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Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

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Re: Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

#81

Post by tptacek »

NoPedantsThanks wrote: post #69
j7ake wrote: post #16

Excellent news! What a relief for a city dominated by struggling students to have more housing per area.

Excellent news! More handouts for developers, targeting already-residential neighborhoods instead of mandating the redevelopment of blighted formerly-industrial and -commercial areas and dying malls with boarded-up Macy's and Fry's. And in a drought- and heat-stricken state, let's pave over what little soil remains, to prevent groundwater percolation and exacerbate urban "heat islands." This article regurgitates all…

"Developers" is the term of art for people who build housing.

Re: Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

#82

Post by panick21_ »

NoPedantsThanks wrote: post #69
j7ake wrote: post #16

Excellent news! What a relief for a city dominated by struggling students to have more housing per area.

Excellent news! More handouts for developers, targeting already-residential neighborhoods instead of mandating the redevelopment of blighted formerly-industrial and -commercial areas and dying malls with boarded-up Macy's and Fry's. And in a drought- and heat-stricken state, let's pave over what little soil remains, to prevent groundwater percolation and exacerbate urban "heat islands." This article regurgitates all…

> More handouts for developers

Just like giving homeless people food is just handouts to farmers.

> targeting already-residential neighborhoods instead of mandating the redevelopment of blighted formerly-industrial and -commercial areas and dying malls with boarded-up Macy's and Fry's.

No neighborhood should ever allowed to be only restricted single family home. There is absolutely no justification for that what so ever.

Things like four-plex are the very minimum that should be allowed.

In addition to that you should also rearrange the tax and fee structures. The reality is, single family homes never actual pay their own way. They are a subsidy from the poor to the rich. Single family homes should pay more taxes and more fees.

And in addition to that, you shouldn't allow housing only zones, no zone should be without low-impact commercial. In Japans system, there is no purely housing zone for example.

But you are also correct that there is far to much commercially zoned. All commercial zones should be approved for mixed use zoning.

> "The ensuing housing shortage caused mass homelessness." What a crock. That doesn't even make sense.

They are called homeless. Not enough people have housing. But I'm sure actual houses have nothing to do with it.

Re: Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

#83

Post by lmm »

jahewson wrote: post #39
BirdieNZ wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

485m² of land in one of the highest-income urban areas in the world is for rich people only, yeah.

Not even top 25 in the US. Median household income in Berkeley, CA is $97,834.

Berkely is in the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward MSA, which had the fourth-highest per-capita income on the 2010 US census and is likely to place higher on the more recent one. It's absolutely one of the highest-income metropolitan areas in the world.

Re: Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

#84

Post by panick21_ »

rr808 wrote: post #62

Are they going to add train lines, schools and parks? Or is it just cram in more people into a space until its unbearable. I live in a Jersey City which has sprouted lots of new apartments. Lack of parks and schools are a real problem, at least we have good train service though.

I mean is just unbearable. To actually to not have a city with 80+% of single family zoning. Just insane, how can they survive having 2 family live on a plot of land.

Single family homes are literally the least efficient use of space. They are the reason there isn't enough space for parks in the first place.

I agree that you might more schools, but given how much lower the birthrate is, the existing facilities are likely ok.

Re: Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

#85

Post by cyberax »

quesera wrote: post #79
cyberax wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is because the Bay Area is a highly desirable place to live and will continue to get more so as climate change gets worse but the Bay Area stays gorgeous. The thing is, there are plenty of much nicer places even in CA. Just go north a bit, and there's plenty of space to build housing near Napa or Sacramento. Yet people somehow have to be crammed into the SFBA. Why?

Because Sacramento is hot, suburban, and has limited employment options. And Napa is dry, rural, and has no employment options. SFBA OTOH: Temperate, verdant, urban, and swimming in jobs. I do like Sacramento and Napa. But they are very different lifestyles, despite being so close. Also, it's very difficult to build in Napa, due to water availability. Sacramento is easier, and it gets even easier as you get farther o…

> And Napa is dry, rural

Napa is more green than the SFBA in general. It also is about as hot as most of the Bay Area outside of SF.

> and has no jobs.

Good. Keep asking questions. What caused the lack of jobs?

Re: Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

#86

Post by tptacek »

tzs wrote: post #33
m3kw9 wrote: post #3

Wouldn’t the residents revolt as it could bring their house prices down

I don't know if things work the same way in California as they do up here in Washington, but up here I see a large number of complaints from current home owners about rising house prices. That's because rising house prices means rising property taxes.

It's a huge problem here: the hottest areas of Chicagoland have the best schools, in large part because property tax levies fund the schools, which sets up a vicious cycle: voters will approve arbitrary levy increases for the schools because they assume (justifiably) that they're getting the money back in house values. Their kids graduate, they don't care about the schools anymore, so they sell their (appreciated) house and move to a bigger house or a loft or whatever. But at some point --- we crossed this point 20 years ago --- the schools spend more on your kids than you will pay in property taxes in the window of time your kids are in schools. I'll have to live in Oak Park for at least 12 more years to pay D97 and D200 back, and my kids are both in their 20s. Meanwhile, property taxes are being driven up so much that the only rational buyer for a house is a family planning to put kids through our schools, because all the lots are SFZ freestanding houses, and the property taxes are so high.

Re: Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

#87

Post by panick21_ »

theluketaylor wrote: post #9
thereisnospork wrote: post #2

A surprisingly progressive proposal coming from Berkeley, but of course they are still playing games with parking minimums maximums, setback requirements, and income segregation. Seems like it would be a step forward at least.

This is a real danger lurking among the zoning reform efforts we are seeing all over the english-speaking world. There are so many levers baked into the zoning code to prevent development that it's easy to produce a policy that appears to unwind the restrictions without actually permitting any real progress. My city upzoned the entire city from 1 to 3 units per lot across the whole city a few years ago, which is grea…

Totally agree. The whole zoning code needs to be reworked.

In addition to what you mentioned. There are also issues with building regulation as well.

The city should work with architects to develop models for housing types that are pre-approved. Such as four-plex that fit into single family neighborhoods. So developers can just pick those up and get building in a short period of time.

Re: Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

#88

Post by cyberax »

apsurd wrote: post #73
cyberax wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course course I want just enough of my own private solitude to retreat to as well. But sign me up for density! Then why do you want density? Do you want other people to live in bunk beds in 40 years?

because it's not mutually exclusive. i feel like that's why your arguments are ultimately hard to parse. I really am ok with living with less possible surface area if it means i can have walkable access to all civilization's great ideas and achievements. that doesn't mean ZERO surface area. and it doesn't mean i would take a mcmansion on 5 acres if i could. Really though, I wouldn't if you gave it to me!

> because it's not mutually exclusive.

Yes, it is. It's a zero-sum game, and dense cities are more economically advantageous for companies. They allow them to offload their externalities onto their employees, via increased living costs.

Tokyo is a GREAT example. It's now so dense and expensive that some people are forced to live in microapartments, where you can cook your food while sitting on a toilet. And of course, they are priced out of ever dreaming about buying a real apartment.

And the cities nearby keep dying, just a couple of hours away from Tokyo, you can buy a house for basically free.

Re: Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

#89

Post by theluketaylor »

cyberax wrote: post #71
kasey_junk wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a single data point to back up your assertion? Because the places I’ve seen that have embraced upzoning seem to be counter your assertion https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/...

SF has not built anything, but rents decreased much more than in MN: https://www.sfchronicle.com/realestate/article/sf-rent-price... Rents right now are an unreliable indicator because they are heavily affected by the downtown blights that are spreading in many cities. Sale prices are much more reliable, and Minneapolis prices (as expected) grew: https://www.redfin.com/city/10943/MN/Minneapolis/housing-mar...

Zoning alone can only affect prices when there is an arbitrage opportunity to build something in location A that isn't possible in nearby location B. When entire cities upzone across the board like Minneapolis there is no arbitrage opportunity, so prices are not going up specifically because the zoning was changed. Prices are increasing because there is a chronic shortage of places to lives near economic opportunity and high demand to live somewhere you can make a living.

Re: Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

#90

Post by ravetcofx »

amluto wrote: post #74

> If a builder chooses to add parking and they’re located 0.5 miles within a transit corridor, they are limited to one space for every two homes. This seems weird. I’m all in favor of getting rid of legislated parking minimums, but it seems to me that, if a developer thinks that adding parking is more economical, they should be allowed to do so.

This will prevent developers from keeping old poor habits around of bad land use
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