Bay Area cities want to end single-family home zoning • Hacker News Board

Re: Bay Area cities want to end single-family home zoning

#51

Post by lotsofpulp » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 4:05 PM UTC

nosianu wrote: post #45

lotsofpulp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People in the Bay Area don’t realize that every little thing that keeps costs low gets funneled back into house prices. Because the root cause is the demand for housing in Bay Area is far outstripping supply. You must tweak either or both of those to move the price. Addressing supply certainly does, but it might not be sufficient supply to overcome the demand. But it does help the situation.

My suspicion is that this might end up like more/wider streets and highways: You built it => it will be filled to capacity asap and there is no difference in the end, only more of the same (literally). Of course, this won't happen to infinity but far enough. In the end the area is just too attractive, combined with the industries there generate a lot of money.

Yes, if SF/Bay Area is just that unique and that much more attractive to people than elsewhere, then the only solution would be to make another SF/Bay Area.

Re: Bay Area cities want to end single-family home zoning

#52

Post by jeffbee » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 4:06 PM UTC

xienze wrote: post #44

jeffbee wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is not the cause of the housing crisis. It’s purely demographic. Count up all the people that graduated high school in your town and subtract the number of people who died, and that’s how many houses you need to build that year. Simple demographics and this figure has been ignored in most Bay Area cities for fifty years.

Ehh I think it’s a little more complicated than that, and I’ve argued this for years, that Google et al certainly plays a part. Consider their infamous busses, that allow employees who simply can’t fathom the idea of living in Mountain View to easily live in SF and commute. Without those I think employees wouldn’t be shielded from the consequences of the whole “live in the city, commute into the suburbs” thing.

What is "infamous" about a bus? It's a workaround for the Bay Area's awful/nonexistent transportation system. Why aren't you carping about VMWare's "infamous cars" or the millions of cars driven every day to other companies without buses?

Anyway the buses only explain partially how Googlers and other tech employees can survive the housing crisis, not what caused it. The cause is extremely simple. Births - Deaths = Growth. Don't overthink it.

Re: Bay Area cities want to end single-family home zoning

#53

Post by skybrian » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

plank_time wrote: post #11

People are stupid if they think this will fix things. I went to the peninsula looking at houses and the new trend is to add ADUs as part of the house or in the back. You know why? To help the owners pay off their $3M houses they used to be $1M 8 years ago. This then figures into the calculus of how much you can afford to buy a house for. What is an unaffordable $8000/month mortgage now becomes $6000/month. So people…

It won't move prices much by itself, but it's still more people living on the same amount of land, which counts for something.

Re: Bay Area cities want to end single-family home zoning

#54

Post by eplanit » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 4:08 PM UTC

pitaj wrote: post #10

spodek wrote: post #7

There's so much to object to about the idea that Earth is overpopulated. Then you get it and it hits you like a ton of bricks. The signs are everywhere and couldn't be more clear. But we're addicted to growth and efficiency, ignoring our limits, and our addiction blinds us to seeing what's plainly all around.

The primary objection is that "overpopulation" is badly defined when it comes to humanity.

It's a taboo topic because of people's fears and anxieties that it triggers.

A (cold) rational perspective sees that many (if not most) challenges facing society share a root cause of there being simply too many people.

Re: Bay Area cities want to end single-family home zoning

#55

Post by Ericson2314 » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 4:10 PM UTC

catern wrote: post #47

Ericson2314 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very good step, but I wouldn't mind an outright prohibition either.

That's hubris. The reason we're in this situation, where a lack of dense housing is causing housing prices to rise, is because earlier planners were confident 50 years ago that single-family homes were the best option, and they weren't content to just follow that strategy then and there. They decided that this had to be enforced on future people too - us, that is.

I didn't say the ban had to be indefinite.

We really need to densify a lot, and do so quickly, and I am skeptical the market will get us the quick enough.

Zoning is bad, but don't forget all our good unplanned construction was also pre-auto. Looking at e.g. parts of Texas, I worry that the self-perpetuation dynamics of cars --- which are very strong --- will make a market-based transition away from low density too quite tenuous.

I have 0 problem saying in Core areas single family family homes have no place, and we should ban them outright. SFH zoning is bad because it causes land too be wasted, such that future generations have to pay the costs of redevelopment rather than building right on "unimproved" land. Conversely, "too much density", if there even is such a thing, would waste very little land, meaning that a mandated switch back to SFH suburbia would be cheap, just as it was 50+ years ago.

It's not hubris, it's learning from our mistakes.

Re: Bay Area cities want to end single-family home zoning

#56

Post by newsclues » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 4:10 PM UTC

scythe wrote: post #41

pmoriarty wrote: post #4

Some of the objections from the article: Sean Kieghran, president of San Francisco's Residential Builders Association, said he supports getting rid of single-family only zoning but doesn't think it will result in many new units. Kieghran said that building fourplexes requires either two staircases or a staircase and an elevator, which takes up too much of the site. And, unless the city streamlined the process of buil…

Those are valid objections to fourplexes , but there are still plenty of things in between SFH and fourplexes -- including, most particularly, semi-detached duplexes, which are much easier and still double the density on the lot! I do agree that much of the hype about fourplexes is suspect (including the noise isolation of units that are one-atop-another), but there are many other possibilities, including ADUs. Also,…

Or midrises that are between 4plexes and large condos, are another option

Re: Bay Area cities want to end single-family home zoning

#57

Post by barney54 » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 4:11 PM UTC

jorts wrote: post #35

vlovich123 wrote: post #28

Go further. Get rid of all zoning that’s unrelated to pollution of some kind or strictly a safety issue. Why is the government involved in whether I can run a business from my home? Why is the government responsible for controlling where businesses might be located instead of the free market controlling that aspect more dynamically?

Opening a chicken farm or leather tannery in a residential neighborhood sounds great.

If it were possible, it would produce far better outcomes than what we are currently seeing in SF. No chicken farmer or tanner could afford to build in SF, so that’s not much of a concern. And it would mean a far more diverse housing supply than what we currently have.

Re: Bay Area cities want to end single-family home zoning

#58

Post by bombcar » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 4:11 PM UTC

zo1 wrote: post #49

jorts wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opening a chicken farm or leather tannery in a residential neighborhood sounds great.

Yeah, but being allowed to have a couple chickens on your small plot is an example of allowing sustainable and relatively poor living. Can't have that! We want you supporting your local supermarket instead! The one that delivered that egg from that licensed farm 200km away in the middle of nowhere.

California has more same regulations on backyard chickens than the rural town I’m now in which requires a $50 license per hen, max three.

Though you can move just outside town if you want chickens I guess.

Re: Bay Area cities want to end single-family home zoning

#59

Post by almost_usual » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 4:12 PM UTC

compiler-guy wrote: post #48

slothtrop wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Houses are bought and destroyed to make way for tri-plex blds and condos at a pretty consistent pace where I live, because the returns are that good. I'm surprised that this would be any different in SF.

I suspect where you live doesn’t have environmental impact studies and objection by basically anyone in the entire city requiring design review. Fixing the zoning is a first step, but won’t solve all the other issues.

Also scarcity of contractors, architects, and essentially anyone who works on homes. Even with the project approved costs are going to be high in the Bay Area.

Re: Bay Area cities want to end single-family home zoning

#60

Post by eplanit » Sat, Jul 03, 2021, 4:12 PM UTC

slothtrop wrote: post #17

spodek wrote: post #7

There's so much to object to about the idea that Earth is overpopulated. Then you get it and it hits you like a ton of bricks. The signs are everywhere and couldn't be more clear. But we're addicted to growth and efficiency, ignoring our limits, and our addiction blinds us to seeing what's plainly all around.

Here's one definition I like: if not everyone can live comfortably and happily, even with infrastructure densification using current tech, without pushing the environment over carrying capacity then we're overpopulated. Could everyone in the world own property without pushing the environment to the brink? Probably not.

Why fill to capacity?

Even at small scale, a venue might hold 500 people, but it's probably a nicer experience if there are far less than that many there.