California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing
51–60 of 213 posts
Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I can't speak for other cities, but when I used to live and work in SLC the addition of lots of new underground parking helped bring the downtown back to life.
Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing
#53The 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.
It makes a lot more sense when you realize the entire "environmental movement" arose as the justifiable/defensible workaround for the Fair Housing Act in 1968: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=environmentali... e: I can't get the direct link to work properly, but press the blue "Search lots of books" button and it will work.
Linking to a ngrams graph that shows "environmentalism" graphed against "civil rights" as evidence that environmentalism is just a fig leaf for segregation is beyond flimsy. Surely this must be the arch example of correlation ≠ causation.
Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing
#54The 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.
From the article: "“Low-income people tend to own cars that are in disrepair and ride motorcycles adding to the noise of a ‘lights out at 8 p.m. community,’” Marylyn Rinaldi, a neighboring condominium owner, wrote in 2011 in a letter to the City Council that was later cited in a lawsuit over the project." Nimbyism at its finest.
Motorbike noise is quite real. Hopefully electric motorbikes will grow more common over time and cut down on this widespread nuisance.
Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Not saying this applies to everything, but the houses I lived in without usable basements were close to the water line, which would have made a full-sized basement a liability for the house.
Basements do not react well to earthquakes either.
Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing
#56"...and rules that compel developers to meet labor and environmental standards that often exceed what’s required for luxury condominiums." It's not just rules. Funding is competitive, and if you want a competitive bid you need to promise the world. Parking, green technologies, accessibility, community space, lots of amenities for residents, landscaping, not to mention the cost of ongoing compliance. "Another is Calif…
Ouch. Maybe CA should just give up on housing and have everyone commute in daily from a different state.
Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing
#57Amongst the various human rights, the right to build a house should be fundamental, but somehow it was lost to political forces.
If the right to private and personal property is in place (basically having some money) and trading. Then the right to build a house is a consequence. As long as you by land that doesn't have a lien on it you can build a house.
In theory yes, but there are so many asterisks attached to building a house. You need to run through a gauntlet of bureaucracy to even get permission to build on your land. All of this immensely increases costs and becomes a tool for limiting new housing.
Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
It's odd to me that anyone finds this compelling. You have a right to wear whatever t-shirts you like. You don't have a right to prevent other people from wearing t-shirts with colors you find objectionable. Yet, somehow in housing we've decided that, no, you actually do have the right to object to all kind of innocuous nonsense (window styles, setbacks, paint colors, and on and on). There's nothing so trivial that it's beyond objection.
I understand that people would like to control what others do around them, but we should be totally unresponsive to those desires. The sentiment behind modern NIMBYism isn't remotely confusing. Presumably, people who buy a house in a neighborhood do so because they like the neighborhood the way it is and don't want it to change. But...so what? That desire is outweighed by other concerns at every turn.
Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Not saying this applies to everything, but the houses I lived in without usable basements were close to the water line, which would have made a full-sized basement a liability for the house.
I'd also imagine that excavation is more expensive than just pouring a concrete slab.
Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing
#60> 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".
> How did it ever get here? Requiring more than 2 parking spots per apartment is insane.... especially for "affordable housing".
People who live near new property developments don't want to end up with their streets completely full of parked cars from residents and guests of the new building.
I can't say it's unreasonable for the existing residents to feel that way. I lived in a neighborhood where that happened, and parking got so bad it was difficult for people to visit me.
That kind of parking situation is the kind of thing that people are willing to deal with in NYC, not the suburbs. So they pass laws to require parking spaces. This particular example is extreme though.