551–560 of 562 posts
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doesn't Greenwich have a good amount of quant shops?
I'm not sure, but that's an excellent counterpoint if so. I shouldn't have presumed to speak for the parts of CT near NYC.
I haven't lived in the area for some time, but I haven't heard of many new businesses form in the last ~20 years.
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By "forced out" you mean you could 1) sell, reaping a huge windfall. 2) use a HELOC or reverse mortgage to pay for the higher property taxes. But of course you'd prefer both to keep the windfall and not move, a privilege afforded to you by prop 13. That is only natural. Meanwhile, homelessness in the state continues to rise as high land values make housing production and anti-growth activists on planning committees e…
I find it acceptable that people want to stay at home where their social networks and memories are. You all act like it is OK to push people out from their homes, just because you have money and want that place.
But there are simple solutions to this problem which do not create even worse problems, unlike prop 13. For example, Texas allows taxpayers 65 years of age or older to defer their property tax payments. In other words, the tax is still due, but not until the property is sold.
Why did California voters not implement this much simpler approach to preventing displacement? Because the goal was never to prevent displacement - it was to lock in massive tax subsidies for established homeowners, at the expense of everyone else.
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> Around here, cheapest option for a decent actual meal is ~8-10/eur/person. Same here, but always coupled with a value of entertainment at that price point. You cannot directly compare the entertainment experience to your home kitchen, as already mentioned. You, at least, would have to include some of the cost of your living room, TV, Netflix account, etc. or whatever analogs of entertainment you have in your home.…
What exactly are you including in the cost of your kitchen? A cheap stove and refrigerator are about $500 each. Cabinets for the small but fully functional kitchen in my small bay area apartment could be had for as little as $1000 based on a quick look at Home Depot. Countertops can vary widely, but lets throw in another $2000. That could be enough for granite if you don't have too much counter space. For quick and d…
Kitchens certainly don't magically spring up from the ground after the spring rain. You naturally would have to count every last input cost for any kind of meaningful comparison. The restaurants certainly are when pricing their food.
> Adding all that up and doubling it brings us to $6000 in construction costs.
For, say, a 150 sq.ft. kitchen (the average sized kitchen)? Which means if we theoretically placed 10 of those rooms side by side, totalling 1,500 sq.ft., you could build what is essentially an entire house for $60,000? I realize that doesn't include all the fixtures, but it still seems quite low. Labour must be pretty cheap where you're from.
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> This is a mischaracterization of the YIMBY position. Most YIMBYs are not opposed to raising taxes so that the city can pay for the construction of affordable housing units. This is false. YIMBYs opposed the recent prop I to tax >$10M real estate sales to fund “emergency rent relief and permanently affordable housing.”[1] [1] https://ballotpedia.org/San_Francisco,_California,_Propositi...
You stated that "progressive supervisors are focused on public investment in affordable housing and taxing the rich to fund it." This is not what Prop I does. Instead, the >$10M real estate tax would mostly be paid by developers, not homeowners, because most property sales in San Francisco that are >$10M are apartment buildings rather than houses owned by rich people. Not only that, but it would be a tax paid twice b…
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You’re mischaracterizing the left-wing / long term renter position here. This is a very common tactic among local SF “YIMBYs” for some reason. Progressives are not objecting solely on the basis of “character of the city” and in fact regularly poll in favor of development. What they fight for is affordable housing development. Underlying this problem is a massive income disparity between techies and working class folk…
This is a heavy mischaracterization of Progressives. When it's 100% unit that are below market rate, it gets blocked. When it's 50% BMR, it gets blocked. When it's 20%, it gets blocked. This is because the true position of Progressives is that any development has a chance to cause harm, and they prefer the current situation to any harm, in a messed up form of the trolley problem. I would also urge you to capitalize t…
[1] https://twitter.com/uhshanti/status/1311469878604263424?s=21
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I find it acceptable that people want to stay at home where their social networks and memories are. You all act like it is OK to push people out from their homes, just because you have money and want that place.
I agree it would not be OK for people to be forced to leave their home because they cannot afford to pay their property tax. But there are simple solutions to this problem which do not create even worse problems, unlike prop 13. For example, Texas allows taxpayers 65 years of age or older to defer their property tax payments. In other words, the tax is still due, but not until the property is sold. Why did California…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You stated that "progressive supervisors are focused on public investment in affordable housing and taxing the rich to fund it." This is not what Prop I does. Instead, the >$10M real estate tax would mostly be paid by developers, not homeowners, because most property sales in San Francisco that are >$10M are apartment buildings rather than houses owned by rich people. Not only that, but it would be a tax paid twice b…
Literally is a tax specifically constructed to target sellers (not buyers) of >$10M properties, otherwise known as rich people. With an exemption for sales to affordable housing nonprofits. This issue, passed by a wide margin, demonstrated that SF YIMBY is little more than a real estate lobby front at this point.
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This is a heavy mischaracterization of Progressives. When it's 100% unit that are below market rate, it gets blocked. When it's 50% BMR, it gets blocked. When it's 20%, it gets blocked. This is because the true position of Progressives is that any development has a chance to cause harm, and they prefer the current situation to any harm, in a messed up form of the trolley problem. I would also urge you to capitalize t…
Your unsupported claim (a YIMBY propaganda line) is false. The most progressive supervisor has approved over 5K units in the past year alone.[1] [1] https://twitter.com/uhshanti/status/1311469878604263424?s=21
Edit: from what I know of Preston, at least. I'm not in SF, just have to deal with the terrible politics there providing cover for conservatives in my area to be reactionary in housing. And this is the core reasons that the Progressives in SF are so bad, they say all sorts of regressive things (like seemingly supporting Prop 13?!) because they are too deep in a culture war to realize the policy that will support the progressive values they claim to support, but all too often, do not. For example refusing to make 100% affordable housing by-right.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What exactly are you including in the cost of your kitchen? A cheap stove and refrigerator are about $500 each. Cabinets for the small but fully functional kitchen in my small bay area apartment could be had for as little as $1000 based on a quick look at Home Depot. Countertops can vary widely, but lets throw in another $2000. That could be enough for granite if you don't have too much counter space. For quick and d…
> $2000 isn't realistic if you're counting all materials from the ground up Kitchens certainly don't magically spring up from the ground after the spring rain. You naturally would have to count every last input cost for any kind of meaningful comparison. The restaurants certainly are when pricing their food. > Adding all that up and doubling it brings us to $6000 in construction costs. For, say, a 150 sq.ft. kitchen…
I don't know what to tell you except I have experience actually doing this. A full house needs a roof and foundation, which I neglected in my original estimate. I don't have time to work out an estimate on an entire roof and divide it to assign partial cost to the kitchen, but I doubt the roof and foundation together are going to add any more than anther $6000 for the kitchen alone. The overarching point is that we're still a long way from $60,000 for a kitchen.
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People are forced out of their home all the time, without the gigantic windfall of money that a property sale entails. Evictions happen all the time, and these poor folks do not get the windfall of a $1M investment paying out. They get the trouble of trying to find a place to rent with an eviction on their record, which means they will be paying higher rents with less ability to pay. Nobody should be forced from thei…
"You should be thankful for having to move despite really not wanting to, because some other people have been completely screwed" is an abusive logic tho.