[HN Gopher] To save California, sacrifice single-family zoning
___________________________________________________________________
To save California, sacrifice single-family zoning
Author : wavesounds
Score : 141 points
Date : 2021-08-25 22:53 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.latimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.latimes.com)
| litoE wrote:
| They will need to triple or quadruple the capacity of the water,
| electrical and sewer grids that were sized for the current
| density. And convince people to part with their cars because
| street parking will become impossible.
| flaque wrote:
| This argument is commonly thrown around, but makes no sense in
| practice.
|
| The denser the place, the more efficient the infrastructure
| use. 50 families in a single apartment building use massively
| fewer pipes & power lines than 50 families in single family
| homes. But the tax revenue for the city can still be the same.
| In a denser area, those families are less likely to own or need
| cars, and if they do, they drive less.
|
| On the other hand, low-density suburban neighborhoods are often
| so inefficient that the maintenance cost of their
| infrastructure is more than the tax revenue the residents bring
| in. (Here's a good overview of that:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0)
|
| It's more true to say that "we don't have the infrastructure
| for single family homes" than it is to say that we don't have
| the infrastructure for apartment buildings.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Key quote: "When you lose money on every development, you
| don't make it up in volume."
| jeffbee wrote:
| Los Angeles was zoned for, and plumbed for, ten million people,
| but down-zoned to only 4 million currently.
|
| https://abundanthousingla.org/downzoning-in-los-angeles/
| wahern wrote:
| Per capita urban water usage in California has decreased by
| double digits percentages since 1990. See page 10 at
| https://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/PI_Water_Use_...
| Older cities have done even better; newer urban developments
| further away from the older coastal areas pulled the average
| state-wide decrease down.
|
| IOW, there's plenty of slack in existing cities, _especially_
| the older coastal cities, which were originally planned and
| built for far greater density than permitted now, and at a time
| when per capita usage was far greater. If anything, continuing
| to incentivize urban sprawl is the surest way to overburden
| water infrastructure, _especially_ supply.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Not just per capita but absolute. East Bay MUD total
| deliveries fell by half in the last 40 years while the
| population increased by 70%.
| nradov wrote:
| Some Northern California cities are literally out of water.
|
| https://ktla.com/news/california/please-conserve-water-
| touri...
|
| In the Monterey Peninsula area residential building permits
| have been restricted for years due to a persistent water
| shortage. That's been going on since well before the current
| drought.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| In fact, depending on where you live, water appliance
| efficiency has reduced sewer flows to the point where systems
| stop functioning, since a lot of systems are designed around
| a minimum amount of flow to make things move.
|
| Most water consumption these days comes from the state's
| agriculture, which bringing more residents in would not
| really impact since denser housing would not really go in
| areas that are rural.
| wyager wrote:
| As with living in a crowded bug-hive apartment building
| instead of a house, reducing water consumption by making
| showers, toilets, washing machines, dishwashers, and other
| appliances function poorly is just masking a real decline
| in standard of living by clipping coins.
|
| "We've reduced water, power, meat, and space consumption by
| XX%" is not good news. That just means we're getting
| poorer. Good news would be "we've halved the cost of water,
| power, meat, and space, so everyone have a good time".
| eli_gottlieb wrote:
| The contradiction here is that, overwhelmingly, the most
| effective way to decrease the price of space (in terms of
| square mile per person of land) is to increase
| unemployment -- which basically nobody actually wants.
| jamestimmins wrote:
| I think a lot of people would actually embrace getting rid of
| their cars if they weren't necessary
| randycupertino wrote:
| I live in a sfh in a Bay Area suburb and a lot of my
| neighbors have multiple cars for fun/hobbies and family. One
| of my neighbors has a household of three (two parents & a
| 10year old kid) and they have FIVE cars. I never realized how
| big "car culture" was in California until moving out of the
| city and into a suburb. In my experience living here, you can
| pry their cars out of their cold dead hands.
| nradov wrote:
| In the South Bay Area, the SR-17 highway to Santa Cruz also
| presents a significant bottleneck. On hot weekend days everyone
| tries to drive to the beach, and the traffic gets backed up
| onto surface streets so badly that Los Gatos residents are
| literally trapped in their homes. There is a bus line but it's
| not a practical option for most people.
| sk2020 wrote:
| So pack people into towers as densely as possible and take away
| their ability to freely leave. Wasn't this the plot of Escape
| From LA?
| swiley wrote:
| You should tell the people living in tents and cars to be
| grateful they're not locked in a tower.
| wyager wrote:
| People who live in a tent don't do so because apartments in
| SF are too expensive.
| shuckles wrote:
| They do so because zoning banned boarding houses, which
| is a variant of the same thesis.
| samtho wrote:
| But the effects of high housing costs ultimately does
| impact those people. Everyone, from the well-off to the
| impoverished, will seek housing. Those with more money
| have more options and when the market gets tight, what
| otherwise would be middle class accommodations in any
| other market, are only accessible to the wealthy. Middle
| class families are living in what would be normally be
| for working class, working class are living in poor
| housing, and the poor are pushed out. The homeless person
| may have been evicted and could not afford a place and
| subsequently lost their job for reasons relating to their
| lack of housing. Even if this happens in Oakland, they
| may set up camp in places that have better services for
| homeless or larger homeless communities like SF.
| sk2020 wrote:
| An open air prison is worse than an enclosed one?California
| got the state they voted for. Save the hollow moral
| indignation.
| pope_meat wrote:
| Well, the good news is the majority of us are too broke to
| move anywhere, so the tower sounds fine to us, gotta be
| cheaper than the rent now.
| lumost wrote:
| This seems like hyperbole. Would east coast like density be
| that bad in urban portions of California like the Bay?
| zepto wrote:
| Yes
| ashtonkem wrote:
| > And convince people to part with their cars because street
| parking will become impossible.
|
| Convince nothing, price them out. The state is not obligated to
| pay for permanent storage for your private property on public
| land. If you want a car, you need to pay for its permanent
| storage.
| akomtu wrote:
| The state really wants its people to be as mobile and
| economically active as possible and cars facilitate exactly
| that.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Cars are actually one of the least efficient means of
| achieving that.
| nradov wrote:
| People who have been become accustomed to abundant free
| street parking will not be happy about paying for it. They
| will vote accordingly. You can complain that this isn't fair
| but that's the reality of living in a democracy.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| I don't think that's actually true. There is certainly a
| very noisy minority that would like us to believe that
| they're the majority, but revealed consumer preference does
| not seem to reinforce this statement.
|
| Consider the street closures during the pandemic for
| outdoors eating. The parking crowd has screeched endlessly
| about the traffic and parking issues caused by this, but
| the majority of the populace _love_ these areas now. A
| bunch of them are actually becoming permanent.
|
| Similarly, the cute, street car suburbs with high
| walkability and insufficient parking are absurdly expensive
| everywhere I've ever lived. Turns out people like living
| places that are nice, and that sufficient parking is a
| relatively minor deciding factor.
| nradov wrote:
| No it's true. The street closures during pandemic were
| mostly in downtown commercial areas and were broadly
| supported by restaurant owners. They hardly impacted
| residential areas. Politicians who try to increase
| charges or reduce availability for residential street
| parking inevitably face a lot of resistance.
|
| Building a new walkable neighborhood is fine. Trying to
| drastically alter an existing neighborhood is nearly
| impossible.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| There are also examples from Europe where mayors have
| outright banned or drastically reduced access for cars,
| and won re-election over the complaints of car owners.
| And these aren't podunk towns either, one of them is
| Paris.
|
| Of course, the counter argument is "but Paris has a good
| metro system", to which I say _maybe we should fix that_.
| 01100011 wrote:
| That depends. Water? Probably not. Most of the water goes
| toward Ag. Electrical? Probably, especially as we add more
| electric transportation options. Sewer and trash, yes.
|
| That said, as others have mentioned, urban living arrangements
| can be more efficient. There is a big question though if that
| is compatible with the historical CA dream ideal. Sure, that
| ideal is becoming more and more incompatible with reality, but
| people want what they want. CA could offer me a free condo in a
| high-rise urban environment and I'd still leave because that's
| not something I would ever want to live in.
| skybrian wrote:
| That's an exaggeration since there wouldn't be as many lawns to
| water and apartments are more energy-efficient.
|
| Also, infrastructure like water treatment plants are expensive
| and scale well, so you can spread the cost over more people.
|
| But yes, there are problems that come with density and they
| have to be thought through.
| jjhale wrote:
| Yes, there are many places in the US that are currently
| having infrastructure crises due to too little density. There
| might need to be infrastructure upgrades as neighborhoods
| become denser, but over the long run, the infrastructure will
| be much more sustainable because the cost per user will be
| significantly lower.
| samstave wrote:
| So I actually have a story about this, which I have posted on HN
| in the past...
|
| Alameda, Ca - I was talking to the planning department about this
| problem as I was interested in creating a Tiny Home Community -
| and had one of the Pre-Eminent Tiny Home Companies on board: Wind
| River Tiny Homes to assist in planning, speaking to the city
| council etc...
|
| The city council shut it down and refused to re-zone the lots.
| They stated that one was not allowed to put multiple tiny homes
| on a single lot - as the zoning required one entrance per
| dwelling only on the lot, which meant one pluming infrastructure,
| one sewer and one power...
|
| So I asked if I could build shared utilities underground for
| multiple units on a lot - and they said no, because they defined
| single dwelling as only having one primary entrance (front door)
|
| And they were dead set against changing any zoning laws.
|
| Further, when asked about municipal broadband, they said "no we
| sold that whole contract to comcast, and we wont be looking at
| that again"
|
| (That is an actual quote)
| digisign wrote:
| One state alone can't fix a nationwide problem. Otherwise it
| becomes more attractive and loses any ground made. There need to
| be homes everywhere people would like to live, within reason.
| gibsonf1 wrote:
| Perhaps single family zoning, which is also in many other states
| without crises, is not the cause or it's change the solution for
| California's very real crisis.
| shuckles wrote:
| Basically every metro area in the country has an affordability
| problem as defined by cost of housing relative to wages. One of
| the most affordable growing metros is Houston, which has no
| zoning.
| tadfisher wrote:
| If that is your only metric by which to judge, then Houston
| is a roaring success. Include just about any other factor in
| your judgment, such as walkability, health outcomes,
| education quality, or disaster resilience to name a few, you
| might consider Houston's zoning strategy to be batshit
| insane.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Judging by how many people are moving from places like SF
| and NYC to places like Houston I think people prioritize
| affordable housing over all the secondary luxuries.
|
| <insert low effort quip about consumers being cheapskates
| and not knowing what's good for them here>
| shuckles wrote:
| I'm not arguing that all zoning is bad. I was responding to
| the claim that SFZ is irrelevant to affordability.
| sirmike_ wrote:
| Seems like this would create a whole host of problems which
| restrictive zoning solves.
|
| In other words we already learned that lesson and people
| generally do not like unappealing entities being right next door.
| It allows the public an extra check on something not appropriate.
|
| Why does California not have a wider range of political ideas to
| solve their problems?
|
| It appears Cali is chasing its tail by their brand and experiment
| in democracy when they try to "solve" their glaring issues.
|
| Credit where due -- many times other states have benefited from
| California being so big and mandated certain safety laws. But
| like the famous saying many citizens of the Golden State will
| soon be able to answer the question for Newsom (uberkind-liberal-
| idiot-when-it-suits): What have you done for me lately?
| 0xB31B1B wrote:
| "unappearling entities being nextdoor", "allows the public an
| extra check on something not appropriate" You're openly
| advocating for segregation in 2021, this is almost verbatim how
| segregation advocates advocated for housing segregation ~100
| years ago
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Sub 100 with a much smaller number.
| sirmike_ wrote:
| Bluster is what you say!
|
| OK then I am sure you would be ok with zoning being changed
| to allow for a nuclear power plant in your neighborhood
| whenever someone(s) with big piles of cash comes through.
| Yeah, no thanks mate.
|
| Where I live the last heads of our county council, where
| openly corrupt with sweetheart deals handed out to local
| construction and developer companies. The one before last
| ended up in jail thanks to the feds investigating these type
| crimes. This is in the US no less. No way buddy. The public
| has a right to decide who can built what where and for what
| purpose.
|
| Yes there should be defining discrimination which rightly
| limits a free for all when it comes to zoning.
|
| How naive are you?
| kevinqiu1 wrote:
| And yet all of the desirable(aka expensive) places to live are
| mixed use dense neighborhoods built before the concept of
| Euclidean zoning? Eg. Old pre-zoning, pre-car neighborhoods in
| Toronto, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, ect.
| TedShiller wrote:
| We don't have the water for that. Sorry.
| darksaints wrote:
| Yes, you do. Sorry.
| TedShiller wrote:
| I'm with you, I wish we did. Unfortunately, the reservoirs
| say otherwise.
| darksaints wrote:
| No you don't...you're a NIMBY just like the rest of
| Californians. I can tell because of the rehashed completely
| disingenuous arguments that have been debunked a million
| times by now.
| TedShiller wrote:
| I probably would be a NIMBY if I owned property myself.
| Unfortunately I'm not in that position. Higher density
| could help me become an owner (and hence a NIMBY), but
| it's not even clear that it will.
|
| The reason I say that is because of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand NYC built
| all the housing they possibly can, and yet I personally
| still could never afford to own property there. Same with
| LA.
|
| I'm also opposed to the building of more roads. Not
| because (as you might claim) I own existing roads and
| have a vested interest, but because I know that more
| roads simply means more traffic. The places that have the
| most roads also have the worst traffic.
|
| I wish it were different.
| 0xB31B1B wrote:
| it is different, consumption of road space (road use is
| free, or at least priced in time instead of money, many
| routes to get to a destination). Urban land has an
| enormous cost priced in dollars, and as we practice land
| ownership in the west, it involves the monopoly right of
| a fixed space. One can own multiple pieces of property
| simultaneously, but one cannot take up multiple spaces in
| traffic. Entirely different concepts and mechanisms.
| space_fountain wrote:
| Luckily for you there isn't much support for the idea of
| induced demand in housing. It's a thing in roads, but not
| in literally everything and definitely doesn't seem to be
| in housing. Also while NYC certainly has built tons of
| housing in the past, it too has been festering anti
| growth elements and literally the densest us city is only
| the 20th world wide.
| TedShiller wrote:
| It is not different with housing, unfortunately.
| Singapore, Shanghai, NYC, SF, LA, won't get cheaper if
| they build more housing.
|
| Nevertheless, I completely hope that I'm totally wrong on
| everything I said. It would mean that I might finally be
| able to afford to buy a house in those places.
| space_fountain wrote:
| Why do you believe that? There are literally tons of
| studies showing more housing reduces prices and basically
| none showing increased prices. Look I think you are right
| that SF will never be as cheap as rural Ohio or
| something, but the idea that building housing will make
| the problem worse seems just wrong.
| 8note wrote:
| Replace the lawns with buildings and you free up some water.
|
| Stop growing water intensive crops and you do even better
| woah wrote:
| That's a bald-faced lie. Residential water use is only 10% of
| California's water use. Most of the water is used up by farmers
| who have free water rights dating back to the 1800's, flooding
| almond groves in the desert.
|
| https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-
| california/#:~....
| refurb wrote:
| Why is single-family zoning required to "save" California when
| the problem is pretty much only in a small downtown core in a 2-3
| major metro areas?
|
| Pretty sure Bakersfield will do just fine with single-family
| zoning.
| dvaun wrote:
| Bakersfield housing is expensive for the region. The salaries
| here, in my opinion, cannot keep up with this recent rise in
| prices.
| refurb wrote:
| Right, so build more single family home. Why would
| Bakersfield need condo towers and high density?
| digisign wrote:
| Bad for the environment, and why we're dependent on foreign
| oil.
| nradov wrote:
| The US imports very little foreign oil now. We're not
| dependent.
|
| https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=727&t=6
| jeffbee wrote:
| Redfin says Bakersfield is "very competitive" and home prices
| are up 50% in only five years.
| refurb wrote:
| So is Billings, MT, but nobody is going to claim Montana is
| running out of space.
| epicureanideal wrote:
| To save California, build more. Single family, multi family,
| whatever. Just more.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Wouldn't California, and the rest of the country, be better off
| if quite a few people from across the spectrum left for other
| places? The wealth/talent/business concentration is really
| unnecessary, and with drought, fires, and other global warming
| concerns, it's actually not that nice there.
|
| The solution to a lot of the "housing problems" around the
| country isn't further concentration but decentralization.
| epicureanideal wrote:
| Sure. Let's take the 2 trillion we spent on the Afghan war
| and instead build up a few more tech cities with high rise
| apartments, great public transit, new great universities and
| so on.
|
| I think the problem is that outside the government spending
| like that, private industry has a hard time getting
| sufficient funding to create a meaningful new center of
| innovation.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| I can't speak to the rest of it, but concentration of
| populations is often extremely good for certain types of
| endeavors. Cities often have the surplus value available to
| support speculative and "non-productive" cultural output. The
| rapid mixing of ideas and cultures often helps a lot too.
|
| I'd argue that it's good for California to have all those
| people. It's pretty hard to argue that it isn't, based on the
| cultural, economic, and agricultural output of the state. Now
| whether or not it's good for the _people_ in California is
| another matter altogether. And I say that as someone who
| recently left CA for another state.
| eli_gottlieb wrote:
| The issue is, you can have 21st-century high-tech free-market
| capitalism with low state intervention, or you can have
| decentralization of the population and economy. Pick only
| one.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| There is an upper limit to how many single family homes you can
| build; transit costs eventually come to dominate and mean that
| more doesn't really help much.
| epicureanideal wrote:
| Sure, I do agree, but having some additional single family
| homes built wouldn't be a terrible thing if we also built a
| million apartments.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| If we build that many apartments, we probably won't need
| any more single family homes. The ones that'll remain will
| probably balance out for those with the ability and
| willingness to pay for the luxury.
| mjfl wrote:
| California voters are probably totally fine with the housing
| supply being too low because it drives up the price of their
| houses.
| grecy wrote:
| Housing can't be both affordable and a good investment.
| opportune wrote:
| Why the downvotes? Housing can't increase in value faster
| than real wages over time without making future generations
| measurably poorer. Of course, caveats apply. It's reasonable
| that land prices in urban areas will on average grow as the
| population does, but if no development is allowed to be able
| to offset those higher prices then essentially nobody
| benefits from that increase in value besides existing
| homeowners.
| swiley wrote:
| It an be if you're allowed to improve it.
| benrbray wrote:
| You have that backwards. Housing can _only_ be affordable if
| it 's _not_ a good investment. If it 's a good investment,
| people will buy houses expecting to get much more out of it
| than just a place to stay.
|
| Look at Japan, for example, where houses lose their value
| after 40 years. I pay cheaper rent in Tokyo than I ever did
| in even mid-sized American cities.
| shuckles wrote:
| Both of these are wrong because they confuse buildings and
| land. Land can be a good investment even if shelter is
| affordable. My understanding, for example, is land in Tokyo
| is quite expensive.
| kadomony wrote:
| Random, but what do you do in Tokyo? I've been trying to
| break into their market for two years. Had an offer
| rescinded from Rakuten because immigration shut down.
|
| The housing market boggles my mind how houses don't
| appreciate at all there.
| neeleshs wrote:
| I live in a single family house, I've lived in apartments. For
| me quality of life is way better in SFH. Don't care if house
| price gows down or up, won't sell this house.
|
| It's not a popular opinion here, but quality of life is
| important for many of us.
| cloverich wrote:
| quality of life is important for all of us. That's the
| problem.
| enaaem wrote:
| There is nothing wrong with sfh. The problem is when only
| sfh's are allowed.
| 0x0nyandesu wrote:
| An sfh next to a high density apartment building feels a
| lot less like a sfh.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| When you don't pull a CA and let things grow organically
| there isn't much of a discontinuity so you don't get much
| development like that. It'll be a gradual increase from
| SFH in the exurbs with more and more mutlifamily and
| small apartment buildings increasing in density to the
| city core where it's basically all purpose built
| apartment buildings with dozens of units at a minimum.
|
| A neighborhood that's got a lot of 2/3/4 family homes
| feels about the same as a SFH neighborhood if those homes
| have one unit occupied by the owner.
| paxys wrote:
| I'd say people in the state being disadvantaged by the housing
| crisis vastly outnumber those profiting from it. It's just that
| people in power (richer, older folks, those sitting on local
| councils, state legislatures, celebrities, corporations,
| pastors, power brokers, other influential figures) all fall
| into the latter category.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| "They also vote a lot more, and a lot more predictably"
|
| Literally the words out of the mouth of a close friend of
| mine who sits on city council for a mid-size CA suburb
| [deleted]
| 01100011 wrote:
| An upvote is not sufficient to convey my support of this
| comment. Seriously, CA would be vastly different if people
| just showed up to vote. Unfortunately that never seems to
| change.
| arodgers_la wrote:
| As controversial and as energizing as the 2020 election
| was, and despite breaking voter turnout records, 33% of
| the voting eligible population still did not show up to
| vote!
| [deleted]
| Lammy wrote:
| Don't make the mistake of assuming all people in favor of the
| status-quo only "profit" monetarily:
|
| http://radicalcartography.net/bayarea.html
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/priceonomics/2016/05/11/the-
| afr...
| pope_meat wrote:
| "Get the poor's out of here!"
|
| But they also want a barista to serve them a latte, it
| doesn't matter if the barista has an hour commute each way
| and shit benefits.
|
| I'd say eat the rich, but this place hates that meme xD
| erhk wrote:
| Because if you eat the rich then youre only naturally
| selecting for the faster and more ellusive rich that you
| wont be able to catch.
|
| With seriousness, a slogan that accomplishes nothing
| takes the teeth out of a protest. Tax the super wealthy
| at x% ans enforce minimum corporate taxes simply doesnt
| have a ring to it.
| pope_meat wrote:
| But sir, if you keep exploiting the poor you're only
| naturally selecting for a meaner hungrier mob.
|
| With seriousness.
| ytpete wrote:
| Depends on what percentage of California voters are renters...
| [deleted]
| peterthehacker wrote:
| Only half of California homes are owner occupied. [0] So, there
| could be more CA voters renting than home owners. To put that
| in perspective, Texas has over 60% owner-occupied housing [1].
|
| [0]https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/CA
|
| [1]https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/TX
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| Isn't it more reasonable to think that maybe the people in
| single-family zoned neighborhoods want to live in that kind of
| neighborhood, completely apart from the price of their houses?
| wyager wrote:
| Don't be crazy - everyone wants to live in a pod!
| shuckles wrote:
| But home values will plummet is a common bogeyman used in
| local zoning battles, so separating the two concepts is not
| as trivial as you suggest.
| refurb wrote:
| Precisely.
|
| I don't know of any SF voters who think "oh yeah, I need to
| fight this new development so the price of my house continues
| to rise".
|
| It's more like "I like the way my neighborhood is and don't
| want it to change".
| nine_k wrote:
| I'm afraid a change is inevitable. But it can be a softer
| change that mostly preserves what they care for, or a rough
| and dramatic change if no adaptive measures are taken.
|
| I suppose that SF residents probably liked what their city
| was in, say, 1985, and did not want any change. Has SF
| changed somehow by 2020? Was in to the better?
| nradov wrote:
| If you talk to people who have lived in Mountain View, CA for
| 30+ years they aren't thrilled about Google moving in. Sure
| their property values are huge but quality of life is worse.
| Property appreciation doesn't mean much if you're not
| planning to sell and just want a nice place to live.
| [deleted]
| flaque wrote:
| It's worth noting that while upzoning can help the whole
| housing market go down in price, it can also unlock value for
| existing home owners.
|
| If you currently own a home and a law is passed that allows you
| to turn your upstairs into an apartment, then your home may now
| be worth more, and you actually can access the value stored in
| your home (by renting it out).
|
| Similarly, if any home in your neighborhood can be turned into
| a fourplex or larger, and there's the demand to do so, then the
| supply of large single-family homes in your area shrinks. So
| your house price can increase as it becomes a rarer find.
|
| But since the total supply of units is going up, rent goes
| down. And since rent goes down, you don't need pay people extra
| just to accommodate for crazy expensive housing. For the home
| owner, cost of living goes down, as every store and restaurant
| they go to gets cheaper.
|
| Plus, it means that they pay less in taxes, or at least get
| more for the taxes they're already paying. Places like San
| Francisco are so inefficient with their tax bases because you
| need to pay every random bureaucrats $100k+ just to keep up
| with cost of living.
|
| If you stop restricting the size of the pie, it grows and
| benefits everyone.
| akira2501 wrote:
| People have children, sometimes multiple. They're not exactly
| thrilled about the outlook for them. Also, people have stories
| about the types of people who have offered them these
| outrageous prices for their homes. I don't believe this is a
| situation that will be strongly supported by the average home
| owner.
| wyager wrote:
| I'd be more worried about my children growing up in a world
| where the only places left to live are zoned and built like
| termite mounts.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| When I think of somebody converting their house to a
| duplex, termite mound is not the picture that comes to
| mind.
| z0r wrote:
| don't question unending economic growth :) it's definitely
| not the root cause of many modern existential problems!
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >People have children, sometimes multiple
|
| Legend has it people even have those outside of single family
| zoned regions in California!
| istillwritecode wrote:
| Money is less of a motivator than the preservation of a
| lifestyle.
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| "But for a beautiful moment in time, we created a lot of value
| for homeowners."
|
| http://www.derekchristensen.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/s...
| nr2x wrote:
| It's the most economically rational decision for a very large
| voting block, but it is openly screwing entire generations as
| well.
| theragra wrote:
| I know nothing about housing, but I am always perplexed about
| size of US houses. My sister has 9 room house, and it is
| considered small! My parents here in northern Europe has house
| twice as small, and it is more than enough for them.
|
| Maybe it is part of the problem. Smaller house obviously is
| cheaper to build and maintain.
| jgowdy wrote:
| Yeah, the traffic isn't bad enough so let's just shoehorn in
| multifamily units into single family zoned neighborhoods that
| aren't remotely close enough to the jobs people work for
| bicycling to be a realistic option. Virtue signaling the housing
| crisis isn't useful. If you're going to talk about housing you
| can't just rail against "NIMBYs" and clamor for more housing. You
| have to actually explain how the infrastructure and
| transportation to/from jobs will work with your assertions.
| Otherwise you're just arguing for cramming everyone up each
| other's asses and let the chips fall where they may.
|
| Most people are not going to ride a bicycle to work. Some of us
| have kids to drop off at school on the way to work. We have to
| buy enough groceries to feed a family, which don't fit on a
| bicycle. Let go of your hipster fantasies. We can't all be single
| people living in a flat, riding a bicycle to the farmer's market
| and the book store.
| slater wrote:
| Every NIMBY this side of Sacramento: "From my cold, dead hands!"
| TedShiller wrote:
| You don't have to be a NIMBY to say that. You can also just be
| realistic. We don't have the water.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| From everyone else: "That can be arranged."
| swiley wrote:
| This is obviously a joke but the property owners should
| remember that California wouldn't be the first place
| something like that happened.
| slater wrote:
| Ha! :)
| baybal2 wrote:
| Any Californians here?
| 01100011 wrote:
| For the people with homes, locked into lower property taxes, a
| stable monthly payment, and their version of the CA dream,
| nothing needs to change. I can't really blame them. When I owned
| a home I was a NIMBY who thought my mortgage payment afforded me
| a right to continue my lifestyle indefinitely.
|
| After a divorce and becoming a renter, I have a lot more sympathy
| for folks subject to the whims of landlords and the rental
| market. Sure, renting means I have some flexibility and don't
| have to worry much about maintenance, but there is an emotional
| and social price you pay for the lack of (sometimes imagined)
| stability afforded to you by home ownership.
|
| I'm about to plan my CA escape after 27 years in the sun and it
| is not without regrets. I'll say though that the one thing CA
| should consider is requiring the supply of housing to match the
| supply of jobs. I suppose it's fine if, say, Cupertino doesn't
| want to urbanize, but as long as they allow more commercial space
| and more jobs, they put pressure on surrounding communities to
| deal with the negative effects. I can't really care too much
| anymore though. CA has been good to me for a long time, but she's
| showing me the door and telling me I'm no longer welcome and it's
| not something I have the will to fight for.
| cylinder714 wrote:
| > requiring the supply of housing to match the supply of jobs
|
| As a native Californian, I would change that to, "match the
| supply of _water_. " I'm astounded at all the construction,
| particularly that being built in the hills overlooking Folsom,
| and wonder where they're going to get their water.
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| Because there isn't a gigantic reservoir next to Folsom?
| scardycat wrote:
| Have you seen the levels in Folsom lake recently?
|
| https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-07-27/histori
| c...
|
| There. Is. Not. Enough. Water. Anything else you hear is
| just a lie. I drive by it every day for the past 10 years,
| it goes up and down a lot but the levels this year are just
| record breaking, in a bad way.
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| >There. Is. Not. Enough. Water. Anything else you hear is
| just a lie.
|
| At zero cost for usage sure. But there is plenty of water
| if you price it.
| N1H1L wrote:
| True. However, I see the same story now repeating for Arizona
| too. Intel, TSMC are all opening fabs there - but where is
| the water?
| BelenusMordred wrote:
| Desalination can provide for a lot more, even then, consumer
| usage is nothing compared to agricultural and industrial use.
| newbamboo wrote:
| Yes, plenty of water it's just up north, not in the places
| where agriculture needs it. I'm tempted to argue it's a
| self correcting problem; pipes and desalination will be
| built when the costs make it feasible. It's all politics
| and special interests. That's the California way.
| erhk wrote:
| You're welcome to keep your drought to yourself. Please
| do not expand the blast radius in an attempt to bail out.
| Agriculture is 100% the drain, and a pipeline would only
| make it so that more consumers suffer.
| newbamboo wrote:
| It floods up north. Do you like floods? The ocean has a
| lot of water too. Do the math.
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| Agriculture is only a drain if you think eating food is
| unnecessary.
|
| The pragmatic approach would simply be to price water so
| farmers and consumers are incentivized to use it
| efficiently.
| 01100011 wrote:
| So it's ok for other regions to buy food produced with
| California water but it's not ok for California to buy
| other regions' water?
|
| We need a national water grid ASAP, before climate change
| threatens the food security of the US.
| rasz wrote:
| Plenty of water in California, all going to farming.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| Or going out to sea. [1]
|
| [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbpHA3xqvOE
| 01100011 wrote:
| We have to let some water flow for wildlife and beach
| maintenance.
| justapassenger wrote:
| This is much more complex problem, and each time someone offers
| one simple solution, you should suspect it's BS.
|
| Sure, single family zoning contributes to the problem, but
| Manhattan doesn't really have single family zoning and is still
| not affordable. Just getting rid of it, won't be the end of the
| world for the neighborhoods, but also won't really solve problems
| it's advertised to solve.
| krrrh wrote:
| Comparing the 1.6m person commercial core of a high-income 8.5m
| person city is a bit unfair.
|
| Manhattan isn't expensive because it's high density, it's high
| density because it's expensive (desirable). Californian cities
| could follow suit if allowed to.
| jgwil2 wrote:
| New York has been downzoning for years now. What's important
| isn't just having high density, it's making sure that available
| housing grows with the population. When your population is
| increasing, increasing density helps with that.
| crubier wrote:
| Disclaimer, I'm European and have only been in SFBA for 5months
| in my life.
|
| Maybe the solution is not to build more residential to keep
| growing, but instead to limit implantation of new jobs/companies
| to limit the growth to a sustainable decent value? The result
| would be to limit real estate price, but without making the Bay
| Area a hellscape of concrete towers.
|
| I understand it is controversial, but do we really want to
| transform the Bay Area (which still has some really fine natural
| beauty and neighborhoods) into the hellscape that are some
| Chinese (or European) concrete tower based suburbs? Do we still
| want to keep centralizing more?
|
| Sadly free market + democracy means either the homeowners side
| are in charge and keep the status quo so their property prices go
| up. Or the renters side might one day win, and start sacrificing
| this nice place to make concrete prisons for everyone. The
| current system ensures that the optimal thing to do will never
| happen.
| etrautmann wrote:
| This seems likely to create a host of unintended consequences
| and exacerbates the issues caused by a lack of socioeconomic
| diversity and people working in service jobs. The incentives
| will push municipalities to only take the "best" jobs, putting
| further pressure on restaurants etc to find workers. Ultimately
| the "character" of a neighborhood is a function of the vibrant
| culture and people more than yhe architecture and density.
| crubier wrote:
| In a different system where limiting implantation of new
| companies would be a thing, I don't see why you couldn't
| place incentives to keep the job balance and avoid these
| consequence. It's not that complicated in comparison.
|
| But of course this << different system >> is science fiction
| at this point, especially in the US.
| jabl wrote:
| Surely there are other ways of increasing density than some
| concrete tower dystopia? I mean, there's this entire movement,
| 'new urbanism' or whatever you want to call it, which is
| specifically about creating nice AND decently high density
| towns and cities.
|
| IMHO, the Bay Area is its own kind of dystopia, with low-
| density 'burbia spreading like a mat over the (previously
| beautiful, I presume) landscape. Even things like central Santa
| Clara are quite low density, with wide (very wide!) streets,
| low houses (typically 1-2 stories) set back far from the
| streets with ginormous parking lots.
| vidarh wrote:
| The mid-point I like to argue for is to default to quite
| tall, dense buildings allowed in a circle around public
| transit stations, and tapering off from there. Maybe with
| some exceptions in areas where it'd really impact the
| character of the local areas.
|
| But e.g. having taken Caltrain from Palo Alto to SF a few
| times, there is plenty of room for much higher density around
| several of the stations without losing much of value, and in
| doing so you'd take a lot of pressure off both the nearby
| city centres _and_ the less developed land.
|
| I live in London and wish for the same here - instead of
| increasing density in areas that are already high density,
| pull development out of the centres, surround well connected
| stations, and use that to justify more services on more
| suburban stretches of existing rail etc.
|
| My favourite example is that highrises going up surrounding
| my local train station will house as many people on ca.
| 2,000m^2 of land as my road of 660 houses has space for on
| ca. 40,000m^2 of land. And the environmental effects of less
| travel etc. as more of those people can rely on public
| transit will be enormous. Increasing density around the
| stations like that will reduce the need for smaller density
| increases across the board, or eating into greenfield sites.
| nradov wrote:
| Prior to the pandemic, Caltrain was already at maximum
| capacity during commute hours. If people are going to
| return to offices in large numbers then Caltrain needs a
| major upgrade before we build a lot of housing near
| stations. On the other hand if remote working continues
| then there's less reason to locate new housing near transit
| hubs.
| vidarh wrote:
| Caltrain capacity when I used to visit was on the level
| of a low traffic suburban train line elsewhere. It felt
| comical from someone used to e.g commuting on London
| trains.
|
| It may well be it needs upgrades to be able to handle
| more, but even just having the land is a major part of
| the cost. It's certainly better than depending on trying
| to dump higher density housing in the middle of
| neighbourhoods where transport upgrades will require
| starting from scratch.
|
| And if remote working continues, that'd allow far more
| housing near transport hubs. People will still travel on
| occasion, for all kinds of reasons.
|
| And the second advantage of construction near transport
| hubs is that it usually means fewer neighbours likely to
| object. E.g. last time I was at Palo Alto at least, there
| was no low density housing immediately surrounding the
| station, and even where there is, there's typically
| little enough to make buying up the required properties
| to resolve the issues a lot easier.
| kadomony wrote:
| If places like the Bay Area had a modicum of intelligent
| governance, they'd take the approach that Tokyo did. Urbanize and
| ban street parking. Make the place walkable with affordable rent.
| The current real estate developments out there are a joke.
| tonfreed wrote:
| You WILL live in the concrete pod You WILL eat the bugs You WILL
| NOT own anything You WILL be happy
|
| Amazing how many of these articles I'm seeing lately.
| swiley wrote:
| Allowing for denser housing frees up homes. The pod thing is
| scary because of a _lack of choice_ which is what this article
| argues against.
| traloid wrote:
| Interesting. So 50 years ago, with labour efficiency and
| productivity being a small fraction of what it is today, single-
| family houses were easily built and bought by people.
|
| Today its somehow an unreachable goal that people cant obtain.
| Why? I dont want to live in a pod or communal flat with 20
| people. How are people not revolting over the direction western
| economies are taking?
| swiley wrote:
| California has a _long_ way to go before it starts to become
| attractive.
| jgwil2 wrote:
| Because the population has increased over the course of fifty
| years. There's a limit to how many single-family houses you can
| build that are reasonably close to jobs.
| PeterisP wrote:
| You can easily get an affordable single-family house - it's
| just going to be a long way from your job because you'll have
| to drive through all the land taken up by less affordable
| single-family houses who want to pay extra to live closer to
| where everybody else is.
| dclaw wrote:
| Foreign investors are the real issue. It's apparent that some are
| even laundering their money by purchasing US real estate. Just
| because the big players are doing so with commercial real estate
| doesn't mean smaller players aren't doing it with housing. Many
| houses owned by foreign investors tend to sit vacant full time.
|
| There's even lawyers who specialize in the stuff, telling people
| to setup businesses and have the house owned by the business to
| reduce their tax rate.
|
| https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/a-kleptocra...
|
| https://calmatters.org/housing/2018/03/data-dig-are-foreign-...
|
| https://www.avvo.com/legal-guides/ugc/a-guide-for-foreign-in...
| woah wrote:
| This is a baseless conspiracy theory, usually peddled by those
| who stand to gain from high housing prices. "Oh no, high
| housing prices aren't caused by the fact that we don't allow
| anything new to be built, it's those nefarious foreigners".
|
| It's easy to see how it doesn't add up. Why would some wealthy
| foreign investor want to buy a house and then lose a bunch of
| money by not renting it out?
| sk2020 wrote:
| Some people have money they need to get rid of. Taking a loss
| on the property is not as big of a problem as having money
| you can't justify having possession of. How much of the
| market that is would be hard to guess. Zero is not likely,
| though.
| Supermancho wrote:
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-08-16/taxing-
| th... - the wealthy can afford lots of houses. They buy them
| or even build them (midwest, lots of empty multi-million
| dollar homes are still appearing).
|
| I mean, there are multiple multi-billion dollar companies who
| haven't let go of their office spaces when there's no hope
| that people were going to return to work anytime soon. One of
| the many simple reasons, they can afford to burn the cash and
| it's a drop in the bucket. I don't think you are grasping
| what kind of wealth buys up houses.
|
| > It's easy to see how it doesn't add up.
|
| > Why would some wealthy foreign investor want to buy a house
| and then lose a bunch of money by not renting it out?
|
| In the late 2010s, the primary reason was as a protective
| measure/taxation avoidance. In China, the wealthy are always
| at a danger of being on the wrong side of the government and
| having your wealth confiscated. In Bellevue (the wealthy
| eastside of the Seattle area) had a burgeoning industry of
| exotic car dealerships, luxury jewelry and housing prices
| soaring as Chinese money loaded up on housing. When Xi (and
| the PRC at large) decided to crack down
| https://www.jonesday.com/en/insights/2020/02/chinas-new-
| fore..., by 2019 most of the luxury businesses evaporated and
| houses were being liquidated (most still made money because
| of decent US housing inflation) because of the taxation of
| foreign assets and the penalties for not disclosing them. So
| that's done.
|
| There's always oil money from the middle east which has ended
| up in California. My family sold off 2 properties to families
| from Quatar and Iran, who casually paid for east house up
| front. These were their "California" homes.
|
| Banks have been buying up houses for awhile now. Yes, it
| pains me to bring up FOX News.
| https://foxbaltimore.com/news/nation-world/major-wall-
| street... - they are likely to rent out the homes. American
| banks who are looking to maximize value for something they
| don't intend to even live in (or run to), don't mind renting.
| This is a maximized investment that makes sense to you. Those
| do happen.
|
| My wife and I just bought a house next door to one of the
| MANY display houses of Todd Griffin (Windows Plus). The yard
| is a wreck but the interior furnishings (kitchen, windows,
| shelving, etc) are very nice, barring the bare slab concrete
| floor. Nobody has ever lived there.
| maxk42 wrote:
| It's not baseless. China is full of a new class of wealthy
| people who can have their property or wealth confiscated by
| the state at any time. They also know that won't happen in
| foreign real estate and as a bonus it affords their children
| the opportunity to attend a prestigious foreign university.
| Many wealthy Chinese own foreign real estate in western
| countries as a hedge.
| conradev wrote:
| US investors are also a real issue, even if they fill their
| property with tenants
| hamburgerwah wrote:
| Zoning changes are worthless when there is still prop 13 and the
| most onerous permitting and building restrictions in the country.
|
| The only long term solutions are completely infeasible while
| there are elections in the state. Existing property owners need
| to pay actual representative property taxes and need to see their
| homes decrease about 75% in value through a combination of
| massive building campaign and increase an inventory from the
| unaffordability of paying real property taxes.
| xt00 wrote:
| Changing zoning in your neighborhood that you currently live in
| (and continue to want to live in) will likely change it, so for
| people to accept that risk they should be given an incentive..
| for example within a given neighborhood what if the state gave
| those areas huge property tax breaks to allow zoning changes?
| Then there is a trade-off, pay less taxes and then you get
| something for the potentially different future. Maybe it's better
| maybe it's worse but saying to people "please just allow changes
| to the zoning" has not worked...
|
| edit: basic thing I was thinking about was giving people
| incentives for YIMBY pushes in areas.. yea prop13 complicates it,
| but just wondering if there is any incentive for the folks that
| live in someplace already or the base assumption is that a very
| large percentage will vote against it?
| s0rce wrote:
| More than half my neighborhood already gets massive property
| tax breaks from Prop 13. Some people pay like 1/10th of what a
| new owner would pay.
| darksaints wrote:
| They bought a house. It came with a deed. The deed delineates
| exactly what rights are conferred. Zoning is not one of them.
|
| Why do we have to bribe people to rescind rights that they
| never had in the first place?
| orcasauce wrote:
| There is an expectation that where I live won't just be
| rezoned industrial to make way for more Amazon warehouses.
| darksaints wrote:
| There's also an expectation that aliens don't invade, and
| chickens won't mutate into tyrannosaurus rexes with all the
| 5g going up.
|
| Luckily, none of that will ever happen. You'll get
| apartments, not warehouses.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| The people that live in those area, and own those deeds, are
| the ones that vote and or convey their desires to their
| representative to impact the rules in those areas.
|
| So I guess the answer to your question is "because those
| people bought their deeds under when a certain set of rules
| were in place, and they are in a position to exert pressure
| to keep those rules in place". Why would you expect them to
| act against (what they perceive as) their own self interest?
|
| The answer of "because it helps society as a whole" is a
| powerful one, but not one that holds enough weight for a lot
| of people to give up a significant portion of their net
| wealth / retirement / satisfaction.
| tomcam wrote:
| I urge the Times editorial board to experiment in their own
| neighborhoods first and report back to us.
| joelbondurant wrote:
| Communists gonna commune.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/7lrVl
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-08-26 23:02 UTC)