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There are height limitations in most of Silicon Valley (except maybe downtown San Jose?) -- I think the limit here in Sunnyvale, for example, is eight stories -

There are height limitations in most of Silicon Valley (except maybe downtown San Jose?) -- I think the limit here in Sunnyvale, for example, is eight stories -- but earthquakes are not the reason for them. People just want to preserve the suburban character of the area. How that can be done when a lot more people want to live here is not clear to me.

prostoalex 10y ago
It's a bit more insidious than preserving the character. Tall residential towers generally require certain amount of parking spaces, which in turn require more expensive structural support for the (usually) underlying garage. Developers would justify the cost of the parking structure by adding a few residential floors on top of the tower. But that's where height restrictions kick in and price out low-tier and middle-tier apartments, leaving room only for luxury, using SF as an example http://missionlocal.org/2016/10/neighbors-double-down-against-mission-district-affordable-housing/ http://missionlocal.org/2016/10/neighbors-double-down-agains... "Coliver said her team concluded that developers could squeeze a maximum of 13 parking spots in the 12,000 square foot lot— but that would make the building “structurally not feasible,” since it would require removing the columns that support the structure. The cost for the hypothetical scenario? Coliver said $2.25 million — or $180,000 a stall." So the long-term recipe for opposing any new development is: 1) Require certain minimum parking spaces per square feet built (already done in most cities). 2) Run the numbers for a minimally economically viable structure, calculate the total number of floors it would need with parking garage included. 3) Lobby for regulations that set the maximum height at N-1 floors. 4) Bingo, every tall structure is now economically unfeasible. Saves you a trip to the city hall to protest new development, as most developers come to the conclusion that the numbers don't make sense well before acquiring the land and permits.
- closeparen 10y ago
  >“Well, how about guests?” asked Lucy, before the conversation turned to shadow impact and wind tunnels. This has a very simple answer: no overnight parking. Keeps residents from owning cars if they don't have off-street parking, so there is always street frontage for visitors. You get a limited set of overnight parking passes for overnight visitors. In the long run, it's probably the only way to get people to stop blocking development over street parking. Take it away from everyone, except short-term users like guests and car-sharing. Bonus points of you make an exception for motorcycles/scooters, since they allow far more people to benefit from motor vehicles per square foot of parking.
nradov 10y ago
The FAA has imposed a height limit of about 15 storeys on downtown San Jose. It's right in the takeoff path from SJC.
hilop 10y ago
Most of SV land is parking spaces. The obvious answer is to stack the cars up multilevel, for an easy 2x population density

prostoalex 10y ago

It's a bit more insidious than preserving the character. Tall residential towers generally require certain amount of parking spaces, which in turn require more expensive structural support for the (usually) underlying garage. Developers would justify the cost of the parking structure by adding a few residential floors on top of the tower. But that's where height restrictions kick in and price out low-tier and middle-tier apartments, leaving room only for luxury, using SF as an example http://missionlocal.org/2016/10/neighbors-double-down-against-mission-district-affordable-housing/ http://missionlocal.org/2016/10/neighbors-double-down-agains... "Coliver said her team concluded that developers could squeeze a maximum of 13 parking spots in the 12,000 square foot lot— but that would make the building “structurally not feasible,” since it would require removing the columns that support the structure. The cost for the hypothetical scenario? Coliver said $2.25 million — or $180,000 a stall." So the long-term recipe for opposing any new development is: 1) Require certain minimum parking spaces per square feet built (already done in most cities). 2) Run the numbers for a minimally economically viable structure, calculate the total number of floors it would need with parking garage included. 3) Lobby for regulations that set the maximum height at N-1 floors. 4) Bingo, every tall structure is now economically unfeasible. Saves you a trip to the city hall to protest new development, as most developers come to the conclusion that the numbers don't make sense well before acquiring the land and permits.

closeparen 10y ago
>“Well, how about guests?” asked Lucy, before the conversation turned to shadow impact and wind tunnels. This has a very simple answer: no overnight parking. Keeps residents from owning cars if they don't have off-street parking, so there is always street frontage for visitors. You get a limited set of overnight parking passes for overnight visitors. In the long run, it's probably the only way to get people to stop blocking development over street parking. Take it away from everyone, except short-term users like guests and car-sharing. Bonus points of you make an exception for motorcycles/scooters, since they allow far more people to benefit from motor vehicles per square foot of parking.

nradov 10y ago

The FAA has imposed a height limit of about 15 storeys on downtown San Jose. It's right in the takeoff path from SJC.

hilop 10y ago

Most of SV land is parking spaces. The obvious answer is to stack the cars up multilevel, for an easy 2x population density