San Francisco's Fog Over Growth • Hacker News Board

Re: San Francisco's Fog Over Growth

#41

Post by krapp » Tue, Jan 12, 2016, 7:20 PM UTC

jey wrote: post #35

pluckytree wrote: post #3

I agree that part of the motivation for people supporting zoning is to preserve or increase their property values. But I think that people that spend a huge chunk of change on a house should care about preserving the neighborhood they bought into. As an extreme case, without zoning, what if each home lot on your street were turned into a high rise residential or commercial building? I don’t think any homeowner expect…

Does it even really make sense to "own" land? One alternative is "Georgism", which is the idea that land is a resource collectively owned by society, but people can temporarily monopolize a piece of land by renting it from society. The rents thus collected go into the society's general fund to pay for public goods like fire stations, healthcare, universal basic income, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

Does it make any more sense to declare that land must be "owned" by society, and that rents should be extracted from it, than that it can be owned and exploited by individuals? The difference between the two seems like semantics to me, in either case the land is still owned.

Re: San Francisco's Fog Over Growth

#42

Post by crazy2be » Tue, Jan 12, 2016, 7:23 PM UTC

CrowFly wrote: post #28

crzwdjk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, property tax law in California does the exact opposite. The tax can't be higher than 1% of the assessed value of the house, and that assessment can't go up by more than 2% every year as long as the house isn't sold. So the people who have been living in the neighborhood the longest and complain the most about "neighborhood character" also pay much less property tax than their neighbors. And by "much le…

Not quite. There are "parcel taxes" too that keep going up. And 2%/year increase isn't inconsequential.

2%/year is pretty inconsequential.

Consider that the average inflation rate is 3-4%/year[1][2], and houses generally tend to increase in value at roughly the same rate as inflation[3]. Thus, your property taxes are expected to get cheaper in real cost every year, assuming the housing market is relatively stable.

Of course, in SV, the situation is much much worse than this, because housing prices have grown much faster than inflation due to the booming economy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation#Measures [2] http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Rate/Long_Term_... [3] http://observationsandnotes.blogspot.ca/2011/07/housing-pric...

Re: San Francisco's Fog Over Growth

#43

Post by hvmonk » Tue, Jan 12, 2016, 7:28 PM UTC

scurvy wrote: post #25

crzwdjk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, property tax law in California does the exact opposite. The tax can't be higher than 1% of the assessed value of the house, and that assessment can't go up by more than 2% every year as long as the house isn't sold. So the people who have been living in the neighborhood the longest and complain the most about "neighborhood character" also pay much less property tax than their neighbors. And by "much le…

The tax rate can also be passed down to your heirs upon your death. It also covers commercial buildings. What was originally sold as "don't tax grandma out" is obviously a power move to create a land holding elite. I'm a property owner, but I don't really like the system. I also don't like how mismanaged the property taxes here are, but that's another thread.

Can't agree more. The laws made in late 70s were made to benefit a specific class of people, and they are most vocal against any change which is aimed to bring equality.

Re: San Francisco's Fog Over Growth

#44

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 12, 2016, 7:32 PM UTC

geebee wrote: post #7

Retric wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If every house around you is turned into a high-rise then your property values are going to shoot up massively. So, cash out and move. The real question is why can 1x people living in an area decide that 99x people get to move there or not. In the end Mixed use walkable communities are much better for both peoples health and the environment. You can always move to the middle of Montana if you don't want to live near…

That's an excellent point. I live in an R1 neighborhood, but a buddy of mine lives in a SFH in an R2. He would technically be allowed to convert his SFH into two 3bd/2ba apartments, he could sell one of them, and profit so much that he would cover his entire mortgage with lots left over. While he'd still face permit challenges, this has been done (legally, with all required permits) on his block. However, this remain…

[deleted]

Re: San Francisco's Fog Over Growth

#45

Post by Apocryphon » Tue, Jan 12, 2016, 7:38 PM UTC

gravity13 wrote: post #14

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #2

It's a shame that when people focus on the bay area's ludicrous housing costs, they tend to speak exclusively of San Francisco and ignore the opportunity to develop Oakland, which has a lot of flat land that is easier to build tall buildings on top of, instead of trying to densify San Francisco's endless peaks and twists. The author said a potential future for San Francisco is as a "gated community for the rich." Tha…

I get the sense Manhattan was established, and then tapped out, hence Brooklyn. Whereas San Francisco is neither of those. San Francisco is the hip place to be (for tech) and Oakland is perceived as the fallback for companies that can't afford to host. Which really surmounts to: I would much rather work in SF than Oakland (I really base my decision on what food & bar options I have around me, though).

Your comment seems a few years out of date. SF's rents and COL is notoriously sky-high and has been for the last 3-4 years or so, and the movement to Oakland has also been taking place during that year. Not to mention, Uber, perhaps one of the region's greatest up-and-coming unicorn juggernauts, is going to move to Oakland. The ship has long since sailed towards the East Bay.

Re: San Francisco's Fog Over Growth

#46

Post by eastbayjake » Tue, Jan 12, 2016, 7:41 PM UTC

sethhochberg wrote: post #21

gravity13 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the sense Manhattan was established, and then tapped out, hence Brooklyn. Whereas San Francisco is neither of those. San Francisco is the hip place to be (for tech) and Oakland is perceived as the fallback for companies that can't afford to host. Which really surmounts to: I would much rather work in SF than Oakland (I really base my decision on what food & bar options I have around me, though).

Parts of Manhattan which are popular with the very wealthy are certainly pretty well tapped out (the West Village comes to mind as a neighborhood with well-protected zoning regulations and lots of low to mid-rise buildings similar to many San Francisco neighborhoods). In other parts of Manhattan though new neighborhoods are being created from underused space (look at the Hudson Yards project, creating thousands of ho…

I think the only stigma is that BART closes at midnight while New York subways run all night long, which means people who live in Brooklyn can go out in Manhattan until 4 AM and still get home, while people who go out in SF on Saturday night can't get back to Oakland from midnight until 8 AM Sunday unless they take the bus.

Re: San Francisco's Fog Over Growth

#47

Post by capkutay » Tue, Jan 12, 2016, 7:42 PM UTC

pluckytree wrote: post #3

I agree that part of the motivation for people supporting zoning is to preserve or increase their property values. But I think that people that spend a huge chunk of change on a house should care about preserving the neighborhood they bought into. As an extreme case, without zoning, what if each home lot on your street were turned into a high rise residential or commercial building? I don’t think any homeowner expect…

Zoning is important. The issue is that it is often abused and poorly thought out in San Francisco. For instance, Mission Bay [0] was a rail yard with no inhabitants sitting at the foot of San Francisco, just south of urban SoMa. It was a prime opportunity to make it a dense, metropolitan extension of the city with little voter backlash since there were no residents in the area. Not to mention, it is also the most accessible, commutable part of the city with 2 Caltrain stops and 2 freeway on-ramps. Instead, they made it it a low-rise biotech neighborhood with primarily 40 ft zoning.

There's another development in Downtown SF (SoMa to be exact) where current residents are suing to block the transformation of a PARKING LOT into a housing/office complex with over 200 units of affordable housing[1]. The area is already dense and urban, the building itself is not out of character (there's a 400 ft hotel right next door). It also introduces a lot of much needed open space to Central SoMa. However, some residents in the area are suing, claiming that development would cast shadows on nearby parks (0.08775% and 0.167% of sunlight in winter months) and increase traffic to the area. The lawsuit will probably delay the development for years. It's just sad to see such an irrational attempt to impede the progress of a potentially great city.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Bay,_San_Francisco

1: http://www.5mproject.com/

Re: San Francisco's Fog Over Growth

#48

Post by kansface » Tue, Jan 12, 2016, 7:42 PM UTC

crzwdjk wrote: post #9

tptacek wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are expected to care about preserving their neighborhoods. But the concerns of existing residents can't possibly be dispositive.

In a democracy, they end up being so, because those are the people who get to vote. One solution is to move some of the planning functions one level up in the government, so people in the Central Valley also get a say in deciding whether SF's zoning is reasonable or not. This is basically what Japan does.

Unlike the rest of the country, there is no right to build in SF if you meet all zoning requirements. Zoning isn't even the problem.

Re: San Francisco's Fog Over Growth

#49

Post by potatolicious » Tue, Jan 12, 2016, 7:50 PM UTC

jey wrote: post #35

pluckytree wrote: post #3

I agree that part of the motivation for people supporting zoning is to preserve or increase their property values. But I think that people that spend a huge chunk of change on a house should care about preserving the neighborhood they bought into. As an extreme case, without zoning, what if each home lot on your street were turned into a high rise residential or commercial building? I don’t think any homeowner expect…

Does it even really make sense to "own" land? One alternative is "Georgism", which is the idea that land is a resource collectively owned by society, but people can temporarily monopolize a piece of land by renting it from society. The rents thus collected go into the society's general fund to pay for public goods like fire stations, healthcare, universal basic income, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

The problem with that scheme is that a reasonable implementation of it will still greatly resemble land ownership.

Say I rent a parcel of land from society and pay money each month to do so. I build a building on top and use it.

Under what conditions can I keep using this land, besides paying the rent? Do I lease the land from society for a fixed term, after which the land may be freely rented to someone else? In that case what happens to the building on it that I've invested my own money into?

The problem here is that land by itself is not useful but improvements in combination with the land is, but said improvements are almost always not portable. I can pack up my furniture and move out of my apartment, I can't pack up a building.

So naturally we'll want some way to ensure people who have improved the land can continue using the land - which really starts resembling ownership + property tax at this point.

Re: San Francisco's Fog Over Growth

#50

Post by sethhochberg » Tue, Jan 12, 2016, 8:04 PM UTC

eastbayjake wrote: post #46

sethhochberg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parts of Manhattan which are popular with the very wealthy are certainly pretty well tapped out (the West Village comes to mind as a neighborhood with well-protected zoning regulations and lots of low to mid-rise buildings similar to many San Francisco neighborhoods). In other parts of Manhattan though new neighborhoods are being created from underused space (look at the Hudson Yards project, creating thousands of ho…

I think the only stigma is that BART closes at midnight while New York subways run all night long, which means people who live in Brooklyn can go out in Manhattan until 4 AM and still get home, while people who go out in SF on Saturday night can't get back to Oakland from midnight until 8 AM Sunday unless they take the bus.

The other thing is getting to BART - if you live in the Mission or within a handful of blocks of Market St; and your destination is in downtown Oakland or on the west side... you're fine. But if not, you need to coordinate your trip between BART and two different bus networks on either side of your train trip (or shell out for a car service / cab).

Not only are train lines between Manhattan and Brooklyn much more plentiful, they fan out to a much larger collection of destinations on either end. It can be a one-system trip, which makes a big difference.

BART isn't bad by any means, and SFMTA/AC Transit do a decent job, too. I've lived in Miami and around Tampa, two other large cities which do an almost immeasurably worse job with transit. But BART is still a very commuter-centric network for getting commuters from suburbs to downtowns, and isn't a substitute for a true local subway network. Thats where the stigma comes from, in my opinion.