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Some of the objections from the article: Sean Kieghran, president of San Francisco's Residential Builders Association, said he supports getting rid of single-f

Some of the objections from the article: Sean Kieghran, president of San Francisco's Residential Builders Association, said he supports getting rid of single-family only zoning but doesn't think it will result in many new units. Kieghran said that building fourplexes requires either two staircases or a staircase and an elevator, which takes up too much of the site. And, unless the city streamlined the process of building a fourplex on a single-family lot, builders would run into too many bureaucratic obstacles, Kieghran said. "With how long it takes to get through planning and fire and DPW and all the other red tape it's not likely we are going to see anybody building fourplexes anytime soon," he said. ... One of the few architects to design fourplexes on single-family sized lots in the last few decades is Daniel Solomon, who has worked on three such projects... "These are nifty little projects, but they won't make a big dent in the housing need," Solomon said. "That zoning is a tool to create housing production is a widely held and completely fallacious idea. Just because something is permitted doesn't mean it happens. It's very hard to find a vacant lot or tear down at a price that would work." He said the fourplexes he designed and built were profitable, but barely. And they took as much time to design and execute as the 100-unit complexes his firm, Mithun, is known for. "You would need to find a developer willing to take a risk on a minuscule profit and an architect who enjoys brain damage," he said. "They are complicated little projects. It's the absolute opposite of economy of scale."

bradleyjg 5y ago
These don’t read so much as objections as pointing out that the zoning change is necessary but not sufficient.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
bilbo0s 5y ago
building fourplexes requires either two staircases or a staircase and an elevator Wow. That means they can get away with one staircase in San Fran. Wouldn't fly where I'm from. His material point is correct though. Real estate development is about money. Where I live, you can generally only make money on fourplexes where land prices are low enough. I don't know much about San Fran real estate, but from what I've heard, land is not very cheap. I would think in San Fran larger apartment complexes would be more profitable. Of course then there are all kinds of other headaches, like getting all the lots you need in the exact same contiguous area. Which also doesn't sound cheap in San Fran. So maybe what I meant is luxury condos instead of apartments? Point is that however it happens the money math has to work.
- ozzydave 5y ago
  Typically the emergency staircase is attached to the front of the building in SF, like so: https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-fire-escape-san-francisco-building-windows-emergency-stairs-image79183971 https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-fire-escape-san-franc...
slothtrop 5y ago
Houses are bought and destroyed to make way for tri-plex blds and condos at a pretty consistent pace where I live, because the returns are that good. I'm surprised that this would be any different in SF.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  Demolition and construction are nearly completely regulated out of existence here.
- compiler-guy 5y ago
  I suspect where you live doesn’t have environmental impact studies and objection by basically anyone in the entire city requiring design review. Fixing the zoning is a first step, but won’t solve all the other issues.
  - almost_usual 5y ago
    Also scarcity of contractors, architects, and essentially anyone who works on homes. Even with the project approved costs are going to be high in the Bay Area.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      This is the stupid tax at work. They should have pulled their heads out of their butts and respected people's property rights 20, 30yr ago when the problems were becoming obvious. But they didn't so they're gonna have to pay up. Repealing some zoning is a small step in the right direction but they're gonna continue hemorrhaging money until they start tackling the other ideologically driven inefficiency (of which the person you are replying to has named a few types) before they really start seeing improvement.
    - beerandt 5y ago
      Addressing the regulations, but not the financing, means this scarcity doesn't change. Dodd Frank made speculative financing so difficult, that the industry either scaled up, as was mentioned in the article, to make it worth the trouble of pacifying HUD, or scaled down and run a business that essentially relies on clients to finance the projects. Most builders (and others in the industry) were forced to scale down. These were the builders that might have considered 4-plex or other small multifamily projects, but they've essentially been barred from the market.
thatfrenchguy 5y ago
> Just because something is permitted doesn't mean it happens. It's very hard to find a vacant lot or tear down at a price that would work First you make things legal then you streamline them. > You would need to find a developer willing to take a risk on a minuscule profit and an architect who enjoys brain damage," he said. "They are complicated little projects. It's the absolute opposite of economy of scale." Once you’ve gotten the streamlining part right, new actors can come in to make this cheaper. Those developers just want to keep the code complex so that only 100 unit projects are viable so that huge firms are the only ones who can execute projects.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  > Those developers just want to keep the code complex so that only 100 unit projects are viable so that huge firms are the only ones who can execute projects. Strong disagreement. The best thing for developers would be minimal zoning, Houston style. As the Bay Area built to expand from 7M people to, say, 20M in a decade, enormous fortunes and livelihoods would be made from all that construction work.
  - compiler-guy 5y ago
    You wouldn’t have to go all the way to Houston style zoning. SF’s regulations are so onerous that going just half way would help massively.
    - Ericson2314 5y ago
      Houston still has also sorts of housing covenant and other thing. Texas is still a low density mess, too. We do need to get rid of stupid zoning, but also cannot rely on a housing market to do the right thing. We need to force a shift to anti-car rather than pro-car development (and it really is a dichotomy, with the midpoint being a highly unstable equilibrium). The fact that they are talking about 4-plexes shows they really don't get the scale of density that is needed. Everything should be 5 stories minimum. Maybe some shorter Victorians can be grandfathered in, but the Sunset and western half more broadly needs to be almost entirely redeveloped.
scythe 5y ago
Those are valid objections to fourplexes, but there are still plenty of things in between SFH and fourplexes -- including, most particularly, semi-detached duplexes, which are much easier and still double the density on the lot! I do agree that much of the hype about fourplexes is suspect (including the noise isolation of units that are one-atop-another), but there are many other possibilities, including ADUs. Also, small elevators are definitely something that could benefit from an economy of scale, and anyway make a big difference in accessibility for any building above one story. Likewise, the possible designs of multi-unit homes on small lots could become more standardized. And the regulations could improve, and the regulatory institutions could gain more experience handling these kinds of projects. All of that starts with the zoning.
- newsclues 5y ago
  Or midrises that are between 4plexes and large condos, are another option
  - orthoxerox 5y ago
    Five-over-ones are nice medium density units, but they depend on public transit to be viable. If you can't get to work without a car (let's suppose those ground floor stores cover all your shopping needs) you need a parking spot, everyone and their partner needs a parking spot, and now the whole complex is surrounded by a huge parking lot.
    - newsclues 5y ago
      Public transportation, bikes, and car sharing all make sense when cities are designed for it
- tialaramex 5y ago
  Small elevators get to use a potentially cheaper and easier option. In a tall building the elevator is suspended from cables, because that's the only practical option, but with only three-four floors of rise you can use hydraulics from below instead, this also puts the equipment room down at the bottom of the shaft instead of on the roof, so now you don't need roof access for routine maintenance.
eloff 5y ago
I want to point out some evidence for the theory can be found in Vancouver where the entire city was rezoned for fourplexes (a duplex where each side has a rental unit.) It has added barely any new supply at all. I think it didn't go far enough. Rezone for 4-10 story apartment buildings, and now you're getting somewhere. This single family home thing just doesn't work in cities with as much demand as San Francisco and Vancouver. If you want to tackle the problem from the supply side, you need to be more aggressive about it. You need for the potential profit to be great enough to justify buying multiple adjacent homes, tearing them down, and combining the lots. Even then, it might not be enough to solve the problem, but it's a start.
- austincheney 5y ago
  That sounds like an epic value destroyer. It won’t lower prices. Instead it will drive out owners to be replaced by leasers incapable of owning property. The only people that win are owners of multi-tenant properties, which are often commercial businesses.
  - eloff 5y ago
    If they're condos, you can own it, at least as much as you can own half a duplex. If they're rental units, that's also ok, more supply brings down rents and lower rent causes more landlords to sell. Extra supply does add downward pressure on prices one way or another. I don't see where the "value destroyer" is.
    - austincheney 5y ago
      > more supply brings down rents People say that on here all the time, but I have never seen that happen. Do you have an example where increased housing supply lowered prices aside from a natural or market disaster? Maybe, Detroit where people simply abandoned their homes with no intent to sell.
      - eloff 5y ago
        That's microeconomics 101, so it's theoretically sound. Is there some effect in real life that prevents it from working the way the theory predicts? I don't think so. I would put the burden of proof on you, if you want to go against a solid theory. It seems self evident that more housing supply means houses stay on the market longer (there is lots of evidence for that) and that means sellers have more incentives to lower the price to get a quicker sale (lots of evidence for that too.) Look for historical real estate inventory reports that include prices and you should see the effect when time on market increases. It's important to note that prices would only fall if the change in supply overwhelmed the change in demand. In cities like Vancouver the demand is increasing at such a rate that increased supply only means prices don't rise as much as they would have otherwise. Time on market is always short. There was a brief dip in prices early in the pandemic and then things compensated back in the other direction.

bradleyjg 5y ago

These don’t read so much as objections as pointing out that the zoning change is necessary but not sufficient.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

bilbo0s 5y ago

building fourplexes requires either two staircases or a staircase and an elevator Wow. That means they can get away with one staircase in San Fran. Wouldn't fly where I'm from. His material point is correct though. Real estate development is about money. Where I live, you can generally only make money on fourplexes where land prices are low enough. I don't know much about San Fran real estate, but from what I've heard, land is not very cheap. I would think in San Fran larger apartment complexes would be more profitable. Of course then there are all kinds of other headaches, like getting all the lots you need in the exact same contiguous area. Which also doesn't sound cheap in San Fran. So maybe what I meant is luxury condos instead of apartments? Point is that however it happens the money math has to work.

ozzydave 5y ago
Typically the emergency staircase is attached to the front of the building in SF, like so: https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-fire-escape-san-francisco-building-windows-emergency-stairs-image79183971 https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-fire-escape-san-franc...

slothtrop 5y ago

Houses are bought and destroyed to make way for tri-plex blds and condos at a pretty consistent pace where I live, because the returns are that good. I'm surprised that this would be any different in SF.

BurningFrog 5y ago
Demolition and construction are nearly completely regulated out of existence here.
compiler-guy 5y ago
I suspect where you live doesn’t have environmental impact studies and objection by basically anyone in the entire city requiring design review. Fixing the zoning is a first step, but won’t solve all the other issues.
- almost_usual 5y ago
  Also scarcity of contractors, architects, and essentially anyone who works on homes. Even with the project approved costs are going to be high in the Bay Area.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    This is the stupid tax at work. They should have pulled their heads out of their butts and respected people's property rights 20, 30yr ago when the problems were becoming obvious. But they didn't so they're gonna have to pay up. Repealing some zoning is a small step in the right direction but they're gonna continue hemorrhaging money until they start tackling the other ideologically driven inefficiency (of which the person you are replying to has named a few types) before they really start seeing improvement.
  - beerandt 5y ago
    Addressing the regulations, but not the financing, means this scarcity doesn't change. Dodd Frank made speculative financing so difficult, that the industry either scaled up, as was mentioned in the article, to make it worth the trouble of pacifying HUD, or scaled down and run a business that essentially relies on clients to finance the projects. Most builders (and others in the industry) were forced to scale down. These were the builders that might have considered 4-plex or other small multifamily projects, but they've essentially been barred from the market.

thatfrenchguy 5y ago

> Just because something is permitted doesn't mean it happens. It's very hard to find a vacant lot or tear down at a price that would work First you make things legal then you streamline them. > You would need to find a developer willing to take a risk on a minuscule profit and an architect who enjoys brain damage," he said. "They are complicated little projects. It's the absolute opposite of economy of scale." Once you’ve gotten the streamlining part right, new actors can come in to make this cheaper. Those developers just want to keep the code complex so that only 100 unit projects are viable so that huge firms are the only ones who can execute projects.

BurningFrog 5y ago
> Those developers just want to keep the code complex so that only 100 unit projects are viable so that huge firms are the only ones who can execute projects. Strong disagreement. The best thing for developers would be minimal zoning, Houston style. As the Bay Area built to expand from 7M people to, say, 20M in a decade, enormous fortunes and livelihoods would be made from all that construction work.
- compiler-guy 5y ago
  You wouldn’t have to go all the way to Houston style zoning. SF’s regulations are so onerous that going just half way would help massively.
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    Houston still has also sorts of housing covenant and other thing. Texas is still a low density mess, too. We do need to get rid of stupid zoning, but also cannot rely on a housing market to do the right thing. We need to force a shift to anti-car rather than pro-car development (and it really is a dichotomy, with the midpoint being a highly unstable equilibrium). The fact that they are talking about 4-plexes shows they really don't get the scale of density that is needed. Everything should be 5 stories minimum. Maybe some shorter Victorians can be grandfathered in, but the Sunset and western half more broadly needs to be almost entirely redeveloped.

scythe 5y ago

Those are valid objections to fourplexes, but there are still plenty of things in between SFH and fourplexes -- including, most particularly, semi-detached duplexes, which are much easier and still double the density on the lot! I do agree that much of the hype about fourplexes is suspect (including the noise isolation of units that are one-atop-another), but there are many other possibilities, including ADUs. Also, small elevators are definitely something that could benefit from an economy of scale, and anyway make a big difference in accessibility for any building above one story. Likewise, the possible designs of multi-unit homes on small lots could become more standardized. And the regulations could improve, and the regulatory institutions could gain more experience handling these kinds of projects. All of that starts with the zoning.

newsclues 5y ago
Or midrises that are between 4plexes and large condos, are another option
- orthoxerox 5y ago
  Five-over-ones are nice medium density units, but they depend on public transit to be viable. If you can't get to work without a car (let's suppose those ground floor stores cover all your shopping needs) you need a parking spot, everyone and their partner needs a parking spot, and now the whole complex is surrounded by a huge parking lot.
  - newsclues 5y ago
    Public transportation, bikes, and car sharing all make sense when cities are designed for it
tialaramex 5y ago
Small elevators get to use a potentially cheaper and easier option. In a tall building the elevator is suspended from cables, because that's the only practical option, but with only three-four floors of rise you can use hydraulics from below instead, this also puts the equipment room down at the bottom of the shaft instead of on the roof, so now you don't need roof access for routine maintenance.

eloff 5y ago

I want to point out some evidence for the theory can be found in Vancouver where the entire city was rezoned for fourplexes (a duplex where each side has a rental unit.) It has added barely any new supply at all. I think it didn't go far enough. Rezone for 4-10 story apartment buildings, and now you're getting somewhere. This single family home thing just doesn't work in cities with as much demand as San Francisco and Vancouver. If you want to tackle the problem from the supply side, you need to be more aggressive about it. You need for the potential profit to be great enough to justify buying multiple adjacent homes, tearing them down, and combining the lots. Even then, it might not be enough to solve the problem, but it's a start.

austincheney 5y ago
That sounds like an epic value destroyer. It won’t lower prices. Instead it will drive out owners to be replaced by leasers incapable of owning property. The only people that win are owners of multi-tenant properties, which are often commercial businesses.
- eloff 5y ago
  If they're condos, you can own it, at least as much as you can own half a duplex. If they're rental units, that's also ok, more supply brings down rents and lower rent causes more landlords to sell. Extra supply does add downward pressure on prices one way or another. I don't see where the "value destroyer" is.
  - austincheney 5y ago
    > more supply brings down rents People say that on here all the time, but I have never seen that happen. Do you have an example where increased housing supply lowered prices aside from a natural or market disaster? Maybe, Detroit where people simply abandoned their homes with no intent to sell.
    - eloff 5y ago
      That's microeconomics 101, so it's theoretically sound. Is there some effect in real life that prevents it from working the way the theory predicts? I don't think so. I would put the burden of proof on you, if you want to go against a solid theory. It seems self evident that more housing supply means houses stay on the market longer (there is lots of evidence for that) and that means sellers have more incentives to lower the price to get a quicker sale (lots of evidence for that too.) Look for historical real estate inventory reports that include prices and you should see the effect when time on market increases. It's important to note that prices would only fall if the change in supply overwhelmed the change in demand. In cities like Vancouver the demand is increasing at such a rate that increased supply only means prices don't rise as much as they would have otherwise. Time on market is always short. There was a brief dip in prices early in the pandemic and then things compensated back in the other direction.