21 ms·

Yes, but this is still only one of about 10 other factors that prevent the region or city from having enough housing, or affordable housing (and I don't mean in

Yes, but this is still only one of about 10 other factors that prevent the region or city from having enough housing, or affordable housing (and I don't mean in the public government-run housing sense). Maybe Berkeley should also try to address the other unending issues that they keep up to prevent any meaningful change, if they really mean it: -- Endless and convoluted environmental + city approvals processes that corrupt any transparent application for development and favor those who have money to navigate it -- Picking and choosing special interest / special case neighborhoods or people to try to protect, to the detriment of everyone else wanting to live there -- Rent control -- The extremely backwards property tax policies that favor existing landowners over anyone new, young, poor (though this admittedly is California's problem, not just one city or county) and make everything else attempted bandaids -- and misguided bandaids, at that -- to fix the system.

1MoreThing 6y ago
> neighborhoods or people to try to protect, to the detriment of everyone else wanting to live there Wait, you have a problem with a city government trying to serve the people who actually live in a neighborhood rather than potential new residents? That's the whole point of a city government. To serve the people living in the city.
- supernova87a 6y ago
  I don't believe that "we got here first" is the principle by which I (or many others) want to live.
- davidw 6y ago
  Did you read the origins of their zoning code? "Protecting" the city by attempting to limit Black people to certain areas. Not a great look. A lot of zoning code is based on similar ideas, even if most people are not dumb enough to say the quiet part out loud these days. You do still hear it on occasion: Bend, Oregon, where I live, passed a similar change a few years back, which was then superseded by Oregon's HB 2001, which effectively eliminates exclusionary zoning in our cities. At the local hearing for the Bend rule, there was a woman who was really upset that "renters" might be able to live in her neighborhood. They're dirty, messy, and "don't care about where they live", according to her testimony. It's economic segregation, plain and simple.
  - cameldrv 6y ago
    I can’t say what was in that woman’s head, but neighborhoods that have a lot of rentals tend to have a different character independent of race. Homeowners have stable enough lives to have saved up a down payment, they tend to be older and have families. They also have a reason to not annoy their neighbors, because they will have to live with them for many years. Now, younger less settled people also need places to live, and the Bay Area’s solution is to send them to Stockton or something, but not everything is about race.
    - whimsicalism 6y ago
      > not everything is about race. Sure, but we're not talking about "everything", we're talking about housing trends in American cities.
    - davidw 6y ago
      "Economic segregation" is what I wrote, so not just race, but keeping those with less money away from "nice" neighborhoods and their good schools. Plenty of people who rent might buy if there were more opportunities to do so, which there would be if housing weren't such an artificially scarce good in the US. And when you describe 'those neighborhoods', keep in mind that that's probably a policy. If all neighborhoods had a mix of people, you wouldn't have quite so much of a concentration of people who aren't as wealthy.
      - u678u 6y ago
        > Plenty of people who rent might buy if there were more opportunities to do so, which there would be if housing weren't such an artificially scarce good in the US. America has the cheapest housing in the Developed world. SF is not cheap, but its still cheaper than big cities in Europe.
        davidw 6y ago
        Oh, I know something about that! I own a home in Padova, Italy. Land is mostly cheaper in the US, but Italy and most of Europe provide far more housing options, in large part because they do not impose things like single family zoning. Padova has twice the population of the town where I live here in the US, in about the same area, and housing is cheaper. The economy isn't great there, but that's a separate story from housing. If it were hotter, it's a place where you can simply build homes in many shapes and sizes, from small apartments to nice villas.
- LargeWu 6y ago
  This is the underlying energy behind NIMBY. Cities have many stakeholders. Residents, sure. But also businesses, workers, the homeless, the environment. And there are tons of tradeoffs. Maybe by rezoning and not mandating single family homes, the increased population density will improve access to transit and services. It's not necessarily as cut and dried as "Rezoning is negatively perceived by current residents, therefore don't do it".
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  Why don't city governments spend as much as possible on current residents and build up debt that will only have to be paid by future, new residents?
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    Lots of pension programs are underfunded.
- jdxcode 6y ago
  Becoming myopic with the only stakeholders that matter are the current residents has similar problems with corporations that place profits above all else.
- mywittyname 6y ago
  The Venn Diagram of "serving the people in a city" and "actions harmful to society" have a lot over overlap.
- LurkersWillLurk 6y ago
  Are new residents not as much of a resident as existing residents?
  - ghaff 6y ago
    New residents are but would be residents aren't.
- rsync 6y ago
  "Wait, you have a problem with a city government trying to serve the people who actually live in a neighborhood rather than potential new residents?" I am not sure if you are asking this as a rhetorical question, but if not ... This aspect of the housing (and democracy) debate in the bay area is now framed in terms which reject local decision making ("local control") if those local decisions reinforce existing, exclusionary housing policies. Which is to say, we like local control when it delivers results we agree with - like non-federal legalization of marijuana or so-called "sanctuary cities" but we don't like local control when it delivers results we disagree with. Or, more succinctly: "Democracy for me, but not for thee".
- pbuzbee 6y ago
  I feel the issue is that the governments are primarily protecting property owners, which are not all of the city's residents. Property owners may prefer the status quo, but there's still an effect on the citizens who rent, which shouldn't be disregarded.
caturopath 6y ago
> The extremely backwards property tax policies that favor existing landowners over anyone new, young, poor (though this admittedly is California's problem, not just one city or county) and make everything else attempted bandaids -- and misguided bandaids, at that -- to fix the system. It's bizarre how much Prop 13 appeals to folks, even those who don't benefit from it. When you explain it to people, their initial reaction is to express worry about the millionaires who own the houses that have quintupled in value, as though they are in need of protection. I hope someone eventually finds the right sales pitch to get rid of it: the policy distorts not only price but liquidity.
- zepto 6y ago
  > It's bizarre how much Prop 13 appeals to folks, even those who don't benefit from it. It should appeals to anyone who buys a house at any age. Without Prop 13, home owners tax rates rise just because nearby businesses are successful, which is absurdly regressive. Prop 13 appeals to and benefits people who don’t own real-estate yet, because it means that when they can do so, they know that their costs will be predictable, and they won’t be forced out of their homes by the next wave of IPOs or whatever else beyond their control (such as government money printing) pushes prices up.
  - caturopath 6y ago
    Property tax rates rise WHEN YOU HAVE MADE MONEY ON THE HOUSE. It's as simple as that. If you don't want to pay them, sell the house for a huge profit and leave. If you do want to pay your fair share and continue to live there, take out a second mortgage. We're talking about millionaires, not vulnerable victims.
    - zepto 6y ago
      > Property tax rates rise WHEN YOU HAVE MADE MONEY ON THE HOUSE. It's as simple as that. That’s not how property taxes work. You pay them whether you make money on the house or not. You only make money on a house when you sell it. > We're talking about millionaires, not vulnerable victims. This makes no sense. Buying or owning a house doesn’t make you a millionaire. Most people take out large loans to do so, and generally their net worth goes down at the point when they do so because of the costs. Purchase prices may go up, but they also go down when the economy weakens.
Ar-Curunir 6y ago
rent control is not the problem, the lack of new housing caused by rich people not wanting to devalue their property values is the problem
- tqi 6y ago
  Rent control does allow renters to vote against new housing development (in the name of "preserving" a neighborhood) without having to bear the cost of increased rent.
- rendang 6y ago
  Both are problems! Rent controlled units don't count toward the market-rate housing supply and thus raise the market rent.
jdxcode 6y ago
How can you hate prop 13 but think rent control is good?
- gowld 6y ago
  A believe that property owners don't deserve extra privileges but everyone deserves a place to live.
  - Lammy 6y ago
    It's hard to argue against rent control because one is effectively forced to advocate for kicking the most vulnerable people out of their homes, but you can count me as deeply suspicious of anything that incentivizes people to stay in one (poor) place instead of having the economic mobility to live in any area they desire.
- isoskeles 6y ago
  I read it as the commenter "hates" both. Both are listed here as factors of the housing problems in the Bay Area.
  - jdxcode 6y ago
    oh I think you're right, I misread
samstave 6y ago
>>*-- The extremely backwards property tax policies that favor existing landowners over anyone new, young, poor (though this admittedly is California's problem, not just one city or county) and make everything else attempted bandaids -- and misguided bandaids, at that -- to fix the system* Can you please educate me on this? What specifically is this issue? How can I educate myself on it?
- isoskeles 6y ago
  California's Prop 13 caps how much an owner's property taxes can increase every year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13
- jdxcode 6y ago
  https://www.taxfairnessproject.org/ https://www.taxfairnessproject.org/
ClydeBruckmans 6y ago
What is most unfair about prop 13 is that the lower tax rate can be transferred to your descendants. It's one thing to pay 10x the taxes of your neighbors, it's another thing altogether to have a class of people benefiting from lower taxes over generations! Also, I know there are probably better ways to finance a city, but that's how we currently do it. It should be done fairly, ideally we should meet in the middle. It's fundamentally unfair that some folks pay up to 10x or more than others. I'm speaking personally, but it really bothers me that my neighbors are actually OK with this. Also, there are lots of ways to ensure elderly/retired folks can stay in their homes. Taxes can be deferred.
- bdowling 6y ago
  > What is most unfair about prop 13 is that the lower tax rate can be transferred to your descendants That’s mostly gone now with Prop 19. It used to be that children could inherit apartment buildings, multiple houses, commercial buildings, with no new tax assessment. Now, children can only inherit a parent’s primary residence without a new tax assessment. Even then, they can only avoid a tax increase up to the first $1m in value and only if the children live in the property. If they keep it as a rental, they lose the benefit. The change should result in more properties being sold after inheritance, which will increase market supply and lower prices.
  - ClydeBruckmans 6y ago
    Oh that's right, prop 19 makes this a lot better. Thank you for the precision.
    - bdowling 6y ago
      The very wealthy will avoid the tax increase by holding property in corporate entities and passing the stock to their children. Moderately wealthy people (e.g., working professionals who also own small properties) will be affected the most because they often don't do the same kind of estate planning that the very wealthy do.
- onislandtime 6y ago

1MoreThing 6y ago

> neighborhoods or people to try to protect, to the detriment of everyone else wanting to live there Wait, you have a problem with a city government trying to serve the people who actually live in a neighborhood rather than potential new residents? That's the whole point of a city government. To serve the people living in the city.

supernova87a 6y ago
I don't believe that "we got here first" is the principle by which I (or many others) want to live.
davidw 6y ago
Did you read the origins of their zoning code? "Protecting" the city by attempting to limit Black people to certain areas. Not a great look. A lot of zoning code is based on similar ideas, even if most people are not dumb enough to say the quiet part out loud these days. You do still hear it on occasion: Bend, Oregon, where I live, passed a similar change a few years back, which was then superseded by Oregon's HB 2001, which effectively eliminates exclusionary zoning in our cities. At the local hearing for the Bend rule, there was a woman who was really upset that "renters" might be able to live in her neighborhood. They're dirty, messy, and "don't care about where they live", according to her testimony. It's economic segregation, plain and simple.
- cameldrv 6y ago
  I can’t say what was in that woman’s head, but neighborhoods that have a lot of rentals tend to have a different character independent of race. Homeowners have stable enough lives to have saved up a down payment, they tend to be older and have families. They also have a reason to not annoy their neighbors, because they will have to live with them for many years. Now, younger less settled people also need places to live, and the Bay Area’s solution is to send them to Stockton or something, but not everything is about race.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    > not everything is about race. Sure, but we're not talking about "everything", we're talking about housing trends in American cities.
  - davidw 6y ago
    "Economic segregation" is what I wrote, so not just race, but keeping those with less money away from "nice" neighborhoods and their good schools. Plenty of people who rent might buy if there were more opportunities to do so, which there would be if housing weren't such an artificially scarce good in the US. And when you describe 'those neighborhoods', keep in mind that that's probably a policy. If all neighborhoods had a mix of people, you wouldn't have quite so much of a concentration of people who aren't as wealthy.
    - u678u 6y ago
      > Plenty of people who rent might buy if there were more opportunities to do so, which there would be if housing weren't such an artificially scarce good in the US. America has the cheapest housing in the Developed world. SF is not cheap, but its still cheaper than big cities in Europe.
      - davidw 6y ago
        Oh, I know something about that! I own a home in Padova, Italy. Land is mostly cheaper in the US, but Italy and most of Europe provide far more housing options, in large part because they do not impose things like single family zoning. Padova has twice the population of the town where I live here in the US, in about the same area, and housing is cheaper. The economy isn't great there, but that's a separate story from housing. If it were hotter, it's a place where you can simply build homes in many shapes and sizes, from small apartments to nice villas.
LargeWu 6y ago
This is the underlying energy behind NIMBY. Cities have many stakeholders. Residents, sure. But also businesses, workers, the homeless, the environment. And there are tons of tradeoffs. Maybe by rezoning and not mandating single family homes, the increased population density will improve access to transit and services. It's not necessarily as cut and dried as "Rezoning is negatively perceived by current residents, therefore don't do it".
whimsicalism 6y ago
Why don't city governments spend as much as possible on current residents and build up debt that will only have to be paid by future, new residents?
- maxerickson 6y ago
  Lots of pension programs are underfunded.
jdxcode 6y ago
Becoming myopic with the only stakeholders that matter are the current residents has similar problems with corporations that place profits above all else.
mywittyname 6y ago
The Venn Diagram of "serving the people in a city" and "actions harmful to society" have a lot over overlap.
LurkersWillLurk 6y ago
Are new residents not as much of a resident as existing residents?
- ghaff 6y ago
  New residents are but would be residents aren't.
rsync 6y ago
"Wait, you have a problem with a city government trying to serve the people who actually live in a neighborhood rather than potential new residents?" I am not sure if you are asking this as a rhetorical question, but if not ... This aspect of the housing (and democracy) debate in the bay area is now framed in terms which reject local decision making ("local control") if those local decisions reinforce existing, exclusionary housing policies. Which is to say, we like local control when it delivers results we agree with - like non-federal legalization of marijuana or so-called "sanctuary cities" but we don't like local control when it delivers results we disagree with. Or, more succinctly: "Democracy for me, but not for thee".
pbuzbee 6y ago
I feel the issue is that the governments are primarily protecting property owners, which are not all of the city's residents. Property owners may prefer the status quo, but there's still an effect on the citizens who rent, which shouldn't be disregarded.

caturopath 6y ago

> The extremely backwards property tax policies that favor existing landowners over anyone new, young, poor (though this admittedly is California's problem, not just one city or county) and make everything else attempted bandaids -- and misguided bandaids, at that -- to fix the system. It's bizarre how much Prop 13 appeals to folks, even those who don't benefit from it. When you explain it to people, their initial reaction is to express worry about the millionaires who own the houses that have quintupled in value, as though they are in need of protection. I hope someone eventually finds the right sales pitch to get rid of it: the policy distorts not only price but liquidity.

zepto 6y ago
> It's bizarre how much Prop 13 appeals to folks, even those who don't benefit from it. It should appeals to anyone who buys a house at any age. Without Prop 13, home owners tax rates rise just because nearby businesses are successful, which is absurdly regressive. Prop 13 appeals to and benefits people who don’t own real-estate yet, because it means that when they can do so, they know that their costs will be predictable, and they won’t be forced out of their homes by the next wave of IPOs or whatever else beyond their control (such as government money printing) pushes prices up.
- caturopath 6y ago
  Property tax rates rise WHEN YOU HAVE MADE MONEY ON THE HOUSE. It's as simple as that. If you don't want to pay them, sell the house for a huge profit and leave. If you do want to pay your fair share and continue to live there, take out a second mortgage. We're talking about millionaires, not vulnerable victims.
  - zepto 6y ago
    > Property tax rates rise WHEN YOU HAVE MADE MONEY ON THE HOUSE. It's as simple as that. That’s not how property taxes work. You pay them whether you make money on the house or not. You only make money on a house when you sell it. > We're talking about millionaires, not vulnerable victims. This makes no sense. Buying or owning a house doesn’t make you a millionaire. Most people take out large loans to do so, and generally their net worth goes down at the point when they do so because of the costs. Purchase prices may go up, but they also go down when the economy weakens.

Ar-Curunir 6y ago

rent control is not the problem, the lack of new housing caused by rich people not wanting to devalue their property values is the problem

tqi 6y ago
Rent control does allow renters to vote against new housing development (in the name of "preserving" a neighborhood) without having to bear the cost of increased rent.
rendang 6y ago
Both are problems! Rent controlled units don't count toward the market-rate housing supply and thus raise the market rent.

jdxcode 6y ago

How can you hate prop 13 but think rent control is good?

gowld 6y ago
A believe that property owners don't deserve extra privileges but everyone deserves a place to live.
- Lammy 6y ago
  It's hard to argue against rent control because one is effectively forced to advocate for kicking the most vulnerable people out of their homes, but you can count me as deeply suspicious of anything that incentivizes people to stay in one (poor) place instead of having the economic mobility to live in any area they desire.
isoskeles 6y ago
I read it as the commenter "hates" both. Both are listed here as factors of the housing problems in the Bay Area.
- jdxcode 6y ago
  oh I think you're right, I misread

samstave 6y ago

>>*-- The extremely backwards property tax policies that favor existing landowners over anyone new, young, poor (though this admittedly is California's problem, not just one city or county) and make everything else attempted bandaids -- and misguided bandaids, at that -- to fix the system* Can you please educate me on this? What specifically is this issue? How can I educate myself on it?

isoskeles 6y ago
California's Prop 13 caps how much an owner's property taxes can increase every year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13
jdxcode 6y ago
https://www.taxfairnessproject.org/ https://www.taxfairnessproject.org/

ClydeBruckmans 6y ago

What is most unfair about prop 13 is that the lower tax rate can be transferred to your descendants. It's one thing to pay 10x the taxes of your neighbors, it's another thing altogether to have a class of people benefiting from lower taxes over generations! Also, I know there are probably better ways to finance a city, but that's how we currently do it. It should be done fairly, ideally we should meet in the middle. It's fundamentally unfair that some folks pay up to 10x or more than others. I'm speaking personally, but it really bothers me that my neighbors are actually OK with this. Also, there are lots of ways to ensure elderly/retired folks can stay in their homes. Taxes can be deferred.

bdowling 6y ago
> What is most unfair about prop 13 is that the lower tax rate can be transferred to your descendants That’s mostly gone now with Prop 19. It used to be that children could inherit apartment buildings, multiple houses, commercial buildings, with no new tax assessment. Now, children can only inherit a parent’s primary residence without a new tax assessment. Even then, they can only avoid a tax increase up to the first $1m in value and only if the children live in the property. If they keep it as a rental, they lose the benefit. The change should result in more properties being sold after inheritance, which will increase market supply and lower prices.
- ClydeBruckmans 6y ago
  Oh that's right, prop 19 makes this a lot better. Thank you for the precision.
  - bdowling 6y ago
    The very wealthy will avoid the tax increase by holding property in corporate entities and passing the stock to their children. Moderately wealthy people (e.g., working professionals who also own small properties) will be affected the most because they often don't do the same kind of estate planning that the very wealthy do.
onislandtime 6y ago