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Both top-level comments have mentioned housing prices. I grew up in the Bay Area and want to stay here and I am trying to work to change policy to help build mo
by kevinburke 9y ago
Both top-level comments have mentioned housing prices. I grew up in the Bay Area and want to stay here and I am trying to work to change policy to help build more housing. Unfortunately due to law, bad policy and NIMBY's the market is not going to solve this problem on its own, without political change rents and housing prices will keep increasing. Here are some political actions you can take to help:
- call your State Assemblymember about SB 35, which would streamline (read: Force cities to approve) the production of housing near transit. Up for a vote very soon
- call your State Assemblymember and ask them to vote Yes on AB 71, which would end the state tax deduction on second/third homes and use the money to build affordable housing.
- contact the Brisbane City Council and ask them to build housing on the Baylands, near Bayshore Caltrain. The developer wants to build 4,400 units and the city wants to build 0. Baylands@ci.brisbane.ca.us
- Ask for more housing in the Central SOMA plan. BART and Caltrain are packed every commute hour and they want to add 50,000 new jobs and only 7,500 new housing units. Best is to show up for the hearings, failing that, email the plan director, steve.wertheim@sfgov.org. http://sf-planning.org/central-soma-plan#contacts http://sf-planning.org/central-soma-plan#contacts
- m-j-fox 9y agoThe one that confuses me is AB 71. Aren't 2nd and 3rd homes basically rental stock? Owned by individuals and not the Irving Company if you care about that.
- kevinburke 9y agoA house in Tahoe you use 3 weeks a year is not really rental stock, and it's not clear what benefit the public gets from your 2nd home that would justify a tax subsidy
- epistasis 9y agoWith VRBO and other sharing apps, yes that house in Tahoe is rental stock.
- zorpner 9y agoShort-term rentals aren't housing.
- epistasis 9y agoYes, they are, but short-term, and it takes longer-term housing off the market. This is ravaging the housing markets of many mountain villages. Re-reading the comment I was originally replying to, the commenter might have meant that the 2nd home didn't justify a tax deduction, which I would most definitely agree with. A 2nd home is an investment, and there should be no tax incentives on that sort of investment.
- hkmurakami 9y agoWell in the states, a first home is already often a person's biggest investment.
- m-j-fox 9y agoSure, but in silicon valley one thing to do with your smalltime IPO winnings is buy a house and rent out your old one to someone who has yet to hit paydirt. Maybe part of what pushes prices up, but I like to think my renters are getting a better deal than they would from old-man Irvine. (The incentives to play this game are razor-thin, mostly down to tax advantages.)
- aphextron 9y agoIt's almost comical how overcrowded BART has gotten at rush hour. Embarcadero and Powell stations become standing room only. I live deep in the east bay, and the new apartment building going up across the street has 1 bedroom layouts starting at $2800. Something has to give, or people will simply give up.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- vidoc 9y ago> Riding BART into and out of SF as a commute is ridiculous at a new level nowadays. Especially given the shocking number of uneducated people who insist on keeping their backpacks on their shoulders despite the train being packed. Totally pisses me off!
- hossbeast 9y agoHow do you know they're uneducated?
- noobermin 9y agoPerhaps they mean "uneducated in riding public transport in a way that doesn't hassle other passengers."
- Emilie656 9y agoI get paid over $90 per hour working from home with 2 kids at home. I never thought I'd be able to do it but my best friend earns over 10k a month doing this and she convinced me to try. The potential with this is endless. Heres what I've been doing, ------------>http://ow.ly/iBXm30dNtIZ http://ow.ly/iBXm30dNtIZ
- Sleeep 9y agoAnecdotal I know but from what I've seen they probably know they should put their backpacks in front, they just don't care. I went to a museum once where patrons were asked to either wear their backpacks in front of them or lock them up near the entrance. Literally almost everyone disregarded those instructions and put their backpacks on their back despite being asked directly multiple times to put their backpacks in front. They would for a quick second then move them to their back once the museum staff looked away. It was a real eye opener on people's self centeredness.
- amygdyl 9y agoLondon native here, so I will only mention this one thought which arose last week, discussing the same issues after we'd been reading about the Apple headquarters... Could not transportable housing be sited on short lease plots, with the aim of being a rudimentary means to live in a city but without having permanent planning or zoning decisions implemented? Certainly if I was younger, I would be interested in prefab housing for say 5 years lease on the site, and not expecting any permanent conversion or to be a squatting occupier, if I faced the London market at present again. Location is so important, and I pass so many empty lots even in the city's central Whitechapel area as I walk into the City centre. I would probably have been thrilled to meet my needs at twenty, this way.
- kevinburke 9y agoThere has been some progress in this direction, but the construction unions aren't happy and construction unions are for better or worse a powerful political force. In the past they've filed CEQA lawsuits to block housing projects that haven't used union labor. https://sf.curbed.com/2016/10/31/13481254/micropad-tour-patrick-kennedy-prefab-homeless https://sf.curbed.com/2016/10/31/13481254/micropad-tour-patr...
- gutnor 9y agoLondoner here. Building housing is not the biggest problem to solve though. I live in zone 2 and even there the housing density is not massive. You could probably double it without too much problem. The problem is that the transport network is at capacity: road, bus, train, tube - everything is packed at peak time, the main roads are a continuous stream of busses, there are 3 train in 20 minutes, a dlr every 3 minutes, ... If you double the density, you need to double the transport links too. Then there are the nurseries/schools/hospital. My GP has literally thousands of people registered despite a 3 street catchment area. It take at least a month to get a GP appointment. What's the point of living in a cheapass flat if you need to pay 2000 GBP for nursery or similar for private school, you need to go to private GP when you get a cold and you are still miserable in the public transport and ambulance do not get to you faster than if you were in the middle of the country side. London is at capacity for people working in the City/WestEnd/CanaryWharf. You need to expand it outward (eg: Crossrail ) and start encouraging business centers off the convergence commute route. BTW I don't think the cost of building is really a problem. The new build quality is appalling, a luxury unit cost little more than 50K to build and will be sold off plan for close to 1 million, years before the builder gets the council approval.
- amygdyl 9y agoLondon native here, so I will only mention this one thought which arose lady week, discussing the same issues after we'd been reading about the Apple headquarters... Could not transportable housing be sited on short lease plots, with the aim of being a rudimentary means to live in a city but without having permanent planning or zoning decisions implemented? Certainly if I was younger, I would be interested in prefab housing for say 5 years lease on the site, and not expecting any permanent conversion or to be a squatting occupier, if I faced the London market at present again. Location is so important, and I pass so many empty lots even in the city's central Whitechapel area as I walk into the City centre. I would probably have been thrilled to meet my needs at twenty, this way.
- hkmurakami 9y agoHow much money does it take to meaningfully move SF elections? (wondering about the viability of a Super PAC backed by SF rentiers and commuters)
- kevinburke 9y agoSome people are talking about that but honestly you have to start with building coalitions and groups, and lobby for all the policies in between elections, it can't just be November every 2 years. These people are working on it and you should talk to them: http://www.sfyimby.org/ http://www.sfyimby.org/. Also SFHAC, East Bay Forward.
- vedanta 9y agoThere are also YIMBY orgs almost everywhere. The south bay YIMBY twitter account has updates on what you can do as well. From following the YIMBY movement (http://www.slate.com/articles/business/metropolis/2017/06/yimbys_and_the_dsa_can_t_get_along_despite_their_common_enemy_high_rent.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/metropolis/2017/06/yi...) it's hard to not take the YIMBY position. More needs to be built, but we can have ~10% BMR requirements as ways of increasing diversity in a neighborhood and preserving some local control/culture. If enough is built, there won't be a need for BMR.
- abalone 9y ago10% is way low. SF has been negotiating for 25% and up.[1] BMR isn't just about culture and diversity. It's about teachers and service industry workers and everyone a functioning city needs. The gap is so large between market rate and affordability, and there are so many richer people still wanting to move into SF, that it is likely wishful thinking that market rate development will be "enough" to solve the problem. And that is the reason why the Yimby position is not an obvious choice. Cities need to negotiate with developers to have sufficient BMR housing to be functional. [1] http://48hills.org/2017/07/18/scott-wiener-trying-undermine-affordable-housing-sf/ http://48hills.org/2017/07/18/scott-wiener-trying-undermine-...
- kevinburke 9y agoIf you read policy documents YIMBY support all sorts of housing for everyone. Generally ambivalent about inclusionary housing requirements because a) it depresses the production of market rate housing by 2.5 to 6 units per one BMR unit and 2) historically it hasn't been very effective at adding new units. Post Prop C the housing pipeline in SF dropped off a cliff. Targeting BMR is going to be insufficient in SF anyway when 96% of the city rents units that reset to market rate when someone moves out, only thing that's going to help is a lot more new units of all shapes and sizes, hence the legislation listed above.
- krakensden 9y agoThe higher the %, the more expensive the market rate apartments have to be, which creates its own pressures. It also seems that every time a developer caves, no one is satisfied, and people are back demanding a higher number.
- narrator 9y agoWhy does everyone have to squeeze into San Francisco and the peninsula? Can't you tech workers gentrify West Oakland at least? Guess a few street thugs are a force more powerful than million dollar home prices. I bet those guys are really proud of the chaos they create that forces all of you to avoid their neighborhoods.
- nailer 9y agonpm and uber are in Oakland. Edit per comment below: uber Oakland office was going to 3000 people, but yeah, now it's been reduced to a few hundred: http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/03/20/uber-scales-back-initial-oakland-expansion-plans/ http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/03/20/uber-scales-back-initi...
- 0xB31B1B 9y agoUber is in SF, Palo Alto and Seattle, oak office is very small and hasn't opened yet.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- nailer 9y agoLooks like they reduced it. Thanks for heads up, have edited accordingly.
- mcguire 9y agoSo housing prices aren't that big a deal?
- closeparen 9y agoMore like BART is painful but tolerable.
- Naritai 9y agoDid you miss the part where BART is packed every commute hour? There are huge numbers of people in Oakland and the rest of the east bay. But the most efficient transportation system is one that doesn't have huge rush hour stresses, i.e. ones where people live close to where they work. So if the offices are getting built in SF, then so must be the housing.
- jostmey 9y agoor vote with your wallet and leave
- kevinburke 9y agoAmong other reasons this is impractical, my parents are here, my girlfriend's here, the companies I want to work for are here, everyone I went to high school with is here. Not clear where I'd go or how my life would be better.
- aswanson 9y agoAre the Bay Area public schools good? Or is it the thing to do to send kids to private school there like every other urban center?
- stenlix 9y agoMany of the Bay Area public high schools are very good. Schools like Monta Vista, Lynbrook, Gunn, and Palo Alto high school are top in the state if not the nation.
- ihaveajob 9y agoIt varies, but many of them are world class. That affects housing prices dramatically. People make calculations of where to buy a house depending on how many kids they expect to have: 0-2, buy somewhere cheap and send the kid to private school; 3+ and you need to buy somewhere with a better public school.
- ryandrake 9y agoIn fact, public school quality seems to be one of the biggest contributing factors to a home's price. And good / bad public schools seem to be dotted randomly across the Bay Area, so you have this weird effect where houses prices right across the street from each other could vary widely based on which school district it's in. Take Castro Valley in the East Bay. Highly rated public schools. Your kid will get pretty good schooling there, but you need to fork over 900K for a little 4 bedroom split level. A few blocks over, you see the same house for the bargain basement price of $600K, but lo and behold, you're in Hayward, where you're going to need to send your kid to school wearing a bullet-proof vest.
- e40 9y agoFour large apartment buildings in the East Bay have been burned by arsonists (likely the same one or group) in the last year. One in Uptown a few weeks ago. One, in Emmeryville was burned down twice. I agree, we need to build more housing. It seems it's not quite that simple, though.
- kevinburke 9y agoAs an example of how Bay Area housing politics are silly.. there is a document that local governments use that purports to show that building more housing creates demand for even more housing, and use it to justify not building things. By that logic, these arsons will help reduce rents in Oakland... it makes no sense.
- CalChris 9y agoBy that logic, these arsons will help reduce rents in Oakland... it makes no sense. No. That is a fallacy on your part, denying the antecedent.
- e40 9y agoI think Kevin was being snarky.
- sliverstorm 9y agoMaybe it does make sense. I want to live in Oakland even less now.
- jdavis703 9y agoThe idea of induced demand can't be discounted, that said building housing doesn't have the same negative impacts as building more highest lane miles, so the fact that it could induce demand is not as bad. Just keep building housing until every person who wants a roof over their head has one.
- scelerat 9y agoNIMBYism is merely one of the theories why the buildings in Emeryville to which you refer were set ablaze. Another begins with the phrase "follow the money..."
- s73ver 9y agoHonestly, another thing that could be done is that VCs could start funding things outside of Silicon Valley. There is precisely zero reason why they all need all of their companies to be right there.
- nradov 9y agoVCs want their portfolio companies within easy driving distance to facilitate multiple meetings per day.
- kec 9y agoHow does any of that help when the real issue is the distorting effect of prop 13 on the market? Insane housing prices are being driven by an illiquid market, adding more housing isn't going to change that.
- davidw 9y agoPolitics is about "the art of the possible" and not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. First the low-hanging fruit, then you keep going.
- kec 9y agowell yes, but what problem are you actually solving by adding more units? Yes, you're adding more people, but due to larger market effects you're not actually making the area any more affordable....
- davidw 9y agoBy adding supply, you will bring down prices or at least stabilize them. This is what all the economic literature on the subject says. Of course, it may not seem like you're making a dent, because housing has been so badly undersupplied there for so long.
- vedanta 9y agoProp 13 affects all of CA, you don't see prices in LA going up 100% in 3-5 years like you do in most south bay cities.
- kec 9y agoLA hasn't seen anything like the VC / tech boom that the bay area is currently in. Prop 13 reduces liquidity, but that doesn't automatically have an outsized effect on prices. It's only when a market is illiquid and there's a huge spike in demand that you see ridiculously negative effects like this.
- eli_gottlieb 9y agoThanks for your work on this issue!
- godzillabrennus 9y agoIf you want help changing local policy I bet the folks behind http://sfbarf.org http://sfbarf.org would be helpful to your fight.