6 ms·

If you grew up here, you'd like to stay here or start a company here, please get involved politically in electing candidates and pushing for policies that help

If you grew up here, you'd like to stay here or start a company here, please get involved politically in electing candidates and pushing for policies that help lower the price of housing. - AB 71 would raise $300 million a year for affordable housing, call your CA Assemblymember. - SB 35 would take power from local NIMBY's for projects that meet affordable housing targets. Call your CA Assemblymember. - Email baylands@ci.brisbane.ca.us and ask them to build 4400 units of housing on the Baylands, just south of San Francisco. They are waffling but the local residents want to build an office park. - Email your C level employees and VC's and tell them about your struggles to continue staying here, afford a babysitter or find a good school, and ask them to get involved in developing better housing policy for the Bay Area.

Nuzzerino 9y ago
How will more housing do anything other than make the traffic congestion even worse? More people will move here, prices will be close to the same, and traffic will be way worse. More VCs need to start supporting the idea of satellite offices and remote cultures for anything more than a dent to be made.
- blackguardx 9y ago
  Traffic congestion mainly exists when people don't live close to work. By building more housing all over the Bay Area, people will be more able to live close to work and thus reduce congestion. Not having enough housing forces people to commute from further out, which adds congestion all along their path.
wang_li 9y ago
> AB 71 would raise $300 million a year for affordable housing, call your CA Assemblymember. This is just an indirect subsidy of Facebook, Google, etc. By providing low income housing and food assistance to low income workers in high cost of living cities, it simply allows the well to do companies to continue not paying a living wage that corresponds to the situation that they've created by concentrating their businesses in the same area.
- kevinburke 9y ago
  Believe it or not, not everyone who is poor in the Bay Area works at a tech company.
  - wang_li 9y ago
    But the large salaries that they pay their employees pushes up the cost of living. Those employees then patronize businesses in the area. If those businesses are not traditionally high wage occupations, government aid is simply providing the high income earners the opportunity to pay the same price for a deli sandwich or an oil change as someone from Fremont. The more free market expectation would be that those low wage employees would be pushed out of the area and the businesses go under, or the businesses raise prices and pay their employees more.
- jtmcmc 9y ago
  it's actually subsidizing a portion of residents desire to not densify their various cities
- afarrell 9y ago
  In the same sense that funding the NHS is an indirect subsidy of Barclays, Rolls-Royce, BAE, Dyson, and Skyscanner. By providing free healthcare to folks living in Britain, it simply allows those well to do companies to continue not providing comprehensive health insurance to their employees. Any political body that tries to foster the growth of high-paying jobs in an area should also put in place policies so that there is at least 1 bed for every desk. More if they want to allow children, retirees, and manual laborers to live there.
  - kqr2 9y ago
    "1 bed for every desk" would be a good mantra for growth in the Bay Area.
    - afarrell 9y ago
      and in Boston, London, etc.
vm 9y ago
Right on -- we need more supply and local activism seems to be the only way to make that happen. NIMBYism cuts supply because existing homes are worth more when there are fewer new homes available. Any economically rational homeowner would want that (even though it sucks for everyone else). Demand is high because people have gotten rich! Google and Facebook stock prices have increased over 2x in nearly 2 years. That probably made a $1M+ for a few THOUSAND people. Then extrapolate all the other big exits or stock growth in time period... unreal wealth creation for many people. Demand isn't going anywhere. It's a supply issue.
narrator 9y ago
The problem with the supply of Bay Area housing isn't that there's not enough money involved. Adding more money to the situation will just make costs go higher. It's like healthcare or education. The problem is that big tech companies have practically unlimited money at their disposal, but are surrounded by communities that like their low density housing, open space lifestyle, think the traffic is terrible already, and aren't really interested in giving it up for any amount of money. The reason the big tech companies are there is because these communities are really nice and venture capital people, CEOs and top engineers want to live in these nice neighborhoods. If it was just a cost issue, they'd be located in Fresno. Of course real estate developers are hungry to build new rental apartments because the rents are so high and frame it as some sort of populist issue. It's really just rich people vs other rich people. There is no way they're ever going to build enough for prices to come down. Every tech company would move their entire workforce here if they could do so affordably. The best solution, IMHO, is to improve public transit, which would have all other sorts of beneficial side effects. The downside is that it would bring poor people into the area which would cause quality of life issues as far as the existing residents are concerned.
- kevinburke 9y ago
  > are surrounded by communities that like their low density housing This is changing; Facebook is sponsoring 1500 units, 300 affordable, in Menlo Park, Mountain View also becoming more welcoming of new housing, they recently approved 10,000 units in the North Bayshore area. Cupertino (where Apple is located) continues to distinguish itself in a bad way; they approved 11,000 new office spaces for Apple without any corresponding increase in housing, and routinely send people to San Jose city council meetings in an attempt to block housing on San Jose land. > The best solution, IMHO, is to improve public transit Again, there are promising developments here. Facebook sponsored a Dumbarton Corridor study, and all of the tech companies are throwing their money behind a new bridge tax ballot measure that would raise money for public transit. http://www.greencaltrain.com/2017/08/dumbarton-corridor-study-needs-review-august-meetings/ http://www.greencaltrain.com/2017/08/dumbarton-corridor-stud...
  - londons_explore 9y ago
Balgair 9y ago
Those are all really nice things for the Bay itself, but they aren't the way to fix things, they are just band-aids. If you really wan't to fix it, call your legislator and tell them to get rid of Prop 13. It's not commonly known for transplants to the Bay, but property taxes only get re-assessed upon sale of the property in California. They do not get reassessed every 5 years or so, like in most states (read the wiki article for more info, and yes, what I said is not exactly true, things get complicated very quickly, but I think the gist of what I said was true) My folks in the East Bay paid ~70k for the house in about 1970. Their monthly taxes are under $200 and they paid off the mortgage a few decades ago. Their new neighbors paid ~1 million for the exact same 3 bed/1 bath but just filled with black mold. We estimate they pay ~2.5k/month in taxes, let alone the mortgage (likely ~6.5k/month total with electricity, water, sewer, etc. every month, for the rest of their lives). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1978) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(197...
- kevinburke 9y ago
  I agree, it's just that there isn't any immediate action you can take to get Prop 13 reform, whereas each of the things above is something concrete you can do right now to help the issue. If and when we get a Prop 13 ballot issue then yeah, I'll do a big call to action on it.
- xienze 9y ago
  So where are your parents going to move when Prop 13 is repealed and they can't afford to live in their home of 45+ years?
  - Balgair 9y ago
    Bingo. I think you see now why things are so crazy in the CA property market then. For a few years after the repeal, you'd be kicking a LOT of older home-owners out of their homes. My folks, likely, included. However, what is the alternative? My siblings and I moved out of state a long time ago, due specifically to the housing issues. Most of my former HS classmates do not own homes in CA. They simply cannot afford it. Prop 13 'ate the seed-corn' of California youth's property aspirations. We simply cannot afford to own homes. This is why I said that GP's ideas were only band-aids. The giant elephant in the room in CA housing discussions is Prop 13, something that is abhorrent to continue on with and something that cannot possibly be removed now. CA will have to remove it someday, to give the youth any hope at reasonably 'owning' California, and everyday that it does not, things will get worse for when they do remove it. It's a quagmire, but it is the thing to talk about, not higher density band-aids.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

Nuzzerino 9y ago

How will more housing do anything other than make the traffic congestion even worse? More people will move here, prices will be close to the same, and traffic will be way worse. More VCs need to start supporting the idea of satellite offices and remote cultures for anything more than a dent to be made.

blackguardx 9y ago
Traffic congestion mainly exists when people don't live close to work. By building more housing all over the Bay Area, people will be more able to live close to work and thus reduce congestion. Not having enough housing forces people to commute from further out, which adds congestion all along their path.

wang_li 9y ago

> AB 71 would raise $300 million a year for affordable housing, call your CA Assemblymember. This is just an indirect subsidy of Facebook, Google, etc. By providing low income housing and food assistance to low income workers in high cost of living cities, it simply allows the well to do companies to continue not paying a living wage that corresponds to the situation that they've created by concentrating their businesses in the same area.

kevinburke 9y ago
Believe it or not, not everyone who is poor in the Bay Area works at a tech company.
- wang_li 9y ago
  But the large salaries that they pay their employees pushes up the cost of living. Those employees then patronize businesses in the area. If those businesses are not traditionally high wage occupations, government aid is simply providing the high income earners the opportunity to pay the same price for a deli sandwich or an oil change as someone from Fremont. The more free market expectation would be that those low wage employees would be pushed out of the area and the businesses go under, or the businesses raise prices and pay their employees more.
jtmcmc 9y ago
it's actually subsidizing a portion of residents desire to not densify their various cities
afarrell 9y ago
In the same sense that funding the NHS is an indirect subsidy of Barclays, Rolls-Royce, BAE, Dyson, and Skyscanner. By providing free healthcare to folks living in Britain, it simply allows those well to do companies to continue not providing comprehensive health insurance to their employees. Any political body that tries to foster the growth of high-paying jobs in an area should also put in place policies so that there is at least 1 bed for every desk. More if they want to allow children, retirees, and manual laborers to live there.
- kqr2 9y ago
  "1 bed for every desk" would be a good mantra for growth in the Bay Area.
  - afarrell 9y ago
    and in Boston, London, etc.

vm 9y ago

Right on -- we need more supply and local activism seems to be the only way to make that happen. NIMBYism cuts supply because existing homes are worth more when there are fewer new homes available. Any economically rational homeowner would want that (even though it sucks for everyone else). Demand is high because people have gotten rich! Google and Facebook stock prices have increased over 2x in nearly 2 years. That probably made a $1M+ for a few THOUSAND people. Then extrapolate all the other big exits or stock growth in time period... unreal wealth creation for many people. Demand isn't going anywhere. It's a supply issue.

narrator 9y ago

The problem with the supply of Bay Area housing isn't that there's not enough money involved. Adding more money to the situation will just make costs go higher. It's like healthcare or education. The problem is that big tech companies have practically unlimited money at their disposal, but are surrounded by communities that like their low density housing, open space lifestyle, think the traffic is terrible already, and aren't really interested in giving it up for any amount of money. The reason the big tech companies are there is because these communities are really nice and venture capital people, CEOs and top engineers want to live in these nice neighborhoods. If it was just a cost issue, they'd be located in Fresno. Of course real estate developers are hungry to build new rental apartments because the rents are so high and frame it as some sort of populist issue. It's really just rich people vs other rich people. There is no way they're ever going to build enough for prices to come down. Every tech company would move their entire workforce here if they could do so affordably. The best solution, IMHO, is to improve public transit, which would have all other sorts of beneficial side effects. The downside is that it would bring poor people into the area which would cause quality of life issues as far as the existing residents are concerned.

kevinburke 9y ago
> are surrounded by communities that like their low density housing This is changing; Facebook is sponsoring 1500 units, 300 affordable, in Menlo Park, Mountain View also becoming more welcoming of new housing, they recently approved 10,000 units in the North Bayshore area. Cupertino (where Apple is located) continues to distinguish itself in a bad way; they approved 11,000 new office spaces for Apple without any corresponding increase in housing, and routinely send people to San Jose city council meetings in an attempt to block housing on San Jose land. > The best solution, IMHO, is to improve public transit Again, there are promising developments here. Facebook sponsored a Dumbarton Corridor study, and all of the tech companies are throwing their money behind a new bridge tax ballot measure that would raise money for public transit. http://www.greencaltrain.com/2017/08/dumbarton-corridor-study-needs-review-august-meetings/ http://www.greencaltrain.com/2017/08/dumbarton-corridor-stud...
- londons_explore 9y ago

Balgair 9y ago

Those are all really nice things for the Bay itself, but they aren't the way to fix things, they are just band-aids. If you really wan't to fix it, call your legislator and tell them to get rid of Prop 13. It's not commonly known for transplants to the Bay, but property taxes only get re-assessed upon sale of the property in California. They do not get reassessed every 5 years or so, like in most states (read the wiki article for more info, and yes, what I said is not exactly true, things get complicated very quickly, but I think the gist of what I said was true) My folks in the East Bay paid ~70k for the house in about 1970. Their monthly taxes are under $200 and they paid off the mortgage a few decades ago. Their new neighbors paid ~1 million for the exact same 3 bed/1 bath but just filled with black mold. We estimate they pay ~2.5k/month in taxes, let alone the mortgage (likely ~6.5k/month total with electricity, water, sewer, etc. every month, for the rest of their lives). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1978) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(197...

kevinburke 9y ago
I agree, it's just that there isn't any immediate action you can take to get Prop 13 reform, whereas each of the things above is something concrete you can do right now to help the issue. If and when we get a Prop 13 ballot issue then yeah, I'll do a big call to action on it.
xienze 9y ago
So where are your parents going to move when Prop 13 is repealed and they can't afford to live in their home of 45+ years?
- Balgair 9y ago
  Bingo. I think you see now why things are so crazy in the CA property market then. For a few years after the repeal, you'd be kicking a LOT of older home-owners out of their homes. My folks, likely, included. However, what is the alternative? My siblings and I moved out of state a long time ago, due specifically to the housing issues. Most of my former HS classmates do not own homes in CA. They simply cannot afford it. Prop 13 'ate the seed-corn' of California youth's property aspirations. We simply cannot afford to own homes. This is why I said that GP's ideas were only band-aids. The giant elephant in the room in CA housing discussions is Prop 13, something that is abhorrent to continue on with and something that cannot possibly be removed now. CA will have to remove it someday, to give the youth any hope at reasonably 'owning' California, and everyday that it does not, things will get worse for when they do remove it. It's a quagmire, but it is the thing to talk about, not higher density band-aids.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]