4 ms·

Well as an actual Sunnyvale resident the fears are slightly more rational: cars on roads, kids in schools and no increase in infrastructure to go along with the

by guyzero 10y ago

Well as an actual Sunnyvale resident the fears are slightly more rational: cars on roads, kids in schools and no increase in infrastructure to go along with the thousands of new residents. Some of the buildings have less than one parking spot per apartment which in theory is supposed to help encourage people to use transit, in practice people fear it will lead to more street parking in adjacent residential neighbourhoods which already have pretty full streets. 200,000 dwellings in Sunnyvale would be a DoS attack on the city's infrastructure, not some new urban dreamland.

joe_the_user 10y ago
Broadly, there's enough space in the Peninsula to build whole high-density self-contained cities - Facebook wants to build housing at their office park and if the only condition was shops in walking distance too, I'm sure they could satisfy that requirement also. Maybe these possibilities haven't been explained well but I sort of think there are other interests that would prefer things stay approximately as they are. Edit: one aspect that occurs to me is that developers probably wouldn't want a process that solves the housing crisis immediately either. It seems to me that satisfying the pent-up demand for housing gradually, project by project, would allow a developer to scoop up a lot of the excess, monopoly home-value now enjoyed by homeowners whereas if a huge stock of apartments appeared in one big bang, developers could wind-up selling them at costs plus a small profit level.
guyzero 10y ago
Not sure why I'm being downvoted - my personal opinion is that densification of Sunnyvale and the area in general is fine, but the opposition to it isn't completely irrational. Short of a nuclear bomb going off Sunnyvale is never going to turn into Manhattan or even Staten Island.
palakchokshi 10y ago
I don't know why you're getting down voted either. will the down voters please address the following concerns? 1. Considering that some of the apartment dwellers will become homeowners and their place will be taken by new apartment dwellers, how will the overcrowded schools support the influx? 2. Considering people will take public transit to go to work, they still would use cars to move around locally in the area on evenings and weekends. How will the current streets support the greater density of cars? e.g. Central Expressway used to be an expressway now it is a parking lot. 3. Overburdened police and firemen will be exposed to further strain. 4. Parking is a nightmare not just on residential streets but even at local establishments. Space needed for parking is used to build more housing. Unless you live here and face these issues it's easy to downvote rather than come up with solutions that are at pace with the housing construction boom. If I paid over a million dollars to buy a house in a school district that has a good score what would you suggest I do when suddenly the student to teacher ratio is so skewed that the education of my children suffers?
- guyzero 10y ago
  For police, I honestly don't get the sense that they're really overburdened. Sunnyvale rates as one of the safest cities in the US. For parking, Sunnyvale is indeed surprisingly bad. For a sleepy town with nothing to do you often can't get parking downtown.
- ChuckMcM 10y ago
  There are a couple of things at play of course. Apartment ownership pays parcel taxes just like single family home owners. However 1/3 of the budget is tax revenue. Of the taxes, the two big heavy hitters are property tax (16%) and sales tax (9%) of the total revenue[1]. More people, more business transacted, more revenue. As revenue increases, city services can be expanded. Schools on the other hands are basically crooks as far as I can tell. The reason being that I have yet to get the Fremont Union Highschool District to offer up actual budget numbers and actual spend. They will argue all sorts of things about "confidentiality of teacher salaries" or "we're not a government so we don't have to give you that information." but generally I have not been impressed with the way they operate. [2] Traffic and parking is a legitimate concern. Traffic has gotten worse again (after getting better after the dot com crash). But many programs are targeted at making the city more bike accessible for easier access. [1] Page 12 -- http://sunnyvale.ca.gov/Portals/0/Sunnyvale/FIN/FY%2015-16%20Vol%20I%20-%20Part%20I.pdf http://sunnyvale.ca.gov/Portals/0/Sunnyvale/FIN/FY%2015-16%2... [2] I had an administrator at the district tell me that it was "illegal" to be home schooling my children.
  - drwl 10y ago
    Fremont isn't the only town/city in SV and not all school districts in SV are crooked. Also, you didn't really address one of the big concerns the parent commented pointed out, that is new dwellings would be a DoS on current infrastructure for most places. It's not like you can get that infrastructure in time for it.
    - ChuckMcM 10y ago
      Oddly enough the "Fremont Union High School District"[1] is only high schools in the Sunnyvale/Cupertino area. The town of Fremont has a different school district. That said, I realize that new housing would impact schools, especially if people have kids. So far the number of new families who actually have kids that have been moving in seems to be a relatively small ratio (lots of couples who are both working and don't have kids). Its a good question to ask the city manager though. They probably have a handle on what the numbers look like. [1] http://www.fuhsd.org/ http://www.fuhsd.org/
phlakaton 10y ago
Yes, but do the good people of Sunnyvale vote for infrastructure projects? Do they allocate enough funds for building that infrastructure, and/or do they have rational expectations for where those funds will come from? Even if you fear putting the cart before the horse, it simply begs the question of why you don't already have the horse. And the answer to that, I think, is back to what was stated above: fear of change, of urbanization, of government, of government spending, of property value declines, of loss of "heritage" – whatever that means to a farming town that replaced its (AFAIK) last orchard with a strip mall called the "Cherry Orchard" in 1999...
- phlakaton 10y ago
  (BTW, I don't really mean to pick too much on Sunnyvale in particular here. The increased demand on housing and infrastructure can't be solved by Sunnyvale alone. It's a massive regional problem, if not a state problem, and the entire region is falling way short of meeting its needs.)
  - guyzero 10y ago
    I don't take it personally and you are very correct. I'm just resigned that urban planning decisions made in 1960 are effectively irreversible.
- guyzero 10y ago
  There is a new school being built but it's in an area that's already underserved and bussing kids pretty far. SCUSD (much of Sunnyvale is in the Santa Clara Unified School District - why school district boundaries are disjoint with municipal boundaries around here I can't explain) passed a $419M bond measure in 2014 (Measure H) which includes classroom expansions. Sadly it's not quite so easy to increase road capacity as unlike a real city where you can add residents without adding vehicles, it's simply not possible to add residents in the 'burbs without adding an equal number of cars on the road. I'd love for it to be otherwise, but the sprawl can't be fixed just by rezoning lots for higher density. I think it's more an issue of poor planning than fear of change (although yes, some residents want the city to be a 1966-themed amusement park). Hanlon's Razor and all. Personally I have no attachment to the sentimental issues around Sunnyvale but my proposed solution of levelling half the city and rebuilding it like central Toronto seems like a non-starter.
mahyarm 10y ago
All of those new buildings and people will result in a far higher property tax revenue base since they are new units not starting from a 1980s prop 13 tax base. From that you can build new schools, hire more teachers and police and develop more transit.
- palakchokshi 10y ago
  But that revenue will have to be saved for a few years before there's enough to build new schools with, hire teachers with, etc. Moreover there might be other budgetary needs that might want that money unless the money is tied to improving schools, streets, etc.
  - mahyarm 10y ago
    That is a mismanagement problem there. Why would new permanent income flows not get allocated to support the new flows? Municipal bonds backed by future property tax flows in the one of the wealthiest cities in the USA is pretty secure, so you wouldn't have to save for a few years.
    - drwl 10y ago
      Even if you diagnose the problem it doesn't help with the symptoms. Infrastructure (i.e. transit, public institutions, etc) will not be able to support it in the short-term.

by guyzero 10y ago

joe_the_user 10y ago

Broadly, there's enough space in the Peninsula to build whole high-density self-contained cities - Facebook wants to build housing at their office park and if the only condition was shops in walking distance too, I'm sure they could satisfy that requirement also. Maybe these possibilities haven't been explained well but I sort of think there are other interests that would prefer things stay approximately as they are. Edit: one aspect that occurs to me is that developers probably wouldn't want a process that solves the housing crisis immediately either. It seems to me that satisfying the pent-up demand for housing gradually, project by project, would allow a developer to scoop up a lot of the excess, monopoly home-value now enjoyed by homeowners whereas if a huge stock of apartments appeared in one big bang, developers could wind-up selling them at costs plus a small profit level.

guyzero 10y ago

Not sure why I'm being downvoted - my personal opinion is that densification of Sunnyvale and the area in general is fine, but the opposition to it isn't completely irrational. Short of a nuclear bomb going off Sunnyvale is never going to turn into Manhattan or even Staten Island.

palakchokshi 10y ago

I don't know why you're getting down voted either. will the down voters please address the following concerns? 1. Considering that some of the apartment dwellers will become homeowners and their place will be taken by new apartment dwellers, how will the overcrowded schools support the influx? 2. Considering people will take public transit to go to work, they still would use cars to move around locally in the area on evenings and weekends. How will the current streets support the greater density of cars? e.g. Central Expressway used to be an expressway now it is a parking lot. 3. Overburdened police and firemen will be exposed to further strain. 4. Parking is a nightmare not just on residential streets but even at local establishments. Space needed for parking is used to build more housing. Unless you live here and face these issues it's easy to downvote rather than come up with solutions that are at pace with the housing construction boom. If I paid over a million dollars to buy a house in a school district that has a good score what would you suggest I do when suddenly the student to teacher ratio is so skewed that the education of my children suffers?

guyzero 10y ago
For police, I honestly don't get the sense that they're really overburdened. Sunnyvale rates as one of the safest cities in the US. For parking, Sunnyvale is indeed surprisingly bad. For a sleepy town with nothing to do you often can't get parking downtown.
ChuckMcM 10y ago
There are a couple of things at play of course. Apartment ownership pays parcel taxes just like single family home owners. However 1/3 of the budget is tax revenue. Of the taxes, the two big heavy hitters are property tax (16%) and sales tax (9%) of the total revenue[1]. More people, more business transacted, more revenue. As revenue increases, city services can be expanded. Schools on the other hands are basically crooks as far as I can tell. The reason being that I have yet to get the Fremont Union Highschool District to offer up actual budget numbers and actual spend. They will argue all sorts of things about "confidentiality of teacher salaries" or "we're not a government so we don't have to give you that information." but generally I have not been impressed with the way they operate. [2] Traffic and parking is a legitimate concern. Traffic has gotten worse again (after getting better after the dot com crash). But many programs are targeted at making the city more bike accessible for easier access. [1] Page 12 -- http://sunnyvale.ca.gov/Portals/0/Sunnyvale/FIN/FY%2015-16%20Vol%20I%20-%20Part%20I.pdf http://sunnyvale.ca.gov/Portals/0/Sunnyvale/FIN/FY%2015-16%2... [2] I had an administrator at the district tell me that it was "illegal" to be home schooling my children.
- drwl 10y ago
  Fremont isn't the only town/city in SV and not all school districts in SV are crooked. Also, you didn't really address one of the big concerns the parent commented pointed out, that is new dwellings would be a DoS on current infrastructure for most places. It's not like you can get that infrastructure in time for it.
  - ChuckMcM 10y ago
    Oddly enough the "Fremont Union High School District"[1] is only high schools in the Sunnyvale/Cupertino area. The town of Fremont has a different school district. That said, I realize that new housing would impact schools, especially if people have kids. So far the number of new families who actually have kids that have been moving in seems to be a relatively small ratio (lots of couples who are both working and don't have kids). Its a good question to ask the city manager though. They probably have a handle on what the numbers look like. [1] http://www.fuhsd.org/ http://www.fuhsd.org/

phlakaton 10y ago

Yes, but do the good people of Sunnyvale vote for infrastructure projects? Do they allocate enough funds for building that infrastructure, and/or do they have rational expectations for where those funds will come from? Even if you fear putting the cart before the horse, it simply begs the question of why you don't already have the horse. And the answer to that, I think, is back to what was stated above: fear of change, of urbanization, of government, of government spending, of property value declines, of loss of "heritage" – whatever that means to a farming town that replaced its (AFAIK) last orchard with a strip mall called the "Cherry Orchard" in 1999...

phlakaton 10y ago
(BTW, I don't really mean to pick too much on Sunnyvale in particular here. The increased demand on housing and infrastructure can't be solved by Sunnyvale alone. It's a massive regional problem, if not a state problem, and the entire region is falling way short of meeting its needs.)
- guyzero 10y ago
  I don't take it personally and you are very correct. I'm just resigned that urban planning decisions made in 1960 are effectively irreversible.
guyzero 10y ago
There is a new school being built but it's in an area that's already underserved and bussing kids pretty far. SCUSD (much of Sunnyvale is in the Santa Clara Unified School District - why school district boundaries are disjoint with municipal boundaries around here I can't explain) passed a $419M bond measure in 2014 (Measure H) which includes classroom expansions. Sadly it's not quite so easy to increase road capacity as unlike a real city where you can add residents without adding vehicles, it's simply not possible to add residents in the 'burbs without adding an equal number of cars on the road. I'd love for it to be otherwise, but the sprawl can't be fixed just by rezoning lots for higher density. I think it's more an issue of poor planning than fear of change (although yes, some residents want the city to be a 1966-themed amusement park). Hanlon's Razor and all. Personally I have no attachment to the sentimental issues around Sunnyvale but my proposed solution of levelling half the city and rebuilding it like central Toronto seems like a non-starter.

mahyarm 10y ago

All of those new buildings and people will result in a far higher property tax revenue base since they are new units not starting from a 1980s prop 13 tax base. From that you can build new schools, hire more teachers and police and develop more transit.

palakchokshi 10y ago
But that revenue will have to be saved for a few years before there's enough to build new schools with, hire teachers with, etc. Moreover there might be other budgetary needs that might want that money unless the money is tied to improving schools, streets, etc.
- mahyarm 10y ago
  That is a mismanagement problem there. Why would new permanent income flows not get allocated to support the new flows? Municipal bonds backed by future property tax flows in the one of the wealthiest cities in the USA is pretty secure, so you wouldn't have to save for a few years.
  - drwl 10y ago
    Even if you diagnose the problem it doesn't help with the symptoms. Infrastructure (i.e. transit, public institutions, etc) will not be able to support it in the short-term.