Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence • Hacker News Board

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#11

Post by johan_larson » Tue, Jun 07, 2016, 8:52 PM UTC

bllguo wrote: post #2

So how does the process of adding housing units work? If there's space as the article claims, and plenty of demand, whats holding things up? Bureaucracy? I'd like to see reasonable prices sometime in my life !

Zoning laws. And existing owners who staunchly oppose increasing density by building larger buildings.

A lot of people who bought their single-family homes years or decades ago now live in appealing low-density neighborhoods with home values that are sky-rocketing. They don't want their neighborhoods to change into concrete canyons, and the ever-rising values of their homes fund their retirements very nicely. They therefore fight any attempt to increase density by loosening zoning laws.

This behavior is exacerbated by how California handles its property taxes. Essentially, the property taxes on a home are fixed at the value of the home when you bought it, meaning people living in homes that have increased in value are paying disproportionately low property taxes. This tends to discourage people from moving, thereby reducing the liquidity of the home market.

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#12

Post by adrianratnapala » Tue, Jun 07, 2016, 8:53 PM UTC

baron816 wrote: post #9

Why are people so adamantly opposed to density? Well, I know the reason is to prop up the value of their homes, but if you think about places like New York, London, and Paris, that argument doesn't exactly hold. Those cities are incredibly dense and expensive, but people love living there enough to pay the high prices. People who can live anywhere choose to live there. I'm willing to bet that SV could triple its popu…

They pay high prices, but then they also vote for anti-building laws in those places too. (At least in NY and London, I don't know about about Paris).

In all cases, the restrictions are good for the people who are already there.

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#13

Post by xienze » Tue, Jun 07, 2016, 8:53 PM UTC

hx87 wrote: post #7

xienze wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that valley has pretty much every bit of flat land developed, so where are you going to put these high density developments without knocking down existing houses?

Allow residents of those existing houses to add additional floors, convert garages, add a granny flat, et cetera. Large parts of Boston consist of nothing but 3-story, 3-unit apartments, often with a live-in landlord, and it's quite dense.

I don't think there's enough people in the valley with the money and the desire to convert and rent out part of their house to do much of anything about the demand.

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#14

Post by epa » Tue, Jun 07, 2016, 8:54 PM UTC

baron816 wrote: post #9

Why are people so adamantly opposed to density? Well, I know the reason is to prop up the value of their homes, but if you think about places like New York, London, and Paris, that argument doesn't exactly hold. Those cities are incredibly dense and expensive, but people love living there enough to pay the high prices. People who can live anywhere choose to live there. I'm willing to bet that SV could triple its popu…

As a home owner in this area, the majority likely already have double or triple unrealized gains on their home value. The potential to lift that to 'quadruple', for the cost of increased noise, traffic, people, etc is probably not worth the the incremental gain (in theory).

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#15

Post by Johnny555 » Tue, Jun 07, 2016, 8:54 PM UTC

baron816 wrote: post #9

Why are people so adamantly opposed to density? Well, I know the reason is to prop up the value of their homes, but if you think about places like New York, London, and Paris, that argument doesn't exactly hold. Those cities are incredibly dense and expensive, but people love living there enough to pay the high prices. People who can live anywhere choose to live there. I'm willing to bet that SV could triple its popu…

I think it's because they are so attached to their cars, and more density brings more traffic.

Especially when starting with a low-density neighborhood that's poorly served by transit and everyone that lives there is tied to their car.

Places like NYC, London, and Paris have great public transit systems, it's easy to live there without a car, but much harder to do that in spread out Silicon Valley, even if you live next to a VTA light rail station, be prepared for a very long trip if you want to go across town.

I live in mid-density housing in a mostly low density area, and many of my neighbors fought hard against a new high density apartment building being built nearby -- 2 of the most common concerns raised were traffic and street parking (oh, and crime was also raised -- apparently they thought that criminals were going to move in to those $3000 apartments).

It's been nearly 2 years, and those concerns are mostly unfounded -- I haven't seen any significant increase in commute time car traffic (though I bike to work, so maybe I just don't see it), there's usually still street parking available in the neighborhood, and afaik, there's been no uptick in burglary.

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#16

Post by pjlegato » Tue, Jun 07, 2016, 8:55 PM UTC

baron816 wrote: post #9

Why are people so adamantly opposed to density? Well, I know the reason is to prop up the value of their homes, but if you think about places like New York, London, and Paris, that argument doesn't exactly hold. Those cities are incredibly dense and expensive, but people love living there enough to pay the high prices. People who can live anywhere choose to live there. I'm willing to bet that SV could triple its popu…

As elsewhere in the bay area, many residents of SV want the physical structure of their neighborhood to be forever frozen in amber as it was circa 1960, and they've enacted robust zoning laws to that effect.

Silicon Valley was a quaint, sleepy semi-rural suburb in 1960, and that's how they want it to stay, at least in terms of physical appearance.

The problem is that, despite these zoning laws, they can't actually stop people from moving in from other regions, which causes property values to skyrocket. You can easily pay 2m there for an ordinary 3 bedroom ranch house that would be 70k in most of the US.

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#17

Post by xienze » Tue, Jun 07, 2016, 8:55 PM UTC

hx87 wrote: post #8

beachstartup wrote: post #6

i went to school with a lot of wealthy kids from the bay area. they and their families simply do not want to develop the area any further, in order to keep housing as high as possible and the area exclusive as possible. in private conversation they talk about it openly. personally i don't think it's much more complicated than that.

Like many other problems in California, this one can be largely traced back to a single source: Proposition 13

Which was created to combat the problem of grandma kicked out of her house because she can't afford her property taxes. How do you get around that?

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#18

Post by TulliusCicero » Tue, Jun 07, 2016, 8:55 PM UTC

baron816 wrote: post #9

Why are people so adamantly opposed to density? Well, I know the reason is to prop up the value of their homes, but if you think about places like New York, London, and Paris, that argument doesn't exactly hold. Those cities are incredibly dense and expensive, but people love living there enough to pay the high prices. People who can live anywhere choose to live there. I'm willing to bet that SV could triple its popu…

> Why are people so adamantly opposed to density?

Because they don't just like it. They want a neighborhood that's completely detached single-family homes and where driving is hyper-dominant, and if that means they have to support policies that hurt middle- and working-class newcomers, so be it. Of course, many of the people 'opposed to density' are okay with density somewhere in the bay area, just not where they live, hence the term NIMBY.

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#19

Post by disposeofnick9 » Tue, Jun 07, 2016, 8:56 PM UTC

I live in a VW somewhere in Silicon Valley.

Ask me anything (respectful, non-troll)

EDIT: I don't usually bite, but when I do, I won't eat much.

Re: Silicon Valley's housing crisis, in one sentence

#20

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Jun 07, 2016, 8:56 PM UTC

baron816 wrote: post #9

Why are people so adamantly opposed to density? Well, I know the reason is to prop up the value of their homes, but if you think about places like New York, London, and Paris, that argument doesn't exactly hold. Those cities are incredibly dense and expensive, but people love living there enough to pay the high prices. People who can live anywhere choose to live there. I'm willing to bet that SV could triple its popu…

> Well, I know the reason is to prop up the value of their homes

Yes, but not in the way you expect, which is why your comparison fails.

In many cases, its not to prop up the market value of their homes, but the features of the community which supports the personal value they place in their homes: its "I live here, and I'd like to keep it the kind of place it is that led me to choose to live here".