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Gov. Newsom signs law to stop UC Berkeley enrollment cuts

latimes.com

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Re: Gov. Newsom signs law to stop UC Berkeley enrollment cuts

#51

Post by dougmccune »

Fauntleroy wrote: post #43
dougmccune wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so far from reality I have a hard time even knowing how to respond. Just in case people who don’t live here think the Bay Area cities have become this dystopian hell hole as described, no, they absolutely have not. Life is honestly nearly back to normal. I’m going out to dinner with a friend in Berkeley tonight. The streets will not be empty or filled with drug addicts.

I get what you're saying, but honestly both of your comments are true. You'll be going out to dinner in Berkeley with a friend while the streets are "filled" with our homeless problem. There are also definitely far fewer college students in the area than there were 2 years ago.

Homelessness has definitely increased in the last 2 years, as it has throughout all of California. The high cost of housing and income inequality are absolutely massive problems that have gotten significantly worse since the onset of the pandemic. We certainly have problems, and housing costs and drug overdoses are absolutely serious issues that are trending the wrong way. But to claim that Berkeley is a ghost town with almost no retail and half of restaurants shuttered is just pure fiction. I drove through campus the other day and a group of kids was playing beer pong on their front lawn. People are everywhere. The commercial areas are back with foot traffic. It’s not anything like the original commenter described. It’s like they went out once in March 2020 and then never left the house again.

Re: Gov. Newsom signs law to stop UC Berkeley enrollment cuts

#52

Post by kaibee »

rablackburn wrote: post #33
exogeny wrote: post #3

Good. NIMBYs are a huge problem, and any argument predicated on "preserving the character" is disingenuous at best and racist at worst. It's sad that legislation once designed to do so much good has been weaponized by such obstructionists.

> any argument predicated on "preserving the character" is disingenuous at best and racist at worst Calling NIMBYism's "preserving the character" argument disingenuous is probably going too far. That really is the problem many NIMBYs have with proposed developments. They like their neighbourhood exactly how it is, and if they could mandate perfect stasis they would. It may not be a persuasive argument, but in many ca…

> They like their neighbourhood exactly how it is, and if they could mandate perfect stasis they would.

Y'know, if a community wants to have _perfect_ stasis like that, it should be allowed. Which of course also means that when you sell your property, any gains in land value should also be taxed away and the property's max rent should also be locked in at purchase time. This would of course, even more preserve the character of the neighborhood. Otherwise it is too convenient for NIMBYs that their policy preference also happens to align with their economic interests.

(/s obviously, though a land value tax would be excellent)

Re: Gov. Newsom signs law to stop UC Berkeley enrollment cuts

#54

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

smugma wrote: post #46
bradly wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That'll never happen. One of the main reasons SF even has a housing crisis is because they refuse to allow people to build multiple levels upwards bc of zoning. Couldn't the Gov. sign another law stopping that as well? Similar to the legislation around single family housing lots?

What's more feasible is that CA HCD (Housing and Community Development) rejects SF's plan as not consistent with state law, as they recently did to LA[0] (even though LA's plan was really pro-housing overall, there were some equity issues that HCD was unhappy with). SF is considering allowing any property have a 4-plex (6 if at a corner), which may be used as a poison pill to continue to restrict development [1]. [0]…

Okay - serious question - with current building codes - how does anyone tear down a house in SF and rebuild anything - let alone split a narrow lot in 2 and build two duplexes on that?

The duplexes would be like 30% stairs, right? This seems like a $5M+ investment to end up with 4 500 sqft 1-window studios (at best) that would be absurdly cashflow negative, and none of them would sell for $1M... SB 9 economically does not seem to work out for almost every lot in SF proper.

So if SF doesn't want anything to happen - wouldn't the best thing be to just keep things as they are?

The SF proposal similarly seems like garbage. The vast majority of homes cannot just magically become quadplexes. There's not enough stairs to pass fire code. And, importantly, it's impossible to build enough.

On another note - isn't part of SB 9 that lots cannot be joined? If you want to build a practical multifamily that actually adds density - in SF - isn't it basically necessary to join AT LEAST 3 lots?

LA has bigger lots - so there has been tons of 3-storey tri-plexes that are quite livable being built. The economics are there.

Unless building codes change - how does SF do anything like this?

The real solution seems like to massively incentivize 5 over 1 mixed use complexes. Then you end up with cities closer to Berlin & Paris & Madrid which are all substantially denser than almost all US cities AND more livable.

Re: Gov. Newsom signs law to stop UC Berkeley enrollment cuts

#55

Post by vkou »

falcolas wrote: post #5

Seems like an odd move to undercut the checks and balances courts are supposed to have over legislation. Enacting a law solely to undercut a court's decision seems spurious, and may blow back on both the legislation and the school.

Courts can only serve as checks and balances in three things:

1. Determining whether an executive action is consistent with legislated law.

2. Determining whether a piece of legislature is consistent with a more important piece of legislature (Constitutionality.)

3. Determining how two contradictory pieces of legislature are to be interpreted in practice. (A superset of #2.)

A court rules on the current state of law. Based on that ruling, the legislature can change the law as it sees fit, within the constraints that it operates under.

They are not a back-door way for people to subvert the power of legislature to draft laws those people don't like. If they were, they would be utterly absurd, because without the power to draft legislature, nobody would have a check or balance over the courts.

Re: Gov. Newsom signs law to stop UC Berkeley enrollment cuts

#56

Post by shitlord »

jonahhorowitz wrote: post #13

Looks like the California legislature can move fast when it wants to. Now fix the rest of CEQA.

CEQA is just one symptom of the problem. Entrenched interests will use anything at their disposal to prevent development: zoning regulations, building codes, concerns about racial/socioeconomic equity, legal stalling tactics, etc.

Re: Gov. Newsom signs law to stop UC Berkeley enrollment cuts

#57

Post by gkop »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #54
smugma wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's more feasible is that CA HCD (Housing and Community Development) rejects SF's plan as not consistent with state law, as they recently did to LA[0] (even though LA's plan was really pro-housing overall, there were some equity issues that HCD was unhappy with). SF is considering allowing any property have a 4-plex (6 if at a corner), which may be used as a poison pill to continue to restrict development [1]. [0]…

Okay - serious question - with current building codes - how does anyone tear down a house in SF and rebuild anything - let alone split a narrow lot in 2 and build two duplexes on that? The duplexes would be like 30% stairs, right? This seems like a $5M+ investment to end up with 4 500 sqft 1-window studios (at best) that would be absurdly cashflow negative, and none of them would sell for $1M... SB 9 economically doe…

> So if SF doesn't want anything to happen - wouldn't the best thing be to just keep things as they are?

Yes

Re: Gov. Newsom signs law to stop UC Berkeley enrollment cuts

#58

Post by thatfrenchguy »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #54
smugma wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's more feasible is that CA HCD (Housing and Community Development) rejects SF's plan as not consistent with state law, as they recently did to LA[0] (even though LA's plan was really pro-housing overall, there were some equity issues that HCD was unhappy with). SF is considering allowing any property have a 4-plex (6 if at a corner), which may be used as a poison pill to continue to restrict development [1]. [0]…

Okay - serious question - with current building codes - how does anyone tear down a house in SF and rebuild anything - let alone split a narrow lot in 2 and build two duplexes on that? The duplexes would be like 30% stairs, right? This seems like a $5M+ investment to end up with 4 500 sqft 1-window studios (at best) that would be absurdly cashflow negative, and none of them would sell for $1M... SB 9 economically doe…

Given the size of the lots in SF, you could easily build 4-plexes that have a lot of windows. They already exist in all the pre-WW2 neighborhoods! Four stories will easily give you four units.
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