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> The irony is that those rising rents are due in no small part due to their acting against their stated mission when it comes to allowing tall buildings in thi

> The irony is that those rising rents are due in no small part due to their acting against their stated mission when it comes to allowing tall buildings in this city. They'd rather sprawl people out into the suburbs and beyond, where they'll bulldoze swaths of nature to build their buildings, and the people living and working there will have much larger carbon footprints. Berkeley is especially guilty of this. Last I heard, a few years ago, the building cap was something ridiculously low. I was told six stories was the max by a friend as we carpooled to work from East Bay to South Bay due to the scarcity of attractive rental spaces in SB. Thus, there is major congestion toward and away from SF every day as the population cannot be condensed. Berkeley is the most NIMBY city I've seen. It took me two years to find a high quality space to rent in an attractive part of Oakland and this was about eight years ago. Today, there's no chance I'd give it up as I'm doubtful I could ever get as lucky in the present market. I've concluded that if I opt to spend a year traveling, I'll have to pay rent on my present space while I'm not using it because I don't want to live in a delapidated unit at an even higher rate when I come home.

raldi 11y ago
Six stories isn't so bad; that's what they have throughout most of Paris, and it's enough to support vibrant, gloriously walkable neighborhoods with world-class transit and lots of public open space. In SF, the vast majority of the city is zoned for a maximum of four stories, including the parcels surrounding most of its major transit hubs: http://redd.it/3qu9uv http://redd.it/3qu9uv If we added those two extra stories, even just within 1/8th of a mile of transit hubs, it would yield enough housing to make a big dent in everyone's rent. We wouldn't even need any truly tall buildings.
- kemiller 11y ago
  It's not bad if it's the whole city but good luck re-zoning the low density neighborhoods (or anything at all) in Berkeley. Berkeley politics are best described as leftist conservative. You should have seen the fight over just the downtown plan.
- nikanj 11y ago
  Compare the streets of Paris with the streets of Berkeley. The former was built before cars were a thing, and the narrow roads with less parking lots make for a greater density.
- simonebrunozzi 11y ago
  There is a TON of extra (wasted?) space in SF as compared to Paris. Look at a street in Paris; then look at a street in SF: huge lanes, parking, large boardwalks, etc. Even if they had the same limits on stories, it would still be significantly different.
  - raldi 11y ago
    What large boardwalks are you referring to? If you mean sidewalks, they're much wider in Paris. That's why their sidewalk cafes are so much more charming than ours.
    - jacobolus 11y ago
      You should open up some satellite map pictures and just pan around a bit. As a general rule most of the streets of Paris don’t have too much sidewalk. Larger boulevards do of course.
  - scythe 11y ago
    Paris also has a density more than three times that of San Francisco, and we don't need to go nearly that high to solve the problems we're facing right now. There are a great many people who want to live in denser districts, which is evidenced by the fact that the districts with high density have the highest rents. If low-density districts were more desirable, you'd expect to see them more expensive, but the most expensive area of SF (for renting) is... FiDi. If the city were to become unpleasantly dense it would be evident in people's actual, chosen aggregate preferences. But raldi hasn't really touched on the situation, in my opinion: much of the city is not only limited by height, but by the number of units per building, usually to 2 or 3. It's not the end of the world to raise that to 8 or so.
- jacobolus 11y ago
  Even 4 stories is pretty high density compared to the Bay Area norm. More importantly, in SF, the vast majority of the city is zoned for 1 or 1–2 housing units per lot, with residences only (no mixed use), which means that in practice a huge part of the city is stuck at 1–2 stories. The lot shapes are these skinny awkward things that leave a little yard in the back, but many of those are basically unused dirt patches. Then add wide streets with huge amounts of street parking.

raldi 11y ago

Six stories isn't so bad; that's what they have throughout most of Paris, and it's enough to support vibrant, gloriously walkable neighborhoods with world-class transit and lots of public open space. In SF, the vast majority of the city is zoned for a maximum of four stories, including the parcels surrounding most of its major transit hubs: http://redd.it/3qu9uv http://redd.it/3qu9uv If we added those two extra stories, even just within 1/8th of a mile of transit hubs, it would yield enough housing to make a big dent in everyone's rent. We wouldn't even need any truly tall buildings.

kemiller 11y ago
It's not bad if it's the whole city but good luck re-zoning the low density neighborhoods (or anything at all) in Berkeley. Berkeley politics are best described as leftist conservative. You should have seen the fight over just the downtown plan.
nikanj 11y ago
Compare the streets of Paris with the streets of Berkeley. The former was built before cars were a thing, and the narrow roads with less parking lots make for a greater density.
simonebrunozzi 11y ago
There is a TON of extra (wasted?) space in SF as compared to Paris. Look at a street in Paris; then look at a street in SF: huge lanes, parking, large boardwalks, etc. Even if they had the same limits on stories, it would still be significantly different.
- raldi 11y ago
  What large boardwalks are you referring to? If you mean sidewalks, they're much wider in Paris. That's why their sidewalk cafes are so much more charming than ours.
  - jacobolus 11y ago
    You should open up some satellite map pictures and just pan around a bit. As a general rule most of the streets of Paris don’t have too much sidewalk. Larger boulevards do of course.
- scythe 11y ago
  Paris also has a density more than three times that of San Francisco, and we don't need to go nearly that high to solve the problems we're facing right now. There are a great many people who want to live in denser districts, which is evidenced by the fact that the districts with high density have the highest rents. If low-density districts were more desirable, you'd expect to see them more expensive, but the most expensive area of SF (for renting) is... FiDi. If the city were to become unpleasantly dense it would be evident in people's actual, chosen aggregate preferences. But raldi hasn't really touched on the situation, in my opinion: much of the city is not only limited by height, but by the number of units per building, usually to 2 or 3. It's not the end of the world to raise that to 8 or so.
jacobolus 11y ago
Even 4 stories is pretty high density compared to the Bay Area norm. More importantly, in SF, the vast majority of the city is zoned for 1 or 1–2 housing units per lot, with residences only (no mixed use), which means that in practice a huge part of the city is stuck at 1–2 stories. The lot shapes are these skinny awkward things that leave a little yard in the back, but many of those are basically unused dirt patches. Then add wide streets with huge amounts of street parking.