7 ms·

Google demands more office space, threatens to block North Bayshore housing

77 points by kushti 9y ago

dvdhnt 9y ago
> We are supportive of the preliminary approval of a North Bay Shore precise plan which includes 9,850 units of housing, 1,600 of which would be affordable... I know exactly what they mean by “affordable”, but how the hell are we ok getting to a point where affordable housing only refers to housing that is affordable because it’s being subsidized? Ridiculous.
- jdavis703 9y ago
  I think this is terminology. When people hear "subsidized" housing they start thinking about project towers and run down section 8 singe family homes. "Affordable housing" still has a fairly positive connotation that won't cause as many people to oppose a project. I agree, it's unfortunate that housing poor people has to be branded, but that's the society we live in.
  - jxramos 9y ago
    ah, the old euphemistic jump strategy at play. I can't say I identified affordable housing in such a light but now that you point it out indeed it is subsidized but dodges all the subsidized baggage like so many earlier language plays in euphemism island hopping in an archipelago of nearby clustered ideas.
    - rspeer 9y ago
      In my experience with local politics, "affordable housing" can mean any of three things: - Subsidized housing - Public housing - Increasing density to lower the actual price of housing But homeowners (overrepresented among voters) generally only support the first, as the other two could make their property value go down (y'know, in the affordable direction). You can end up with three groups that are all at odds with each other and all campaigning for "affordable housing". Deft politicians can spin this confusion to make housing scarcity sound like altruism.
      - ThrustVectoring 9y ago
        What's even better is that subsidized housing is generally subsidized by passing on the costs of the subsidy to the unsubsidized units in the development. That is, if it costs the developer $500k per unit, and they're required to sell 200 of their 1000 units for $100k each, the $80M subsidy gets added onto the cost of the remaining unsubsidized units at $80k each. This effectively removes supply through removing development projects that cannot make an open-market profit while handing out the mandated "affordable housing" subsidy. It's truly Orwellian that regulations that make housing less affordable get called "affordable housing".
        random023987 9y ago
        > It's truly Orwellian that regulations that make housing less affordable get called "affordable housing". To be fair, developers sell units at what the market will bear, rather than on a "cost-plus" basis. Raising developer costs doesn't impact the final sale price. Now one could argue that reducing developer profits means that fewer developers will try to build... but it's properly zoned land, not developers that is in short supply. Or maybe you mean that the requirement that some of the housing be "affordable", means only projects that the remainder of the units are "unaffordable" will be built... but that's the case anyway; given the scarcity of land it doesn't make sense to build affordable housing unless forced. Not that I'm in favor of housing subsidies. It turns a few well-connected or lucky people into lottery winners, and doesn't reduce the overall cost of housing.
        ThrustVectoring 9y ago
        >To be fair, developers sell units at what the market will bear, rather than on a "cost-plus" basis. Raising developer costs doesn't impact the final sale price. Raising developer costs kill off unprofitable developments until the marginal unit created has a cost equal to what the market will bear. It depends on the relative elasticity of supply and demand - we'll hit an equilibrium of fewer units at a higher price, with both less developer profits and less consumer surplus. Whether the loss is mostly borne by purchasers or sellers depends on details of the market. >but it's properly zoned land, not developers that is in short supply. Developers in the Bay Area spend lots of money to figure out whether or not land is properly zoned, due to the community review system and other things that'd be fixed with a by-right zoning policy. Things aren't built to the maximum of the zones - they're built to what's affordable by developers attempting to get permission to build. >given the scarcity of land it doesn't make sense to build affordable housing unless forced It doesn't matter whether housing is affordable at market rates because we build things that are affordable, or through building so much luxury houses that there's so little demand for existing buildings that they now become affordable. If the lot next door added a three-bedroom luxury apartment that cost less than your studio, you'd move out of your current place and into that in a heartbeat. Then your studio now goes on the market and gets whatever it can - likely, a much more affordable price. Adding dense housing makes housing more affordable. It's only obvious if it's cheap and dense - if it's expensive, the affordable units are those that the new residents move out of.
- beaner 9y ago
  All housing is affordable, otherwise it would never be bought or sold. "Affordable" in this context is a misnomer that just means "subsidized."
  - jdavis703 9y ago
    Who is it affordable by though? By that definition a Manhattan penthouse is affordable.
    - WWKong 9y ago
      Yes it is affordable by those who can, you know, afford it. That was the point OP was making.
    - jpatokal 9y ago
      It is, if you're a billionaire who can afford to buy it.
    - beaner 9y ago
      That's right. "Affordable" by itself doesn't say anything about who can afford it. If we were talking about affordable for the middle class, we'd call it "Affordable for the middle class." This is why the term is a misnomer. All housing is affordable, but the term is being used to describe something other than affordability (subsidization).
      - 1_2__4 9y ago
        You’re being so pedantic as to be completely wrong. Affordable does not mean that at least one person on the planet could theoretically purchase it.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
        CobrastanJorji 9y ago
        You're arguing different things. You're using a plain English version of the definition of "affordable," beaner is trying to describe the real estate term of art "affordable housing." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordable_housing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordable_housing
troupe 9y ago
If I understood it correctly, Google has offered to tear down office buildings they currently own in order to make room for residential units to be built on Google's property. They are saying that they need to add additional offices as part of this demolition and construction. The article title tries to make it sound like Google is preventing housing from being built on other's land which seems a bit misleading. (Or maybe I just don't understand what the article is saying.)
- alistairSH 9y ago
  If I understand it correctly, Google originally offered to place new housing on their land. They are now demanding that they be allowed more office space (on, or near, that same land), or they will prevent the housing.
  - test6554 9y ago
    As far as I'm concerned, It's their land. They can build office buildings right up to the millimeter of the easement line for all I care. But they are actually going to still build some housing which is generous.
    - ceph_ 9y ago
      This is the continuation of a back and forth between the city montainview and Google that goes back to 2015. The intial request was denied by city officials. http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/05/07/why_mountain_view_said_no_to_a_new_googleplex_and_yes_to_linkedin.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/05/07/why_mount...
    - Tempest1981 9y ago
      As long as we agree that "solving" the housing "crisis" is futile at this ratio. This recent study estimates we need 20% more houses to drop prices by 10%. Current rate is maybe 2%/yr. http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/09/27/building-boom-may-merely-slow-soaring-bay-area-home-prices-economists/ http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/09/27/building-boom-may-mere...
jklinger410 9y ago
This website is very bad without adblockers and basically illegible.
Veratyr 9y ago
How about they build their office space on their existing land? Looking at Google HQ on Google Maps satellite view, it looks like their land is 30-50% parking, i.e. waste.
- yahna 9y ago
  yeah, fuck those employees who don't want to pay truly absurd prices to living with in walking distance.
  - Veratyr 9y ago
    There are methods of transportation other than cars and feet. Google has buses for example.
- bskap 9y ago
  They can't. Zoning laws restrict how much building they can actually build on lots they own.
  - Veratyr 9y ago
    State or city? Could the city let them?
  - Crazywater 9y ago
    Why is the law that way? A lot of places in the world have way higher density and they're doing just fine (maybe even better - you can't get anywhere in the valley without a car and it's really a nuisance).
    - justanotherbody 9y ago
      See "the high cost of free parking" for a complete answer Heavily oversimplified, back when cars first became available to the middle class city politicians had a rude awakening when street parking became congested. Minimum parking space requirements were decided on with an overly simplistic formula focusing on providing for peak demand. And it never really got better from there
magicalist 9y ago
There's a lot more information (instead of just two quotes from city council members) in the coverage here: https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2017/09/27/google-throws-uncertainty-into-north-bayshore-housing-plans https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2017/09/27/google-throws-uncer...
khazhoux 9y ago
Do we need another 10,000 families in Mountain View [EDIT: in the Bay Area] right now, though? Central is always backed up, 101 sucks, schools are full, and you can't get into restaurants on Castro without a wait. Can these companies just expand somewhere else, please? EDIT: I didn't really mean that Googlers should live outside MV and commute to Mountain View. I mean that it's easy for Google to build office space for 10K new workers... but it decreases quality of live for everyone else when more people cram in. Expand in more cities, like Amazon is doing!
- sbov 9y ago
  If 10k families expanded elsewhere 101 would suck even more when they commute into Google's offices. I think the point is to put work and amenities close to where they live. My city of 15k supports its own school district and restaurants. A neighborhood of 10k families (not sure what population that would translate into) certainly could. But I'm not sure if that's in their plans.
  - khazhoux 9y ago
    Sorry, I didn't mean the families should live elsewhere -- poorly phrased on my part. I really meant that I wish the big companies would expand more in other parts of the country, and not increase the pressure on the Bay Area.
- abritinthebay 9y ago
  You have some very basic misunderstandings about urban planning & traffic patterns I’m afraid to say.
  - khazhoux 9y ago
    Thanks for clarifying!
- epistasis 9y ago
  Why do you think that 101 is backed up? It's because there is no housing in Mountain View, and people have to live elsewhere. There's so much room for more housing in Mountain View, and people are always like "Not here! I've got mine, screw you I'm pulling up the ladder."
tudorw 9y ago
So on the one hand I'm meant to buy into some fully connected global future, on the other the only way I make real progress is concentrating all my resources into a small amount of territory to maximise productivity.
- leggomylibro 9y ago
  Yes. It's a global network of these dense dots, each specializing in different thing, each exporting their specialties at prices that more bespoke or small-volume producers cannot even approach, and each producing different types of negative externalities for their local environment. You might be facing higher rent, but at least you're not facing cadmium mining runoff in the water, or lead in the water, or acid rain. Probably.
  - tudorw 9y ago
    When you put it that way, let's green light some tower blocks for the bay area right away, rack and stack...
    - leggomylibro 9y ago
      You certainly don't have to. Just don't expect to reap the collective benefits of a system that you don't participate in or share the burden of.
      - tudorw 9y ago
        no system is isolated though, so if one system benefits at the cost of another who should collect the benefits ?
pcardh0 9y ago
I wonder if Google could just buy this "Mountain View". Seems like an acquisition might be the easier way to go. I wonder what the market cap is?
mikeyanderson 9y ago
The problem is that the Valley wants to stay suburban and the market is demanding that it become a city. Google could put a set of huge towers on this land with housing and office space and retail.
- Tempest1981 9y ago
  Can you clarify who "the Valley" is, and who "the market" is?
  - mikeyanderson 9y ago
    The Valley is the combined local governments, and the market is the companies and workers who both see value in staying in the area. The land is so expensive that if one locality raised the building restrictions, you'd see massive towers going up.
quotemstr 9y ago
The Bay Area's housing problems arise largely from fragmentation and NIMBY-ism. The sum of the rationally self-interested being made in all of these tiny, fragmented municipality equals a giant mess that's getting worse every year and that's starting to seriously impair economic growth. The entire Bay Area needs to be incorporated as one giant city all the way from the Presidio down to San Jose. It's already one giant city: we might we well recognize the fact. We'll reuse the name "San Francisco" for convenience. Having had SF annex all its suburbs (like growing cities used to do back when we remembered what good government looked like), residents can switch the city to at-large representation and finally start planning the region's growth in a way that makes sense.

77 points by kushti 9y ago

> We are supportive of the preliminary approval of a North Bay Shore precise plan which includes 9,850 units of housing, 1,600 of which would be affordable... I know exactly what they mean by “affordable”, but how the hell are we ok getting to a point where affordable housing only refers to housing that is affordable because it’s being subsidized? Ridiculous.

jdavis703 9y ago
I think this is terminology. When people hear "subsidized" housing they start thinking about project towers and run down section 8 singe family homes. "Affordable housing" still has a fairly positive connotation that won't cause as many people to oppose a project. I agree, it's unfortunate that housing poor people has to be branded, but that's the society we live in.
- jxramos 9y ago
  ah, the old euphemistic jump strategy at play. I can't say I identified affordable housing in such a light but now that you point it out indeed it is subsidized but dodges all the subsidized baggage like so many earlier language plays in euphemism island hopping in an archipelago of nearby clustered ideas.
  - rspeer 9y ago
    In my experience with local politics, "affordable housing" can mean any of three things: - Subsidized housing - Public housing - Increasing density to lower the actual price of housing But homeowners (overrepresented among voters) generally only support the first, as the other two could make their property value go down (y'know, in the affordable direction). You can end up with three groups that are all at odds with each other and all campaigning for "affordable housing". Deft politicians can spin this confusion to make housing scarcity sound like altruism.
    - ThrustVectoring 9y ago
      What's even better is that subsidized housing is generally subsidized by passing on the costs of the subsidy to the unsubsidized units in the development. That is, if it costs the developer $500k per unit, and they're required to sell 200 of their 1000 units for $100k each, the $80M subsidy gets added onto the cost of the remaining unsubsidized units at $80k each. This effectively removes supply through removing development projects that cannot make an open-market profit while handing out the mandated "affordable housing" subsidy. It's truly Orwellian that regulations that make housing less affordable get called "affordable housing".
      - random023987 9y ago
        > It's truly Orwellian that regulations that make housing less affordable get called "affordable housing". To be fair, developers sell units at what the market will bear, rather than on a "cost-plus" basis. Raising developer costs doesn't impact the final sale price. Now one could argue that reducing developer profits means that fewer developers will try to build... but it's properly zoned land, not developers that is in short supply. Or maybe you mean that the requirement that some of the housing be "affordable", means only projects that the remainder of the units are "unaffordable" will be built... but that's the case anyway; given the scarcity of land it doesn't make sense to build affordable housing unless forced. Not that I'm in favor of housing subsidies. It turns a few well-connected or lucky people into lottery winners, and doesn't reduce the overall cost of housing.
        ThrustVectoring 9y ago
        >To be fair, developers sell units at what the market will bear, rather than on a "cost-plus" basis. Raising developer costs doesn't impact the final sale price. Raising developer costs kill off unprofitable developments until the marginal unit created has a cost equal to what the market will bear. It depends on the relative elasticity of supply and demand - we'll hit an equilibrium of fewer units at a higher price, with both less developer profits and less consumer surplus. Whether the loss is mostly borne by purchasers or sellers depends on details of the market. >but it's properly zoned land, not developers that is in short supply. Developers in the Bay Area spend lots of money to figure out whether or not land is properly zoned, due to the community review system and other things that'd be fixed with a by-right zoning policy. Things aren't built to the maximum of the zones - they're built to what's affordable by developers attempting to get permission to build. >given the scarcity of land it doesn't make sense to build affordable housing unless forced It doesn't matter whether housing is affordable at market rates because we build things that are affordable, or through building so much luxury houses that there's so little demand for existing buildings that they now become affordable. If the lot next door added a three-bedroom luxury apartment that cost less than your studio, you'd move out of your current place and into that in a heartbeat. Then your studio now goes on the market and gets whatever it can - likely, a much more affordable price. Adding dense housing makes housing more affordable. It's only obvious if it's cheap and dense - if it's expensive, the affordable units are those that the new residents move out of.
beaner 9y ago
All housing is affordable, otherwise it would never be bought or sold. "Affordable" in this context is a misnomer that just means "subsidized."
- jdavis703 9y ago
  Who is it affordable by though? By that definition a Manhattan penthouse is affordable.
  - WWKong 9y ago
    Yes it is affordable by those who can, you know, afford it. That was the point OP was making.
  - jpatokal 9y ago
    It is, if you're a billionaire who can afford to buy it.
  - beaner 9y ago
    That's right. "Affordable" by itself doesn't say anything about who can afford it. If we were talking about affordable for the middle class, we'd call it "Affordable for the middle class." This is why the term is a misnomer. All housing is affordable, but the term is being used to describe something other than affordability (subsidization).
    - 1_2__4 9y ago
      You’re being so pedantic as to be completely wrong. Affordable does not mean that at least one person on the planet could theoretically purchase it.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - CobrastanJorji 9y ago
        You're arguing different things. You're using a plain English version of the definition of "affordable," beaner is trying to describe the real estate term of art "affordable housing." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordable_housing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordable_housing

troupe 9y ago

If I understood it correctly, Google has offered to tear down office buildings they currently own in order to make room for residential units to be built on Google's property. They are saying that they need to add additional offices as part of this demolition and construction. The article title tries to make it sound like Google is preventing housing from being built on other's land which seems a bit misleading. (Or maybe I just don't understand what the article is saying.)

alistairSH 9y ago
If I understand it correctly, Google originally offered to place new housing on their land. They are now demanding that they be allowed more office space (on, or near, that same land), or they will prevent the housing.
- test6554 9y ago
  As far as I'm concerned, It's their land. They can build office buildings right up to the millimeter of the easement line for all I care. But they are actually going to still build some housing which is generous.
  - ceph_ 9y ago
    This is the continuation of a back and forth between the city montainview and Google that goes back to 2015. The intial request was denied by city officials. http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/05/07/why_mountain_view_said_no_to_a_new_googleplex_and_yes_to_linkedin.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/05/07/why_mount...
  - Tempest1981 9y ago
    As long as we agree that "solving" the housing "crisis" is futile at this ratio. This recent study estimates we need 20% more houses to drop prices by 10%. Current rate is maybe 2%/yr. http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/09/27/building-boom-may-merely-slow-soaring-bay-area-home-prices-economists/ http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/09/27/building-boom-may-mere...

jklinger410 9y ago

This website is very bad without adblockers and basically illegible.

Veratyr 9y ago

How about they build their office space on their existing land? Looking at Google HQ on Google Maps satellite view, it looks like their land is 30-50% parking, i.e. waste.

yahna 9y ago
yeah, fuck those employees who don't want to pay truly absurd prices to living with in walking distance.
- Veratyr 9y ago
  There are methods of transportation other than cars and feet. Google has buses for example.
bskap 9y ago
They can't. Zoning laws restrict how much building they can actually build on lots they own.
- Veratyr 9y ago
  State or city? Could the city let them?
- Crazywater 9y ago
  Why is the law that way? A lot of places in the world have way higher density and they're doing just fine (maybe even better - you can't get anywhere in the valley without a car and it's really a nuisance).
  - justanotherbody 9y ago
    See "the high cost of free parking" for a complete answer Heavily oversimplified, back when cars first became available to the middle class city politicians had a rude awakening when street parking became congested. Minimum parking space requirements were decided on with an overly simplistic formula focusing on providing for peak demand. And it never really got better from there

magicalist 9y ago

There's a lot more information (instead of just two quotes from city council members) in the coverage here: https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2017/09/27/google-throws-uncertainty-into-north-bayshore-housing-plans https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2017/09/27/google-throws-uncer...

khazhoux 9y ago

Do we need another 10,000 families in Mountain View [EDIT: in the Bay Area] right now, though? Central is always backed up, 101 sucks, schools are full, and you can't get into restaurants on Castro without a wait. Can these companies just expand somewhere else, please? EDIT: I didn't really mean that Googlers should live outside MV and commute to Mountain View. I mean that it's easy for Google to build office space for 10K new workers... but it decreases quality of live for everyone else when more people cram in. Expand in more cities, like Amazon is doing!

sbov 9y ago
If 10k families expanded elsewhere 101 would suck even more when they commute into Google's offices. I think the point is to put work and amenities close to where they live. My city of 15k supports its own school district and restaurants. A neighborhood of 10k families (not sure what population that would translate into) certainly could. But I'm not sure if that's in their plans.
- khazhoux 9y ago
  Sorry, I didn't mean the families should live elsewhere -- poorly phrased on my part. I really meant that I wish the big companies would expand more in other parts of the country, and not increase the pressure on the Bay Area.
abritinthebay 9y ago
You have some very basic misunderstandings about urban planning & traffic patterns I’m afraid to say.
- khazhoux 9y ago
  Thanks for clarifying!
epistasis 9y ago
Why do you think that 101 is backed up? It's because there is no housing in Mountain View, and people have to live elsewhere. There's so much room for more housing in Mountain View, and people are always like "Not here! I've got mine, screw you I'm pulling up the ladder."

tudorw 9y ago

So on the one hand I'm meant to buy into some fully connected global future, on the other the only way I make real progress is concentrating all my resources into a small amount of territory to maximise productivity.

leggomylibro 9y ago
Yes. It's a global network of these dense dots, each specializing in different thing, each exporting their specialties at prices that more bespoke or small-volume producers cannot even approach, and each producing different types of negative externalities for their local environment. You might be facing higher rent, but at least you're not facing cadmium mining runoff in the water, or lead in the water, or acid rain. Probably.
- tudorw 9y ago
  When you put it that way, let's green light some tower blocks for the bay area right away, rack and stack...
  - leggomylibro 9y ago
    You certainly don't have to. Just don't expect to reap the collective benefits of a system that you don't participate in or share the burden of.
    - tudorw 9y ago
      no system is isolated though, so if one system benefits at the cost of another who should collect the benefits ?

pcardh0 9y ago

I wonder if Google could just buy this "Mountain View". Seems like an acquisition might be the easier way to go. I wonder what the market cap is?

mikeyanderson 9y ago

The problem is that the Valley wants to stay suburban and the market is demanding that it become a city. Google could put a set of huge towers on this land with housing and office space and retail.

Tempest1981 9y ago
Can you clarify who "the Valley" is, and who "the market" is?
- mikeyanderson 9y ago
  The Valley is the combined local governments, and the market is the companies and workers who both see value in staying in the area. The land is so expensive that if one locality raised the building restrictions, you'd see massive towers going up.

quotemstr 9y ago

The Bay Area's housing problems arise largely from fragmentation and NIMBY-ism. The sum of the rationally self-interested being made in all of these tiny, fragmented municipality equals a giant mess that's getting worse every year and that's starting to seriously impair economic growth. The entire Bay Area needs to be incorporated as one giant city all the way from the Presidio down to San Jose. It's already one giant city: we might we well recognize the fact. We'll reuse the name "San Francisco" for convenience. Having had SF annex all its suburbs (like growing cities used to do back when we remembered what good government looked like), residents can switch the city to at-large representation and finally start planning the region's growth in a way that makes sense.