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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

#181

Post by delfinom »

astrange wrote: post #177
xvedejas wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Seattle allows single stair buildings.

US building codes aren't national but local. The local may point to one of the national association standards like the IBC or NFPA standards and such. But they then add/remove from those standards as they like.

This is a problem people need to take up on local level.

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

#182

Post by eeghyrdcg »

earthwalker99 wrote: post #128
fasthands9 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Local chapters of the Sierra Club still routinely oppose many types of infill housing development. I believe the national org is now YIMBY and most chapters are, but there are certainly many progressive/environmental orgs that have blocked construction for decades. https://sf.curbed.com/2020/2/6/21122825/affordable-housing-h...

Are you trying to make a point? If so, what is it? The Sierra Club are liberal activists with zero historically left wing affiliations or common causes. It's entirely irrelevant as far as I can tell.

In my experience in the US people use “left”, “liberal”, “socialist” etc synonymously (and mostly pejoratively). Same for “right”, “conservative”, etc.

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

#183

Post by stephencanon »

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #153
crotchfire wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Also, grad student housing is in Albany, right on the border with Berkeley. So anyone living there doesn't actually live in Berkeley.

Most grad students live in apartments rented from private landlords, not university housing.

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

#184

Post by onos »

zozbot234 wrote: post #164
josuepeq wrote: post #109

I like the idea! I also like Dingbats. And parking. Removing parking minimums is a noble idea, but one thing I have noticed is that the new “parking free” apartment buildings in San Francisco, such as the Tenderloin and SOMA, are having a hard time getting all of their units filled, even with prices slashed. This is a problem that buildings with parking seem to not have. Even with good transit, the city is much easie…

> the city is much easier to navigate by car. Cities stop being "easy to navigate by car" when they have too many cars around. And car-congested streets are also very hostile to bikes and pedestrians, so it's very hard to correct the problem once it gets ingrained. So it makes sense to give the latter uses high priority, and keep car use as a rare exception.

Therefore, we should ban willing builders from delivering things their customers want.

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

#185

Post by CalRobert »

josuepeq wrote: post #109

I like the idea! I also like Dingbats. And parking. Removing parking minimums is a noble idea, but one thing I have noticed is that the new “parking free” apartment buildings in San Francisco, such as the Tenderloin and SOMA, are having a hard time getting all of their units filled, even with prices slashed. This is a problem that buildings with parking seem to not have. Even with good transit, the city is much easie…

One of the issues is that your car makes it harder for other people to get around by bike or bus, or walking.

Also, if you price street parking appropriately people don't need to circle for blocks.

Cars _are_ exclusive. They're one of those things where the more people get them, the worse the experience is for existing users. It makes sense to price their negative externalities appropriately.

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

#186

Post by CalRobert »

jjav wrote: post #141
chottocharaii wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay so if that’s the case the developers/owners will work out the most economic model; whether it’s best to satisfy demand with bays or without bays This is self-correcting. Minimums only ensure an inappropriate amount of parking will be built

> This is self-correcting. It can't be if the regulation prohibits building parking for each home, as in this case. Building housing units without parking just externalizes the problem and makes the whole neighborhood worse. People still need a car, so if they can't have parking they will have to find it on the streets somewhere, which is worse for everyone involved. I've lived in a neighborhood where apartment build…

This is a good reason to charge appropriately for street parking.

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

#187

Post by Ar-Curunir »

infecto wrote: post #159
tialaramex wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because you don't need a car if you live in a well designed city. I live in a UK city and I've read the plans for the building I live in, it was submitted twice before it was accepted. Nobody had a problem with the interiors, they're nice which is why I bought one. But the original plan was rejected in the 1980s for lack of parking -everybody needs two cars right?. The same plan (with internal upgrades, nobody w…

The Bay Area is far from a well designed city with fairly limited public transportation. Yes there is public transportation but it’s relatively limited compared to the places you may want to go.

Berkeley is decent in this regard compared to the rest of the Bay Area, in part because a large fraction of the population does not own cars.

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

#188

Post by Ar-Curunir »

infecto wrote: post #165
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.

I hate this and think it’s ideas like this that are dangerous. Thinking like this is discriminating against lower socioeconomic status individuals. This works well for the commuter going to downtown SF for their 9-5; taking weekend trips with a zip car. What about people who don’t work 9-5, or have a job that is not an easy bart hop away. Ideas like this are just has bad as the authors interpretation of past laws.

Poor people take public transit at a much higher percentage than well-off people. Making public transit more accessible would be a net win.

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

#189

Post by CalRobert »

jjav wrote: post #147
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/...

> > Upzoning does NOT reduce per-unit prices > Do you have a single data point to back up your assertion? Is there any case of increased density causing a reduction in housing costs? Manhattan is the most dense area in the US. It is also the most expensive. If density reduced cost, one might think Manhattan should be the cheapest? Can you mention a city that massively increased density and the consequence was reduced…

Well there's this https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3532027

""" Notably, intensively-developed properties decrease in value relative to similar dwellings that were not upzoned, showing that the large-scale upzoning had an immediate depreciative effect on pre-existing intensive housing. """

Or this https://research.upjohn.org/up_workingpapers/307/

""" . Next, I combine the address histories with a simulation model to estimate that building 100 new market-rate units leads 45-70 and 17-39 people to move out of below-median and bottom-quintile income tracts, respectively, with almost all of the effect occurring within five years. This suggests that new construction reduces demand and loosens the housing market in low- and middle-income areas, even in the short run. """ To give some random examples

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

#190

Post by nemo44x »

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.

You think it’s weird that these types of people want to force others to be reliant on the state? That individual liberties are cast aside to empower the state even more?
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