Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

California's housing bill SB 50 has died in the state Senate

usatoday.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 461 posts

Re: California's housing bill SB 50 has died in the state Senate

#181

Post by eli_gottlieb »

sidlls wrote: post #127
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It’s unfortunate that the state senate doesn’t seem to want to treat the housing shortage with the urgency that it deserves. The state senators are probably making quite a bit of money off this housing shortage that they wouldn't make with an adequate housing supply on the market.

That’s why it amuses me whenever people point to this area as some bastion of leftist politics. This place has a decidedly libertarian tilt: socially permissive and very much laissez fair in many if not most ways.

There's a reason that "Fuck you, got mine"/"socially liberal, fiscally conservative" was named "the California Ideology", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology.

Re: California's housing bill SB 50 has died in the state Senate

#182

Post by dang »

fortran77 wrote: post #37
lern_too_spel wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason California has the highest sales and income taxes is that it has the lowest property tax. People who have held property for a very long time are taxed very little relative to how they would be taxed in other states, and people who are new are taxed a lot.

California does NOT have the lowest property tax. It is very distasteful for you to try to win an argument by lying. http://www.tax-rates.org/taxtables/property-tax-by-state And if you rank the states by percentage revenue from property tax, you'll see they are right in the middle https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative...

> It is very distasteful for you to try to win an argument by lying

Whoa. Please edit personal swipes out of your comments here. Your comment would be fine without that bit.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: California's housing bill SB 50 has died in the state Senate

#183

Post by chaostheory »

throwaway713 wrote: post #33

There’s one thing that constantly confuses me with the housing crisis, which is why more people aren’t moving to other cities (or at least a lot faster than they currently are). Perhaps my mentality is different than most, but if I can improve my economic situation by moving elsewhere I will. I know for some people it is difficult to move because of family ties or costs associated with moving, but I would have though…

We don’t know exactly why yet, but the majority of people just don’t want to move. Even in times of war or famine, only 10-20% of the population leave

Re: California's housing bill SB 50 has died in the state Senate

#184

Post by dragonwriter »

0xB31B1B wrote: post #138
potatoz2 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much likelier that they are responding to the voters that have the time and money to make their reelection difficult.

I think all 40 senators in CA own a home in CA and something like 65% own at least one unit they rent out. This decision is extremely frustrating coming from a legislature filled with landlords.

> This decision is extremely frustrating coming from a legislature filled with landlords.

Not only do the people have the power to vote out legislators, in California they also have the power to bypass them and legislate directly. But, while there is broad consensus that housing is a problem, there isn't broad consensus on solutions among the public any more than there is among legislators.

Re: California's housing bill SB 50 has died in the state Senate

#186

Post by dragonwriter »

throwaway713 wrote: post #33

There’s one thing that constantly confuses me with the housing crisis, which is why more people aren’t moving to other cities (or at least a lot faster than they currently are). Perhaps my mentality is different than most, but if I can improve my economic situation by moving elsewhere I will. I know for some people it is difficult to move because of family ties or costs associated with moving, but I would have though…

> There’s one thing that constantly confuses me with the housing crisis, which is why more people aren’t moving to other cities

The people at risk of homelessness lack the resources to move; the people with the resources to move have, on average, far less incentive to want to.

Re: California's housing bill SB 50 has died in the state Senate

#187

Post by davidw »

dcolkitt wrote: post #173
throwaway713 wrote: post #33

There’s one thing that constantly confuses me with the housing crisis, which is why more people aren’t moving to other cities (or at least a lot faster than they currently are). Perhaps my mentality is different than most, but if I can improve my economic situation by moving elsewhere I will. I know for some people it is difficult to move because of family ties or costs associated with moving, but I would have though…

Economists have studied this pretty extensively. What they've found is that every time a city doubles in size, its economic productivity goes up by around 5-7%[1]. This relationship seems to hold across a remarkable range environments. In the ancient times, in modern times, in the Renaissance, in American, in Europe, in Asia, in the first world, in the third world, and so on. This is what makes bootstrapping a new ci…

> decades

Great comment, but... that's a bit of an exaggeration! The rest of us read HN and mailing lists and web sites and whatnot, and technology does tend to spread faster thanks to it, these days.

Re: California's housing bill SB 50 has died in the state Senate

#188

Post by harryh »

briandear wrote: post #161

> He acknowledged, however, that more work is needed on SB 50, and asked his fellow lawmakers to approve it so the Assembly could continue that work. So why not do that work before sending it for a vote?

Because there is a time limit on these things. I don't understand all of the procedural rules but since it didn't pass this vote now nothing can be done for a year.

If it had passed this vote now it could have been tinkered with between now and a possible eventual passage in the next several months.

Re: California's housing bill SB 50 has died in the state Senate

#189

Post by sidlls »

wbl wrote: post #162
sidlls wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s why it amuses me whenever people point to this area as some bastion of leftist politics. This place has a decidedly libertarian tilt: socially permissive and very much laissez fair in many if not most ways.

Libertarians who want to control what you build.

They want the government to keep out of housing as much as possible so they and their developer patrons can control what is built, yes.

Re: California's housing bill SB 50 has died in the state Senate

#190

Post by erik_seaberg »

zpallin wrote: post #135
jxramos wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he may be getting at urban sprawl being fought against in the bay area. Something along these lines perhaps, but I'm not sure. https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/11/06/in-fight-against-urba...

CEQA requirements are exempt from affordable housing developments. And developing Coyote Valley has never been about affordable housing. Essentially all of the proposals to develop Coyote Valley have catered to high-income home owners and renters. Even the mayor said in that article that preserving Coyote Valley contributes to the city's affordable housing goals.

It all helps. Relieve the shortage in high-income housing, and maybe they'll stop bidding up the prices for (formerly) lower-income housing because they had to live somewhere.
Post reply on HN