8 ms·

Stuffing as many homeless as possible in close quarters at Moscone gives the impression San Francisco is hellbent on killing off its homeless population using C

by xwdv 6y ago

Stuffing as many homeless as possible in close quarters at Moscone gives the impression San Francisco is hellbent on killing off its homeless population using COVID-19.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
Do you know of a better spot to shelter them? The city only owns so much property.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- jeffbee 6y ago
  There's an entire legal process for solving the fact that a city owns too little property: they can simply buy it with eminent domain, and that is precisely what they should be doing. They can ED single-family homes, rezone the properties for multifamily dwellings, and either auction them off or build on them through the housing authority. Everyone would win: the city could clear out lots of under-assessed junk, people who need housing wil get more supply, and even the owners who get bought out in the ED proceeding will get a huge paycheck, and the city needs no additional powers nor deliberations to do this, they can simply decide to do it at an ordinary supervisors' meeting. That they have chosen not to exercise such powers for the last 40-plus years tells you everything you need to know about why this problem persists.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    Eminent domain is much too slow to address the current crisis. What they're trying to do is get hotel rooms, but they can only source and staff them so quickly.
    - jeffbee 6y ago
      The "crisis" is older than most people who live in SF. Yes these buildings should have broken ground long ago, but that's no reason to delay.
      - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        Sorry, yeah, I thought we were talking about the coronavirus. I agree it's bizarre that SF is so unwilling to address its general homeless crisis except by nonstrategically throwing money at it.
  - dehrmann 6y ago
    > They can ED single-family homes At market rates. That's expensive. $1M per lot expensive. > rezone the properties for multifamily dwellings and either auction them off... Expect those single-family homeowners to sue because the land as clearly worth more than the city paid, they just gamed the system. > the city could clear out lots of under-assessed junk The taxes were too low, the buildings are often junk, but the assessments are correct. > even the owners who get bought out in the ED proceeding will get a huge paycheck Again, the paycheck is too low unless you making the zoning change before a new appraisal. ED isn't really needed for this; you just need to rezone areas and actually allow building, but SF does neither. Your reply also had ~nothing to do with property to house the homeless in the short-term. This is how you build housing projects.
  - dodobirdlord 6y ago
    > They can ED single-family homes, rezone the properties for multifamily dwellings On track, but the process you describe is overcomplicated. The whole process can be collapsed to "SF needs to upzone most of the city". Land zoned for multifamily dwellings is worth a lot more than land zoned for single family dwellings, so the owners would have reasonable grounds to sue if the city used eminent domain to seize their property under single family zoning with plans to upzone to multifamily zoning. They would probably win and be entitled to fair compensation for assessed value as of the later zoning. So if the city were going to pursue this route it would need the upzoning first, which the city has always been able to do and has refused to do anyway.
    - jeffbee 6y ago
      Yes but a neat workaround is to simply ED the properties of all the people who have been lobbying against the upzoning since ~always. They demonstrably were not in line to gain from the zoning change, since they personally prevent it.
      - bhawks 6y ago
        If you use previous political views as an input into the eminent domain decision I am pretty sure the courts are going to give you a hard time (justifiably so).
        jeffbee 6y ago
        It's actually settled case law in California that you can declare a neighborhood a "slum" and subject it to "urban renewal" based, in part, on a high concentration of "communists". Yes that is bananas, but there you go.
      - brewdad 6y ago
        How would that help? If I were fighting city hall about upzoning and they went and upzoned my property anyway, I'd likely sell my newly increased value property to someone else (or have it be ED'd at a higher compensation) and then move somewhere that still has single-family zoning. Whether one has been fighting upzoning or not, they are still entitled to the higher value.
  - carapace 6y ago
    It would be political suicide for whoever tried to push it through.
dehrmann 6y ago
I can't tell how serious you are. COVID-19's death rate, even for at-risk people, isn't high enough to get close to that.
tonywastaken 6y ago
I disagree that the city is hellbent on killing off its homeless population. If anything, the city is hellbent on improving conditions for them. The city has allowed encampments to remain untouched in many places around the city since the shelter-in-place started. They have even brought bathroom facilities to their encampments so that they stay in place. These bathroom facilities are supervised and cleaned by an attendant 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Again, I don't know why people think the city of San Francisco wants to kill their homeless population. Their policies favor the homeless population over the safety of families that live in neighborhoods other than the Marina, Pacific Heights, and North Beach.
- epistasis 6y ago
  SF politics are extremely partisan, such that they get in the way of actually accomplishing anything. The factions are the (IMHO very poorly named) Moderates and Progressives. Once you've been identified as being on one side, even if you share common goals it's unlikely that there will be any collaboration, and very likely there will be extreme antagonism wherever possible. Political point scoring and blame games have superseded the goals that people say they support.

by xwdv 6y ago

Stuffing as many homeless as possible in close quarters at Moscone gives the impression San Francisco is hellbent on killing off its homeless population using COVID-19.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

Do you know of a better spot to shelter them? The city only owns so much property.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jeffbee 6y ago
There's an entire legal process for solving the fact that a city owns too little property: they can simply buy it with eminent domain, and that is precisely what they should be doing. They can ED single-family homes, rezone the properties for multifamily dwellings, and either auction them off or build on them through the housing authority. Everyone would win: the city could clear out lots of under-assessed junk, people who need housing wil get more supply, and even the owners who get bought out in the ED proceeding will get a huge paycheck, and the city needs no additional powers nor deliberations to do this, they can simply decide to do it at an ordinary supervisors' meeting. That they have chosen not to exercise such powers for the last 40-plus years tells you everything you need to know about why this problem persists.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  Eminent domain is much too slow to address the current crisis. What they're trying to do is get hotel rooms, but they can only source and staff them so quickly.
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    The "crisis" is older than most people who live in SF. Yes these buildings should have broken ground long ago, but that's no reason to delay.
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      Sorry, yeah, I thought we were talking about the coronavirus. I agree it's bizarre that SF is so unwilling to address its general homeless crisis except by nonstrategically throwing money at it.
- dehrmann 6y ago
  > They can ED single-family homes At market rates. That's expensive. $1M per lot expensive. > rezone the properties for multifamily dwellings and either auction them off... Expect those single-family homeowners to sue because the land as clearly worth more than the city paid, they just gamed the system. > the city could clear out lots of under-assessed junk The taxes were too low, the buildings are often junk, but the assessments are correct. > even the owners who get bought out in the ED proceeding will get a huge paycheck Again, the paycheck is too low unless you making the zoning change before a new appraisal. ED isn't really needed for this; you just need to rezone areas and actually allow building, but SF does neither. Your reply also had ~nothing to do with property to house the homeless in the short-term. This is how you build housing projects.
- dodobirdlord 6y ago
  > They can ED single-family homes, rezone the properties for multifamily dwellings On track, but the process you describe is overcomplicated. The whole process can be collapsed to "SF needs to upzone most of the city". Land zoned for multifamily dwellings is worth a lot more than land zoned for single family dwellings, so the owners would have reasonable grounds to sue if the city used eminent domain to seize their property under single family zoning with plans to upzone to multifamily zoning. They would probably win and be entitled to fair compensation for assessed value as of the later zoning. So if the city were going to pursue this route it would need the upzoning first, which the city has always been able to do and has refused to do anyway.
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    Yes but a neat workaround is to simply ED the properties of all the people who have been lobbying against the upzoning since ~always. They demonstrably were not in line to gain from the zoning change, since they personally prevent it.
    - bhawks 6y ago
      If you use previous political views as an input into the eminent domain decision I am pretty sure the courts are going to give you a hard time (justifiably so).
      - jeffbee 6y ago
        It's actually settled case law in California that you can declare a neighborhood a "slum" and subject it to "urban renewal" based, in part, on a high concentration of "communists". Yes that is bananas, but there you go.
    - brewdad 6y ago
      How would that help? If I were fighting city hall about upzoning and they went and upzoned my property anyway, I'd likely sell my newly increased value property to someone else (or have it be ED'd at a higher compensation) and then move somewhere that still has single-family zoning. Whether one has been fighting upzoning or not, they are still entitled to the higher value.
- carapace 6y ago
  It would be political suicide for whoever tried to push it through.

dehrmann 6y ago

I can't tell how serious you are. COVID-19's death rate, even for at-risk people, isn't high enough to get close to that.

tonywastaken 6y ago

I disagree that the city is hellbent on killing off its homeless population. If anything, the city is hellbent on improving conditions for them. The city has allowed encampments to remain untouched in many places around the city since the shelter-in-place started. They have even brought bathroom facilities to their encampments so that they stay in place. These bathroom facilities are supervised and cleaned by an attendant 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Again, I don't know why people think the city of San Francisco wants to kill their homeless population. Their policies favor the homeless population over the safety of families that live in neighborhoods other than the Marina, Pacific Heights, and North Beach.

epistasis 6y ago
SF politics are extremely partisan, such that they get in the way of actually accomplishing anything. The factions are the (IMHO very poorly named) Moderates and Progressives. Once you've been identified as being on one side, even if you share common goals it's unlikely that there will be any collaboration, and very likely there will be extreme antagonism wherever possible. Political point scoring and blame games have superseded the goals that people say they support.