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In Los Angeles many transit stops are well developed with residential and retail nearby. The result has been the property values near the stations is so high th

In Los Angeles many transit stops are well developed with residential and retail nearby. The result has been the property values near the stations is so high that people who use public transit as their primary mode of transit can't afford to live there, and the bulk of people who do live there typically drive and use transit occasionally.

dba7dba 10y ago
It's not just the property value of the neighborhood that's absurdly high. The rent/cost of the units in the newly built dense housing buildings is absurdly high too. I mean living in LA, who would want to pay ton of money for a box of living space with no yard, and yet share subway with the less desirables (not my view of course). And the public transportation systems in LA doesn't really have the reach either.
- melling 10y ago
  Simple solution to both problems: build a lot more mass transit.
  - Tempest1981 10y ago
    How much will that cost? Measure B will help a bit, but brings our sales tax to 9%. Property tax is limited by prop 13. Should developers kick in more? Is 10-12% sales tax ok?
    - melling 10y ago
      It's going to cost a lot more than 50 years ago when it should have done. Stupidity has a price. Of course, the problem could just be ignored for another 50. Maybe people will simply leave LA.
    - scharfstevenm 10y ago
      Measure B is mainly roads, with little for transit. Does anyone trust VTA to manage mass transit development? Funds for transit should come from fuel taxes, vehicle license fees, and development fees. Sales tax increases are very regressive and a terrible way to pay for transit. But that's always what the Silicon Valley Non-Leadership Group favors because it avoids their members having to ante up for the transportation problems they create. Glad the NYT article author at least quoted me correctly. He was going to characterize me as "anti-growth," which is completely false. Growth is just fine as long as it's sustainable growth with transportation, housing, and school impact taken into consideration. But developers don't want to take a systems view and look at the long-term impact of their projects.
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    Good luck raising the billions in taxes required.
  - CodeWriter23 10y ago
    LA Transit has a "last 5 miles" problem. Many people live 5 or more miles from the stop. The local bus can add 30-40 minutes for what should be a 10 minute car ride. The park and ride lots are always full before 6:30AM, and account for 200 riders at the smaller lots and maybe 1000 at the larger ones. Parking is expensive to build too. Add to that, poor choices to build at grade reduce the effectiveness of light rail. In Pasadena the Gold Line crossing was put at grade across a major artery; should have continued underground for just another mile. This creates a daily traffic jam that lasts for about 2-3 hours. And then through Highland Park, the rail is at grade through a residential street, making it go 5 MPH and it has to obey traffic signals at the same priority as cars. The end result is a 35 minute commute time Downtown for a trip that takes 20 minutes in no traffic, 35 in typical rush hour traffic and maybe 45-50 worst case. People choose to drive instead just to save time...including my best friend who lives two blocks from a Gold Line stop.
  - scharfstevenm 10y ago
    Wow, why didn't anyone think of that before?! Seriously, look at some transit maps: 1920 Silicon Valley: http://www.sociecity.com//wp-content/uploads/silicon-valey-streetcar-rail-lines-1920.jpg http://www.sociecity.com//wp-content/uploads/silicon-valey-s... 2012 Silicon Valley: http://www.sociecity.com//wp-content/uploads/silicon-valey-streetcar-rail-lines-2012.jpg http://www.sociecity.com//wp-content/uploads/silicon-valey-s... And these were for-profit, privately run lines in most cases. A good article at http://sociecity.com/rethink/death-and-life-of-american-streetcar http://sociecity.com/rethink/death-and-life-of-american-stre....
- closeparen 10y ago
  Yes, but it should take some pressure off less dense housing. Unless it replaces parking, in which case less dense housing gets WAY cheaper but also much less useful.
- scharfstevenm 10y ago
  Is anyone naive enough to believe that newly build dense housing is going to bring down the cost of housing? It doesn't work that way. One of the biggest contributors to high housing cost in San Francisco is rent control. It benefits some tenants, but it results in more and more rental housing being turned into TIC buildings under the Ellis Act. My wife's family had a four unit apartment building in SF and they had to sell it because with rent control, and de-facto vacancy control, it was a money-losing proposition since there was no way they could maintain the building and pay the mortgage with the rents they were getting. My wife may have married me for the free handyman services I provided to them. I'm sure that the new owner did a TIC conversion. In a way it's good that more people become owners rather than renters, but it does not increase the supply of housing or lower the cost. There are also a lot of houses in San Francisco with empty in-law units because the homeowners are scared to rent them out because of all the laws on rental housing, even in the cases where the in-law unit is not covered by rent control. So we're in the odd situation of having a housing shortage with tens of thousands of unoccupied housing units.
  - kspaans 10y ago
    How long had the tenants been in those apartments? I'm just curious how costs rose faster than rents, since property taxes are pretty low. Was the high cost of labour for maintenance a big part of it?
    - scharfstevenm 10y ago
      Maintenance and repairs were a lot when they had to pay someone to do everything. Then when I entered the family, suddenly I could repair appliances, replace plumbing fixtures, replace outlets and switches, install lighting, it never ends. Many trips to San Francisco from Silicon Valley for repairs. I think if they could have raised the rents when tenants changed, and have been allowed 3-4% annual increases, instead of 2% or less, then it would have been sustainable. But tenants passed on the apartments to friends and relatives, and the rent was delivered in cash to our house. A lot of apartment building owners in San Francisco aren't wealthy, and own just one small building. The lesson that was learned is that it's a really bad idea to own rental property in a city with such confiscatory rent control. And this rent control only on older properties ends up driving up prices on non-rent controlled properties because it constricts the market-rate supply.

dba7dba 10y ago

It's not just the property value of the neighborhood that's absurdly high. The rent/cost of the units in the newly built dense housing buildings is absurdly high too. I mean living in LA, who would want to pay ton of money for a box of living space with no yard, and yet share subway with the less desirables (not my view of course). And the public transportation systems in LA doesn't really have the reach either.

melling 10y ago
Simple solution to both problems: build a lot more mass transit.
- Tempest1981 10y ago
  How much will that cost? Measure B will help a bit, but brings our sales tax to 9%. Property tax is limited by prop 13. Should developers kick in more? Is 10-12% sales tax ok?
  - melling 10y ago
    It's going to cost a lot more than 50 years ago when it should have done. Stupidity has a price. Of course, the problem could just be ignored for another 50. Maybe people will simply leave LA.
  - scharfstevenm 10y ago
    Measure B is mainly roads, with little for transit. Does anyone trust VTA to manage mass transit development? Funds for transit should come from fuel taxes, vehicle license fees, and development fees. Sales tax increases are very regressive and a terrible way to pay for transit. But that's always what the Silicon Valley Non-Leadership Group favors because it avoids their members having to ante up for the transportation problems they create. Glad the NYT article author at least quoted me correctly. He was going to characterize me as "anti-growth," which is completely false. Growth is just fine as long as it's sustainable growth with transportation, housing, and school impact taken into consideration. But developers don't want to take a systems view and look at the long-term impact of their projects.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  Good luck raising the billions in taxes required.
- CodeWriter23 10y ago
  LA Transit has a "last 5 miles" problem. Many people live 5 or more miles from the stop. The local bus can add 30-40 minutes for what should be a 10 minute car ride. The park and ride lots are always full before 6:30AM, and account for 200 riders at the smaller lots and maybe 1000 at the larger ones. Parking is expensive to build too. Add to that, poor choices to build at grade reduce the effectiveness of light rail. In Pasadena the Gold Line crossing was put at grade across a major artery; should have continued underground for just another mile. This creates a daily traffic jam that lasts for about 2-3 hours. And then through Highland Park, the rail is at grade through a residential street, making it go 5 MPH and it has to obey traffic signals at the same priority as cars. The end result is a 35 minute commute time Downtown for a trip that takes 20 minutes in no traffic, 35 in typical rush hour traffic and maybe 45-50 worst case. People choose to drive instead just to save time...including my best friend who lives two blocks from a Gold Line stop.
- scharfstevenm 10y ago
  Wow, why didn't anyone think of that before?! Seriously, look at some transit maps: 1920 Silicon Valley: http://www.sociecity.com//wp-content/uploads/silicon-valey-streetcar-rail-lines-1920.jpg http://www.sociecity.com//wp-content/uploads/silicon-valey-s... 2012 Silicon Valley: http://www.sociecity.com//wp-content/uploads/silicon-valey-streetcar-rail-lines-2012.jpg http://www.sociecity.com//wp-content/uploads/silicon-valey-s... And these were for-profit, privately run lines in most cases. A good article at http://sociecity.com/rethink/death-and-life-of-american-streetcar http://sociecity.com/rethink/death-and-life-of-american-stre....
closeparen 10y ago
Yes, but it should take some pressure off less dense housing. Unless it replaces parking, in which case less dense housing gets WAY cheaper but also much less useful.
scharfstevenm 10y ago
Is anyone naive enough to believe that newly build dense housing is going to bring down the cost of housing? It doesn't work that way. One of the biggest contributors to high housing cost in San Francisco is rent control. It benefits some tenants, but it results in more and more rental housing being turned into TIC buildings under the Ellis Act. My wife's family had a four unit apartment building in SF and they had to sell it because with rent control, and de-facto vacancy control, it was a money-losing proposition since there was no way they could maintain the building and pay the mortgage with the rents they were getting. My wife may have married me for the free handyman services I provided to them. I'm sure that the new owner did a TIC conversion. In a way it's good that more people become owners rather than renters, but it does not increase the supply of housing or lower the cost. There are also a lot of houses in San Francisco with empty in-law units because the homeowners are scared to rent them out because of all the laws on rental housing, even in the cases where the in-law unit is not covered by rent control. So we're in the odd situation of having a housing shortage with tens of thousands of unoccupied housing units.
- kspaans 10y ago
  How long had the tenants been in those apartments? I'm just curious how costs rose faster than rents, since property taxes are pretty low. Was the high cost of labour for maintenance a big part of it?
  - scharfstevenm 10y ago
    Maintenance and repairs were a lot when they had to pay someone to do everything. Then when I entered the family, suddenly I could repair appliances, replace plumbing fixtures, replace outlets and switches, install lighting, it never ends. Many trips to San Francisco from Silicon Valley for repairs. I think if they could have raised the rents when tenants changed, and have been allowed 3-4% annual increases, instead of 2% or less, then it would have been sustainable. But tenants passed on the apartments to friends and relatives, and the rent was delivered in cash to our house. A lot of apartment building owners in San Francisco aren't wealthy, and own just one small building. The lesson that was learned is that it's a really bad idea to own rental property in a city with such confiscatory rent control. And this rent control only on older properties ends up driving up prices on non-rent controlled properties because it constricts the market-rate supply.