in California is overregulation

#59

Post by dragonwriter »

scarface74 wrote: post #54
dragonwriter wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if that’s the case, those cities don’t all have to be on the west coast. And they aren't. I mean, New York City exists, for instance.

Okay one city. I live in Metro Atlanta, we are still building and growing like crazy, and there is no shortage of tech jobs that pay well considering the cost of living. There are plenty of other relatively affordable cities. If LA doesn’t want to grow. So be it.

> Okay one city.

That was a for instance. There are a number of other large and economically significant cities in the US that aren't on the West Coast, many of which also have relatively high existing (absolute, not just relative to local CoL) tech salaries. Washington, D.C., metro is just behind New York, for another example, but the list is long.

Re: One reason for the high cost of housing in California is overregulation

#60

Post by realityman »

leguminous wrote: post #43

The article references energy efficiency regulations specifically. Is the energy code in California significantly stricter than the IECC? There are nice aspects of energy codes. For one thing, potential renters and buyers have little insight into how efficient a house or apartment really is. Since landlords and builders aren't paying the utility bills they are incentivized to reduce upfront construction costs at the…

California requires solar power on every new house. It's a huge cost. Most local governments also require off-street parking, which is a huge cost. The regulatory burden isn't just in planning and permitting.
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