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

241–250 of 461 posts

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

#241

Post by bobthepanda »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #233
icelancer wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that cultured Americans love Paris without taking any of the lessons of Paris (insanely dense city) never ceases to amuse me in the Bay Area.

Paris is shaped like a snail and concentric circles of density and affluence with the inner most circle being most affluent. Paris also has a stellar and reliable public transport system and is very walkable. Bay Area wants the density (and property taxes inflow) but don’t want to invest in infrastructure and public transport.

> Bay Area wants the density (and property taxes inflow)

They already have sufficient density and property prices to actually invest in infrastructure. The problem has always been Prop 13 and the artificial limits placed on taxes that would otherwise fund infrastructure locally.

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

#242

Post by generalpass »

api wrote: post #140
yonran wrote: post #27

California has a more principled approach to housing capacity planning called RHNA, in which the state sets a zoning budget (like that proposed by David Schleicher https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/4955/ ) and then delegates to local governments the responsibility to zone to allow enough houses to meet that budget. Unfortunately, the RHNA has numerous flaws including vastly underestimating the “need,” la…

I don't care if it's principled or not. It's obviously not working.

Principle over efficacy, donchyaknow.

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

#243

Post by jelliclesfarm »

amunicio wrote: post #123
fortran77 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He doesn't have to move far and away, he can go live to the other side of the San Mateo bridge and pocket at least a million dollars on the house price difference. And as others have mentioned, there are other mechanisms to defer the tax payment based on the house equity. The real cruel thing is to lower the bar for the "have" (as in have a house in SV) and higher it for the "have not".

I guess at the end of the day those who own property will do what feels good for them.

It’s funny to see non owners seem up of ways property owners could do with their ‘wealth’.

Guess what, they own property in the hot Bay Area market by virtue of..wait for it..being here and working before most of us were born!

So we can sit here on hacker news and think of all that they need to do to make us feel better, but it means nothing, you know. It’s like the French peasants wondering how Louis XIV should redistribute his kingdom to them. There are no victims. They aren’t the villains...they are just old folks who want to continue to live and die in the towns they funded and built and not be bothered by kids who were likely educated in free public schools they helped build.

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

#244

Post by gpanders »

atatatko wrote: post #185

Would never accept job offer from the Valley exactly for that reason, unless it's a CEO position. Living in Asia, I can rent a perfect house for about $1000, including utilities and cleaning services. Remote job gives equal opportunities

That's pretty good. May I ask what part of Asia?

I rent a ~1600 sq. ft. house in the southwestern US for about $1400/month including utilities. It blows my mind what people pay for a quarter of that on the coasts.

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

#245

Post by monadic2 »

manfredo wrote: post #179
monadic2 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SB50 would make the problem worse the way it’s structured.

How is increasing the supply of housing going to increase gentrification? The housing shortage has resulted in high housing prices, which is the main driver of gentrification.

Will the people it displaces be able to afford one of the units? If not, it’s just gentrification.

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

#246

Post by jelliclesfarm »

bobthepanda wrote: post #241
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paris is shaped like a snail and concentric circles of density and affluence with the inner most circle being most affluent. Paris also has a stellar and reliable public transport system and is very walkable. Bay Area wants the density (and property taxes inflow) but don’t want to invest in infrastructure and public transport.

> Bay Area wants the density (and property taxes inflow) They already have sufficient density and property prices to actually invest in infrastructure. The problem has always been Prop 13 and the artificial limits placed on taxes that would otherwise fund infrastructure locally.

It’s not artificial limits. Including special taxes, it averages out to 1.25. It’s on par with other places. What happened was that housing and economy skyrocketed within a very short period of time. Foreigners are allowed to invest in the housing market for speculative purposes. The extra tax income is used to fund public schools. More immigration and younger people having kids. And overall death rate slowing down. And that means publicl employees pension funds. Looking up unfunded pension liabilities is a good idea.

Also..why should everyone feel like owning a home is a right? You can always rent. In fact, it’s a better economic decision because renters take advantage of best school districts within dealing with the hassle of home ownership. People buy property as an investment that is like an speculative asset these days. Homes should be a dwelling. There will always be those who have appreciating assets and those who will inherit. Punitively punishing them with taxes is just irresponsible and will create more instability.

At the end of the day, most of this is noise. CA is better than most places in the USA..America is better than most places in the world. The govt needs to stop manufacturing dissent and focus on what they need to do and aren’t doing..public transportation would alleviate housing issues. Universal healthcare will help people live their lives and remove the pressure of working for insurance.

How many people in their 50s and 60s would rather not work and just retire but continue because they need to pay for insurance. If they are going to work in the Bay Area, why not live in a home they had bought decades ago?

But it doesn’t matter..with automation and AI, jobs are going to dwindle anyways. It’s best not to create Uber dense cities as they will not be needed when people experience unemployment. We should look towards some kind of universal basic necessities/services and health care rather than building more and imagining that jobs will last forever. That’s just not going to happen. Period.

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

#247

Post by pound »

triceratops wrote: post #72
generalpass wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you feel that it is fair to evict an old couple because they purchased their house in the 70s when it was in the woods, but now that people have built up a town around them, they have to go because they didn't plan on paying $7,400 per year in property taxes in their retirement planning, and then also can't afford to take on a new mortgage in the region, so move really far away from where they saved for and planne…

Or they could sell to a condo developer, get a brand new unit, with lesser maintenance needed, in the same location. It doesn't have to be a binary choice between "sell and move away" and "stay and keep prop 13". With Prop 13 and zoning restrictions, "sell to an upzoner" is essentially off the table. Also an old couple who have been renting since the 70s could be evicted until state-wide rent control was passed this…

And don't forget non-primary residences. Not only prop13 "helps" you to stay in that old estate of yours that you may not be able to afford with increasing taxes, it also allows you to keep the cabin (or two) in Tahoe.

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

#248

Post by ogre_codes »

exjdjeejfh wrote: post #76
yonran wrote: post #27

California has a more principled approach to housing capacity planning called RHNA, in which the state sets a zoning budget (like that proposed by David Schleicher https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/4955/ ) and then delegates to local governments the responsibility to zone to allow enough houses to meet that budget. Unfortunately, the RHNA has numerous flaws including vastly underestimating the “need,” la…

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.

This is literally the exact opposite of what an environmentalist would want in terms of urban growth and planning. Environmentally friendly planning means you have housing near where people work to avoid highly polluting long commutes.

The problem is NIMBY bullshit in the purest sense. People will use every excuse in the book to prevent new housing in their neighborhood. While a fair amount of the time environmental policies are abused to block development, zoning laws are also abused, parking/ land use legislation, hell I've seen houses blocked because they increase the shade in a park by 2% for half an hour during the evening.

None of this is "environmentalism", its rich people standing on a high hill screwing over everyone else beneath them.

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

#249

Post by epistasis »

Pfhreak wrote: post #222
manfredo wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is increasing the supply of housing going to increase gentrification? The housing shortage has resulted in high housing prices, which is the main driver of gentrification.

Because it will displace communities while the housing is built and there's no guarantee the tenants can move back.

You are spreading misinformation.

This doesn't apply to any parcel that has a building been rented out for the past seven years. A length of time calculated to ensure that it is not profitable to tear down existing housing

That among a whole host of other protections to make sure that nobody is displaced.

There was a serious chance seriously upgrade protections for tenants while also increasing supply to prevent other pressures and welcome more people in to our cities. Instead a bunch of wealthy NIMBYs in suburbs do what they do and maintained exclusionary zoning to keep our apartments.

A fraction of self described tenants groups carried water for landlords and wealthy homeonwer's profits by opposing this and giving conservatives the language to sound like they were woke. But be it tenants groups, non-profit affordable housing builders, unions, social justice groups, you will find them among the supporters.

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

#250

Post by triceratops »

generalpass wrote: post #231
triceratops wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are the "other guys" here? What does "pay them money" mean?

I assumed you were referring to the politicians voting against the bill.

Politicians vote in a way that they think will get them re-elected. They aren't the true opponents of this bill.
Post reply on HN