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There's three paths: 1) Rent cap landlords. The landlords will cry Big Government. 2) Abolish single family-only zoning and legalize backyard cottages, townho

There's three paths: 1) Rent cap landlords. The landlords will cry Big Government. 2) Abolish single family-only zoning and legalize backyard cottages, townhomes and small apartments. The homeowners will cry Big Government. 3) Do nothing. Watch as more people start living in tents or endure super-commutes that snarl your traffic and worsen climate change.

malandrew 7y ago
Well if you explicitly pass things as “reversing a commit” instead of making a new hack to control unintended consequences, it’s harder to complain about big government since you’re making it smaller not larger.
exfed 7y ago
It may only apply to LA, but this whole (regulatory) issue seems deeply related to another similar article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20806752 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20806752
ralusek 7y ago
I'm a landlord and would love decreased housing regulations, even if it decreases the value of my property by increasing supply.
- TheReveller 7y ago
  When regulations allow for denser housing land prices go up because you can put more rentable dwellings in the same space.
  - dgzl 7y ago
    Land prices go up because that's what it's worth. If the government says "you can't do this profitable stuff on your land", then the land is less valuable.
    - onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
      I don't know where to stand on this issue. I wish everyone could afford basic living spaces, but if they could, there would be way more people, and the planet clearly cannot sustain that.
      - bronson 7y ago
        Preventing renters from living in high density housing will make the number of people on the planet go down?
        onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
        SF isn't uniquely expensive. Every city with opportunity has a huge premium. It's all for the same reasons. I'm not sure if I wish they'd go away. If housing were more affordable, we could easily have 10B people on the planet right now. Most people truly want to have families. They want homes to raise those families. People can't go own reproducing forever. Could we have had 2% population increase over the last 30 years in the US instead of 1%? Yes, but we'd already be over 10B people. In another 30 years, we'd be at close to 20B. It's not sustainable. And even if it was, it's not necessarily a better situation. Who's to say that education, health care, food and other basic necessities wouldn't be more scarce and cause the overall cost of living to be even higher? Inequality would almost certainly be much worse. The Malthusian trap plagued the world since the beginning of mankind. Until the industrial revolution, life for the average person was getting substantially worse over time. Then suddenly, productivity growth outpaced population growth, and we went through -- objectively the best time in human history. This is a time that includes monstrosities like the world wars and the threat of nuclear winter, and it it's BY FAR the best time humanity has ever seen. Productivity growth is starting to decline. Do I think that making housing more affordable and jump-starting population growth to keep GDP numbers increasing at a steady clip is a good trade off? No. Cheap housing sounds great. But I don't think it's a miracle pill. There are unintended consequences to everything. I wish we lived in a fantasy Utopia where everyone could be hold hands and be happy all day, but we don't.
        7y ago
zaroth 7y ago
I dunno, a think a lot of homeowners would love to be able to build a little cottage in the back yard and cover half their mortgage renting it out.
- flatline 7y ago
  I was thinking that too; but then, a lot more would complain about the renters at their neighbors’ house, increased traffic, noise, problems with lower income renters, HOA violations, and the ungodly backup at the city permitting office for any minor construction.
  - refurb 7y ago
    SF calls them ADUs(auxiliary dwelling units) and incentivized people to build them. A lot of people don’t want to because once you’ve rented it out, the tenant can never be kicked out unless they break the law. Do you want to sign up for someone living in your backyard for the next 20 years?
    - zaroth 7y ago
      Well then they didn’t really incentivize people to build them! An ADU should be like renting a room in your house. Exempt from fair housing laws, and at worst a non-guaranteed lease renewal, if not a simple 30 day notice.
      - kchamplewski 7y ago
        But the point of fair housing laws is to protect tenants. If everyone's building these and renting them with no fair housing protections, you've effectively just abolished fair housing laws without actually repealing them. To me it feels like the sensible thing to do here is to either actually abolish the fair housing laws if tenants don't really need those protections, or have them apply to these new constructions as well since tenants do need them. A stance in the middle makes no sense considering the intention of these laws.
dgzl 7y ago
I'm not a landlord or homeowner, and 1 makes me cry Big Government. What if something crazy happens to the economy, say the dollar gets devalued, and all you have is rental property for income? Realistically you would raise your rental price.... But wait, there's a cap, and you can't. 2) "legalizing backyard cottages" is actually against Big Government, and I'm with you there. You're forgetting another option: deregulate and let the market compete.
- wahern 7y ago
  > What if something crazy happens to the economy, say the dollar gets devalued, and all you have is rental property for income? In San Francisco rent control is indexed to inflation. If the dollar is devalued, inflation increases, and you get to increase your rent more. The same is true for Oregon's new law, which permits 7% increases in addition to inflation. > You're forgetting another option: deregulate and let the market compete. Rent control is about providing housing security and controlling volatility. Over the long-term unfettered markets may produce optimal supply, but in the short-term people can easily be pushed onto the street. As Keynes said, "economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again". (The more famous bit is, "in the long term we're all dead.")
  - refurb 7y ago
    SF is capped at 60% of CPI. Inflation is 10%, you can get 6%. Doesn’t take long for that to add up.
    - crashedsnow 7y ago
      In which universe is inflation 10%? https://www.bls.gov/regions/west/news-release/consumerpriceindex_sanfrancisco.htm https://www.bls.gov/regions/west/news-release/consumerpricei...
      - refurb 7y ago
        Let me restate that, if inflation was 10%, you’d only be able to increase by 6%, so you’d be losing 4% per year, which adds up quickly.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

malandrew 7y ago

Well if you explicitly pass things as “reversing a commit” instead of making a new hack to control unintended consequences, it’s harder to complain about big government since you’re making it smaller not larger.

exfed 7y ago

It may only apply to LA, but this whole (regulatory) issue seems deeply related to another similar article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20806752 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20806752

ralusek 7y ago

I'm a landlord and would love decreased housing regulations, even if it decreases the value of my property by increasing supply.

TheReveller 7y ago
When regulations allow for denser housing land prices go up because you can put more rentable dwellings in the same space.
- dgzl 7y ago
  Land prices go up because that's what it's worth. If the government says "you can't do this profitable stuff on your land", then the land is less valuable.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
    I don't know where to stand on this issue. I wish everyone could afford basic living spaces, but if they could, there would be way more people, and the planet clearly cannot sustain that.
    - bronson 7y ago
      Preventing renters from living in high density housing will make the number of people on the planet go down?
      - onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
        SF isn't uniquely expensive. Every city with opportunity has a huge premium. It's all for the same reasons. I'm not sure if I wish they'd go away. If housing were more affordable, we could easily have 10B people on the planet right now. Most people truly want to have families. They want homes to raise those families. People can't go own reproducing forever. Could we have had 2% population increase over the last 30 years in the US instead of 1%? Yes, but we'd already be over 10B people. In another 30 years, we'd be at close to 20B. It's not sustainable. And even if it was, it's not necessarily a better situation. Who's to say that education, health care, food and other basic necessities wouldn't be more scarce and cause the overall cost of living to be even higher? Inequality would almost certainly be much worse. The Malthusian trap plagued the world since the beginning of mankind. Until the industrial revolution, life for the average person was getting substantially worse over time. Then suddenly, productivity growth outpaced population growth, and we went through -- objectively the best time in human history. This is a time that includes monstrosities like the world wars and the threat of nuclear winter, and it it's BY FAR the best time humanity has ever seen. Productivity growth is starting to decline. Do I think that making housing more affordable and jump-starting population growth to keep GDP numbers increasing at a steady clip is a good trade off? No. Cheap housing sounds great. But I don't think it's a miracle pill. There are unintended consequences to everything. I wish we lived in a fantasy Utopia where everyone could be hold hands and be happy all day, but we don't.
        7y ago

zaroth 7y ago

I dunno, a think a lot of homeowners would love to be able to build a little cottage in the back yard and cover half their mortgage renting it out.

flatline 7y ago
I was thinking that too; but then, a lot more would complain about the renters at their neighbors’ house, increased traffic, noise, problems with lower income renters, HOA violations, and the ungodly backup at the city permitting office for any minor construction.
- refurb 7y ago
  SF calls them ADUs(auxiliary dwelling units) and incentivized people to build them. A lot of people don’t want to because once you’ve rented it out, the tenant can never be kicked out unless they break the law. Do you want to sign up for someone living in your backyard for the next 20 years?
  - zaroth 7y ago
    Well then they didn’t really incentivize people to build them! An ADU should be like renting a room in your house. Exempt from fair housing laws, and at worst a non-guaranteed lease renewal, if not a simple 30 day notice.
    - kchamplewski 7y ago
      But the point of fair housing laws is to protect tenants. If everyone's building these and renting them with no fair housing protections, you've effectively just abolished fair housing laws without actually repealing them. To me it feels like the sensible thing to do here is to either actually abolish the fair housing laws if tenants don't really need those protections, or have them apply to these new constructions as well since tenants do need them. A stance in the middle makes no sense considering the intention of these laws.

dgzl 7y ago

I'm not a landlord or homeowner, and 1 makes me cry Big Government. What if something crazy happens to the economy, say the dollar gets devalued, and all you have is rental property for income? Realistically you would raise your rental price.... But wait, there's a cap, and you can't. 2) "legalizing backyard cottages" is actually against Big Government, and I'm with you there. You're forgetting another option: deregulate and let the market compete.

wahern 7y ago
> What if something crazy happens to the economy, say the dollar gets devalued, and all you have is rental property for income? In San Francisco rent control is indexed to inflation. If the dollar is devalued, inflation increases, and you get to increase your rent more. The same is true for Oregon's new law, which permits 7% increases in addition to inflation. > You're forgetting another option: deregulate and let the market compete. Rent control is about providing housing security and controlling volatility. Over the long-term unfettered markets may produce optimal supply, but in the short-term people can easily be pushed onto the street. As Keynes said, "economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again". (The more famous bit is, "in the long term we're all dead.")
- refurb 7y ago
  SF is capped at 60% of CPI. Inflation is 10%, you can get 6%. Doesn’t take long for that to add up.
  - crashedsnow 7y ago
    In which universe is inflation 10%? https://www.bls.gov/regions/west/news-release/consumerpriceindex_sanfrancisco.htm https://www.bls.gov/regions/west/news-release/consumerpricei...
    - refurb 7y ago
      Let me restate that, if inflation was 10%, you’d only be able to increase by 6%, so you’d be losing 4% per year, which adds up quickly.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]