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Bay Area cities want to end single-family home zoning

sfchronicle.com

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

#201

Post by closeparen »

imtringued wrote: post #195
closeparen wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rich SV types don’t seek housing because landlords appear to rent it to us. We seek housing because we get jobs. Each SV type who rents a new home is one who’s not competing for an existing home. If you want to put a stop to the kind of development that is actually causing SV types to materialize, that would be offices. Offices are are generally popular and unobjectionable.

Prop 13 killed tax revenue so local governments must obtain it through commercial property. It's pretty obvious what the problem is. A pro job bias that makes sure there are more jobs than housing.

I don’t think the populist spirit is making an inference as complex as “we need to get the tax revenue somewhere, better not object to offices even though they also create traffic.” The bureaucrats might, but the bureaucrats don’t have that much power; even when they support a housing development they get overridden by the community.

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

#202

Post by jeffbee »

ghaff wrote: post #186
rcpt wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The division between long time Californian landowning families and 20-something immigrant engineers somehow never comes up. Someone's whose been making 250k before taxes isn't poor by any stretch. But they're nowhere near affording a house in Mountain View, hence the busses.

>But they're nowhere near affording a house in Mountain View, hence the busses. The buses are because they want to live in the city rather than essentially suburban Mountain View. It's not like SF is cheap housing.

SF housing is about 20% cheaper than Mountain View housing according to recent sales.

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

#203

Post by imtringued »

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.

Calculate a standard of living index for every square mile on earth. Then add a slider that only shows you all areas greater than the chosen standard of living. When you crank it all the way up to California living standards the earth does look overpopulated.

Of course when all we want is the mere existence of humans then there can be as many additional humans as rats on the planet and they'll get to live the same quality of life.

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

#204

Post by zip1234 »

irrational wrote: post #69
BurningFrog wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those developers just want to keep the code complex so that only 100 unit projects are viable so that huge firms are the only ones who can execute projects. Strong disagreement. The best thing for developers would be minimal zoning, Houston style. As the Bay Area built to expand from 7M people to, say, 20M in a decade, enormous fortunes and livelihoods would be made from all that construction work.

Why would the Bay Area grow so much in the next decade? Now that remote working is becoming more normal, and considering the cost of living in the Bay Area, why would that many people want to move there? There are plenty of other places with comparable natural beauty, vibrant communities, cultural resources, etc.

Part of the reason for the cost of living there is the cost of housing being high because of artificially restricted supply. Why live there? Plentiful jobs and mild weather seem like good enough reasons.

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

#205

Post by jacobolus »

nugget wrote: post #170
BurningFrog wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those developers just want to keep the code complex so that only 100 unit projects are viable so that huge firms are the only ones who can execute projects. Strong disagreement. The best thing for developers would be minimal zoning, Houston style. As the Bay Area built to expand from 7M people to, say, 20M in a decade, enormous fortunes and livelihoods would be made from all that construction work.

The people I know who live in the Bay Area don’t particularly want it to expand. Part of the value of living there is its relative exclusivity.

The people who currently live in neighborhoods full of $5M single-family houses may value “exclusivity”, but I have met plenty of young people with ordinary jobs sleeping in bunk beds, 4 adults to a 2-bedroom house and still paying most of their paychecks to rent, who would much prefer to be living in separate 1–2 bedroom flats instead, with more little shops in their neighborhood and better transit.

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

#206

Post by handmodel »

BurningFrog wrote: post #42
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just because something is permitted doesn't mean it happens. It's very hard to find a vacant lot or tear down at a price that would work First you make things legal then you streamline them. > You would need to find a developer willing to take a risk on a minuscule profit and an architect who enjoys brain damage," he said. "They are complicated little projects. It's the absolute opposite of economy of scale." Once…

> Those developers just want to keep the code complex so that only 100 unit projects are viable so that huge firms are the only ones who can execute projects. Strong disagreement. The best thing for developers would be minimal zoning, Houston style. As the Bay Area built to expand from 7M people to, say, 20M in a decade, enormous fortunes and livelihoods would be made from all that construction work.

I disagree.

Developers who are entrenched enjoy the fact it is hard to get a permit. Then, the specialty becomes navigating the system (which the surviving developers are de facto good at). It is hard for the best developers from other cities, who may be amazing at cheap/efficient/quality construction to challenge the incumbents in SF.

It is like saying that government contractors who build websites want the bid system to be simpler. In some ways they do, since on paper they would save a lot of money if they could get rid of their dozen employees who specialize in navigating it. At the same time, most government website contractors probably are not the best web developers - jsut the best at navigating the system.

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

#207

Post by wernercd »

handmodel wrote: post #206
BurningFrog wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those developers just want to keep the code complex so that only 100 unit projects are viable so that huge firms are the only ones who can execute projects. Strong disagreement. The best thing for developers would be minimal zoning, Houston style. As the Bay Area built to expand from 7M people to, say, 20M in a decade, enormous fortunes and livelihoods would be made from all that construction work.

I disagree. Developers who are entrenched enjoy the fact it is hard to get a permit. Then, the specialty becomes navigating the system (which the surviving developers are de facto good at). It is hard for the best developers from other cities, who may be amazing at cheap/efficient/quality construction to challenge the incumbents in SF. It is like saying that government contractors who build websites want the bid syst…

You disagree but it sounds like you make the same points.

The post you reply too says "we need minimal zoning". You say "its hard to work because of too many restrictions".

Am I reading it wrong, but you disagree but seem to agree on the main points: Government needs to get out of the way to allow progress.

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

#208

Post by wumpus »

34679 wrote: post #87
01100011 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the people graduating in bay area cities are forever priced out of living in their hometowns already. Tech is largely to blame at this point because it fuels the extreme valuations. Without tech, prices would still be high because of lack of new supply for the growing population, but we left that price zone years ago.

I don't think we should be pointing any fingers at locally employed people who purchase a home to live in while we're still allowing foreign investors to buy up multiple properties they'll never step foot in. >The percentage of California single-family homes bought in all-cash transactions has climbed in the past decade from 10 to 25 percent—and many of those are investors from Asia. https://calmatters.org/housing/20…

People buy homes in Menlo Park with all cash because there will be multiple bidders and not being contingent on mortgage approval is the only way to win the bidding.

Most of them then go and get a mortgage.

The calmaters article has zero data about "investors from Asia". It's an assumption.

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

#209

Post by exporectomy »

pacifist wrote: post #36
_-david-_ wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Earth is not overpopulated. The problem is that certain places have too much population density. If everyone spread out across the world there wouldn't be any of these issues. For a variety of reason people can't or won't spread out.

> Earth is not overpopulated Beg to differ. Exhibit A: climate change. Your solution would not ameliorate climate change. In fact it would likely exacerbate it. We need as much of the land as possible to be rewilded(left alone to maximize CO2 absorption and heal the planet). And stop having babies. Do you really want to bring a child into the nightmare we are barreling towards?

Plants are carbon neutral, not carbon sinks. They don't put the fossil fuels back into the ground because they decompose before they're buried.

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

#210

Post by KingMachiavelli »

jacobolus wrote: post #205
nugget wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people I know who live in the Bay Area don’t particularly want it to expand. Part of the value of living there is its relative exclusivity.

The people who currently live in neighborhoods full of $5M single-family houses may value “exclusivity”, but I have met plenty of young people with ordinary jobs sleeping in bunk beds, 4 adults to a 2-bedroom house and still paying most of their paychecks to rent, who would much prefer to be living in separate 1–2 bedroom flats instead, with more little shops in their neighborhood and better transit.

Sure but they could move almost literally anywhere else.

If someone said you could live in one of the most desirable places in the entire world on an 'ordinary' job but you had to share a room (which TBH could just be your significant other anyway) that would seem like a great deal right?

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