California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build • Hacker News Board

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#341

Post by avocado4 » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 10:03 PM UTC

riazrizvi wrote: post #140

Lendal wrote: post #93

This story reminds me of when I was a kid and the school bus would come. Often there were no seats because every seat was taken--one kid each. There was plenty of room there, but the kids who got on the bus first would ban together to prevent new kids from sitting. Today these kids have grown up and own homes in the suburbs. New kids need to move in, but the kids who got there first refuse to let them build. That's w…

I'm a renter but please, this is about families protecting the value of the primary asset that they hope to live on in retirement. Home assets don't skyrocket in value when there is lots of supply. If we frame this thing as reasonable-needs-of-renters vs unreasonable-wants-of-homeowners, then everyone is going to remain at loggerheads.

Rent seeking is bad for society, by economic definition. People relying on appreciating prices of their homes instead of investing into their productivity growth indicate a bug in the system that needs to be fixed (via increasing supply and possibly LVT).

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#342

Post by collias » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 10:03 PM UTC

lthornberry wrote: post #207

collias wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, and I feel like this is something that is frequently either downplayed or willfully ignored. If I live in California where home prices are sky-high, and I've saved up for nearly a decade for a house, why would I be willing to allow legislation that would likely devalue my biggest asset (by far) that I saved and sacrificed so diligently for? This is a legitimate question, not trying to be a jerk. I'm gen…

Increased development wouldn't necessarily devalue you asset, particularly if it's a single family house or a condo in a relatively low-density development. Right now, the high cost of housing in the Bay Area is largely due to a couple of factors: 1 - high cost of labor. Rezoning won't change that. 2 - restrictions on right to build. Rezoning will reduce this. 3 - high cost of land. Rezoning will increase this, by ma…

This is the type of detailed reply that I come here for, and definitely has reframed how I think about this situation.

Thank you!

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#343

Post by jelliclesfarm » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 10:03 PM UTC

jdc wrote: post #333

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want to displace retired people on fixed income because you like to have young and diverse neighbours? It is more than selfish. This is bigotry against the elderly.

If this is a good-faith reply I suggest you reread the parent.

May I request you to please cut and paste the part of the parent which I might have misunderstood?

This is the parent, afaict:

Also a homeowner, and I'm a YIMBY (or PHIMBY) for selfish reasons as well. My neighborhood is mostly old white people, because they bought their houses years ago and stayed put. Not that I have anything against them, but I'd love to have a more diverse, younger neighborhood. More neighbors also means more customers for local businesses, which means more shops and restaurants in walking distance. More neighbors would eventually also mean better public transit, because the ridership would demand it. I think the selfish benefits of more housing are often overlooked due to fear of change.[..]

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#344

Post by majormajor » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 10:03 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #184

majormajor wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The price the NIMBY in the parent's example would care about is the price of the SFH they already owned. That price goes up - it's now harder to find SFHs, and the land value is also increased because it could be turned into 4 units that will add up to more value than the prior 1. https://www.latimes.com/business/real-estate/story/2020-01-3... Here's an agent discussing this happening right now : > Traditional sales…

The hassles of having tenants make it not worth the extra income for a lot of people who would only have one. There are real examples of tenants destroying a place and moving out leaving the landlord a large cost to fix the place up. There are real examples of tenants using various discrimination and tenant rights laws on false claims to get months of cost free living. I make no claim as to how common it is, but if y…

Sure, in this scenario the "protecting their property value" person would just cash out and sell to the developer who's gonna be good with tenants and is willing to pay more since it's no longer single-family-restricted.

But the opposition to upzoning here in LA and the Bay Area is largely coming for qualitative reasons instead of quantitative reasons. And that's lost when you reduce your argument to "they only care about their property values" so you lose any chance to convince them...

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#345

Post by jbattle » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 10:06 PM UTC

jschwartzi wrote: post #337

jbattle wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are oversimplifying. Are you OK with someone opening hog farms all around your house? Setting up fracking rigs? Building a factory and running heavy industry?

And you're misrepresenting what the OP is saying. Someone opposed to HOA and zoning isn't saying that it should be okay to locate a chemical plant next door to a preschool. It's more that we as a society shouldn't let people with entrenched interests in the status quo dictate that we stay with the status quo even when it's clear how awful the status quo is. To wit if I want to raise chickens or garden in my suburban…

I really don't think I'm misrepresenting. I tried to take a literal but good-faith reading of what the OP wrote:

> You're not entitled to decide what other people do with their land. Zoning laws, development restrictions, and HOAs violate this principle - they give existing homeowners a collective power to decide what other homeowners can do with their private property.

Zoning laws and HOAs are (some of the more common mechanisms) we currently arbitrate the boundaries of what are acceptable uses for a property.

You say raising chickens should be your right. You say running a fracking rig should not be my right.

What mechanism do you propose to negotiate that when people disagree? You mention legal remedies "if the chickens do cause a problem". Do you mean to say the process should be for a homeowner wait til the fracking rig is built and running AND causing actual harm BEFORE they have any right to object?

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#346

Post by Koremat6666 » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 10:07 PM UTC

jdc wrote: post #310

Koremat6666 wrote: post #303

Either ways my recommendation is to make a informed choice of NIMBY vs YIMBY. It appeared so far that NIMBY is winning and large number of people support NIMBY. This need not be because all these are evil people who oppose three points but might have legitimate reasons for their stand. Make an informed choice rather than blindly picking sides.

Why don't you fill us in on what those reasons might be instead of making strawman arguments?

>A straw man is a form of argument and an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent.

I do not think strawman argument means what you think it means.

I am not even refuting YIMBY argument. I am suggesting that since there is a NIMBY group which has already been successfully achieving their goals and appears to be in minority on HN, everyone should spend some time understanding their arguments as well before supporting YIMBY. Informed choice is critical than mindless support.

I am not even trying to refute YIMBY here. I am only pointing out that HN might be an echo chamber to make an informed choice.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#347

Post by davidw » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

badfrog wrote: post #336

davidw wrote: post #107

Getting involved with a local YIMBY group is pretty easy, fun, and one of the best things you can do on several fronts: * It's good for the economy, as "legitster" points out. * It's good for the environment if people can drive less (or even walk or bike!) because they live closer to things. * It's good for the people "on the margins", those struggling to pay rent, or those at risk of homelessness, or those who might…

Any tips on how to find such a group? Google is turning up nothing for my city.

Sometimes people pick other names... maybe search for people talking about housing issues. Not 100% correlated with YIMBY, but people thinking about similar problems: https://www.strongtowns.org/local

Or start something yourself! Where do you live?

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#348

Post by foxx-boxx » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

djrogers wrote: post #302

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. That's a good argument for funding schools with sources besides property taxes. That system intentionally subsidizes renters by getting home owners to pay for schools and tasks people who aren't concerned with the funding to make decisions on it. edit: YES, it's a nice plan to just raise rent to cover the school taxes. However, unless you are in a popular market, your rent prices may not bear the increa…

Renters absolutely pay property taxes - just not directly. Every rental unit I’ve ever owned has had the exact same property tax bill as the ones I’ve lived in, and the taxes were paid from the rent collected. If property taxes increased substantially, I’d have had to raise rent...

Property taxes force homeowners to rent their properties in the first place: in 40 years of not renting your property taxes will confiscate it.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#349

Post by behringer » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 10:09 PM UTC

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #339

I have been asking someone..anyone..to give me an example of how building more housing leads to affordable housing. Like in real life.. Every high density over crowded over built city ..and this is global..is unaffordable. It has expensive utilities, higher taxes and bad declining infrastructure that the government can’t seem to replace or upgrade. We have pestilence, rodent infestations, higher crime, big government…

What?? San Francisco has the worst rent in the world, excepting Hong Kong. It's 600 dollars more a month than the average in New York. 2000 dollars more than Chicago... That's entirely due to the lack of high rise housing.

Re: California’s housing crisis: how a bureaucrat pushed to build

#350

Post by pruneridge » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

fortran77 wrote: post #8

The answer _is_ building more. (I'll say this before the people on Hacker News who are opposed to all private property suggest that "prop 13" is the problem. It's not.) The problem is they don't build enough. Build build build! They need the California State Government to overrule local zoning limits. We need to allow dense housing near rail lines and major roads. And I think that anywhere a single-family detached ho…

Prices will fall fast and congestion will rise exponentially