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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

#211

Post by rr808 »

panick21_ wrote: post #84
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 li…

I think you dont get my point. I lived in London for a decade. There are lots of small units but always parks in the area. Here now the apartments are bigger and more spacious but there are very few small parks. In my area population is up 4x and they built one small extension to the school.

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

#212

Post by earthwalker99 »

eeghyrdcg wrote: post #182
earthwalker99 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

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

#214

Post by appplication »

tialaramex wrote: post #157
floydnoel wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is 0.5 spaces per unit, not 3+

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…

I lived without a car in SF for years. You can certainly get by, especially with e.g. getaround. But there are many valid uses for having a car in the city, even if you live by transit. The primary one is that not everyone’s work will be transit accessible.

Mandated minimums for parking are stupid, but so are mandated maximums. This is one of those cases where the invisible hand will approximate an alright solution (and I say that as someone who finds market efficiency arguments generally uncompelling). Even along transit lines, some developers may choose to add extra parking as a unique value proposition to those who need it.

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

#215

Post by whimsicalism »

RuggedPineapple wrote: post #151
crotchfire wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Are you sure about that? Only federal offices have a baked in requirement that voters be citizens. On the municipal level many west coast cities have opened up local elections to all residents regardless of citizenship. I don't know about Berkeley specifically (its been close to 20 years since I went to school there) but its neighbors Oakland[1] and SF[2] both have opened at least some local elections to non-citizen…

Almost all of those electoral expansions to non-citizens that I am aware of are limited just to school board elections.

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

#216

Post by whimsicalism »

appplication wrote: post #214
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…

I lived without a car in SF for years. You can certainly get by, especially with e.g. getaround. But there are many valid uses for having a car in the city, even if you live by transit. The primary one is that not everyone’s work will be transit accessible. Mandated minimums for parking are stupid, but so are mandated maximums. This is one of those cases where the invisible hand will approximate an alright solution (…

contra this - I tried this for a while and while getting around much of SF is fine, leaving the city basically became too much work to be worth it. there are also certain neighborhoods (especially in the northwest and southeast) that basically become inaccessible

getaround is quite expensive tbh, it was much better to just have a relationship with an existing car rental that you could just muni to and pick up - difference between ~$40 and ~$100

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

#217

Post by jon_richards »

appplication wrote: post #214
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…

I lived without a car in SF for years. You can certainly get by, especially with e.g. getaround. But there are many valid uses for having a car in the city, even if you live by transit. The primary one is that not everyone’s work will be transit accessible. Mandated minimums for parking are stupid, but so are mandated maximums. This is one of those cases where the invisible hand will approximate an alright solution (…

There’s a very real possibility it’s a tragedy of the commons. Each individual wants to be near public transit, but they also want a car to supplement weekend trips and such. But once everyone gets a car, ridership falls and the public transit disappears.

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

#218

Post by amluto »

infecto wrote: post #204
infecto wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just adding to my opinion. I might be totally wrong but it always felt to me that the Bay Area suffers from the problem of doing things that feel good but don’t improve outcomes for people. Regional transit in the Bay Area is pretty miserable unless your destination is near a BART line. Don’t get me wrong, it can work but it’s fairly limiting. For those with higher disposable income it’s no issue at all. Take Bart an…

> For those with higher disposable income it’s no issue at all.

Not for those with small children. Unless you have a private chauffeur, transporting a family to somewhere without parking that is poorly served by transit is a pain. And if you’re going somewhere where traffic patterns make light rail favorable but you need last-mile transportation that isn’t well-served by transit, I guess you need two chauffeurs so that you send one ahead to meet you at the fair end of the train?

My theory has always been that, if policy makers want people to use cars less, they should make the alternatives better instead of making cars worse.

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

#219

Post by NoPedantsThanks »

theluketaylor wrote: post #75
NoPedantsThanks wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How exactly is this a "more handouts for developers"? Removing zoning restrictions just makes building possible, it doesn't create any subsidies for building. Handouts for developers is opening good agricultural land for development. Fixing generations of terrible zoning for infill development is just unlocking existing sites to be more than exclusively single family homes. > instead of mandating the redevelopment of…

Maybe you haven't looked into how these laws work, but they are handouts to developers because they guarantee that a developer can buy one house and put up 10 units (in CA, for example) without any opposition or time-consuming permitting process. So when an elderly person with out-of-state children dies, those children are going to sell to the quickest and most-secure bidder... a developer with a cash offer.

And you make a lot of unsupported assumptions about commercial areas all being contaminated. It's absurd. Commercial areas are rapidly redeveloped all the time. I've seen condos go up on the site of an auto-paint shop in a matter of months, even in CA.

Then there are the shams regarding "mass transit corridors," used to excuse even more concessions to developers. You know what's considered a "mass transit corridor" in CA? ONE ZIPCAR in a four-block area. ONE. And what happens when that car gets moved or destroyed? Tear down all the buildings?

And, even if it were possible to integrate groundwater management effectively while allowing massive ground coverage, it's NOT BEING DONE. It's too late; the laws are on the books. Gross omissions like these testify that these laws are handouts and shams, hurriedly rushed through during holiday sessions or piggybacked onto other bills to avoid public scrutiny.

So people can petulantly downvote all they want. The fact remains that these bills and these ridiculous claims that destroying single-family-home neighborhoods will "solve the homeless crisis" are a massive rip-off that won't solve the problem.

Meanwhile, in addition to the disused properties gathering weeds in non-residential areas today, states are ignoring the biggest threat to home ownership: corporate buy-ups of entire neighborhoods. It's well-documented that home ownership is the best way to build wealth, but the scourge of corporate home-hoarding is putting homes PERMANENTLY out of reach for millions more Americans every year. Yet it's ignored by politicians.

Gee, I wonder why.

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

#220

Post by getpost »

Good luck building apartments in active mudslide areas. Berkeley residents will be lucky not to lose the single family dwellings that are already built. Slide hazards will only get worse with ongoing climate change. See the map at the following link!

https://www.berkeleyside.org/2023/01/20/risk-of-major-landsl...

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