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California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

latimes.com

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Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#31

Post by vmception »

One thing I've found is that it isn't worth it to "win" and be able to afford living in these places, because nobody else can.

In expensive neighborhoods there are good connections from neighbors, but right now - and I have no way to quantify this - it seems like that doesn't apply to places that now become expensive. People with connections are just part of a different generation and live in already wealthy neighborhoods.

The up and coming trendy neighborhood don't have the connected's trust fund children nor a bunch of VCs. Only airbnb speculators, transient corporate housing and some TikTok influencers chasing status.

Everyone has been resigned to imagining their dreams of certain zip codes, and just doing something else that happens to be way more practical. If you actually get into those zip codes, nobody else is there.

So doing extra things for the goal of keeping up against all odds seems to be a fools errand, for housing location at least. Other fun things you can do with your net worth.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#32

Post by Ididntdothis »

sambull wrote: post #21

No new house around me was sub 1500 sq ft... guess bigger is better. But all the other houses in the area built between 1950-1990 were all under that.

I would be perfectly fine with 800-1000 sqft and little yard but nobody builds this anymore. And if you have a basement for storage you need less garage too. Why do US houses rarely have usable basements?

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#33

Post by three_seagrass »

sokoloff wrote: post #12
virgilp wrote: post #5

> Pearl was cut from 18 apartments to 10 and its approval required an underground garage with 53 parking spots. How did it ever get here? Requiring more than 2 parking spots per apartment is insane.... especially for "affordable housing".

I think the original design as implied in the article was that the garage was to be a paid garage for the community and the fees from it would help to repay some of the grants to build the housing. It was not "you need 5 parking spots per unit plus 3 for building management".

This seems to be a trend for medium density construction projects now. In our rapidly-gentrifying suburban city, new buildings above a certain height are only approved if they include public parking spaces, regardless if it's residential, commercial, or mixed use.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#34

Post by generalpass »

starclerk wrote: post #10
kwillets wrote: post #6

Amongst the various human rights, the right to build a house should be fundamental, but somehow it was lost to political forces.

Housing seems to me to be one of the most government-planned markets due to the strict zoning laws, but I've only seen fairly lefty orgs advocating for relaxed regulation. I'm surprised there isn't more movement from libertarians along the lines that property owners should have more rights for what they can build on their land.

> Housing seems to me to be one of the most government-planned markets due to the strict zoning laws, but I've only seen fairly lefty orgs advocating for relaxed regulation. I'm surprised there isn't more movement from libertarians along the lines that property owners should have more rights for what they can build on their land.

Not sure about what anyone here considers as libertarian, but if you were to ask a libertarian what they would tell you is that if you own property you are free to do as you please so long as you do not harm someone else.

Also not sure what you mean by lefty orgs, because labor unions, public unions and environmental groups are the biggest lobbyist influence on the high price of housing. When it comes to affordability, housing is generally (ahem - not "always") less affordable in blue states and least affordable in the bluest regions of the blue states.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#36

Post by twblalock »

starclerk wrote: post #10
kwillets wrote: post #6

Amongst the various human rights, the right to build a house should be fundamental, but somehow it was lost to political forces.

Housing seems to me to be one of the most government-planned markets due to the strict zoning laws, but I've only seen fairly lefty orgs advocating for relaxed regulation. I'm surprised there isn't more movement from libertarians along the lines that property owners should have more rights for what they can build on their land.

There are two liberties in tension: the right to do what you want on your own land, and the right to live in peace on your own land (which requires you to restrict what your neighbors can do on their land).

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#37

Post by Medicalidiot »

ab_testing wrote: post #4

The bullshit and nimbyism in California is truly breathtaking. That happened in the wealthy San Diego County enclave of Solana Beach, where the Pearl was cut from 18 apartments to 10 and its approval required an underground garage with 53 parking spots.

A friend of mine lived in the bay area for a bit and ended up leaving because he couldn't handle the virtue signaling. From his experience a significant amount of people would talk about helping low socioeconomic folk, oppression, or any other in vogue topic but never actually do anything. These would then be the loudest voices lobbying against having a methadone clinic in their neighborhood. He's living in Denver now which has a similar problem but on a palatable scale, according to him.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#40

Post by BurningFrog »

starclerk wrote: post #10
kwillets wrote: post #6

Amongst the various human rights, the right to build a house should be fundamental, but somehow it was lost to political forces.

Housing seems to me to be one of the most government-planned markets due to the strict zoning laws, but I've only seen fairly lefty orgs advocating for relaxed regulation. I'm surprised there isn't more movement from libertarians along the lines that property owners should have more rights for what they can build on their land.

Libertarians are 100% behind relaxing or abolishing zoning.

There are just very few of us, and we don't matter.

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