4 ms·

It's really quite remarkable that you can know so little about something, yet be so judgmental about it at the same time. Go 'mericuh! Prop I is a temporary (1

by timr 11y ago

It's really quite remarkable that you can know so little about something, yet be so judgmental about it at the same time. Go 'mericuh! Prop I is a temporary (18 month) moratorium in one neighborhood (the Mission), for only a limited subset of projects, coupled with the requirement that the city has to create a "neighborbood stabilization plan" by the end of that period [1]. It is not a "moratorium on building new market-rate housing", as you say. The idea is that the Mission is undergoing a land-grab by speculators, that poor people are losing (they are), and that the battle will be over by the time a coherent plan is formulated to do anything about it. Whether or not you believe this to be the correct approach, it does nobody any good to mischaracterize it as something that is obviously and painfully stupid. I realize it's not at all fashionable on HN to point out that life is more complicated than chapter one, paragraph one of a high-school economics textbook...but prop I might actually be a good idea over here in the real world, where actual poor people are being evicted from the only places they can afford in the city, at alarming rates. [1] http://ballotpedia.org/City_of_San_Francisco_Mission_District_Housing_Moratorium_Initiative,_Proposition_I_(November_2015) http://ballotpedia.org/City_of_San_Francisco_Mission_Distric...

toby 11y ago
Just want to point out that some of us have read the full text of the Proposition, know exactly what it does, and the rationale, and still think it will be completely ineffective. For example, SF's Chief Economist: http://sfcontroller.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=6742 http://sfcontroller.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid...
- timr 11y ago
  The point of the moratorium is not to affect prices; it's to give the city a chance to come up with a plan that will protect affordable housing in this one neighborhood, without losing the ability to act. Viewed in that light, this report is a vote for the plan, not against it: it gives a little breathing room, and probably won't affect prices either way. Whether or not it "works" is entirely speculative: someone has to come up with an actual solution in the longer term. I believe the advocates of this proposition want the city to buy the remaining vacant lots in the Mission, and use them to build affordable housing projects, but I could be wrong about that.
  - toby 11y ago
    I understand that. It's actually addressed starting on page 26 of the report -- basic conclusion is that a landowner / developer will more likely hold the land until after the moratorium (when it will be even more valuable due to the moratorium) than develop below-market units at a lower price. I've worked hard to understand both sides of the issue. In practice what I strongly believe will happen is that ~800 market rate units will be delayed for 18 months, nothing else will change and the politicians who pushed this won't be taken to task because they're all terming out and eyeing Sacramento.
noyounoyounoyou 11y ago
You complain of OP being judgmental and then insult all Americans... Anyway, that you believe another local government body making a neighborhood stabilization plan is any sort of solution at all tells me all i need to know of your cognitive powers.
scurvy 11y ago
The city has found that the temporary moratorium would have no effect on pricing. http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2015/09/long-term-effect-of-mission-moratorium-on-housing-none.html http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2015/09/long-term-effect-...
- s73v3r 11y ago
  Isn't the moratorium there to give the city time to come up with a plan? So by itself it wouldn't have an effect, but whatever the city comes up with should have the effect (whether it does or not depends on which crystal ball you're looking at).
scurvy 11y ago
Out of curiosity, what is the actual "alarming rate" of people getting just-cause evicted from their homes? I know that Ellis Act evictions dropped from 2013 to 2014. I'm guessing that the trend held steady. The number of units city-wide is also still in the hundreds, not thousands. That doesn't sound like a crisis.
mylons 11y ago
sorry, tim, but this sounds like a moratorium on building new housing. nobody should support this.
mylons 11y ago
I'm also VERY upset that I cannot downvote this into oblivion. Yet Another NIMBY.
raldi 11y ago
You're characterizing opponents of Prop I as people who have only read the first chapter of an economics textbook, but the city's chief economist, who is well-respected, has a PhD in this, and has taught the subject as a professor at Berkeley, just finished a long, careful review of the proposition, and issued a scathing report concluding that it's a terrible idea. http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/City-report-Mission-building-moratorium-would-6496797.php http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/City-report-Missi...
dang 11y ago
> It's really quite remarkable that you can know so little about something, yet be so judgmental about it at the same time. Go 'mericuh! As I'm sure you know, there is no place on Hacker News for inflammatory attacks against other users. The commenters who have taken what was a substantive, reasonable thread about an interesting (beyond just local SF politics) subject and turned it into an angry insult match are breaking everything we're trying to achieve in this community. Users who do this disqualify themselves from participating in the discussion. We've detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10281057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10281057 and marked it off-topic.

by timr 11y ago

toby 11y ago

Just want to point out that some of us have read the full text of the Proposition, know exactly what it does, and the rationale, and still think it will be completely ineffective. For example, SF's Chief Economist: http://sfcontroller.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=6742 http://sfcontroller.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid...

timr 11y ago
The point of the moratorium is not to affect prices; it's to give the city a chance to come up with a plan that will protect affordable housing in this one neighborhood, without losing the ability to act. Viewed in that light, this report is a vote for the plan, not against it: it gives a little breathing room, and probably won't affect prices either way. Whether or not it "works" is entirely speculative: someone has to come up with an actual solution in the longer term. I believe the advocates of this proposition want the city to buy the remaining vacant lots in the Mission, and use them to build affordable housing projects, but I could be wrong about that.
- toby 11y ago
  I understand that. It's actually addressed starting on page 26 of the report -- basic conclusion is that a landowner / developer will more likely hold the land until after the moratorium (when it will be even more valuable due to the moratorium) than develop below-market units at a lower price. I've worked hard to understand both sides of the issue. In practice what I strongly believe will happen is that ~800 market rate units will be delayed for 18 months, nothing else will change and the politicians who pushed this won't be taken to task because they're all terming out and eyeing Sacramento.

noyounoyounoyou 11y ago

You complain of OP being judgmental and then insult all Americans... Anyway, that you believe another local government body making a neighborhood stabilization plan is any sort of solution at all tells me all i need to know of your cognitive powers.

scurvy 11y ago

The city has found that the temporary moratorium would have no effect on pricing. http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2015/09/long-term-effect-of-mission-moratorium-on-housing-none.html http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2015/09/long-term-effect-...

s73v3r 11y ago
Isn't the moratorium there to give the city time to come up with a plan? So by itself it wouldn't have an effect, but whatever the city comes up with should have the effect (whether it does or not depends on which crystal ball you're looking at).

scurvy 11y ago

Out of curiosity, what is the actual "alarming rate" of people getting just-cause evicted from their homes? I know that Ellis Act evictions dropped from 2013 to 2014. I'm guessing that the trend held steady. The number of units city-wide is also still in the hundreds, not thousands. That doesn't sound like a crisis.

mylons 11y ago

sorry, tim, but this sounds like a moratorium on building new housing. nobody should support this.

mylons 11y ago

I'm also VERY upset that I cannot downvote this into oblivion. Yet Another NIMBY.

raldi 11y ago

You're characterizing opponents of Prop I as people who have only read the first chapter of an economics textbook, but the city's chief economist, who is well-respected, has a PhD in this, and has taught the subject as a professor at Berkeley, just finished a long, careful review of the proposition, and issued a scathing report concluding that it's a terrible idea. http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/City-report-Mission-building-moratorium-would-6496797.php http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/City-report-Missi...

dang 11y ago

> It's really quite remarkable that you can know so little about something, yet be so judgmental about it at the same time. Go 'mericuh! As I'm sure you know, there is no place on Hacker News for inflammatory attacks against other users. The commenters who have taken what was a substantive, reasonable thread about an interesting (beyond just local SF politics) subject and turned it into an angry insult match are breaking everything we're trying to achieve in this community. Users who do this disqualify themselves from participating in the discussion. We've detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10281057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10281057 and marked it off-topic.