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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

#121

Post by pchristensen »

supernova87a wrote: post #109

One thing I would really like a clear explanation of: When public officials in CA cities talk about "affordable housing", there is actually some definition of this, isn't there? And it doesn't usually match what people in casual conversation mean by affordable housing, right? "Affordable housing" doesn't just mean a normal house or apartment at an affordable price, does it? Does it mean public housing units built and…

"Affordable" can mean a lot of things. Usually the official definition is housing that costs less than 30% of the income of someone at some multiple of the local poverty income level. Housing can meet that bar in a number of ways: rising incomes, smaller/less equipped units, no parking, public subsidy for rent, public subsidy for land or development fees, etc. Due to the terrible experience with public housing across the USA in the 1950s-1980s, most governments avoid owning the units if they can avoid it.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#122

Post by throwaway0a5e »

stevehawk wrote: post #92
nerfhammer wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what percent of "low-income people" own motorcycles? what would the occupants of 10 apartments have to do such that a small city would no longer be said to be able to have "quiet nights" that could not be enforced against by any method other than excluding the apartments completely?

ooh, I'm gonna go with "a lot". Because motorcycles are a lot cheaper to buy, own, and maintain that cars. And a lot of them don't even require licenses in the US (49cc and smaller, if I'm not mistaken).

A cheap used car provides a lot more utility than an equivalently priced used motorcycle so that's what most people tend to buy if they can only have one vehicle.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#123

Post by Robotbeat »

stevehawk wrote: post #92
nerfhammer wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what percent of "low-income people" own motorcycles? what would the occupants of 10 apartments have to do such that a small city would no longer be said to be able to have "quiet nights" that could not be enforced against by any method other than excluding the apartments completely?

ooh, I'm gonna go with "a lot". Because motorcycles are a lot cheaper to buy, own, and maintain that cars. And a lot of them don't even require licenses in the US (49cc and smaller, if I'm not mistaken).

It’s the expensive Harley’s that are the most expensive AND loud, not the little scooters.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#125

Post by pchristensen »

JamesBarney wrote: post #28
subsubzero wrote: post #17

What can't be discounted besides the usual suspects of bad zoning, high cost of land etc. is construction costs. Basically an area gets so expensive that it prices out construction workers and their families. This is being seen in the bay area now as a typical single family home goes for over 1M in the pennisula/SF/South Bay area. Go farther out to the east bay, far south bay(gilroy etc) and prices are still 700/800k…

This seems reasonable but I don't think it's a significant contributor to the price of construction. None of the developers seem to mention it as an issue, and there are plenty of employees that exist in San Francisco that are paid wages that are similar to construction workers.

But there are marginal projects that don't get built because of the higher cost of construction labor. With shortages like the Bay Area, every bit lost, for any reason, hurts.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#126

Post by clairity »

Lammy wrote: post #95
clairity wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fair, sorry for my histrionic wording. The "roots of the environmental movement" is more like what I'm getting at. Put it this way: I care about the environment more than ever but no longer consider myself an Environmentalist™ after learning more of its history :)

no worries, labels like "environmentalist" don't matter nearly as much as intent and action.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#127

Post by kregasaurusrex »

pavlov wrote: post #78

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…

A similar experience happened to me while I was in school, and opened a bank account through the university which had a partnership with $BANK since there weren't any nearby ATMs in-network with the credit union from my hometown. Thinking that having access to cash would be in my best interest in case of needing to buy things secondhand like from Craigslist; and didn't see a clause in the contract which required a minimum balance for both the signup bonus and until seeing a $15 monthly fee withdrawn from the account which had a small deposit made into. It ended up being a net loss-- missing that work to open a bank account with an unattainable minimum balance meant the entire process ended up costing almost 2 hours worth of pay.

Google Wallet solved this problem while they were still around but the service was canceled likely due to being a loss leader for the company, and have since switched to Simple which has several ATMs available in my area.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#128

Post by idoh »

HighlandSpring wrote: post #91
stevehawk wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, don't do business with that bank. Not all banks do that.

No single bank should do that.

Banks are businesses, why can't they charge what they want for services?

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#129

Post by kwillets »

sokoloff wrote: post #16
starclerk wrote: post #10

Earlier 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.

Some libertarians are presumably also in support of "you spent money buying land and a house in an area with full awareness of a specific framework of zoning laws and those laws should not be changed without good cause and due process". (Libertarians are not necessarily and are often not anarchists.)

In this case it's hardly zoning laws, but rather a framework that allows local politicians to impose further restrictions beyond them.

Re: California affordable housing is more expensive than luxury housing

#130

Post by beambot »

idoh wrote: post #128
HighlandSpring wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No single bank should do that.

Banks are businesses, why can't they charge what they want for services?

And the dark patterns of opening accounts without your permission, burying fee information in the fine print, etc etc...? It's not just business; it's predatory.
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