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California Homeowners: Please Convert Garages into Apartments
- sharkmerry 8y agoNot to be a grump, but really we need to repeal Prop 13 in part or whole, while creating some new possible issues, I think it will solve more than it causes. Converting to garages just passes more windfall to people who just happened to move to California a while ago.
- joejerryronnie 8y agoProp 13 will never be repealed, especially not with housing prices the way they are now. If you want to see one issue unite every single demographic with great vengeance and furious anger, then try to take on prop 13.
- Johnny555 8y agoI don't think prop13 needs to be repealed entirely, just changed so it only applies to the owner's primary home. Then prop 13 will meet its ostensible purpose -- so the elderly don't get forced out of their homes by taxes, while those that own investment properties pay taxes on the market value of their property. (note that I say this as someone that owns a couple rental properties in the California and benefit from Prop 13)
- jdashg 8y agoOr we can restrict it to just the elderly and disabled, instead of letting every single incumbent hitch a ride. One of my favorite alternatives is to bring back regular tax reassessments, but owners can choose to cede excess property value to the city/state. This forces a choice between having your cake and eating it too.
- SllX 8y agoBaby steps. Getting any change through at all is liable to cost several political careers.
- Johnny555 8y agoI'm ok with rewarding people that choose to live in one community for a long time by reducing their property taxes -- living in one area is what helps build communities.
- closeparen 8y agoLong term communities need young adults forming new households to survive past a single generation.
- Johnny555 8y agoTrue, but the elderly will leave through attrition, forcing them to leave through high taxes that make their homes affordable doesn't seem like a good way to ensure neighborhood turnover. I lived in a rent controlled apartment in San Francisco, and about 30% of my neighbors were over the age of 60 including an 80 year old neighbor who'd been there for 40 years and had great stories to tell. Then I lived in a 20 year old building with no rent control, and almost all of my neighbors were age 30 or below working in the tech field (few lived there for more than a couple years) -- with no elderly people that I was aware of. (we had a few months of of false fire alarm activations, so it was pretty easy to see all of the residents)
- closeparen 8y agoGrandma's low property tax bill is not the problem per se, it is the punitively high property tax bill we charge more recently sold properties to make up for it. This is popular because it punishes techie migrants, but it also punishes downsizing late and life and new household formation early in life. If we don't need the extra revenue from rising property values, we should cut property tax rates accordingly. City residents getting the same public services for a smaller percentage of their wealth would be an immensely positive impact of tech's prosperity. If we do need it (and I suspect we do, because higher prices mean government facilities and staff are more expensive), we should collect it fairly across the board. Maybe "fair" means flat, maybe it means progressive, maybe it even means "tenure in city" or "tenure in neighborhood," but "tenure in current address" is crazy. At least use a mechanism with some thought put into its incentives and possible unintended consequences.
- joejerryronnie 8y agoHonestly though, wouldn’t you just pass on any property tax increase to your tenants, thus driving rent prices higher? I can’t imagine you would just eat that cost and potentially turn your real estate investments into money losing properties based on principle.
- balthasar 8y agoI don't think it would unite homeowners with non-homeowners.
- turgur 8y agoRepeal would be devastating to existing home owners who have been in their houses for more than a few years - what would this solve?
- dilyevsky 8y agoExclude single primary residence. Bam - solved it.
- ww520 8y agoYeah, we kicked the poors out of the cities. Let's kick the elders out of the cities as well.
- closeparen 8y agoIt’s weird how millionaires are the evil outsider enemy, but old people living in the million-dollar houses they own are sympathetic. Maybe the progressive tax scheme will one day switch from an income-based gradient, to a function of both income and age.
- twiceaday 8y agoOkay, how about as a first step we eliminate prop 13 only for 'new' houses, say bought after 2015 and also eliminate it for houses that change hands via estate transfer?
- costcopizza 8y agoProperty taxes are one of the few expenses in CA that isn’t exorbitant. A repeal would only happen with reduced taxes in other areas, like income.
- jayd16 8y agoCheap homeowner taxes doesn't really change anything. Isn't the real issue is just zoning high density housing in low density areas?
- dredmorbius 8y agoFalse. http://www.savingcommunities.org/issues/taxes/landvalue/ http://www.savingcommunities.org/issues/taxes/landvalue/
- jayd16 8y agoWhat are you saying is false?
- dredmorbius 8y ago"Cheap homeowner taxes doesn't really change anything" is absolutely false. Economic rents, unearned income, asset appreciation, constrained supply.
- twiceaday 8y agoThe real issue is that (1) people want housing to be affordable and (2) people want housing to be an investment, and this is simply not sustainable. It's obvious. Only the first few generations get to have both, everybody else gets fucked. They will give you a bunch of reasons that all sound very different but somehow all magically take the side that favors (2). Weird. At this point for housing to become affordable the prices need to tank. This can be achieved in many ways but nobody is going to vote for any of them because of (2). Housing is a massive political sticking point. Too many people have too much of their livelihood invested in their house. Their votes are easily manipulated. You say build more, I guarantee that the build rate will be such that prices are not affected negatively. You can try to lower demand by raising ongoing fees in order to make housing a worse investment in hopes to drive out foreign investors and other speculators but clearly this will only work if prices drop and that will not happen because of (2). Things outside of voter control, specifically owner-voter control, need to crash the housing prices for the current generation to afford a house. _And_ the growth must be kept down to around inflation levels, because otherwise the problem is just postponed. The problem with California is that there hasn't been anything outside of voter control to affect housing prices like in other states. People are adamant to stay where they are and there are no big enough disasters to damage the properties.
- mars4rp 8y agoMaybe just be repealed for commercial uses, I don't get it why commercial properties are exempts. There is a podcast by Malcolm Gladwell about a golf club in the heart of LA, the land worth north of $2B and they are paying property taxes on purchase price! this is insane, we need our laws to stop subsiding the rich!
- HillaryBriss 8y agoone of the interesting special cases here is rental properties, in particular apartments. if the property tax is raised on these buildings, the costs will ultimately pass through to the tenants.
- mars4rp 8y agoapartment buildings are still residentials! I am just talking about properties that nobody lives in it.
- fnord77 8y agodefinitely need to repeal prop 13. This is creating housing dynasties. I personally know people who inherited rental properties from their parents who are paying taxes at 1980s-level valuation on these inherited properties because they never informed the city that their parents are dead. $40,000 tax valuation on a multifamily worth probably $2 million now.
- HillaryBriss 8y agowait -- is that allowed by prop 13? this seems like a separate issue. these are individuals who are simply breaking the existing tax law combined with a miserably run local government that fails to do even the most basic job of enforcing that law. i mean, when someone dies, a death certificate is issued. the county government finds out about that event and it's losing money by not putting 2 and 2 together -- but it still fails. IMHO a better-run government is the first remedy here.
- fnord77 8y agoProposition 58 allows parents to transfer their properties to their kids and the kids get to keep the low taxes Prop 193 allows grandparents to do the same with their grandkids.
- HillaryBriss 8y agook. thanks. so it's prop 58 (an amendment to the state constitution) which would need to be repealed. and, I guess this proves the old saying that it's not breaking the law that's outrageous, it's what is actually legal that's outrageous.
- thebradbain 8y agoI'm still baffled Prop 13 applies to commercial properties and second/third/vacation homes. There's a greater conversation to be had about Prop 13 as a whole, but there's no good argument as to why the law as it stands should not only apply to the primary residence of the homeowners.
- NDizzle 8y agoNo thanks. I have hobbies.
- TheOtherDave 8y agoMy thoughts as well.
- taborj 8y agoEven if you don't have hobbies, that's square footage you own. You should be able to use it how you want, within legal limits. Even if you want to store boxes full of crap, that's your right.
- giancarlostoro 8y agoThere was a couple who lived out in somebody's garage for a few years after they got married and bought a house cash. I heard if on that Dave Ramsey show or whatever, it's amazing what people do to get through life. Some are strategizing ahead of others. Here in Florida if you live in a garage you might die without a proper A/C in there.
- jiveturkey 8y agoIt should be obvious from the word "convert" in the title, you don't simply call it a living space and bingo, you're done. You actually have to outfit it as such.
- giancarlostoro 8y agoMy last bit about florida was a sidenote, because I never considered people living in a garage a thing. Here in Florida I never see that kinda thing anywhere I've lived, but I'm just one person and there's a whole lot of Florida I have not seen.
- blacksmith_tb 8y agoSeems more practical in Los Angeles than it would be in San Francisco. Though I suppose it's not impossible to imagine building down in a one car garage (though in a state with lots of earthquakes, that would be expensive, and not everyone will want to sleep in a batcave).
- HillaryBriss 8y agothis will probably result in more cars parking overnight on the streets. at a certain point in the future, the streets in LA will become as over-parked as the streets in SF.
- starpilot 8y agoMy bedroom in LA was like this. 10x20 ft, so a distinctly "long" room. It actually worked really well. My bed was in one end, then there was a tall paper divider, then a loveseat, coffee table, and desk in the remainder. Basically a room that divided in thirds for bed, living, and study.
- scottlegrand2 8y agoYeah they're already doing that in Santa Cruz and it sucks across the board. Evidence: I live there and I like to go to open houses just to gloat at how badly people have f*ed up otherwise perfectly workable floor plans to make a little extra cash. OTOH reducing the cost of in-law unit permits to zero across the board would work wonders.
- jmspring 8y agoA lot of those conversions are illegal and substandard. It has been going on for decades. The various city fees for a 500 sq ft ADU, when I investigated it about a decade ago, ran well into 20-30% of the budget for the ADU.
- scottlegrand2 8y agoYou are preaching to the choir here. I loved when Micah Posner, one of the chief NIMBYs of Santa Cruz, turned out to be an illegal ADU slumlord. That in my opinion explains a lot about how Santa Cruz really works. Or as I refer to it to outsiders: Mayberry politics by the sea.
- georgeburdell 8y ago“Standard” is one of the reasons costs are so high. New builds and large remodels in my city require overhead sprinkler systems... why? 2 car garages too, even though everyone I know uses them for storage or as a workshop. We need to lower housing standards if we want to house everyone.
- king_magic 8y agoYeah, no thanks. I do not want anyone else living on my property. Especially not in my garage.
- mc32 8y agoNo; this a band-aid, not a solution. A solution is changing laws and allowing or encouraging development to happen and allow all kinds of development, from mixed use, luxury, middle class and subsidized, not necessarily in the same place. Allow gentrification to happen, but also build housing for the poor.
- lighthazard 8y agoSo allow for everything but also have rules for everything?
- Zenbit_UX 8y agoNo? No you're against a good idea that helps because it doesn't outright solve the problem? Band-Aid or not, it's solid and well thought through. Don't be so quick to dismiss something because it doesn't solve all the world's problem immediately.
- mc32 8y agoLook, what’s going to happen? Garages prove to be a safety valve, it’ll become a new normal that allows this “can” of housing issues to get kicked down the road. I don’t see how this helps. It’s not all that different from saying allow six to a room or something. Sure, it increases “density” but it’s not a solution. One of their examples is garages in the mission (SF). Those things are low ceiling, dingy, etc. Students might be okay. Not grown adults. Like I said, it’d become a new normal, an accepted solution. But it’s not a solution. It just postpones things and makes sub-par acceptable.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Zenbit_UX 8y agoTackling a solution from multiple angles isn't a con. If I had the choice of a garage in SF or a 2h commute to my barrista job for a something more in my price range it would be a no brainer. You're dismissing a good idea because it doesn't help you personally... I expert more from HN commenters than "no because this doesn't benefit me or conform to my world view".
- your-nanny 8y agoI am generally in favor of supply side solutions to housing, but I'm also pissed about the environmental cost of that develop ent, especially in a market favoring construction of giant homes on giant lots. Not just environmental. Very productive and irreplaceable farmland in the east side of California's Central Valley is be being eaten up by housing development.
- HillaryBriss 8y ago> productive and irreplaceable farmland in the east side of California's Central Valley is be being eaten up by housing development seems like an under reported story. where is this happening? is it housing tracts with hundreds of units or individual homes with large lots?
- your-nanny 8y agomost cities in the central valley are growing. My hometown has grown from a population of 27k in 1970 to 133k today, with massive developments on West side replacing walnut groves. Same story pretty much everywhere. Farmers can make a lot of cash selling land to developers, and people complain about the dust and smell and other pollution from farms neighboring their new homes.
- calimac 8y agoTruly stupid idea
- souprock 8y agoI know people who did this. They were a nice well-behaved family, though a bit clueless about some things. Converting to add an apartment exposed them to stuff that hadn't really been a part of their world, like prostitution and drugs. Yep, renters ran that out of the apartment. The downsides are real. If you dislike having police raid your house in the middle of the night, this isn't for you.
- ScottFree 8y agoMy parents lived in the front half of a duplex house and rented out the back half for years. One night, the tenant fell asleep with a cigarette in his mouth and burned our house down. The downsides are real.
- intopieces 8y agoThe article mentions something called “Naturally Occuring Affordable Housing” that doesn’t require public subsidy and then goes on to talk about a plan to publicly subsidize these conversions in the very next paragraph. Feels like a bait and switch.
- mtw 8y agoFrom an outsider point of view, why aren't there any high-rise residential buildings in that area?
- mikeg8 8y agoThe article is referring to the entire state which is geographically diverse. Cities like San Francisco, L.A., San Diego, and even Sacramento have some taller housing options. Also, CA has major earthquakes so high-rises are generally not as common. We've been building out vs up but can't match the demand. Part of it is also due to CA's strict building/environmental regulations that make any construction project a slow and tedious process.
- HillaryBriss 8y agoThis ADU law was passed at the state level. The state could, if it had the political will, go even further. It could re-zone every SFD lot (even ones in Larkspur, Palo Alto, Beverly Hills and Berkeley) into one that would allow, say, a 4 unit apartment. Magic!
- baroffoos 8y agoI know a guy who owns large sheds / warehouses around the place and he finds homeless people around the place and allows them to live in the sheds so that he always has someone protecting them from theft.
- danschumann 8y agoearth scrapers + hyper loops
- nautilus12 8y agoBefore eeking out the small spaces in people's garages, we need to solve the issue of houses sitting empty due to money laundering and foreign investment. Why try to encourage people to convert their garages when they are hundreds of thousands of living units sitting completely empty for people's portfolios? I am libertarian, but I feel like in a housing crisis this is something that needs to be tamped down on ASAP
- tropo 8y agoThink about why an investment property might sit empty. At first glance, that seems absurd. An investor wants to earn money, and rent would be one way to get that. As high as rents might be, they are clearly not enough to put these properties on the market. Find the cause and fix it. Possible causes: too difficult to evict non-paying tenants, too difficult to sue tenants for damages, too many expensive upgrades required (fire protection, disability access, etc.), too difficult to avoid getting sued by the government, etc. Investors don't leave property idle for fun. There is a reason.
- whenchamenia 8y agoMany investors find a property momentarily unprofitable and set it on the back burner while the neighborhood they dont have to live in goes down the drain. It is a huge negative externality that affects millions directly. But prvitizing gains and socializing losses seems to be the cali way.
- jayd16 8y agoDoesn't really make sense. Even less parking in our low density residential neighborhoods? No thanks. My understanding is the issue is really about rezoning. Homeowners are willing to sell to each other so I assume they'll be willing to sell to a high density high-rise but no one wants to approve the new construction. We should figure out how to get it through city planning. As we increase density we can more efficiently manage public transit.
- unstatusthequo 8y ago... And then my garage gets rent controlled and I lose control of part of my house.
- 01100011 8y agoShouldn't we wait for a solution to our traffic and resource issues before trying to increase our density? Is it really so terrible for people to consider living somewhere besides California? I'm a renter now, so I sympathize with people like me who are suffering from the current situation, but I feel like efforts like this just create sub-standard housing and enable more irresponsible growth. Are we just trying to lower the quality of life for everyone in CA until enough people leave?
- closeparen 8y agoDensity is the solution to traffic issues. (Rather: traffic issues are never going away, the best we can do is minimize the need to drive). If small apartments are substandard, the roommate situations that are most people’s best alternative are then sub-substandard.
- aasasd 8y agoMaybe the state should just be filled with apartment blocks a-la Le Corbusier. Put them on springs for the earthquakes.
- closeparen 8y agoMuch as I respect the logic, there is something symbolically icky about living in another household’s outbuilding.
- bassrattle 8y agoAt a seminar for HOA managers in Irvine, there was a panel discussion on the impact of higher Housing costs. Converting garages into dwelling units was top of the list for action plans. Number two was look for ways to solve parking issues, but there was no actual solution proposed by the panel. Besides some system like Parking Boss, I can't see how any community is supposed to manage the increase in cars, especially if garages are out of the question.
- dgzl 8y agoi think we should just try convincing the big tech companies to build offices in less populated areas of the country.