191–200 of 461 posts
Katherine Levine Einstein was on The Weeds podcast a few weeks ago and gave a really good summary of her findings. She doesn't have an answer, but it at least frames the situation in a way that seems solvable.
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.
It's much likelier that they are responding to the voters that have the time and money to make their reelection difficult.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nobody has ever lost a re-election race for SF district supervisor. It’s effectively a lifetime appointment.
This November a supervisor will lose re-election, since both the current incumbent Ahsha Safaí (who supported SB 50 as well as housing developments in his district) and the previously termed-out John Avalos (who opposed SB 50) are running for re-election in District 11 (Excelsior and Ingleside).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of the environmentalists that I know are very much in favor of increasing housing density as long as it isn't in their neighborhood.
I don't think that's unique to environmentalists, turns out a big subset of everyone is selfish like that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I feel really sorry for the retired person sitting on millions of dollars of equity. Real sob story. Why not just give the option to defer increases in property taxes? It makes zero sense to give tax breaks to people who won the housing lottery.
Well, I don't have the feelings of "envy" that you do. The fact is, there's little he can do with his "millions of dollars of equity" unless he moves far away from family, friends, and social network. It's cruel to force people to move. I'm not envious or cruel, so I support Prop 13.
Well the only solution is a ballot initiative to repeal prop 13. That will change things.
You shouldn't scrap it completely; you should limit it to primary residences (spend more than half the year there). That would get rid of some of the worse issues.
It shocks me every time I hear fellow left-of-center people talk about scrapping Prop 13, but then also rail against gentrification or some other issues. Absent Prop 13, people would literally be forced from their homes from high taxes.
Prop 13 was a response to the inflation of the 1970s that drove asset and investment prices higher.
Here's the voting breakdown: https://legiscan.com/CA/rollcall/SB50/id/910526
Yea: 18, Nay: 15: Not Voting: 6 The measure fails despite more Yea than Nay votes. The California State Senate has 40 seats and always require 21 votes to pass. Vacancies (currently 1), absences and abstentions don't appear to affect the denominator of the 51% threshold. As a result, Not Voting is essentially a disguised no vote.
This is such a lame rule. People wanting to vote no should have to say so and vacancies shouldn't make it harder for bills to pass.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Principled is a way of making it sound less terrible than 'restrained'. California is a perfect example of what happens when you let environmentalists handle housing policy, the poor suffer because environmentalism is classism in disguise in these social contexts.
Are Napa, Atherton, and Malibu filled with environmentalists? I'm so confused by your reaction, are there specific housing policies that are focused on the environment that have had bigger effects than things like prop 13? or cities with 30k jobs in a year but 300 units of housing (looking at you, mountain view)?
https://www.fostercity.org/community/page/creation-foster-ci...
It takes Palo Alto 30 years to do flood mitigation because of a couple frogs in the creek.
If Mountain View needs housing, make more land. It will never happen because there are always myriad obstacles to building.
https://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2010/09/30/landfill-and-liquefact...
Look how much of the city of SF was built on landfill. When was the last time a major bay area development was done on reclaimed land?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They can’t be passed at a local level without CEQA review and a torrent of unending lawsuits. That’s why it needs to happen at a state level.
That’s not true. Any city in California has total authority to adjust their zoning code. Cities change zoning as a matter of routine business. The reason cities have not done anything constructive is each individual small government is held hostage by its own incumbent land owners.