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It's impossible to build anything here. This overregulation at work. I wrote a blog post about a plot of land in Bolinas which I hoped to build something on: h

It's impossible to build anything here. This overregulation at work. I wrote a blog post about a plot of land in Bolinas which I hoped to build something on: http://jz.io/2018/05/12/development-is-difficult-in-california.html http://jz.io/2018/05/12/development-is-difficult-in-californ... TLDR there is triple overlap of legal authorities (City, State and County) who prevent you from building anything, with a 48 year old "water emergency" in place.

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
Shhh, the city and state governments don’t want people to know that they are the reason we have a housing crisis. It’s much better to blame rich people, tech companies, foreign investors etc etc.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  1) "Rich people" want their property values to be stable or increase. They want their communities to be somewhat static. If I paid $1MM+ for a property in a dense CA metro, I can't say that'd I'd disagree with those desires. I'm buying a home and a location, not "housing" as a commodity. 2) Tech companies unnecessarily demand butts in chairs in the Bay Area, foisting the externalities onto the commons (infrastructure and housing). Tax them more if they won't go remote/support remote work. Destroy demand for dense housing and the associated infrastructure. 3) It's documented that there's substantial Chinese money flowing into specific US markets (the US isn't alone of course; Canada, Australia, and the UK also have this problem). This pushes up the price of real estate, whether these properties are lived in or simply used as a store of value outside of the CCP's reach. Due to property owner/voter and governance momentum, it is unlikely you will see the will to increase development inertia in any California market that requires it, ever. Your options are to complain and put up with it, find an economic path to leaping onto the ownership ladder ("startup lottery", inheritance, etc), or eventually abandoning hope and moving somewhere cheaper/more development friendly (such as Colorado, Texas, Utah, Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, etc). Disclaimer: Not a CA resident, too expensive!
  - wbl 7y ago
    If you want to restrict what your neighbor can build buy an easement. Otherwise talk to the invisible hand. California makes money off of me being in it. Why is it good policy to drive an industry out?
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      > If you want to restrict what your neighbor can build buy an easement. Otherwise talk to the invisible hand. I'm sorry you're unhappy with how zoning and local governance exists today, but that's the hand that has been dealt. > California makes money off of me being in it. Why is it good policy to drive an industry out? If you're happy with the quality of life available with the status quo (renting forever with rents continually increasing faster than inflation), feel free to stay. It's your income; if you want to rent forever, that's your choice. Owning in a high cost of living geographic area is not a right, it is a luxury obtained mostly by luck (either through a purchase before property value increased or a present day windfall of some sort, whether that's an inheritance, the startup lottery, or a high single or dual income that can support servicing a large amount of mortgage debt).
      - thereisnospork 7y ago
        > I'm sorry you're unhappy with how zoning and local governance exists today, but that's the hand that has been dealt. A hand that has resulted in the ""housing crisis"" which is why we are here talking about why and how it should be changed.
        toomuchtodo 7y ago
        No one with the authority to change it is talking about changing it. No one invested in the status quo is willing to delegate the necessary authority to YIMBYs or their surrogates. You’d be asking existing and potential property owners to vote against their own interests. Progress isn’t impossible, but it’s going to take decades to make meaningful reforms.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- refurb 7y ago
  That's pretty clear. If the gov't (at all levels) really wanted more housing, it could happen pretty dam quickly. There is enough capital floating around out there. Problem is the capital says "not worth the hassle" or "with all the delays and costs, it's not worth it".
- thrower123 7y ago
  How the hell there isn't a giant apartment complex mandated, rather than forbidden, as part of these big tech company campuses is something I've scratched my head on. My best theory is that having to sing "Sixteen Tons" day after day in music classes has forever vilified anything approaching the idea of a company town...
  - jayd16 7y ago
    A lot of new construction is residential on top of light commercial. In Culver City (in the middle of LA) they're supposedly building offices for Apple and Amazon which has adjacent housing being constructed as well (although not stacked).
  - erik_seaberg 7y ago
    I think the Googleplex is built around wetlands where land use is heavily restricted, and they couldn't get permission to add any housing.
Retric 7y ago
You say that yet there is still adding more space for jobs than housing. That’s the core issue, if new jobs > new housing the situation gets worse. If new housing > new jobs the situation gets better. Retrofit some office space as apartments and you quickly fix the issue without any new buildings. You could even just remove some office buildings and replace them with parks for a similar net effect.
- thereisnospork 7y ago
  Choking the economy by limiting jobs is hardly a reasonable solution to limited housing. You are also presuming that it is easier to build offices than apartments, and easier to get permits, do environmental studies, appease NIMBY groups, and navigate the lawsuits necessary to turn offices into apartments. More directly to the point: with current residential rents there should be a lot of money in doing just what you are proposing, and yet the real estate developers aren't.
  - Decade 7y ago
    It absolutely is easier to build offices than apartments. And I don’t have a lot of physical needs; I would live in the office if it were legal. As it is, at my previous job the company allocated a room to be the nap room, but instead turned it into a meditation/massage room because sleeping is forbidden in commercial zoning.
mistrial9 7y ago
really? Bolinas? that is the example... thats almost irrational, and really building there would benefit almost no one but you
- intpbro 7y ago
  I know, right...
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  Just to elaborate. Bolinas is a town in Western Marin County. It's a significant drive on winding, hard to maintain roads (highway 1 and others) from any location even in wealthy, isolated Marin County. It was once a hippy town but is now, naturally, a preserve of the very wealthy but regardless of cost, with no jobs in the area, only tourists and the wealth would buy development there. It seems like the State and YIMBY or whoever should push housing near transportation as well as denser housing. This is obviously not that. If you read the GP's post, you'll notice they're complaining about not being able to build on an irregular parcel in Marin that's advertised for $12K. Of course, the parcel is that cheap because you can't build on it. The GP should save their complaints for problems that make sense. Complaints about not being able to build in Mountain View make sense, this doesn't. Altogether, the problems of US housing comes from too much low density housing and too little high density. Given this, keeping people from building on marginal locations is not the worse sin, to say the least.
  - JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
    If zoning or regulations ever change, the $12k parcel could appreciate significantly, assuming it's actually buildable.
  - flomo 7y ago
    Thanks for posting this explanation. Bolinas is also pretty infamous as the only town in California that Caltrans can't post a sign pointing too. It does hit on the fundamental Bay Area issue that almost all water is imported, and there are significant restrictions on development because of that. Almost all of the land surrounding the populated bay is part of a public & ngo "green belt". In the Bay Area, there really is not just some new amazing new places to build. We must build up.
jayd16 7y ago
Aren't California cities already the most dense in the US short of New York? We could perhaps do more but it doesn't seem right to say its impossible to build.
JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
I have anecdotally heard people regularly ignore the standard permitting processes and the state lacks the bandwidth for enforcing code violations. Not for huge scale projects, but more for SFH-type improvements.
- refurb 7y ago
  One contractor I spoke to in SF said maybe 50% of people get permits for renovations. If you do pull permits, it costs $1,500 or so and your property taxes will go up. Apparently if you get busted, they just make you pay plus a small penalty.
  - ping_pong 7y ago
    Almost no one in SF gets permits unless it's for something big enough that your neighbors will narc on you for. Most houses that are for sale will have some form of unpermitted work done on it.
    - refurb 7y ago
      The drawback of not getting permits is that permitted work is valued higher when it comes to resale.
      - ping_pong 7y ago
        Not in SF from what I've seen. Unpermitted work is so common that people basically don't care anymore. Maybe in other cities where it's more common to get permits, it will definitely make a difference, but not in SF.
intpbro 7y ago
Yeah, that’s because you’re trying to build in Bolinas....

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago

Shhh, the city and state governments don’t want people to know that they are the reason we have a housing crisis. It’s much better to blame rich people, tech companies, foreign investors etc etc.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
1) "Rich people" want their property values to be stable or increase. They want their communities to be somewhat static. If I paid $1MM+ for a property in a dense CA metro, I can't say that'd I'd disagree with those desires. I'm buying a home and a location, not "housing" as a commodity. 2) Tech companies unnecessarily demand butts in chairs in the Bay Area, foisting the externalities onto the commons (infrastructure and housing). Tax them more if they won't go remote/support remote work. Destroy demand for dense housing and the associated infrastructure. 3) It's documented that there's substantial Chinese money flowing into specific US markets (the US isn't alone of course; Canada, Australia, and the UK also have this problem). This pushes up the price of real estate, whether these properties are lived in or simply used as a store of value outside of the CCP's reach. Due to property owner/voter and governance momentum, it is unlikely you will see the will to increase development inertia in any California market that requires it, ever. Your options are to complain and put up with it, find an economic path to leaping onto the ownership ladder ("startup lottery", inheritance, etc), or eventually abandoning hope and moving somewhere cheaper/more development friendly (such as Colorado, Texas, Utah, Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, etc). Disclaimer: Not a CA resident, too expensive!
- wbl 7y ago
  If you want to restrict what your neighbor can build buy an easement. Otherwise talk to the invisible hand. California makes money off of me being in it. Why is it good policy to drive an industry out?
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    > If you want to restrict what your neighbor can build buy an easement. Otherwise talk to the invisible hand. I'm sorry you're unhappy with how zoning and local governance exists today, but that's the hand that has been dealt. > California makes money off of me being in it. Why is it good policy to drive an industry out? If you're happy with the quality of life available with the status quo (renting forever with rents continually increasing faster than inflation), feel free to stay. It's your income; if you want to rent forever, that's your choice. Owning in a high cost of living geographic area is not a right, it is a luxury obtained mostly by luck (either through a purchase before property value increased or a present day windfall of some sort, whether that's an inheritance, the startup lottery, or a high single or dual income that can support servicing a large amount of mortgage debt).
    - thereisnospork 7y ago
      > I'm sorry you're unhappy with how zoning and local governance exists today, but that's the hand that has been dealt. A hand that has resulted in the ""housing crisis"" which is why we are here talking about why and how it should be changed.
      - toomuchtodo 7y ago
        No one with the authority to change it is talking about changing it. No one invested in the status quo is willing to delegate the necessary authority to YIMBYs or their surrogates. You’d be asking existing and potential property owners to vote against their own interests. Progress isn’t impossible, but it’s going to take decades to make meaningful reforms.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
refurb 7y ago
That's pretty clear. If the gov't (at all levels) really wanted more housing, it could happen pretty dam quickly. There is enough capital floating around out there. Problem is the capital says "not worth the hassle" or "with all the delays and costs, it's not worth it".
thrower123 7y ago
How the hell there isn't a giant apartment complex mandated, rather than forbidden, as part of these big tech company campuses is something I've scratched my head on. My best theory is that having to sing "Sixteen Tons" day after day in music classes has forever vilified anything approaching the idea of a company town...
- jayd16 7y ago
  A lot of new construction is residential on top of light commercial. In Culver City (in the middle of LA) they're supposedly building offices for Apple and Amazon which has adjacent housing being constructed as well (although not stacked).
- erik_seaberg 7y ago
  I think the Googleplex is built around wetlands where land use is heavily restricted, and they couldn't get permission to add any housing.

Retric 7y ago

You say that yet there is still adding more space for jobs than housing. That’s the core issue, if new jobs > new housing the situation gets worse. If new housing > new jobs the situation gets better. Retrofit some office space as apartments and you quickly fix the issue without any new buildings. You could even just remove some office buildings and replace them with parks for a similar net effect.

thereisnospork 7y ago
Choking the economy by limiting jobs is hardly a reasonable solution to limited housing. You are also presuming that it is easier to build offices than apartments, and easier to get permits, do environmental studies, appease NIMBY groups, and navigate the lawsuits necessary to turn offices into apartments. More directly to the point: with current residential rents there should be a lot of money in doing just what you are proposing, and yet the real estate developers aren't.
- Decade 7y ago
  It absolutely is easier to build offices than apartments. And I don’t have a lot of physical needs; I would live in the office if it were legal. As it is, at my previous job the company allocated a room to be the nap room, but instead turned it into a meditation/massage room because sleeping is forbidden in commercial zoning.

mistrial9 7y ago

really? Bolinas? that is the example... thats almost irrational, and really building there would benefit almost no one but you

intpbro 7y ago
I know, right...
joe_the_user 7y ago
Just to elaborate. Bolinas is a town in Western Marin County. It's a significant drive on winding, hard to maintain roads (highway 1 and others) from any location even in wealthy, isolated Marin County. It was once a hippy town but is now, naturally, a preserve of the very wealthy but regardless of cost, with no jobs in the area, only tourists and the wealth would buy development there. It seems like the State and YIMBY or whoever should push housing near transportation as well as denser housing. This is obviously not that. If you read the GP's post, you'll notice they're complaining about not being able to build on an irregular parcel in Marin that's advertised for $12K. Of course, the parcel is that cheap because you can't build on it. The GP should save their complaints for problems that make sense. Complaints about not being able to build in Mountain View make sense, this doesn't. Altogether, the problems of US housing comes from too much low density housing and too little high density. Given this, keeping people from building on marginal locations is not the worse sin, to say the least.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
  If zoning or regulations ever change, the $12k parcel could appreciate significantly, assuming it's actually buildable.
- flomo 7y ago
  Thanks for posting this explanation. Bolinas is also pretty infamous as the only town in California that Caltrans can't post a sign pointing too. It does hit on the fundamental Bay Area issue that almost all water is imported, and there are significant restrictions on development because of that. Almost all of the land surrounding the populated bay is part of a public & ngo "green belt". In the Bay Area, there really is not just some new amazing new places to build. We must build up.

jayd16 7y ago

Aren't California cities already the most dense in the US short of New York? We could perhaps do more but it doesn't seem right to say its impossible to build.

JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago

I have anecdotally heard people regularly ignore the standard permitting processes and the state lacks the bandwidth for enforcing code violations. Not for huge scale projects, but more for SFH-type improvements.

refurb 7y ago
One contractor I spoke to in SF said maybe 50% of people get permits for renovations. If you do pull permits, it costs $1,500 or so and your property taxes will go up. Apparently if you get busted, they just make you pay plus a small penalty.
- ping_pong 7y ago
  Almost no one in SF gets permits unless it's for something big enough that your neighbors will narc on you for. Most houses that are for sale will have some form of unpermitted work done on it.
  - refurb 7y ago
    The drawback of not getting permits is that permitted work is valued higher when it comes to resale.
    - ping_pong 7y ago
      Not in SF from what I've seen. Unpermitted work is so common that people basically don't care anymore. Maybe in other cities where it's more common to get permits, it will definitely make a difference, but not in SF.

intpbro 7y ago

Yeah, that’s because you’re trying to build in Bolinas....