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Yimby housing bills are wildly unpopular in the state (CA), a new poll shows

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Re: Yimby housing bills are wildly unpopular in the state (CA), a new poll shows

#21

Post by geofft »

reccanti wrote: post #17
mullingitover wrote: post #2

> Only 12 percent of respondents said California needs more market-rate housing, and 61 percent said the state needs more affordable housing and housing for homeless people. I don't think most people understand that if market-rate housing isn't built en masse, and there's just 'affordable housing' allowed, the result will be mostly insanely expensive housing for the vast majority and a small token effort at affordabl…

I think the view that we “just need more market-rate housing” is simplistic. Blindly building lots of housing doesn’t necessarily mean that people are going to move there. In Boston, for example, many of the luxury condos that have been built are being used as investment properties: https://ips-dc.org/report-towering-excess/ I think the 61% of people who want affordable housing and homeless housing recognize these fa…

Isn't most of the housing stock that is used as an investment property occupied, i.e., being rented out?

Also, the flip side of the argument is that not building lots of housing doesn't necessarily mean that people aren't going to move there. If you have a bunch of housing that is "not for existing Bostonians" as the page says, and it's getting rented/sold, one common reason is that your city is an attractive employment location for high-paying jobs (for Boston I'd guess tech and biotech) and so people are moving in. Not building new housing for those people doesn't immediately make your city unattractive; it just means that this crowd of people with high-paying jobs will take over your existing housing stock because they can outbid "existing Bostonians."

Re: Yimby housing bills are wildly unpopular in the state (CA), a new poll shows

#22

Post by specialist »

helen___keller wrote: post #3

of course, most people feel like the level of density they have now is roughly the correct level density, it just needs to "be cheaper". Nevermind trillions in infrastructure spending on the assumption of low density suburban lifestyle. I'll fight for YIMBY policy til the bitter end, but unless there's a cultural shift back towards the idea of stronger property freedoms wrt real estate, I don't see us making strides…

> ...til the bitter end

I'm of two minds.

#1 Any progress has to done on the down low.

Consider our history. Advocacy for fairness, justice, balance always triggers a massive backlash.

Meanwhile, massive decades long investment strategy created a rich ecosystem for deeply unpopular policy agenda has resulted in a nearly complete takeover of our government and society.

Don't storm the castle. Rock, paper, scissors. There's got to be 100s of small wins which cement a lasting victory.

Neither Rome or our liberal democracy were toppled in a day. The attacks were tiny, incremental, seemingly insignificant at the time.

What are the administrative, procedural, non-threatening pro-YIMBY reforms which can be rolled out over decades, peicemeal, scattered across the land?

#2 Settle for Pyrrhic victories

Opportunity for large scale, durable reforms are rare. Maybe every 20 to 40 years. And the effort consumes the coalition advocating the reform.

As said above, any amount of progress triggers a massive reactionary backlash.

Further, the reform coalition was only held together by the shared goal. Once attained, the coalition will dissolve (or worse). Whereas the coalition of reactionaries is evergreen; their individual motivations don't matter so long as they agree on "No".

So go for broke. Maybe someone like Gov Newsom is willing to burn whatever goodwill and political capital they've accumulated in one final glorious battle to cement their legacy.

Re: Yimby housing bills are wildly unpopular in the state (CA), a new poll shows

#23

Post by dionidium »

mullingitover wrote: post #18
dionidium wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's some truth to this, but it doesn't paint the full picture. In high-demand areas it's the land that's valuable, not the structures on the land. If Palo Alto, say, were upzoned prices wouldn't fall. Developers would love to buy that land and develop it. That's not to say that literally every single neighborhood would benefit from upzoning, but the areas most in need of upzoning do have this property. Yet homeow…

> People genuinely do not want more density in their neighborhoods. I'm happy for them. That's all well and good, but when you buy a plot of land you buy that land , you don't get controlling interest in the whole neighborhood. These shenanigans are starting to get cracked down upon at the state level, because of course local fiefdoms are going to craft self-serving policies. In aggregate, however, they ultimately st…

I agree entirely, as my other comments in this thread show. I just think it's useful to properly situate and understand the arguments of your opponents. There are enough liars in the world; when we can take people at their word, we should try to do that.

Re: Yimby housing bills are wildly unpopular in the state (CA), a new poll shows

#24

Post by zapita »

Some context. 48hills is not a neutral party in this debate. Their founder Tim Redmond, who wrote this article, is one of the most strident leaders of the NIMBY movement in San Francisco. Whatever insights can be gathered from this poll, I would not trust him or his publication to present them fairly or accurately.

Re: Yimby housing bills are wildly unpopular in the state (CA), a new poll shows

#25

Post by zapita »

specialist wrote: post #22
helen___keller wrote: post #3

of course, most people feel like the level of density they have now is roughly the correct level density, it just needs to "be cheaper". Nevermind trillions in infrastructure spending on the assumption of low density suburban lifestyle. I'll fight for YIMBY policy til the bitter end, but unless there's a cultural shift back towards the idea of stronger property freedoms wrt real estate, I don't see us making strides…

> ...til the bitter end I'm of two minds. #1 Any progress has to done on the down low. Consider our history. Advocacy for fairness, justice, balance always triggers a massive backlash. Meanwhile, massive decades long investment strategy created a rich ecosystem for deeply unpopular policy agenda has resulted in a nearly complete takeover of our government and society. Don't storm the castle. Rock, paper, scissors. Th…

> Don't storm the castle. Rock, paper, scissors. There's got to be 100s of small wins which cement a lasting victory.

This is the strategy of the pro-housing coalition in the California legislature and it’s starting to pay off. San Francisco’s state senator Scott Wiener is a crucial player in that coalition. The fact that NIMBY outlets like 48hills are targeting him personally is a sign that he is delivering.

Re: Yimby housing bills are wildly unpopular in the state (CA), a new poll shows

#26

Post by credit_guy »

dionidium wrote: post #10
civilized wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worry that they understand too well the law of supply and demand, and prefer a small amount of designated affordable housing if it lets them salve their conscience over keeping the overall supply down, so that their own home values can continue to skyrocket. But I don't know for sure. Someone should research this... but they would need to be very skeptical and probing, not just taking people's statements at face va…

There's some truth to this, but it doesn't paint the full picture. In high-demand areas it's the land that's valuable, not the structures on the land. If Palo Alto, say, were upzoned prices wouldn't fall. Developers would love to buy that land and develop it. That's not to say that literally every single neighborhood would benefit from upzoning, but the areas most in need of upzoning do have this property. Yet homeow…

  >> People genuinely do not want more density in their neighborhoods
How is that not NIMBYism ?

Re: Yimby housing bills are wildly unpopular in the state (CA), a new poll shows

#27

Post by RNeff »

My small town in northern SF Bay Area has two apartment complex projects totaling over 600 apartments approved and signed off. Neither project can find financing. Projects have been on hold for three or four years. Just no funding. State is demanding town build lots more dwellings. Town has approved lots of new apartments. No funding is available.

Re: Yimby housing bills are wildly unpopular in the state (CA), a new poll shows

#28

Post by hindsightbias »

mullingitover wrote: post #2

> Only 12 percent of respondents said California needs more market-rate housing, and 61 percent said the state needs more affordable housing and housing for homeless people. I don't think most people understand that if market-rate housing isn't built en masse, and there's just 'affordable housing' allowed, the result will be mostly insanely expensive housing for the vast majority and a small token effort at affordabl…

Redmond (the author) would say for YIMBYs in the SF, "market rate" is synonymous with luxury. The "free market" will maximize returns, and the guy in the tent isn't their target market.

https://www.goethe.de/prj/tbp/en/bpa/exp.html

Re: Yimby housing bills are wildly unpopular in the state (CA), a new poll shows

#30

Post by perl4ever »

dionidium wrote: post #10
civilized wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worry that they understand too well the law of supply and demand, and prefer a small amount of designated affordable housing if it lets them salve their conscience over keeping the overall supply down, so that their own home values can continue to skyrocket. But I don't know for sure. Someone should research this... but they would need to be very skeptical and probing, not just taking people's statements at face va…

There's some truth to this, but it doesn't paint the full picture. In high-demand areas it's the land that's valuable, not the structures on the land. If Palo Alto, say, were upzoned prices wouldn't fall. Developers would love to buy that land and develop it. That's not to say that literally every single neighborhood would benefit from upzoning, but the areas most in need of upzoning do have this property. Yet homeow…

>In high-demand areas it's the land that's valuable, not the structures on the land

There's an old saying, tax something, get less of it. Often used to support some atavistic conservative position, it nonetheless seems relevant here.

  1. We want more affordable housing.
  2. The cost of land is a major problem.
  3. So, tax the land value mostly out of existence and don't tax the improvements at all.
It may sound crazy but why not give it a go? The key idea is that land is the one thing that you don't get less of when you tax it. Nor can you get more of it by taxing it less.

This is not my idea, it's based on economic ideas over a century old, although I wouldn't go so far as to say the only tax should be land value. Just maybe see if specifically real estate and its taxes could be unfucked in this way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

This is almost too perfect:

"One day in 1871 George went for a horseback ride and stopped to rest while overlooking San Francisco Bay. He later wrote of the revelation that he had:

I asked a passing teamster, for want of something better to say, what land was worth there. He pointed to some cows grazing so far off that they looked like mice, and said, "I don't know exactly, but there is a man over there who will sell some land for a thousand dollars an acre." Like a flash it came over me that there was the reason of advancing poverty with advancing wealth. With the growth of population, land grows in value, and the men who work it must pay more for the privilege"

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