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While I generally support the legislation discussed in this article, I wish the YIMBY people would stop talking about this in such simplistic terms. In some par

by timr 9y ago

While I generally support the legislation discussed in this article, I wish the YIMBY people would stop talking about this in such simplistic terms. In some parts of California (e.g. San Francisco's eastern, urbanized third), no amount of building will ever satisfy the need, because all you can build on expensive land is "luxury" housing, and when those units don't sell/rent, developers will just stop building, because the unit economics don't work out. Some places definitely need to build more housing -- see, for example, the western 2/3rds of San Francisco, or the cutesy little suburban enclaves of Silicon Valley -- but this won't help until transit allows people to commute from those neighborhoods to their jobs. So we should also be saying "YIMBY" to transit infrastructure and reducing/eliminating the broken tax incentives that are helping to create the problem in the first place (like the ill-conceived Mid-Market tax incentives, which have replaced SROs with tech offices, thus making the homelessness problem worse.)

akanet 9y ago
I am a YIMBY and we consistently say all those things. I also reject the notion that the eastern district is "built out" or that developers will stop when things don't "pencil out". What pencils or doesn't is a direct consequence of the regulation and tax burden we place on construction, and there's probably an order of magnitude of levers we've yet to pull.
- timr 9y ago
  I also reject the notion that the eastern district is "built out" or that developers will stop when things don't "pencil out". Reject what you like, but you're wrong. Investors don't finance real-estate projects where the per-square-foot returns don't justify the expense. The expense, in the case of eastern SF, is >80% land and materials. It's been documented, extensively, by groups like SPUR. Taxes and regulation are less than 20% of the cost of construction in San Francisco. It's simply not the limiting factor [1] [1] http://www.spur.org/publications/urbanist-article/2014-02-11/real-costs-building-housing http://www.spur.org/publications/urbanist-article/2014-02-11... (You'll note that this link shows $48,000 of a $469,000 unit -- or about 10% of the cost -- is attributable to permits and regulatory fees. The cost of land and labor and materials amounts for >75% of the cost. When you read people complaining about "regulatory" costs in SF, it's really a political dog-whistle to the BMR housing subsidy, which developers hate. Most self-professed "YIMBYs" I talk to do not know this.)
  - sjg007 9y ago
    You could build in the Bay area for 20 years and not lose money.
    - timr 9y ago
      The bay area is a lot bigger than SF. As I said in my original post, I think a lot of bay area communities need to get with the program.
  - akanet 9y ago
    Sure, that's fine. The current level of what investors have demonstrated they're willing to build is by far below the norm for even SOMA. There is still a very significant amount of surface parking or 1-3 story developments in SOMA that could potentially become a very large amount of housing.
    - timr 9y ago
      "The current level of what investors have demonstrated they're willing to build is by far below the norm for even SOMA. There is still a very significant amount of surface parking or 1-3 story developments in SOMA that could potentially become a very large amount of housing." That's like saying "there's a very significant amount of land in America that could become a very large amount of housing.". Sure it could. Except, someone owns the land and wants you to pay for it (trouble, that), or it's being used for something else that has a higher value, or it just isn't practical to build there for whatever reason. Or maybe the owner doesn't want to rebuild. In any case, be more specific: I live in SOMA, and I don't know of many vacant lots around here that aren't already slated for development. These sorts of stories are usually apocryphal. This is another part of the "YIMBY" narrative that I dislike. You don't get to point at every building you think could be taller and say "I think that building could be taller, therefore, SF isn't building enough." That's not how it works.

by timr 9y ago

akanet 9y ago

I am a YIMBY and we consistently say all those things. I also reject the notion that the eastern district is "built out" or that developers will stop when things don't "pencil out". What pencils or doesn't is a direct consequence of the regulation and tax burden we place on construction, and there's probably an order of magnitude of levers we've yet to pull.

timr 9y ago
I also reject the notion that the eastern district is "built out" or that developers will stop when things don't "pencil out". Reject what you like, but you're wrong. Investors don't finance real-estate projects where the per-square-foot returns don't justify the expense. The expense, in the case of eastern SF, is >80% land and materials. It's been documented, extensively, by groups like SPUR. Taxes and regulation are less than 20% of the cost of construction in San Francisco. It's simply not the limiting factor [1] [1] http://www.spur.org/publications/urbanist-article/2014-02-11/real-costs-building-housing http://www.spur.org/publications/urbanist-article/2014-02-11... (You'll note that this link shows $48,000 of a $469,000 unit -- or about 10% of the cost -- is attributable to permits and regulatory fees. The cost of land and labor and materials amounts for >75% of the cost. When you read people complaining about "regulatory" costs in SF, it's really a political dog-whistle to the BMR housing subsidy, which developers hate. Most self-professed "YIMBYs" I talk to do not know this.)
- sjg007 9y ago
  You could build in the Bay area for 20 years and not lose money.
  - timr 9y ago
    The bay area is a lot bigger than SF. As I said in my original post, I think a lot of bay area communities need to get with the program.
- akanet 9y ago
  Sure, that's fine. The current level of what investors have demonstrated they're willing to build is by far below the norm for even SOMA. There is still a very significant amount of surface parking or 1-3 story developments in SOMA that could potentially become a very large amount of housing.
  - timr 9y ago
    "The current level of what investors have demonstrated they're willing to build is by far below the norm for even SOMA. There is still a very significant amount of surface parking or 1-3 story developments in SOMA that could potentially become a very large amount of housing." That's like saying "there's a very significant amount of land in America that could become a very large amount of housing.". Sure it could. Except, someone owns the land and wants you to pay for it (trouble, that), or it's being used for something else that has a higher value, or it just isn't practical to build there for whatever reason. Or maybe the owner doesn't want to rebuild. In any case, be more specific: I live in SOMA, and I don't know of many vacant lots around here that aren't already slated for development. These sorts of stories are usually apocryphal. This is another part of the "YIMBY" narrative that I dislike. You don't get to point at every building you think could be taller and say "I think that building could be taller, therefore, SF isn't building enough." That's not how it works.