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The problem is made worse by unwillingness to grow the supply. The market is so distorted by NIMBYs and regulations, so you need some counterbalance, but Santa

The problem is made worse by unwillingness to grow the supply. The market is so distorted by NIMBYs and regulations, so you need some counterbalance, but Santa Monica has gone way too far. The NIMBYism also backfires spectacularly - the old papermate factory conversion debacle is prime example here in SM. Instead of getting a nice pedestrian street with more restaurants and a park, the factory is now being "renovated" and converted to half a million sq. ft. Of creative space (a.k.a. rows of desks packed like canned sardines) and will do more damage to traffic than the previous project and produce no new housing or affordable units, and absolutely zero utility for the surrounding communities. Source: http://www.santamonicanext.org/2015/03/new-plans-filed-for-papermate-site-in-santa-monica/ http://www.santamonicanext.org/2015/03/new-plans-filed-for-p...

themartorana 10y ago
I don't know much about the paper factory, but unwillingness to grow supply feels like a pretty common issue amongst larger cities. Where I live it feels rather protectionist, I imagine that applies in this case, too.
legulere 10y ago
> The market is so distorted by NIMBYs and regulations no regulation is just as bad as bad regulation. You want places where the population wants to live and can live. This is actually a very hard problem. And the free market won't solve it. The free market just creates investment objects to earn as much money as possible. High-rises are extremely expensive and don't lower rent prices. They might offer even lower population density. For example the Eixample district in Barcelona has a higher population density than manhattan. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eixample https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eixample
- CalRobert 10y ago
  Manhattan has systematically reduced density through legal manoeuvres. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty-percent-of-manhattans-buildings-could-not-be-built-today.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty-p...
CalRobert 10y ago
"..do more damage to traffic than the previous project..." Good. When I lived there I went to the city's meetings and pointed out that by moving TO Santa Monica I was able to now walk to my job IN Santa Monica, showing that housing can REDUCE traffic. The public's response?? "BUT IT ALREADY TAKES HALF AN HOUR TO GET TO THE BEACH AND I LIVE HALF A MILE AWAY!!" Of course, if you walk, cycle, or take expo it doesn't, but that city is a disaster of NIMBYism and closed-mindedness. They refuse to build housing as though anyone who can't live there is just going to jump off a bridge, as opposed to what they really do, which is live farther away and commute in..... increasing traffic.
- twblalock 10y ago
  It's similar to what is happening in San Francisco, but San Francisco has more displacement. You can't prevent people living in the city or commuting there, but people resist accommodating them. Tech workers want to live in SF, but housing growth won't keep up. The tech workers usually make more money than the current residents, and simply outbid them for housing, thereby causing market rate rent prices to increase dramatically. This is what people who protest luxury housing projects in SF are missing: the tech workers are going to live in the city no matter what. If you build luxury housing, they will take it. If you don't build luxury housing, tech workers will take the market-rate housing from the people who can't afford anything better. In some cases, they convert the market-rate housing to luxury housing, sometimes by combining units or getting rid of in-law units, which reduces the housing stock. Of course, rent control in SF is not means-tested, so it's basically a lottery -- there are people making very high incomes living in rent-controlled apartments, and very poor people who have to live together and pay the market rate. It's an indefensible system, even if you otherwise are OK with rent control. Protesting the Google buses is another example of shortsightedness. Who would rather have thousands of additional cars on the roads instead of a handful of buses? These people are going to get to work somehow, and they won't all fit on Caltrain and Muni.
  - CalRobert 10y ago
    I completely agree. I understand the sentiments of those who oppose new construction because hey, SF is an awesome place and whenever you change something you run the risk of destroying that character, but the reality is that change is coming one way or another and it needs to be addressed. I actually lay more blame on the cities surrounding SF and down the peninsula though. How Mountain View can oppose new apartments with a straight face is beyond me. Housing policy in the US seems to be designed for a period of 0 population growth and people who want to exclusively live in the suburbs. Additionally, nobody seems willing to point out the blindingly obvious contradiction in saying "high house prices are good" and "we need to address the problem of housing shortages". Perhaps most galling is that people care more about having places for cars to sleep than for people. New buildings (more in Santa Monica than SF) are required to have obscene amounts of parking - room that could go towards housing humans, and not cars. After living in Santa Monica, I lived in a wonderful apartment in a delightful neighborhood for a year in San Diego, but it was expensive (by SD standards). Why? Because it's de facto illegal to build nice neighborhoods any more with cottage-style homes or apartments above shops nestled close to one another, because now you'd have to use as much space on parking as on housing. And yet, it seems people like these places, as evidenced by the high rents they command. For what it's worth, while living there my wife and I were car-free for the first three months, relying on a 170cc scooter, car2go, and bicycles. After she got hit by a car commuting to her job which was in the middle of nowhere and poorly served by transit (but, I will say, surrounded by massive amounts of parking and on cheap land), we got one car, which we shared. SD law says our apartment would have needed two parking spaces if built now, which is comical.

themartorana 10y ago

I don't know much about the paper factory, but unwillingness to grow supply feels like a pretty common issue amongst larger cities. Where I live it feels rather protectionist, I imagine that applies in this case, too.

legulere 10y ago

> The market is so distorted by NIMBYs and regulations no regulation is just as bad as bad regulation. You want places where the population wants to live and can live. This is actually a very hard problem. And the free market won't solve it. The free market just creates investment objects to earn as much money as possible. High-rises are extremely expensive and don't lower rent prices. They might offer even lower population density. For example the Eixample district in Barcelona has a higher population density than manhattan. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eixample https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eixample

CalRobert 10y ago
Manhattan has systematically reduced density through legal manoeuvres. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty-percent-of-manhattans-buildings-could-not-be-built-today.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty-p...

CalRobert 10y ago

"..do more damage to traffic than the previous project..." Good. When I lived there I went to the city's meetings and pointed out that by moving TO Santa Monica I was able to now walk to my job IN Santa Monica, showing that housing can REDUCE traffic. The public's response?? "BUT IT ALREADY TAKES HALF AN HOUR TO GET TO THE BEACH AND I LIVE HALF A MILE AWAY!!" Of course, if you walk, cycle, or take expo it doesn't, but that city is a disaster of NIMBYism and closed-mindedness. They refuse to build housing as though anyone who can't live there is just going to jump off a bridge, as opposed to what they really do, which is live farther away and commute in..... increasing traffic.

twblalock 10y ago
It's similar to what is happening in San Francisco, but San Francisco has more displacement. You can't prevent people living in the city or commuting there, but people resist accommodating them. Tech workers want to live in SF, but housing growth won't keep up. The tech workers usually make more money than the current residents, and simply outbid them for housing, thereby causing market rate rent prices to increase dramatically. This is what people who protest luxury housing projects in SF are missing: the tech workers are going to live in the city no matter what. If you build luxury housing, they will take it. If you don't build luxury housing, tech workers will take the market-rate housing from the people who can't afford anything better. In some cases, they convert the market-rate housing to luxury housing, sometimes by combining units or getting rid of in-law units, which reduces the housing stock. Of course, rent control in SF is not means-tested, so it's basically a lottery -- there are people making very high incomes living in rent-controlled apartments, and very poor people who have to live together and pay the market rate. It's an indefensible system, even if you otherwise are OK with rent control. Protesting the Google buses is another example of shortsightedness. Who would rather have thousands of additional cars on the roads instead of a handful of buses? These people are going to get to work somehow, and they won't all fit on Caltrain and Muni.
- CalRobert 10y ago
  I completely agree. I understand the sentiments of those who oppose new construction because hey, SF is an awesome place and whenever you change something you run the risk of destroying that character, but the reality is that change is coming one way or another and it needs to be addressed. I actually lay more blame on the cities surrounding SF and down the peninsula though. How Mountain View can oppose new apartments with a straight face is beyond me. Housing policy in the US seems to be designed for a period of 0 population growth and people who want to exclusively live in the suburbs. Additionally, nobody seems willing to point out the blindingly obvious contradiction in saying "high house prices are good" and "we need to address the problem of housing shortages". Perhaps most galling is that people care more about having places for cars to sleep than for people. New buildings (more in Santa Monica than SF) are required to have obscene amounts of parking - room that could go towards housing humans, and not cars. After living in Santa Monica, I lived in a wonderful apartment in a delightful neighborhood for a year in San Diego, but it was expensive (by SD standards). Why? Because it's de facto illegal to build nice neighborhoods any more with cottage-style homes or apartments above shops nestled close to one another, because now you'd have to use as much space on parking as on housing. And yet, it seems people like these places, as evidenced by the high rents they command. For what it's worth, while living there my wife and I were car-free for the first three months, relying on a 170cc scooter, car2go, and bicycles. After she got hit by a car commuting to her job which was in the middle of nowhere and poorly served by transit (but, I will say, surrounded by massive amounts of parking and on cheap land), we got one car, which we shared. SD law says our apartment would have needed two parking spaces if built now, which is comical.