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Think of it in terms of a bifurcated market - high rent and low rent - and their argument makes sense. Developers who come in want to build high rent units, for

Think of it in terms of a bifurcated market - high rent and low rent - and their argument makes sense. Developers who come in want to build high rent units, for the people who use low rent apartments this is not helpful. Low rent supply hasn't increased so their rents won't be effected. In the case that low rent units are razed to build new high rent units or in the case where low rent units are remodeled and converted to high rent units, low rent supply decreases even further, raising prices on the low end and pricing people out. Hence why they want you to build more low rent units, it would actually help them. >So the more market rate units we have, the more lower end units that are available. Seems simple to me, but a lot of people seem to get this wrong. Probably because what you're saying doesn't follow at all. The more market rate units you have, the more market rate units you have, that doesn't say anything about lower end units. >They have this idea that there are a bunch of wealthy and greedy developers out to get them and their precious neighborhoods. Because there are? Developers would love to take poor areas in the city and convert them all into high rent yuppie districts, it would be great for business. >I wonder if the property owner interests only encourage these mis-perceptions since they serve their interests. If you think everyone around you is misperceiving the world, sometimes it's important to check your own perceptions.

closeparen 9y ago
If it were bifurcated, pressure in the luxury segment would not affect the working-class segment. But it does. Formerly very-low-income apartments get slapdash kitchen renovations (if even) and rent to professionals for $2500. The Bay Area is rife with luxury cars parked at the seediest-looking apartment complexes. I learned early in my apartment search that essentially any apartment with a sligtly-below-luxury price and good interior photos but no exterior photos is one of these front-line gentrification units. Un-renovated crappy apartments in good locations are often listed for more than luxury glass and steel skyscrapers in merely decent ones. Everyone is spilling over into the housing that previously served a socioeconomic level (or two) below, except those at the bottom who have nowhere to go but tents. In an ideal world, new housing would most directly target those in need, but in the world we live in, the money for luxury towers is chomping at the bit to get started while the money for signficant subsidized construction is pending a literal revolution. A greater proportion of tech migrants living in new luxury housing is a smaller proportion bidding up formerly affordable housing.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  >If it were bifurcated, pressure in the luxury segment would not affect the working-class segment. But it does. If the market isn't bifurcated as you say then building lots of lower rent units will bring down the rents in the luxury segment. Great for everyone! >In an ideal world, new housing would most directly target those in need What you're arguing for is a removal of the poor from certain parts of the city they currently exist in. It's a purely political decision and an ugly one at that. We don't need an ideal world or a revolution to build and maintain affordable housing.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    >building lots of lower rent units will bring down the rents in the luxury segment Sure. Wealthy people can lower their standards and take housing meant for the class below; people who are struggling can't exactly raise theirs, but they do group into larger/more crowded households to bid upmarket. When there are not enough small apartments, for example, people find several other working housemates for single-"family" homes that are then no longer available to 1- or 2-income middle class families. I suspect the pressure is stronger in the downmarket direction but it absolutely cuts both ways. (And homes that are too upmarket sometimes don't act as housing at all). >What you're arguing for is a removal of the poor from certain parts of the city they currently exist in Nope. With sufficient heights, the problem is addressable through infill development on commercial/industrial properties (ideally replacing existing uses on the lower floors) and upzoning to permit mid-rises in predominately owner-occupier single-family house zones. >We don't need an ideal world or a revolution to build and maintain affordable housing. The Bay Area's housing deficit over 2012-2017 is conservatively 120,000 homes based on 400,000 new jobs, 60,000 new homes, and an average household size of 2.3 (many household members are not workers). [0] The average cost to build an affordable housing unit in California (so an underestimate for the Bay Area) is $332,000. [1] So $39 billion is a lower bound to walk balk just 5 years of a problem decades in the making. Where's the money going to come from? Not property taxes: prop 13 repeal would be a revolution in itself. Not federal subsidies: do you think the Trump administration wants to subsidize coasties? Not tech companies: there's always some Bay Area municipality that's happy to keep the free tax revenue and soaring housing demand (particularly for owner-occupier areas) local. San Francisco spends tens of millions on affordable housing when what's needed is tens of billions. Even the state of California spends only hundreds of millions. So far the best anyone has come up with is (effective) taxes on market-rate development. To get the numbers required, we're going to need a hell of a lot more market-rate development to tax. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-23/why-can-t-they-build-more-homes-where-the-jobs-are https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-23/why-can-t... [1] https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/16/walters-bills-would-make-california-housing-even-more-expensive/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/16/walters-bills-would-m...

closeparen 9y ago

If it were bifurcated, pressure in the luxury segment would not affect the working-class segment. But it does. Formerly very-low-income apartments get slapdash kitchen renovations (if even) and rent to professionals for $2500. The Bay Area is rife with luxury cars parked at the seediest-looking apartment complexes. I learned early in my apartment search that essentially any apartment with a sligtly-below-luxury price and good interior photos but no exterior photos is one of these front-line gentrification units. Un-renovated crappy apartments in good locations are often listed for more than luxury glass and steel skyscrapers in merely decent ones. Everyone is spilling over into the housing that previously served a socioeconomic level (or two) below, except those at the bottom who have nowhere to go but tents. In an ideal world, new housing would most directly target those in need, but in the world we live in, the money for luxury towers is chomping at the bit to get started while the money for signficant subsidized construction is pending a literal revolution. A greater proportion of tech migrants living in new luxury housing is a smaller proportion bidding up formerly affordable housing.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
>If it were bifurcated, pressure in the luxury segment would not affect the working-class segment. But it does. If the market isn't bifurcated as you say then building lots of lower rent units will bring down the rents in the luxury segment. Great for everyone! >In an ideal world, new housing would most directly target those in need What you're arguing for is a removal of the poor from certain parts of the city they currently exist in. It's a purely political decision and an ugly one at that. We don't need an ideal world or a revolution to build and maintain affordable housing.
- closeparen 9y ago
  >building lots of lower rent units will bring down the rents in the luxury segment Sure. Wealthy people can lower their standards and take housing meant for the class below; people who are struggling can't exactly raise theirs, but they do group into larger/more crowded households to bid upmarket. When there are not enough small apartments, for example, people find several other working housemates for single-"family" homes that are then no longer available to 1- or 2-income middle class families. I suspect the pressure is stronger in the downmarket direction but it absolutely cuts both ways. (And homes that are too upmarket sometimes don't act as housing at all). >What you're arguing for is a removal of the poor from certain parts of the city they currently exist in Nope. With sufficient heights, the problem is addressable through infill development on commercial/industrial properties (ideally replacing existing uses on the lower floors) and upzoning to permit mid-rises in predominately owner-occupier single-family house zones. >We don't need an ideal world or a revolution to build and maintain affordable housing. The Bay Area's housing deficit over 2012-2017 is conservatively 120,000 homes based on 400,000 new jobs, 60,000 new homes, and an average household size of 2.3 (many household members are not workers). [0] The average cost to build an affordable housing unit in California (so an underestimate for the Bay Area) is $332,000. [1] So $39 billion is a lower bound to walk balk just 5 years of a problem decades in the making. Where's the money going to come from? Not property taxes: prop 13 repeal would be a revolution in itself. Not federal subsidies: do you think the Trump administration wants to subsidize coasties? Not tech companies: there's always some Bay Area municipality that's happy to keep the free tax revenue and soaring housing demand (particularly for owner-occupier areas) local. San Francisco spends tens of millions on affordable housing when what's needed is tens of billions. Even the state of California spends only hundreds of millions. So far the best anyone has come up with is (effective) taxes on market-rate development. To get the numbers required, we're going to need a hell of a lot more market-rate development to tax. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-23/why-can-t-they-build-more-homes-where-the-jobs-are https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-23/why-can-t... [1] https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/16/walters-bills-would-make-california-housing-even-more-expensive/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/16/walters-bills-would-m...