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> Costs indicate it is full The city of SF is half as dense as Brooklyn and there are a lot of empty lots here. There is a lot more room for development. The p

> Costs indicate it is full The city of SF is half as dense as Brooklyn and there are a lot of empty lots here. There is a lot more room for development. The problem is that the current political situation makes it easy for people to block new housing. As an example - there is a 600-acre empty lot near the Bayshore Caltrain station. The developer wants to build 4400 units. The city wants to build 0 units and build an office park instead. Which will get built? It's not clear - the 5 people voting on it will probably be swayed by how many people show up to the meetings and advocate one position or another. I showed up last Thursday and one city resident said we should not build housing there because an earthquake may cause the buildings to fall over. You have agency in this situation. I wrote about this a little more here: https://kev.inburke.com/kevin/sf-housing-politics/ https://kev.inburke.com/kevin/sf-housing-politics/

cwyers 10y ago
The cost signal is what, not why. From the perspective of a potential buyer/renter, it doesn't matter if the cause is "density" or "politics."
- kevinburke 10y ago
  "Full" is a really meaningless term. It would be pretty easy for rents to rise a further 20%. I am just pointing out that tech workers are generally apathetic about the housing supply and the local politics, because we can outbid everyone. At some point the high prices will become a problem for the tech industry as a whole. It's already a problem for me. I also want to point out that we have agency in this situation; we can lobby for SF supervisors and city council members and state senators that will implement more pro-housing legislation, and we can show up to the meetings where new housing gets denied and lobby for it.
draw_down 10y ago
Costs indicate it is full.
kafkaesq 10y ago
The city of SF is half as dense as Brooklyn and there are a lot of empty lots here. There is a lot more room for development. The problem is that the current political situation makes it easy for people to block new housing. This is quite an oversimplification, on multiple fronts. For one, the reason Brooklyn has higher density has far more to do with historical building patterns than the current political situation, by any calculation for example. In Brooklyn, already by the 1930s, they built multistory housing throughout a much greater portion of available lots than they ever did in SF, for example. And then came the all the massive, federally subsidized housing projects in the 40s-70s (again, at a much greater scale than in SF). The current political situation may not be helping much (from a growth perspective) -- but that's the just the current velocity you're talking about, not the starting point (i.e. the vastly greater stock of historical housing in Brooklyn over SF). I showed up last Thursday and one city resident said we should not build housing [at the Baylands site] because an earthquake may cause the buildings to fall over. Sounds like you're trying to paint this person as some kind of nervous nellie (or just another kneejerk NIMBYist). And yet it's easy to verify[1] that the lot you're referring to lies in a high-susceptibility liquefaction zone. So his concerns don't sound misplaced at all. So again (and again, and again with these debates): Yes, NIMBYists exist, and the political situation isn't very particularly fun and often feels counterproductive, etc. But these aren't the root causes of the problem. Building (at scale) in mature, established cities is just, well, "complicated". And building in cities with a wealth of historic (and never, ever to be rebuilt) historic architecture -- which also just so happen to straddle one of the most dangerous fault lines on the planet -- even more so. This really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. [1] http://gis.abag.ca.gov/website/Hazards/?hlyr=liqSusceptibility http://gis.abag.ca.gov/website/Hazards/?hlyr=liqSusceptibili...
- kevinburke 10y ago
  > Sounds like you're trying to paint this guy as some kind of nervous nellie (or just another kneejerk NIMBYist). And yet it's easy to verify[1] that the lot you're referring to lies in a high-susceptibility liquefaction zone. So his concerns don't sound misplaced at all. The resident in question was a woman. I agree that liquefaction is a potential problem. But the developer is also aware of the problem and has a vested interest in ensuring that the condos they sell don't fall into the ground; I'm pretty sure that they won't sell condos that will fall into the ground. > Building (at scale) in mature, established cities is just, well, "complicated". Buildings on the East Coast are much older than San Francisco and yet they get referred for additional review much more rarely than San Francisco; in general it's much easier to build a new project as long as it fits the zoning guidelines. They also are not subject to CEQA lawsuits.

cwyers 10y ago

The cost signal is what, not why. From the perspective of a potential buyer/renter, it doesn't matter if the cause is "density" or "politics."

kevinburke 10y ago
"Full" is a really meaningless term. It would be pretty easy for rents to rise a further 20%. I am just pointing out that tech workers are generally apathetic about the housing supply and the local politics, because we can outbid everyone. At some point the high prices will become a problem for the tech industry as a whole. It's already a problem for me. I also want to point out that we have agency in this situation; we can lobby for SF supervisors and city council members and state senators that will implement more pro-housing legislation, and we can show up to the meetings where new housing gets denied and lobby for it.

draw_down 10y ago

Costs indicate it is full.

kafkaesq 10y ago

The city of SF is half as dense as Brooklyn and there are a lot of empty lots here. There is a lot more room for development. The problem is that the current political situation makes it easy for people to block new housing. This is quite an oversimplification, on multiple fronts. For one, the reason Brooklyn has higher density has far more to do with historical building patterns than the current political situation, by any calculation for example. In Brooklyn, already by the 1930s, they built multistory housing throughout a much greater portion of available lots than they ever did in SF, for example. And then came the all the massive, federally subsidized housing projects in the 40s-70s (again, at a much greater scale than in SF). The current political situation may not be helping much (from a growth perspective) -- but that's the just the current velocity you're talking about, not the starting point (i.e. the vastly greater stock of historical housing in Brooklyn over SF). I showed up last Thursday and one city resident said we should not build housing [at the Baylands site] because an earthquake may cause the buildings to fall over. Sounds like you're trying to paint this person as some kind of nervous nellie (or just another kneejerk NIMBYist). And yet it's easy to verify[1] that the lot you're referring to lies in a high-susceptibility liquefaction zone. So his concerns don't sound misplaced at all. So again (and again, and again with these debates): Yes, NIMBYists exist, and the political situation isn't very particularly fun and often feels counterproductive, etc. But these aren't the root causes of the problem. Building (at scale) in mature, established cities is just, well, "complicated". And building in cities with a wealth of historic (and never, ever to be rebuilt) historic architecture -- which also just so happen to straddle one of the most dangerous fault lines on the planet -- even more so. This really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. [1] http://gis.abag.ca.gov/website/Hazards/?hlyr=liqSusceptibility http://gis.abag.ca.gov/website/Hazards/?hlyr=liqSusceptibili...

kevinburke 10y ago
> Sounds like you're trying to paint this guy as some kind of nervous nellie (or just another kneejerk NIMBYist). And yet it's easy to verify[1] that the lot you're referring to lies in a high-susceptibility liquefaction zone. So his concerns don't sound misplaced at all. The resident in question was a woman. I agree that liquefaction is a potential problem. But the developer is also aware of the problem and has a vested interest in ensuring that the condos they sell don't fall into the ground; I'm pretty sure that they won't sell condos that will fall into the ground. > Building (at scale) in mature, established cities is just, well, "complicated". Buildings on the East Coast are much older than San Francisco and yet they get referred for additional review much more rarely than San Francisco; in general it's much easier to build a new project as long as it fits the zoning guidelines. They also are not subject to CEQA lawsuits.