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To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

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Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#291

Post by humanrebar »

kelnos wrote: post #278
asimpletune wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not saying my opinion one way or another, but there is definitely a “natural right” just in the simple sense of physically being present before others.

How so? All "rights" are manufactured by humans. We would like to say that "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are "natural rights", but they're not: a bunch of people just agree that they should be, so they are. (And imperfectly, at that! We wouldn't have capital punishment or prisons if we actually believed in these rights.) And if we recognized "physically being present before others" as a natural right,…

I agree with you about housing but natural rights exist regardless of legal recognition. Rape, murder, genocide, and slavery are all wrong regardless what a bunch of people agree about. That's what natural rights are. They are things that can be violated by an all powerful dictator. But the dictator would be wrong and terrible for doing so.

That being said, I'm hard pressed to call desired housing density a natural right.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#292

Post by pcwalton »

Naritai wrote: post #244
matte_black wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point though can we declare the choice has been made and just lean in to whatever conclusion has been decided? It seems like we’re always stuck in an indecisive state of choosing between the interests of the wealthy and the interests of the struggling, and we can never get out unless we make the “right” choice (which is always implied to be the interests of the struggling) Maybe the choice has already been ma…

Clearly everybody who already owns a home is heavily leaning into the 'make housing as expensive as possible' conclusion. Where these sorts of articles comes from is observers who would like to change that narrative.

> Clearly everybody who already owns a home is heavily leaning into the 'make housing as expensive as possible' conclusion.

Not me, and not lots of other homeowners, judging by the polls. NIMBYism is common, but most Californians do want more housing constructed.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#293

Post by pcwalton »

TomVDB wrote: post #70
rb808 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If density increases the people who will benefit the most are current landowners. If you have single family home on a big lot, its value will go up many times if you can suddenly build an apartment building on it.

Most current home owners have no interest in selling to a developer or developing ourselves. We just want to continue live in conditions that were present when we bought it: a nice house with a garden on a quiet street. Yes, that is selfish, but I'm not going to apologize for not wanting an apartment complex next door. That said, I'm not going to vote against a state level politician who wants to relax zoning laws to…

> We just want to continue live in conditions that were present when we bought it: a nice house with a garden on a quiet street.

Speak for yourself. Not all homeowners want less density. I wouldn't have become a homeowner if the only houses available had yards with picket fences.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#295

Post by pcwalton »

TomVDB wrote: post #216
davidw wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conditions do change though, even if the buildings don't: you'll gradually be surrounded by different people as prices climb and climb. Perhaps, sooner or later, they'll look down on you as the undesirable they don't want nearby.

Why do you make the assumption somebody is looking down on somebody else? It has nothing to do with the inhabitants. It's about the ugliness of these kind of buildings and everything that goes with increased density (traffic, street parking etc.)

> It has nothing to do with the inhabitants.

No, it frequently does have to do with the inhabitants. That's why you saw Forest Hill homeowners kill an affordable housing development because "the new development would house 'severely mentally ill' and 'severely drug addicted' people" [1].

[1]: http://www.sfexaminer.com/city-pulls-funding-150-unit-forest...

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#296

Post by debt »

matte_black wrote: post #150
sampo wrote: post #25

Just quoting the last paragraph. This is the kind of honesty people need. > Intellectual honesty requires taking numbers seriously. Either we prioritize making the Bay Area affordable for all of us or we don’t. The less housing we build, the more wealth will be trapped in high housing prices. Unless we decide to grow our housing stock to accommodate our economy, we are continuing to choose the interests of those who…

At what point though can we declare the choice has been made and just lean in to whatever conclusion has been decided? It seems like we’re always stuck in an indecisive state of choosing between the interests of the wealthy and the interests of the struggling, and we can never get out unless we make the “right” choice (which is always implied to be the interests of the struggling) Maybe the choice has already been ma…

“It seems like we’re always stuck in an indecisive state of choosing between the interests of the wealthy and the interests of the struggling,”

Ha. History seems to side with the wealthy on that one.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#297

Post by irq11 »

nerfhammer wrote: post #169
irq11 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tokyo is still very expensive relative to Japanese incomes. Is it more expensive than SF on an adjusted basis? Hard to say, but it’s not as clear as you’re asserting. If anything, magacities like Tokyo and London show us that you can build like crazy, and still end up a very expensive place to live.

here's a thorough cost comparison breakdown: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Tokyo rent in particular is drastically less expensive

Again: you can’t just compare rent values without adjusting for income. Japanese people aren’t earning San Francisco salaries.

The number you want there is the the one that says Tokyo is 10% cheaper than NYC. That’s the adjusted number.

Say what you will about rent, but “10% cheaper than New York” is nobody’s definition of cheap.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#298

Post by nshelly »

gojomo wrote: post #106

News from 2029: Skylynr, the 'Uber of nanoassembled highrises', last night replaced 44 San Francisco Victorians with apartment buildings. Reached for comment, SF's Planning Department said the overnight construction violates a city moratorium, to study displacement issues, now in its 14th year. The Board of Supervisors plans to address the issue in an emergency session next Tuesday. A Skylynr spokesperson says over 4…

Of course, of the 4,000 new residents, only 12% voted. The postage requirement was still required, and nearly all the new residents didn't bother to send in their ballots.

And half of those got confused and voted to increase the "affordable housing" requirement to 50% of new housing stock, making non-Skylynr housing prohibitively expensive to build, and requiring citizen approval (by referendum) of all new developments in the Historic Market Street Corridor, including all areas east of Golden Gate Park.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#299

Post by jpatokal »

raldi wrote: post #263
khazhoux wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There may be seismic reasons.

https://www.tokyometro.jp/en/subwaymap/img/img_01.png

What's more, the subway is apparently one of the safest possible places to be if a big quake strikes.

Re: To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years

#300

Post by AnthonyMouse »

matte_black wrote: post #275
Naritai wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly everybody who already owns a home is heavily leaning into the 'make housing as expensive as possible' conclusion. Where these sorts of articles comes from is observers who would like to change that narrative.

The homeowners aren’t selfish, they are motivated. Why would they act against something that would clearly devalue them? If the roles were reversed I doubt these observers would be calling for a change in narrative.

> The homeowners aren’t selfish, they are motivated. Why would they act against something that would clearly devalue them?

That isn't actually what happens -- and the misunderstanding is what causes so much of the conflict.

If you rezone for high density, the price per square foot goes down, but the price per acre goes way up -- because suddenly developers will pay you a mint for your land so they can knock down your house and build a high rise there.

The people who theoretically lose out are the people who own property way out in the suburbs, because most people won't want to live there and spend two hours in traffic every day once they can afford to live in the city. But even they don't really lose out because now they can afford to live in the city and the value of not having to sit in traffic every day is worth more than what they're losing on their house.

The whole thing is just a huge misunderstanding. A cynic might suggest the narrative was devised by the banks to drive up mortgage loan principal amounts. Or the car companies to keep people from living in places with viable mass transit.

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