Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 213 posts

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#71

Post by Lammy »

clairity wrote: post #64
Lammy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

powerful forces aren't able to block decentralized developments dotting the country, but they're able to gather enough momentum to pass centralized and controversial regulations? that doesn't pass the smell test. that said, CEQA challenges have become a de facto tool in the nimby arsenal in CA.

A lot of local governments were overtaken by the anti-growth environmental crowd at the time. Marin County in particular had their 1968 growth plan revoked and a famously anti-growth plan replaced it in 1971:

http://www.sausalitohistoricalsociety.com/new-blog/2018/3/7/...

'The decisive blow against growth was initiated in 1971 with the issuance of a Marin Planning Department report that proposed preserving Marin's lands except along the Highway 101 corridor. Entitled "Can the Last Place Last?" the report took its theme from Lew Welch's 1969 poem "The Song Mt. Tamalpais Sings" The poem lamented the "hordes" that were "now piling up" and contained a refrain that captured perfectly the sentiment in Marin: "This is the last place. There is nowhere else to go."'

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#72

Post by mc32 »

algeoMA wrote: post #69
mc32 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be, but there is a behavioral difference in different economic environments —though even within lower income communities many people who are forced to live there “put up with” these quality of life issues because they don’t have the ability to afford to live in communities that observe these standards. Not all that different from people complaining about the loudness of living next to college student rentals o…

Declaring that low-income people won't obey noise ordinances is extremely classist in my view. Yes, tell residents before they move in that the area has strict noise ordinances, and then hand out tickets for violators. But don't block affordable housing simply because it "might happen".

I'd like to agree -and in principle I do, just not in practice. In my case, I didn't have a loud muffler because I liked it. It was rusted through and I could not afford the repair. It had to wait. Ordinance or not didn't influence my choice. That's different from the guy who opens the throttle on his wannabe Harley as he accelerates from every stop sign on the street at 10 and 11PM... He does it just because... he's an...

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#73

Post by mgolawala »

standardUser wrote: post #3

"...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…

This is so depressing to see. These are the symptoms of a system slowly grinding to a halt under its own weight. Compare the tax code in 1970 (or earlier) vs today (1). Regulations and laws keep getting more and more complex. It keeps getting slower and costlier to get anything done. Then throw in the aging infrastructure, the greater wealth inequality along with significantly decreased social mobility. Un-affordable healthcare and education costs that cripple you before you can even begin to walk. Completely un-affordable housing after that, or a ridiculous commute without decent public transport. No wonder our political system looks as bad as it does.. people are getting increasingly angrier, more polarized, more frustrated, more desperate. There is such inertia to these 'systems' that it takes overwhelming effort and sacrifice to change its course.

These problems don't seem to be getting solved, they seem to be getting worse. How do you realistically reverse something like this? Are there examples of a successful reversal having been made without hitting the dreaded 'reboot' button on society?

We will probably muddle along during our lifetimes, but I fear for my children's generation.

(1) https://taxfoundation.org/how-many-words-are-tax-code/

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#74

Post by pascalxus »

I know this will be downvoted because people aren't really interested in solving the real problem.

We could fix the whole SF homeless population problem in the space of one parking lot. Just build micro apartments of 10'x10' feet. Make it 150' wide at the base: 15x15 = 225 x 40 stories = 9000 inhabitants. 100' feet might not be much, but it's a hella of a lot more space to live in than hong kong, where people barely get one bed.

And, with SF's enormous homeless budget of over 300 million, combined almost over 500m? there'd be more then enough funds to build as many of these buildings as we need.

The thing that stops these types of solution is rules, rules and more rules. We choose not to solve the homeless situation: it's a political choice.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#75

Post by doorstar »

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.

I admit I don't know much about the affordable housing efforts, but I don't know why anyone would put a lot of work into building affordable housing in Solana Beach.

https://goo.gl/maps/X1MN673Pwc57eS2C9

It's a tiny ( by CA standards ) town right on the beach and most non-service jobs are a crowded commute away. I don't object to having affordable housing everywhere, but if I wanted to build some in San Diego county, it's about the last place I would go.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#77

Post by clairity »

Lammy wrote: post #71
clairity wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

powerful forces aren't able to block decentralized developments dotting the country, but they're able to gather enough momentum to pass centralized and controversial regulations? that doesn't pass the smell test. that said, CEQA challenges have become a de facto tool in the nimby arsenal in CA.

A lot of local governments were overtaken by the anti-growth environmental crowd at the time. Marin County in particular had their 1968 growth plan revoked and a famously anti-growth plan replaced it in 1971: http://www.sausalitohistoricalsociety.com/new-blog/2018/3/7/... 'The decisive blow against growth was initiated in 1971 with the issuance of a Marin Planning Department report that proposed preserving Marin's la…

yes, marin is a bastion of nimbyism (it's also quite pretty) but that's not the "entire environmental movement". the objection is to the exaggeration.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#78

Post by pavlov »

After moving to America a while ago, one thing that struck me is how a lot of things are designed as effectively regressive taxes: the poor pay more than the rich.

I opened a basic bank account with a giant American bank. The account has an exorbitant monthly fee, something like $15, but it’s waived if you keep a sufficient balance or have a steady salary. So the only people who pay the crazy fee are the broke people with irregular income. This is one example out of many such seemingly structural biases in everyday services.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#79

Post by dionidium »

twblalock wrote: post #66
dionidium wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

There are a lot of things that matter more than window styles and paint colors, and they can have a severe negative impact on quality of life and property values and safety.

Re: property values: who cares? Again, I don’t find this even remotely compelling when weighed against the rights of property owners to do what they want with their own property. Again, I understand why rational actors want to protect the value of their property. But we shouldn’t assist them as a matter of policy.

(And this is really neither here nor there, given my stance, but property owners actually tend to be very bad at knowing what’s going to negatively affect the value of their properties over the long term. Allowing more density would increase values, in most cases, yet homeowners universally oppose it.)

Re: safety: sure, there are some reasonable safety rules. Those aren’t what we’re talking about here.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#80

Post by jayd16 »

pascalxus wrote: post #74

I know this will be downvoted because people aren't really interested in solving the real problem. We could fix the whole SF homeless population problem in the space of one parking lot. Just build micro apartments of 10'x10' feet. Make it 150' wide at the base: 15x15 = 225 x 40 stories = 9000 inhabitants. 100' feet might not be much, but it's a hella of a lot more space to live in than hong kong, where people barely…

I'm not sure building a ghetto is the right answer. Whats stopping anyone from claiming a 10x10? Can I claim one?

You're grossly oversimplifying the issue.

Post reply on HN