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Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?

kevin.burke.dev

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Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?

#61

Post by toast0 »

qurren wrote: post #30
dgeiser13 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US the nuclear family is usually two parents and two children. The parents share one bedroom and each child gets one. In Asia I would guess families make room for their older relatives which would mean an extra bedroom is needed. Immigrants to the US typically do that but I think it's uncommon among the rank and file Americans.

I think in the US a home office and a guest room is also usually needed, so 4-5 bedrooms makes total sense. In fact 4-5 bedroom single family houses in the US are extremely common. What I don't understand is why apartments always seem to stop at 2b or 3b.

Mostly US apartments don't go beyond a certain size, after that you need a house or maybe a townhouse. Double maybe a condo, but those usually don't go bigger than apartments either.

Apartments are for dense housing, big apartments aren't dense, therefore look elsewhere for your large apartment, I guess. You could have 4 tiny bedrooms, I guess, but that's weird too.

It's nice to have an office/guest room, but if you're raising a family that needs three bedrooms in apartments, you're compromising.

Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?

#63

Post by jcranmer »

kevinburke wrote: post #58
soperj wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pretty sure I saw this quote from Elon in like 2015.

Right, the difference is you can see from charts of miles driven by Waymo etc. that the technology is clearly ready. If it was not ready they would not have been able to raise money at a $126 billion valuation.

> If it was not ready they would not have been able to raise money at a $126 billion valuation.

Oh, in the current market, you can raise obscene amounts of money on pure hype. Look at how much money SpaceX raised on an S-1 prospectus that everyone looked at and went "this is pure fantasy."

Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?

#65

Post by tailscaler2026 »

kevinburke wrote: post #54
jlhawn wrote: post #52

> The global leader in self driving cars has a headquarters thirty miles from here - the city could invite someone from Waymo to give a talk on the future of onsite parking and how our codes should adapt. I agree with pretty much everything in your article, Kevin. But I wonder whether Waymo actually has a holistic vision for how families would use their service? Do they expect people with small children to haul aroun…

My sense is that parents are pretty tired of driving their kids to and from things and if it was possible for your kids to take a self driving car to school or to activities or to camp that would be a pretty attractive proposition. The schools or daycares or camps could help figure out unloading on the other end.

the world today is banning kids from the internet largely to prevent them from talking to strangers online. i think a scenario where the pedophiles can use waymo to snatch up kids from summer camps might encounter some resistance.

Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?

#66

Post by sokoloff »

kevinburke wrote: post #53
sokoloff wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

25 years from now, if half the cars are then capable of autonomous nav-and-park, we could convert some of the excess parking lots to buildings. (Any lot large enough to have “aisles” will also be large enough to build on.)

It's extraordinarily difficult, and expensive, to convert parking garage space to housing - the heights are different, it's not designed with the same egresses, the floor material is concrete. It also affects what the ground floor of buildings looks like - you can't have ten ground floor pedestrian exits or bike parking in the courtyard if the courtyard is on the third floor.

Just as you wouldn’t use the asphalt parking surface of an open parking lot as the floor of the house, there’s no obligation to use the actual garage structure.

25+ years from now, if it’s more economical to use for housing, knock it down and build high-density housing.

Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?

#67

Post by milkytron »

stickfigure wrote: post #42
milkytron wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly my thought. People have been saying that robotaxis and self driving cars will take over in a couple years for at least a decade. It hasn't happened, and not only that, but if the companies making them want to be profitable, they will price out a huge percent of consumers. My guess is that humans will remain the majority operators of vehicles for at least 20 more years, maybe more. That isn't to say we need pa…

"The future is unevenly distributed" I just spent a week in Austin and took a half dozen Waymo rides. Robotaxies are definitely here and they are awesome . There's no reason why they won't be coming for Walnut Creek.

I'm sure they'll exist. I'm not sure they will be used for a majority of trips.

Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?

#68

Post by bluGill »

kevinburke wrote: post #47
bluGill wrote: post #16

You should be looking places other than California before asking this question. In my suburb of Iowa we have apartments that are very similar to this one as far as sizes but the rent is much cheaper. There are also a number of three bedroom apartments in those new buildings, for much more reasonable rent. These apartments have the large parking lots required in the U.S. They have the large elevators required in the U…

I'm Googling for "Des Moines apartments" and clicking on any that I find that have double loaded corridors and so far I'm 0 for 4 on finding any that have a three bedroom apartment. Finally found one on my fifth try. Here is one of the three bedroom floor plans that they offer. None of the bedrooms have a window https://capi.myleasestar.com/v2/dimg/178334024/2000x1333/178...

https://www.thepitchia.com/floorplans?Beds=3. New building.

Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?

#69

Post by kevinburke »

sokoloff wrote: post #66
kevinburke wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's extraordinarily difficult, and expensive, to convert parking garage space to housing - the heights are different, it's not designed with the same egresses, the floor material is concrete. It also affects what the ground floor of buildings looks like - you can't have ten ground floor pedestrian exits or bike parking in the courtyard if the courtyard is on the third floor.

Just as you wouldn’t use the asphalt parking surface of an open parking lot as the floor of the house, there’s no obligation to use the actual garage structure. 25+ years from now, if it’s more economical to use for housing, knock it down and build high-density housing.

The garage sits underneath the housing in this case.

Re: Why Can't Walnut Creek Build 3 Bedroom Apartments with a Playground?

#70

Post by derekp7 »

jlhawn wrote: post #60
kevinburke wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My sense is that parents are pretty tired of driving their kids to and from things and if it was possible for your kids to take a self driving car to school or to activities or to camp that would be a pretty attractive proposition. The schools or daycares or camps could help figure out unloading on the other end.

the only thing I can imagine in the near-term are a subset of vehicles in the fleet which have carseats for infants and todlers which stay installed in the vehicle. We also already see vehicles from Volvo which have integrated/convertable booster seats for children 4+ and maybe the entire fleet could have these.

Integrated car seats were popular in some minivans and SUVs a number of years ago. Then they fell out of favor. I think it was because safety standards changed faster than the vehicle lifespan.
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