11–20 of 53 posts
Freaking supes. They treat SF like their little political science experiment and nothing of note ever gets done. Just let them build. Do something about the car break-ins and package thefts. You know, govern the damn city.
Freaking supes. They treat SF like their little political science experiment and nothing of note ever gets done. Just let them build. Do something about the car break-ins and package thefts. You know, govern the damn city.
You are asking a cartel to vote to increase supply and decrease prices. That's not what cartels do.
> But Board President Norman Yee said San Francisco should be exempted altogether from Wiener’s proposal.
> He said that SB 50 “does not take into account the nuances and intended impacts that comes up upzoning entire neighborhoods” and he noted that there are large developments planned in the district he represents.
> "We’re actually building our share of housing,” Yee said. “Maybe we could better. But we certainly are probably doing better than most places in California. We have motivated communities that want to plan. We should be exempt from SB 50.”
It's definitely true that San Francisco is building more housing than the other counties in the Bay Area, and that they should also do better. But that isn't a license to ignore the need for more housing directly in San Francisco. If anything, it's almost a non sequitor to the basic challenge facing any major city: how do you have enough housing within a reasonable commute of the jobs in your city?
Just earlier today [1] the mayor decried the lack of housing in the city that our public transit employees can afford. Over 250k people were already commuting in back in 2013 [2]. For a city of under 1M people where job growth has outstripped housing growth, that seems like a fairly high "deficit".
[1] https://medium.com/@LondonBreed/fixing-muni-ecb536aea50e
[2] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2013/cb13-r22...
Sigh, this kind of thinking is some sort of variant of broken-window syndrome: > But Board President Norman Yee said San Francisco should be exempted altogether from Wiener’s proposal. > He said that SB 50 “does not take into account the nuances and intended impacts that comes up upzoning entire neighborhoods” and he noted that there are large developments planned in the district he represents. > "We’re actually buil…
They hem and haw about building in the city, but they’re okay with bullying a neighboring community[1] in a different county into building (they threatened Brisbane, down the road, an independent jurisdiction in another county!!)
[1]https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/10/04/san-francisco-supervi...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
,,Just let them build.'' Would you also advise a company to destroy its profit center?
Thing is they’re like that guy or gal who is waiting for the “perfect one”. That one is never gonna come. It’s been like this decades. Get something!
Every few years a potential new business would file for permission. Nope, no, "not a good fit", "too many of your idea already here", and more endless excuses kept the building empty.
Finally, about 1.5 years ago, a business was finally granted permission to move in. About 6 months later, a second business [a refugee from San Jose] moved in upstairs.
Both businesses resemble other businesses already on "main street".
I'd like to know more about the previous 13 years of "we don't want your tax money, we'd rather a big gaping hole and an empty building but thanks".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's interesting to have all these startups improving efficiency and all, but then have a government doing exact opposite.
because the supervisors are just acting in the short term best interest of property owners. limit supply and prices will go up. they're all on the take.
Sigh, this kind of thinking is some sort of variant of broken-window syndrome: > But Board President Norman Yee said San Francisco should be exempted altogether from Wiener’s proposal. > He said that SB 50 “does not take into account the nuances and intended impacts that comes up upzoning entire neighborhoods” and he noted that there are large developments planned in the district he represents. > "We’re actually buil…
The supes are a ridiculous hypocritical bunch. They hem and haw about building in the city, but they’re okay with bullying a neighboring community[1] in a different county into building (they threatened Brisbane, down the road, an independent jurisdiction in another county!!) [1] https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/10/04/san-francisco-supervi...
As the N-Judah line runs through it, the SB 50 bill would immediately cause entire swaths of his District to be upzoned fairly dramatically.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Yee
[2] https://sfplanning.org/sites/default/files/resources/2018-08...
[3] https://sfplanning.org/sites/default/files/resources/2019-02...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's interesting to have all these startups improving efficiency and all, but then have a government doing exact opposite.
because the supervisors are just acting in the short term best interest of property owners. limit supply and prices will go up. they're all on the take.
Speaking as a long-time renter who is now a property owner, I almost never think about things in terms of “limiting supply”, and as far as I can tell, my neighbors don’t either. They do care a lot about things that you’d expect a non-cartoon-villian to care about: neighborhood quality, schools, access to daylight, preservation of views, congestion, etc.
While I’m sure there are idiots out there who think like economist robots, generally, characterizing the other side of a debate as one-dimensional doesn’t do anyone any good.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
because the supervisors are just acting in the short term best interest of property owners. limit supply and prices will go up. they're all on the take.
Aren’t those the people that make up their communities?
The Progressives tend to lean more NIMBY than their Moderate counterparts, and some of this opposition is certainly the result of that. (Gordon Mar, the president of the Board, is probably the biggest NIMBY of all the supervisors at the moment, possibly excepting Aaron Peskin.) But most of this opposition is purely tribal: the Progs on the board just want to snipe at Scott Wiener. Progs are not categorically opposed to housing: as others have pointed out, when Brisbane was waffling on approving market-rate housing just to the south of San Francisco, Jane Kim, a Progressive, threatened to annex the city!
Most of this anti-SB-50 resolution is properly understood as San Francisco tribalism more than any sort of policy grievance. SB 50 doesn't even have much if any of an effect on a lot of the districts these supervisors represent, either because they're exempted as "sensitive communities" (e.g. much of the district I live in, D10) or because the districts are already upzoned (e.g. the Mission).