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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

#281

Post by austincheney »

jlmorton wrote: post #251
austincheney wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> more supply brings down rents People say that on here all the time, but I have never seen that happen. Do you have an example where increased housing supply lowered prices aside from a natural or market disaster? Maybe, Detroit where people simply abandoned their homes with no intent to sell.

We just ran a massive experiment, called Covid-19, which caused about 10% of San Francisco residents to leave the city. This is not quite the same thing as an immediate increase in supply, but instead a large drop in demand. The net result is the exact same thing: a large increase in the vacancy rate, which resulted in a rapid and dramatic decrease in median rents.

How much of a decrease on average?

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

#282

Post by austincheney »

hamandcheese wrote: post #234
austincheney wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like an epic value destroyer. It won’t lower prices. Instead it will drive out owners to be replaced by leasers incapable of owning property. The only people that win are owners of multi-tenant properties, which are often commercial businesses.

> Instead it will drive out owners to be replaced by leasers incapable of owning property. Isn’t that exactly the point? These are the people that can’t afford to live in the city now.

Destroying value does not imply lower prices. It just means lost equity.

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

#283

Post by UpsilonAlpha »

Bud wrote: post #188
Der_Einzige wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhh, Portland or Seattle? They're political similar, economically as similar as you'll get (silicon forest in Hillsboro and Seattle's whole tech scene rivals SF), and geographically similar in terms of climate to parts of the bay area.

Neither Portland nor Seattle can match the Bay Area in terms of overall culture. Neither has a world-class orchestra or opera, to say nothing of the early-music scene in the Bay Area, which is easily the best in the US. Neither measures up to the Bay Area in the art scene, either. Or the restaurant scene. Or the wine scene. Neither comes very close in terms of climate, although that argument is muted lately due to Ca…

I've lived in Seattle so my viewpoint is biased.

> Neither has a world-class orchestra or opera

Seattle Symphony is fantastic and has multiple Grammy awards. The one that stands out to me is the 2014 premiere of John Luther Adams' work, Become Ocean. Not everyone's cup of team, but a phenomenal performance nonetheless.

> to say nothing of the early-music scene in the Bay Area, which is easily the best in the US

Grunge is very distinctly Seattle. I have a feeling you are incorrectly attributing certain bands with California because they moved there after they became famous.

> And no, neither measures up economically either. Comparing the tech industry in Portland or Seattle to the Bay Area (Apple, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and basically all of the startup scene) is a joke.

Google is heavily in Seattle. You are ignoring the powerhouses of Microsoft and Amazon which are headquartered there. Additionally, the startup scene is thriving. Vulcan Ventures (Paul Allen's firm) has a major presence.

> Neither measures up to the Bay Area in the art scene

I can't speak to the art scene but the Seattle Art Museum was pretty cool, not sure how it ranks. I do know that Seattle attracts a lot of artsy types from personal experience.

> Or the wine scene

If you look at Seattle in a hyper-focused fashion, yes there is no wine, it's a city and Bay Area is an area. But wine in Washington state is also thriving (extended family operates a small vineyard for fun). The climate issues have ironically made Washington a better place for wine in the past years

I could go on, but really, there is quite a bit of competition ;)

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

#284

Post by eloff »

filmfact wrote: post #272
arcticbull wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan is the classical example where they have national zoning rules permitting residential development in each zone. You can get a place in downtown Tokyo for like $300K USD. [1] > While the cost of housing is climbing in many global cities, the average middle-class family in Tokyo can still afford to buy a new, single-family detached home for $300,000. That’s right. The typical Tokyo starter home is a brand new thr…

The 300k in the article is the size of the loan, not the cost of a typical house.

That's still a dream in Vancouver. I wish I could do that here.

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

#285

Post by eloff »

austincheney wrote: post #280
eloff wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because you didn't look.

You didn’t supply any for me to look at. Is this a child’s imagination game? Guessing at some 9th grade economics theory aside, what does the actual data say? Ignoring data like this is the only reason I can think of why people are willing to pay 10x more for a house of half the size that I paid.

Burden of proof is you. It's not my job to do your research for you. You asked the question, challenging accepted theory, look up the answer.

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

#286

Post by screye »

Reading about opposition to multi-family housing reminds me of opposition to nuclear energy.

Regulations for both are substantially higher than those imposed on the conventional choice, making them more expensive in through self-fulfilling prophecies.

Additionally, having stopped working on them for 40 years means that the US is completely clueless about building them in an effective manner. Thus, the populace and even planners feel like the only choice is 50 year old infrastructure solutions. This also means that secondary ecosystems have developed with assumptions of the conventional choice, rendering the alternatives unable to take advantage of these secondary ecosystems.

Lastly, somehow arguments around both end up appearing far more ideological than scientific. Now, I am squarely on the nuclear/multi-family side of things, but it is particularly difficult to find consensus within the community on it.

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

#287

Post by koolba »

jlmorton wrote: post #251
austincheney wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> more supply brings down rents People say that on here all the time, but I have never seen that happen. Do you have an example where increased housing supply lowered prices aside from a natural or market disaster? Maybe, Detroit where people simply abandoned their homes with no intent to sell.

We just ran a massive experiment, called Covid-19, which caused about 10% of San Francisco residents to leave the city. This is not quite the same thing as an immediate increase in supply, but instead a large drop in demand. The net result is the exact same thing: a large increase in the vacancy rate, which resulted in a rapid and dramatic decrease in median rents.

It’s a terrible example though as the people with the most liquid financial situation are the ones that left. The ones that remained can’t even afford to rent they U-Haul to get out of Dodge. They’re stuck treading water and at best will get Newsom to buy their vote^W^W^Wpay their back rent.

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

#288

Post by austincheney »

eloff wrote: post #285
austincheney wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn’t supply any for me to look at. Is this a child’s imagination game? Guessing at some 9th grade economics theory aside, what does the actual data say? Ignoring data like this is the only reason I can think of why people are willing to pay 10x more for a house of half the size that I paid.

Burden of proof is you. It's not my job to do your research for you. You asked the question, challenging accepted theory, look up the answer.

What proof? I asked for examples. You replied with a red herring. I asked for examples again and then you got confused.

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

#289

Post by pdonis »

notacoward wrote: post #275
pdonis wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're assuming infinite variety exists, or can exist. I'm assuming no such thing. I'm only assuming that there are places that would match your preferences better than where you currently live (or, if you want to be really precise, enough better to justify the costs of moving). Since people move all the time, for precisely that reason (I've done it myself, several times), that does not seem to me like a very extra…

> moving to a place that already matches your preferences better than where you are now Still assuming there is such a a place. Why would you assume (again) that I didn't already research and consider alternatives before plonking down a third of my net worth on a house? I live where I do because it was the best match for what I'm looking for, but the fact that it's the best available doesn't mean I can't wish it to b…

> Still assuming there is such a a place.

Have you tried to find out?

> "Just move" only works for one constituency - those who don't have or want any connection to whatever community they live in

Not at all. People can change communities. The fact that a person chooses to move does not mean that had no connection to the place they are leaving, or that they won't form any connections to the place they move to. Maybe you can't imagine ever being connected to any other place than the one you live in right now, but not everyone is like you.

> Pulling kids out of a school system and away from all of their friends is particularly disruptive.

It could be. Or it could be an opportunity to broaden their horizons and give them a chance to make new friends, and to cease having to deal with the kids at their school that they can't stand.

> I live where I do because it's the best match for what I'm looking for

Your original post in this subthread didn't make it sound that way. But if that is in fact the case for you, that's fine. It might not be the case for many other people.

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

#290

Post by istillwritecode »

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.

I'm one of them.
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