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Berkeley's upzoning would be among nation's largest

darrellowens.substack.com

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

#171

Post by atlasunshrugged »

HPsquared wrote: post #163
atlasunshrugged wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of this gets solved if the city cracks down on crime and cleans up public transport. I've lived in downtown SF (5th and Mission) as well as across the Bay Area and avoided public transport other than Caltrain (even then, the SF station was not great) because of so much vagrancy, people doing drugs on the bus and metro, and just being worried about personal safety. I personally still didn't buy a car and…

Taxis are just awful for traffic: every journey they drive twice as far as a private car (need to drive to the customer first, then take them to destination) and they spend all day driving around, idling etc. Granted if they are actively driving around, they don't take parking spaces. But they increase congestion instead.

I agree, but I wonder what the counterfactual climate impact is for someone who takes a few taxi rides a week but without them would have to buy a car instead (which of course also then needs physical space for parking)

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

#172

Post by infecto »

iav wrote: post #138
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.

If a developer is replacing a 2 story, 20 unit building with 20 parking spots with a new 5 story, 50 unit building, they shouldn’t be able to have more than 25 parking spots, as that is already a net increase from the status quo and will thereby increase traffic and congestion (the street isn’t getting wider…). The logical fallacy here is that it assumes those 25 units without a spot won’t just street park.

Which I would agree with but they Bay Area is in deadlock when it comes to roads and public transportation.

You cannot build better roads because cars are bad, so rush hour is just a polluting nightmare. You cannot have better public transportation because there will be at least one person that going to block it for any number of reasons.

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

#173

Post by astrange »

crotchfire wrote: post #144
givemeethekeys wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Not until a majority of Berkeley residents are politically active renters.

And remember, international students can't vote. That includes a lot of the grad students.

They can still email the city council though.

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

#174

Post by sokoloff »

HPsquared wrote: post #163
atlasunshrugged wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of this gets solved if the city cracks down on crime and cleans up public transport. I've lived in downtown SF (5th and Mission) as well as across the Bay Area and avoided public transport other than Caltrain (even then, the SF station was not great) because of so much vagrancy, people doing drugs on the bus and metro, and just being worried about personal safety. I personally still didn't buy a car and…

Taxis are just awful for traffic: every journey they drive twice as far as a private car (need to drive to the customer first, then take them to destination) and they spend all day driving around, idling etc. Granted if they are actively driving around, they don't take parking spaces. But they increase congestion instead.

Surely the average deadhead to pickup leg is shorter than the occupied leg, right? If I think of my typical Uber experience, I’m often 3-6 minutes from being picked up and I think I’m usually in the Uber for 15-30 minutes (with occasional longer outliers and almost never a shorter outlier).

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

#175

Post by astrange »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #130
ajmurmann wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how markets work

Isn't that exactly how markets work? Isn't that exactly the whole point of capitalism? If people with money want strawberries, they buy more strawberries. Price of strawberries goes up. Farmers who could choose to grow strawberries or some other thing decide that they want to grow strawberries because the price is high. More strawberries are grown. The people who have the money to buy the strawberries indirectly caus…

It isn't how markets work because people with more money don't automatically want to spend more money on strawberries.

Rather the inverse; they have more money because they haven't spent it on things yet.

Although it's not a good general metaphor because strawberries are a consumption good and not used for your income like a car is.

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

#176

Post by astrange »

babyshake wrote: post #102
aorloff wrote: post #95

Berkeley is where 1/4 of the elected City Councilmember quit in the last month, one due to harassment and threats (People's Park appearing to be the exacerbating issue) and the other because she is fed up with Berkeley politics, not so much that she isn't still running for mayor, and not because of the protestors who were kinda talking over her big announcement, and also not because of threats like the other guy. We…

Can you speak more to the comedy and jazz in Berkeley and where to find it? Also feel free to suggest any food spots, especially ones that aren't as obvious as Viks, Cheeseboard, Chez Panisse, etc.

There's the poutine place.

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

#177

Post by astrange »

xvedejas wrote: post #140
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.

My colleague lives in a European city which has undergone a building boom, and it was surprising to me how density doesn't just mean more people per area, but also more area per person. A very spacious apartment is much more affordable there than in any major US city, and more people therefore get more space to themselves. It's kind of amazing how much more livable that arrangement is.

Spacious apartments aren't nearly as possible in the US because of various deficiencies in our building codes, one major one being that single stair buildings aren't allowed, which means apartment buildings have to be built like hotels.

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

#178

Post by astrange »

crotchfire wrote: post #145
no_wizard wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know I said this in another thread but all zoning reform should really be coupled with a Land Value Tax That would encourage development and encourage making additional reforms to accommodate any unseen / unaddressed issues with the reform

I'm afraid you are about to be swarmed by the HN downvoting hordes, for having the impudence to say something actually intelligent here.

LVT is unconstitutional in California (prop 13) and wouldn't help because boomers genuinely believe 1969 was the perfect year and nothing can be allowed to look different from it; you cannot motivate them to stop this with money.

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

#179

Post by astrange »

jjav wrote: post #146
BirdieNZ wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upzoning increases land prices. It only results in a decrease in per-unit average house prices if it is accompanied with development (more housing units per square metre of land). Upzoning doesn't guarantee increased development as developers only build when it makes financial sense to do so, and flooding the market with more units would decrease the potential profit they can make. Existing residents who don't develo…

> Now, they still might revolt for other reasons, like not wanting undesirables like people poorer than themselves to move in next door, or not wanting to see as many houses in their morning walk, but from a financial sense, upzoning is a big positive for existing landowners. This is a very uncharitable take. People choose a place to live based on criteria they like. If you want to live in a super dense city you migh…

> This is a very uncharitable take.

You should go to a city council meeting and see how NIMBY homeowners behave. It is impossible to be worse than they are and it's impossible to describe them uncharitably.

You can say "they just like their neighborhoods" all you like but they hate poor people, young people, richer people, anyone who might park a car in front of their house, anyone who might use all the parking spots at the grocery store, any men (they'll molest their daughters, you know), and anyone who might approve a cell phone tower (it'll give them 5G cancer).

The above will be communicated half in claims they've lived there longer than you and you're a developer shill / corporate plant and half in death threats.

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

#180

Post by astrange »

BirdieNZ wrote: post #6
m3kw9 wrote: post #3

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

Upzoning increases land prices. It only results in a decrease in per-unit average house prices if it is accompanied with development (more housing units per square metre of land). Upzoning doesn't guarantee increased development as developers only build when it makes financial sense to do so, and flooding the market with more units would decrease the potential profit they can make. Existing residents who don't develo…

> Upzoning doesn't guarantee increased development as developers only build when it makes financial sense to do so, and flooding the market with more units would decrease the potential profit they can make.

This doesn't really matter; developers aren't a cartel and they don't care if the margin on new projects goes down. They only have to care that the smaller margin goes to them and not someone else.

(To the extent they are a cartel, it's because they got one enforced by downzoning, because only legal force can keep people in the cartel.)

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