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I know this comment will get downvoted, but I'm going to say it anyway because I think it's true. I see in the article how 10-15% of the units will be reserved

I know this comment will get downvoted, but I'm going to say it anyway because I think it's true. I see in the article how 10-15% of the units will be reserved for "low income". I understand why they do this. If they didn't, it would never get approval from the necessary zoning authority. However, I think it's a mistake. When people think "low income" they usually think of poignant cases of single mothers trying to raise kids, but in my experience that's not as common as we think. I live in an SF building where I'd estimate at least 10% of the residents are retired. I think most are on Social Security and using Section 8. I know my neighbor is because she doesn't speak much English (she's Russian) and she brings me her mail to read. I'm guessing the other retirees (almost all Russian immigrants) are in the same boat. In my opinion, if retirees need public assistance, they should live in a lower-cost area like Livermore, Gilroy, or Santa Rosa, not one of the most expensive neighborhoods in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Heck, I'd love to live in those areas if my job didn't require me to be in downtown SF every day. But that would make too much sense. Instead, every new housing unit has to have some portion reserved for "low income" so the local politicians can have some currency to spread around among their supporters - and if you don't think they do this you are kidding yourself. Constantly taking 10-15% of supply and restricting it to low income just raises housing costs for everyone else - and it's a double-whammy too because it's our tax dollars funding this unnecessarily lavish lifestyle (and $3K/month for a studio is lavish - there's no getting around it.) If you can't afford to live in a certain level of housing in a certain area at market prices, then you shouldn't live there, you should live somewhere cheaper. If the people companies want to hire can't afford to live within a reasonable distance then companies should pay more. If they can't pay more they should leave. Companies and jobs leaving will be the only way to lower demand and prices - and probably the only way to wake leaders up and get them to address our poor housing policies.

elgabogringo 10y ago
And I've been over by where FB is building the new apartments. It's nice. Lots of salt ponds around a hilly park that used to be a dump (hence the hill.) There's an old water treatment facility which I think still operates. There's a bit of a smell, thought I couldn't tell if that was from the facility or the wetlands. All told, it's a nice area and I'm guessing the dump, sewage treatment, and occasional smell are the reason people haven't built here before.
mattmanser 10y ago
And their friends? Their support networks? Their families? The place they know and love? It only makes sense from a fairly warped point of view.
- elgabogringo 10y ago
  I don't get to live by my family. I had to move for my job. I had to make new friends and travel to see old ones. When this job ends I'll probably have to move again. When I retire (God willing) and if I'm still in SF, I'll probably need to move to somewhere cheaper. I don't see why the same rules shouldn't apply to them. If their friends and families care so much they should take them in, not put them on the public dole. As retirees they are probably better off living somewhere cheaper anyway, like a retirement community in an exurb, where everything, food, medical, and entertainment was a lot cheaper.
  - CPLX 10y ago
    Empathy is a trait that, were you to cultivate it, would also likely help you tremendously in business, product design, understanding users, and many other things you find personally valuable in life, even beyond its intrinsic ability to make you more human.
    - elgabogringo 10y ago
      Do you have something beyond a personal attack to offer?
- anthony_james 10y ago
  If they truly loved or appreciated their location they would work enough to be able to afford to live there in retirement. It is unethical and impractical to hold wealthier individuals accountable for the financial missteps of individuals. Especially when hardworking and financially responsible people get crowded out from living in a desirible location who could actually afford it. Of course, this assumes that anyone can acquire as much wealth as they desire regardless of circumstance, which, as we have seen numerous times, is as much a "theory" as gravity is.
stanfordkid 10y ago
wow, finally someone that can talk sense.
magicalist 10y ago
> Heck, I'd love to live in those areas if my job didn't require me to be in downtown SF every day > If you can't afford to live in a certain level of housing in a certain area at market prices, then you shouldn't live there, you should live somewhere cheaper. If the people companies want to hire can't afford to live within a reasonable distance then companies should pay more. If they can't pay more they should leave. Sounds self correcting, then. Someday it may reach a point where you won't be able to afford to live where you can commute to downtown SF and your company will either have to pay you more or you'll have to leave. There are a ton of externalities already priced into your rent. Not sure why you're singling out this one versus, say, the overwhelming source of high rents: lack of supply.
- elgabogringo 10y ago
  If it's self correcting then why does it not correct? If lack of supply is a problem, then restricting that supply by 10-15% is part of the problem.
  - magicalist 10y ago
    > If it's self correcting then why does it not correct? It is. Due to government-mandated lack of supply, the market is working its magic to make you have to move to the east bay. > If lack of supply is a problem, then restricting that supply by 10-15% is part of the problem. Sure, and if taxes were cut 25% you'd save a lot of money too. You still haven't identified anything special about section 8 that is holding you back from your dreams of temporarily lower rent. What about proposition 13? What about insane zoning rules trying to preserve the "character" of generic suburban neighborhoods?
beat 10y ago
I've been to Menlo Park. There are homeless people there. Facebook employs janitors and cafeteria workers as well as engineers. Affordable housing makes sense. But the real problem with building in Menlo Park isn't your concern for poor people living there. It's the "village feel" attitude of the zoning commission, who won't let anything substantially larger than a single-family house be built there. In particular, Menlo Park is highly resistant to building vertically - the best way to get more units onto limited land.
onli 10y ago
The result of making specific regions unavailable for people with lower income results in a separated society. It will mean that people with much money will live next to people with much money, and people with no money will live next to people with no money. The US has that already; you call it ghetto.
ScaryRacoon 10y ago
What you're describing would result in large ghettos of low-income people. It would be a nightmare in the end.
- elgabogringo 10y ago
  Wow, this shows that you don't think very highly of low-income people. I think a community of retired russian immigrants would be very pleasant.
  - sephlietz 10y ago
    I think they are referring to the effects of concentrated poverty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_poverty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_poverty
  - ScaryRacoon 10y ago
    Not at all. The housing administration had some discriminatory practices in the past that did much of what the original suggestion was. It was a disaster. You want a community to be as diverse as possible across any sort of metric (income, race, religion, etc).
thedevil 10y ago
I have long supported offering free (tax-payer-funded) housing for the poor - studios or small apartments built in cheaper areas but with free internet. It seems like a win-win for everyone, for a lot of reasons. I'm usually afraid to say it out loud though, because everyone accuses me of oppressing the poor or something similar.
- magicalist 10y ago
  > I have long supported offering free (tax-payer-funded) housing for the poor - studios or small apartments built in cheaper areas but with free internet. It likely was subsidized housing for the poor in a cheaper area, but now its no longer cheap. What isn't covered in your proposal is how to handle picking up and moving those poor people every 10 years when somewhere cheap becomes popular.
ryandrake 10y ago
This is a great point. I'd love to own a Ferrari, but I don't because I can't afford one. The solution is that I buy a Honda--not for the government to step in and devise a "low income Ferrari" program.
- CPLX 10y ago
  That metaphor makes no sense at all. The commodity in question in that example would be "transportation" and the government can and should subsidize various forms of transportation for those with lower incomes. Nobody is proposing creating low income units that are incredibly high end in design and materials.
  - ryandrake 10y ago
    The government should definitely subsidize things like housing, transportation, and food. We're talking about creating low income luxury items. A house in Menlo Park is a luxury item, much like a Ferrari or Kobe beef.
    - CPLX 10y ago
      A modest apartment is not a luxury item. It is a modest apartment in a place with expensive land values. Much like a packet of Oscar Mayer ham on dry white toast served at a five star restaurant is still a packet of Oscar Mayer ham on dry white toast.
      - ryandrake 10y ago
        The location in and of itself makes a house a luxury item. A cardboard box on a 20 square foot plot of land in SoMa is practically a luxury item.
- ghostDancer 10y ago
  But you can use the same roads as the Ferrari owners. Or should they have better roads than you?.
taeric 10y ago
The "in my experience" raises instant warning signs to me. Anything that is strictly "in my experience" is susceptible to ridiculous amounts of survivor and confirmation bias. So, do you have any numbers? I agree that your argument is appealing. But I really distrust appealing arguments nowdays.
asuffield 10y ago
The reason why governments force construction companies to do this is because if they don't, it causes ghettoisation, through precisely the mechanism you describe. As a society, we have experimented sufficiently with ghettos as a city design strategy, and determined that they are terrible in all ways. We do not need to repeat that experiment. You don't solve the problem of high housing costs by getting rid of the poor people (if you are in the US, you may read that as "black people": that's what this policy has always turned out to mean in that country). If you want to reduce the cost of living, build more houses.
alexchantavy 10y ago
You have a point about raising housing costs for everyone else, but I can appreciate the intent to preserve some degree of income diversity even in expensive neighborhoods. People who write about cities have often said that a city is most healthy when people of all walks of life are able to live in proximity with each other, and it's possible that without these assistance programs (as short-sighted as they may be), we'd see more cities turn into strictly playgrounds for the rich.
- elgabogringo 10y ago
  but I can appreciate the intent to preserve some degree of income diversity even in expensive neighborhoods I agree, but it's not rich neighborhoods or rich people paying the price but the young middle class.
sephlietz 10y ago
The system you are wishing for (i.e., live where the free market guides you) is already, in reality, the system we nearly exclusively live in. The public effort to encourage mixed-income housing and mixed-income communities in order to fight the effects of concentrated poverty is not just about politics. There are real issues at play here, e.g., societal, economic, environmental, etc. Also, consider the benefits, to yourself, of living in a mixed community instead of a socioeconomically homogenous cluster.
icantdrive55 10y ago
"Heck, I'd love to live in those areas if my job didn't require me to be in downtown SF everyday." 1. I'm not sure if you realize, most people are already living in those far off places, like Santa Rosa, and commuting to SF already. Most of those workers you see in the downtown area are commuters. 2. Section 8 vouchers take up a small percentage of the apartments you would likely want to live in. A lot of the units are run down chit boxes. Many just meet section 8 requirements. Very few landlords rent out to section 8 out of the goodness of their hearts. Yes--I know there's the exception. 2. Tech workers are living pretty well now. I really hope it lasts. I just know too many homless individuals who were once Programmers. I know a key developer of Word Star that's literally begging for money as I write this now. (Give him some money when you see him. He wears a Penquin costume, and strums a toy banjo. He is harassed by cops, and wasen't luckey enough to get section 8.) 3. What a lot of people don't relalize is the cost of living has gotten so outragious, even the requirements for section 8 seem ludicrous. You would qualify for section 8 if you made less than $65,700 if you're single. If you have a wife, and kid your considered low income if you make less than $84,500. 4. My point is when the party dies, and we all know that time clock is ticking away--you might be the one applying for section 8? Good luck because they aren't even taking applications. We all know there's not a barrier to entry into this profession, other than a lot of drive, and hard work. It's not like medicine, where there a huge barrier to entry. My point is one day you might be living in that subsidized apartment? In my twenties, I never considered putting myself on that section 8 waiting list, now I wish I did.

elgabogringo 10y ago

And I've been over by where FB is building the new apartments. It's nice. Lots of salt ponds around a hilly park that used to be a dump (hence the hill.) There's an old water treatment facility which I think still operates. There's a bit of a smell, thought I couldn't tell if that was from the facility or the wetlands. All told, it's a nice area and I'm guessing the dump, sewage treatment, and occasional smell are the reason people haven't built here before.

mattmanser 10y ago

And their friends? Their support networks? Their families? The place they know and love? It only makes sense from a fairly warped point of view.

elgabogringo 10y ago
I don't get to live by my family. I had to move for my job. I had to make new friends and travel to see old ones. When this job ends I'll probably have to move again. When I retire (God willing) and if I'm still in SF, I'll probably need to move to somewhere cheaper. I don't see why the same rules shouldn't apply to them. If their friends and families care so much they should take them in, not put them on the public dole. As retirees they are probably better off living somewhere cheaper anyway, like a retirement community in an exurb, where everything, food, medical, and entertainment was a lot cheaper.
- CPLX 10y ago
  Empathy is a trait that, were you to cultivate it, would also likely help you tremendously in business, product design, understanding users, and many other things you find personally valuable in life, even beyond its intrinsic ability to make you more human.
  - elgabogringo 10y ago
    Do you have something beyond a personal attack to offer?
anthony_james 10y ago
If they truly loved or appreciated their location they would work enough to be able to afford to live there in retirement. It is unethical and impractical to hold wealthier individuals accountable for the financial missteps of individuals. Especially when hardworking and financially responsible people get crowded out from living in a desirible location who could actually afford it. Of course, this assumes that anyone can acquire as much wealth as they desire regardless of circumstance, which, as we have seen numerous times, is as much a "theory" as gravity is.

stanfordkid 10y ago

wow, finally someone that can talk sense.

magicalist 10y ago

> Heck, I'd love to live in those areas if my job didn't require me to be in downtown SF every day > If you can't afford to live in a certain level of housing in a certain area at market prices, then you shouldn't live there, you should live somewhere cheaper. If the people companies want to hire can't afford to live within a reasonable distance then companies should pay more. If they can't pay more they should leave. Sounds self correcting, then. Someday it may reach a point where you won't be able to afford to live where you can commute to downtown SF and your company will either have to pay you more or you'll have to leave. There are a ton of externalities already priced into your rent. Not sure why you're singling out this one versus, say, the overwhelming source of high rents: lack of supply.

elgabogringo 10y ago
If it's self correcting then why does it not correct? If lack of supply is a problem, then restricting that supply by 10-15% is part of the problem.
- magicalist 10y ago
  > If it's self correcting then why does it not correct? It is. Due to government-mandated lack of supply, the market is working its magic to make you have to move to the east bay. > If lack of supply is a problem, then restricting that supply by 10-15% is part of the problem. Sure, and if taxes were cut 25% you'd save a lot of money too. You still haven't identified anything special about section 8 that is holding you back from your dreams of temporarily lower rent. What about proposition 13? What about insane zoning rules trying to preserve the "character" of generic suburban neighborhoods?

beat 10y ago

I've been to Menlo Park. There are homeless people there. Facebook employs janitors and cafeteria workers as well as engineers. Affordable housing makes sense. But the real problem with building in Menlo Park isn't your concern for poor people living there. It's the "village feel" attitude of the zoning commission, who won't let anything substantially larger than a single-family house be built there. In particular, Menlo Park is highly resistant to building vertically - the best way to get more units onto limited land.

onli 10y ago

The result of making specific regions unavailable for people with lower income results in a separated society. It will mean that people with much money will live next to people with much money, and people with no money will live next to people with no money. The US has that already; you call it ghetto.

ScaryRacoon 10y ago

What you're describing would result in large ghettos of low-income people. It would be a nightmare in the end.

elgabogringo 10y ago
Wow, this shows that you don't think very highly of low-income people. I think a community of retired russian immigrants would be very pleasant.
- sephlietz 10y ago
  I think they are referring to the effects of concentrated poverty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_poverty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_poverty
- ScaryRacoon 10y ago
  Not at all. The housing administration had some discriminatory practices in the past that did much of what the original suggestion was. It was a disaster. You want a community to be as diverse as possible across any sort of metric (income, race, religion, etc).

thedevil 10y ago

I have long supported offering free (tax-payer-funded) housing for the poor - studios or small apartments built in cheaper areas but with free internet. It seems like a win-win for everyone, for a lot of reasons. I'm usually afraid to say it out loud though, because everyone accuses me of oppressing the poor or something similar.

magicalist 10y ago
> I have long supported offering free (tax-payer-funded) housing for the poor - studios or small apartments built in cheaper areas but with free internet. It likely was subsidized housing for the poor in a cheaper area, but now its no longer cheap. What isn't covered in your proposal is how to handle picking up and moving those poor people every 10 years when somewhere cheap becomes popular.

ryandrake 10y ago

This is a great point. I'd love to own a Ferrari, but I don't because I can't afford one. The solution is that I buy a Honda--not for the government to step in and devise a "low income Ferrari" program.

CPLX 10y ago
That metaphor makes no sense at all. The commodity in question in that example would be "transportation" and the government can and should subsidize various forms of transportation for those with lower incomes. Nobody is proposing creating low income units that are incredibly high end in design and materials.
- ryandrake 10y ago
  The government should definitely subsidize things like housing, transportation, and food. We're talking about creating low income luxury items. A house in Menlo Park is a luxury item, much like a Ferrari or Kobe beef.
  - CPLX 10y ago
    A modest apartment is not a luxury item. It is a modest apartment in a place with expensive land values. Much like a packet of Oscar Mayer ham on dry white toast served at a five star restaurant is still a packet of Oscar Mayer ham on dry white toast.
    - ryandrake 10y ago
      The location in and of itself makes a house a luxury item. A cardboard box on a 20 square foot plot of land in SoMa is practically a luxury item.
ghostDancer 10y ago
But you can use the same roads as the Ferrari owners. Or should they have better roads than you?.

taeric 10y ago

The "in my experience" raises instant warning signs to me. Anything that is strictly "in my experience" is susceptible to ridiculous amounts of survivor and confirmation bias. So, do you have any numbers? I agree that your argument is appealing. But I really distrust appealing arguments nowdays.

asuffield 10y ago

The reason why governments force construction companies to do this is because if they don't, it causes ghettoisation, through precisely the mechanism you describe. As a society, we have experimented sufficiently with ghettos as a city design strategy, and determined that they are terrible in all ways. We do not need to repeat that experiment. You don't solve the problem of high housing costs by getting rid of the poor people (if you are in the US, you may read that as "black people": that's what this policy has always turned out to mean in that country). If you want to reduce the cost of living, build more houses.

alexchantavy 10y ago

You have a point about raising housing costs for everyone else, but I can appreciate the intent to preserve some degree of income diversity even in expensive neighborhoods. People who write about cities have often said that a city is most healthy when people of all walks of life are able to live in proximity with each other, and it's possible that without these assistance programs (as short-sighted as they may be), we'd see more cities turn into strictly playgrounds for the rich.

elgabogringo 10y ago
but I can appreciate the intent to preserve some degree of income diversity even in expensive neighborhoods I agree, but it's not rich neighborhoods or rich people paying the price but the young middle class.

sephlietz 10y ago

The system you are wishing for (i.e., live where the free market guides you) is already, in reality, the system we nearly exclusively live in. The public effort to encourage mixed-income housing and mixed-income communities in order to fight the effects of concentrated poverty is not just about politics. There are real issues at play here, e.g., societal, economic, environmental, etc. Also, consider the benefits, to yourself, of living in a mixed community instead of a socioeconomically homogenous cluster.

icantdrive55 10y ago

"Heck, I'd love to live in those areas if my job didn't require me to be in downtown SF everyday." 1. I'm not sure if you realize, most people are already living in those far off places, like Santa Rosa, and commuting to SF already. Most of those workers you see in the downtown area are commuters. 2. Section 8 vouchers take up a small percentage of the apartments you would likely want to live in. A lot of the units are run down chit boxes. Many just meet section 8 requirements. Very few landlords rent out to section 8 out of the goodness of their hearts. Yes--I know there's the exception. 2. Tech workers are living pretty well now. I really hope it lasts. I just know too many homless individuals who were once Programmers. I know a key developer of Word Star that's literally begging for money as I write this now. (Give him some money when you see him. He wears a Penquin costume, and strums a toy banjo. He is harassed by cops, and wasen't luckey enough to get section 8.) 3. What a lot of people don't relalize is the cost of living has gotten so outragious, even the requirements for section 8 seem ludicrous. You would qualify for section 8 if you made less than $65,700 if you're single. If you have a wife, and kid your considered low income if you make less than $84,500. 4. My point is when the party dies, and we all know that time clock is ticking away--you might be the one applying for section 8? Good luck because they aren't even taking applications. We all know there's not a barrier to entry into this profession, other than a lot of drive, and hard work. It's not like medicine, where there a huge barrier to entry. My point is one day you might be living in that subsidized apartment? In my twenties, I never considered putting myself on that section 8 waiting list, now I wish I did.