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

nytimes.com

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

#421

Post by throwaway100773 »

bobbydroptables wrote: post #149
wpasc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think new york should be lumped in with california in that measure. This site shows active construction in new york: https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/buildings/html/nyc-active-major-...

It's really hard to wrap your head around whether a city is building a lot by looking at a raw number. But fewer than 7,000 building permits in a city of 8 million is frighteningly little. You need to compare it to population growth, decades of building backlog, job growth, etc.

New York City has been losing residents for some time. This is not a supply and demand thing as much as easy money policy chasing hard assets. I’ll have to dig it up the numbers, but Manhattan many condos are vacant, and have been bought by foreign money who don’t live in nyc or investors looking to park assets.

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

#422

Post by [deleted] »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #312
notJim wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

[deleted]

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

#423

Post by starik36 »

mlyle wrote: post #304
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…

??? Property taxes aren't passed on to renters? Only homeowners pay them, and landlords don't experience them as a cost they need to recover from their tenants?

I think he means that taxes are indirectly passed to renters in form of a higher rent.

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

#424

Post by dv_dt »

hodgesrm wrote: post #320
dv_dt wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I don't understand, increasing density usually means price / sqft for all real estate in the area goes up. I often wonder if the analysis on why people shoot down zoning changes is incorrectly attributed to price or property tax, and is mostly people resisting any change.

There's resistance to change but economics are far more important and explain the consistent opposition across the state. It's not as simple as sell your house and make a profit, then find something nicer. If your neighbors sell first to the developer of the N-story apartment building it can drop the value of houses around it. Also, buying a house in California resets your property taxes to current property value (a…

How does Prop 13 make it hard to sell your home? It only affects the owners property taxes but not the property buyer's. At the time of purchase, there's no delta to the buyers taxes vs a property that was taxed at a full market rate assessment the whole time.

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

#425

Post by lopmotr »

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #325
SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Hmm, here I am thinking I don't really care about the skin color of my neighbors. It's none of my business. But, I try and not judge people on immutable characteristics like color and age.

I grew up in an all-white town. All-white schools, all-white neighborhoods, all-white businesses. I would not raise my children like that. I made sure my current area was colorfully diverse before buying.

While not America, I live in a minority white suburb. I don't want to have a school-age child here because it's, not coincidentally, one of the poorest places in the city and thus is only in zone for the worst schools. Poor people's kids drag down the quality of their schools. So you have to be careful your diversity doesn't overshoot and end up a ghetto.

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

#426

Post by danans »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #246
danans wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an upcoming ballot initiative to repeal the commercial side of prop 13: https://edsource.org/2019/school-groups-explore-15-billion-t...

Yeah, but I feel like any removal or reduction of prop 13 should be used to help reduce California income taxes, which is abnormally high due to prop 13, not spend more money on stuff.

This repeal effort is specifically motivated by the desire to increase education funding, not to reduce income taxes. It may also have the Georgist side effect of pushing more expensive commercial property into productive uses vs idling as financial instruments.

I'm not saying you have to agree with that cause, but if lowering state income taxes is your goal, then there are plenty of groups in CA advocating for that whose cause you can join.

However, I'd guess that due to political realities, most of them also oppose repeal of proposition 13 also, so you might have some challenges building a movement around that.

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

#427

Post by woah »

exterrestrial wrote: post #204
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…

>It's good for the people "on the margins", those struggling to pay rent, or those at risk of homelessness, or those who might like to move to a more productive place for a better job. Please cite at lease one example in which this has ever been the case. I do understand the theory behind your argument here, and I assume you are familiar with (leftist) counter-arguments, so this is not an attempt to open a debate. Ra…

Wait.. so you are just opposed to people having somewhere to live? You’re saying that more apartments on the market makes prices higher? I don’t think I’m going to be able to follow the logic here.

The problem with the “try to understand NIMBYs” concern trolling in this thread is that there isn’t much to understand. The only common thread in NIMBY philosophy is fear of change, and some mild xenophobia.

I think there’s a lot more common ground to be had with far-left PHIMBYs who want the government to build most housing. At least that’s a coherent philosophy and a proposed solution.

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

#428

Post by woodrow »

annoyingnoob wrote: post #240

I'm all for more housing but we need to make sure we have the appropriate infrastructure to support it, water, sewage treatment, roads, etc. The city I live in has been growing a lot, but so has traffic and crime.

Do you live in California? If so, your city's infrastructure may be struggling due to the county's lagging property tax revenue, which in turn is a result of Prop 13.

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

#429

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #378
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if this holds water. Boomers who "bought in" during the 70s-80s (when prices were a much lower multiple of the median income) didn't have to make a public discussion of housing, because it was readily available to them. Had in not been affordable to those boomers, would have the silent generation said the boomers didn't deserve housing? As a public policy, it seems prudent to have home prices target some…

They own because they existed. They were born before most of us did..To say that someone doesn’t deserve their wealth they earned in the past because they didn’t have to deal with today’s problems doesn’t hold water. Wealth is a construct built upon the notion of scarcity. One has wealth BECAUSE another doesn’t have it. If everyone had one million dollars, then a million has no value. Imagine I inherited a diamond ne…

In the case of the city/situation discussed in the article -- Lafayette, CA -- would you believe it is unfair to step on the property rights of the landowner who wants to put 300 condos or 44 single family homes on the vacant land? It doesn't matter how the current owner of that land acquired it: for any of us to stop them, would be a gross violation of their property rights. Nobody is saying, just because the land you currently own is upzoned, that you have to tear down your single family home and put in multifamily housing. To suggest such would be misunderstanding the position held by YIMBYs.

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

#430

Post by throwaway34241 »

exterrestrial wrote: post #204
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…

>It's good for the people "on the margins", those struggling to pay rent, or those at risk of homelessness, or those who might like to move to a more productive place for a better job. Please cite at lease one example in which this has ever been the case. I do understand the theory behind your argument here, and I assume you are familiar with (leftist) counter-arguments, so this is not an attempt to open a debate. Ra…

I'm not sure exactly what you are looking for to be convinced but I'll try.

First of all, for example in the Bay Area there are more people who would like to live there than there are houses, and so the people with more money bid up the price and "win" the house, while the people with less money are priced out and must live elsewhere. Hopefully you agree with this basic premise?

With this model, if there is one less house, one more person will be priced out, and if there is one more house, one less person will be priced out, since the number of houses determine how many winners there will be (and as long as people don't change their minds about wanting to live there if they could afford it).

I've heard people worry about "induced demand", and I agree it's true that there's probably many people that would consider moving to San Francisco from elsewhere if the price started coming down (and of course vice versa), and that that would prevent the price from lowering too quickly. But those people moving free up housing in Austin, Seattle, etc, and there are more "winners" overall.

I think a lot of the people "on the margins" of being priced out in the Bay Area are not on the edge of homelessness - often they are able to move and drive up demand elsewhere. But I do see more and more people living out of RVs and vehicles parked near freeways.

For the price increases over the last couple decades, I think the demand has gone up for most first world cities. I think this is mostly because the industries that are booming are mostly knowledge work, that tends to have a higher specialization of labor so is more naturally located in places with higher population densities that have more liquid job markets (in addition to network effects within certain industries). I think the solution to this is to build more housing in cities but the alternative is lower income workers/industries are displaced and landowners are enriched.

For a specific example of this theory working, Tokyo is subject to a lot of the same economic forces as other first world cities that drive demand up (wrt labor specialization etc). They've managed to keep housing under control, but in order to achieve that they've had to allow almost double the amount of new housing as all of California (despite Tokyo having only around 1/3 the population) [1].

[1] https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco-housing-...

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