6 ms·

This is great. I never understood why we allow people who don't own the land dictating the terms of the housing that gets built when we need more of every kind

This is great. I never understood why we allow people who don't own the land dictating the terms of the housing that gets built when we need more of every kind of housing in California. The fetishization of single story mid-century construction is especially confusing. Land is expensive, build up, not out.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
pokstad 5y ago
Because there are limited resources surrounding those homes. Like streets, schools, sewage, etc. You can’t just magically scale up the housing without also scaling up infrastructure.
- mcny 5y ago
  My understanding is that they put a cap on property taxes that fund the infrastructure and then turned around and said there is no money for infrastructure.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    Isn’t it a chicken and egg problem? The only way to fund the new infrastructure to accommodate growth that will bring in property taxes to fund it in the future is via debt or impact fees. Either can be difficult for local governments to do. Also voters are often given lots of say, people who don’t want density get entrenched and vote for local leaders who are like minded.
  - mateo411 5y ago
    Sort of. Property taxes can only increase at ~2 percent a year due to Prop 13. However, people are still buying and selling houses. The people who have recently purchased a house pay high property taxes, because the property is expensive.
- xxpor 5y ago
  Good thing the government tracks the capacity of those things. There's no need to ask random people with no expertise what they think.
- heyda 5y ago
  I think you're thinking about the problem in the reverse order, it costs money per foot to lay down a street, sewage lines, internet, electricity, gas ect. If there are more units per square foot it makes more economical sense for everything. It's the reason rural regions still use septic tanks and DSL internet, it's expensive to lay it down. Think of it this way, if it costs 10k/year for a quarter acre lot to have access to a city municipality and to pay for the road maintenance but you double the units of housing on the lot, all of a sudden it costs 5k/year per unit on the quarter acre lot (plus a little bit for a second hookup.) This means not only do you have more units of total housing but a more economical infrastructure.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Money per foot is one thing. But the actual total infrastructure on that street has to be up to snuff before you build, while money can be taxed later.
    - nostrademons 5y ago
      I think the reasoning behind this is "create a problem, solve a problem". If you never create the problem there's no incentive to solve it. You have other problems instead, like homelessness and crime. In mathematical terms, you're stuck in a local maxima, and to get to a higher global maxima you need to descend the gradient a little bit and put up with some short-term pain.
      - sudosysgen 5y ago
        It's supposed to work with the promoter applying for a permit, and if it makes sense either it's granted or the infra is built. Failing infrastructure can have disastrous impacts. It's not somewhere where you can afford to move fast and break stuff. There is no alternative to competent government here, no easy way out.
        heyda 5y ago
        It's not really possible to move quick and break things, there are only so many home builders, carpenters, electricians, plumbers ect. I agree that failing infrastructure can absolutely have disastrous impacts but city councils in America are not run by the most competent people with decent foresight from what I have seen, they see that a bus route runs 95% capacity every morning at 9am, do nothing, a few months later, it's 105%, people start complaining, then they add another bus during that period and repeat the cycle. The only time I have seen infrastructure be built in advance of new housing is when a construction builds the infrastructure along with a new suburban housing development, which is great for the first 30 years, the taxes on those new houses only needs to be like 3k/year for police/fire/ect because everything is new, except after 30 years then the roads need to be repaved, sewers redone, ect, a 10k+/yr bill starts hitting and the local government is all confused about how to pay for it with the 3k/yr they are collecting, rinse, repeat. Local governments just aren't good at predicting usages until they happen.
- aluminum96 5y ago
  This is why the next step should be reforming prop 13. If we charge fair property tax to homeowners, based on the actual present value, municipalities will be able to afford the infrastructure improvements.
  - zepto 5y ago
    It’s not fair for poor people to be driven out of their houses when rich people choose to enter the neighborhood. That is the very essence of gentrification. If you want to destroy more communities of color in the Bay Area, this is how to do it.
    - aluminum96 5y ago
      If you want to protect poor homeowners, that's a noble goal, but it should be achieved with a narrowly tailored policy. Thousands of rich homeowners in Palo Alto are paying less than 10k per year on multi-million dollar properties because of Prop 13, and that's both unfair and unsustainable. Not to mention the corporate properties: Disney World, for example, pays an indefensibly low tax rate. The negative side effects of Prop 13 far, far outweigh any benefit to poor people (most of whom are renters priced out due in part to Prop 13!).
      - zepto 5y ago
        Renters are just as impacted by prop 13 as buyers, since landlords pass on the costs.
        0xB31B1B 5y ago
        That’s now how pricing happens at all. Rent is not based on “cost plus” pricing it is based on supply and demand
      - Schnitz 5y ago
        There’s an obvious and easy first step: End Prop 13 for anything that isn’t an owner occupied home. Business/capital interests won’t allow that though.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  All those things can routinely be built, without magic, as needed.
- r00fus 5y ago
  Rishi Kumar brings up these points in a local article [1]. It's a good question: "These bills will not require developers to invest in infrastructure improvement, rather only provide bare-minimum parking, avoiding costly entitlements. How will the current infrastructure — water, sewer, gas, roads — support the increased population? Who will make the necessary infrastructure investment?" [1] https://padailypost.com/2021/03/19/guest-opinion-sb9-sb10-the-kiss-of-death-for-neighborhoods/ https://padailypost.com/2021/03/19/guest-opinion-sb9-sb10-th...
scottlamb 5y ago
> I never understood why we allow people who don't own the land dictating the terms of the housing that gets built when we need more of every kind of housing in California. So we could keep out black people: https://www.kqed.org/news/11840548/the-racist-history-of-single-family-home-zoning https://www.kqed.org/news/11840548/the-racist-history-of-sin... Folks have come up with reasons more palatable to folks in the 21st reason. Some of those reasons may be valid, and some of those folks honestly believe those reasons are why we have zoning. I'm not going to call them racist, but that article makes a compelling case single-family zoning was originally due to racism.
- vmception 5y ago
  The prevalance of these state sanctioned laws and their rebranded remnants reminds what I liked about the first few episodes of Lovecraft Country. Its basically like the show Supernatural except with the twist that Dean and Sam Winchester had to hunt demons but also had to escape white only neighborhoods and sundown towns every episode, because they were black. That kind of perpetual threat alongside a different non-race related plot isn't portrayed often.
- fieryskiff11 5y ago
  absolutely based
- handmodel 5y ago
  While I 100% think that SFH has often been used for this reason I think larger reason that "my house will go up in value if I restrict all other building" is more accurate. Keeping out black people was one of the early use cases with it but certainly not the only or the first. SFH has existed heavily in New England, Canada, Iowa, pretty much every where in North America in spots where there are very few black people. Even heavily black neighborhoods like Baldwin Hills (aka Black Beverly Hills) historically had quite a bit of single family zoning. I think if that thesis was true you'd see large historical discrepancies with SFH in different states but you really don't. I grew up in a suburban white town next to a city that was 95% white and our town had a lot of NIMBYs who prevented condos from going up. I do no think it was because they were cool with 95 white people moving in but scared of 5 non-white people. I think they just knew that it was bad for property values (for supply/demand reasons) + property taxes (for budgetary reasons) and were selfish. The only reason I push back on this is because I don't think its helpful. I live in LA and the most common cited arguments against SB9/SB10 was that it would hurt "middle class minorities in south LA" and the representatives of these areas all voted against the bill (presumably because their biggest donors are black+hispanic+white landowners in these areas)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

pokstad 5y ago

Because there are limited resources surrounding those homes. Like streets, schools, sewage, etc. You can’t just magically scale up the housing without also scaling up infrastructure.

mcny 5y ago
My understanding is that they put a cap on property taxes that fund the infrastructure and then turned around and said there is no money for infrastructure.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  Isn’t it a chicken and egg problem? The only way to fund the new infrastructure to accommodate growth that will bring in property taxes to fund it in the future is via debt or impact fees. Either can be difficult for local governments to do. Also voters are often given lots of say, people who don’t want density get entrenched and vote for local leaders who are like minded.
- mateo411 5y ago
  Sort of. Property taxes can only increase at ~2 percent a year due to Prop 13. However, people are still buying and selling houses. The people who have recently purchased a house pay high property taxes, because the property is expensive.
xxpor 5y ago
Good thing the government tracks the capacity of those things. There's no need to ask random people with no expertise what they think.
heyda 5y ago
I think you're thinking about the problem in the reverse order, it costs money per foot to lay down a street, sewage lines, internet, electricity, gas ect. If there are more units per square foot it makes more economical sense for everything. It's the reason rural regions still use septic tanks and DSL internet, it's expensive to lay it down. Think of it this way, if it costs 10k/year for a quarter acre lot to have access to a city municipality and to pay for the road maintenance but you double the units of housing on the lot, all of a sudden it costs 5k/year per unit on the quarter acre lot (plus a little bit for a second hookup.) This means not only do you have more units of total housing but a more economical infrastructure.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Money per foot is one thing. But the actual total infrastructure on that street has to be up to snuff before you build, while money can be taxed later.
  - nostrademons 5y ago
    I think the reasoning behind this is "create a problem, solve a problem". If you never create the problem there's no incentive to solve it. You have other problems instead, like homelessness and crime. In mathematical terms, you're stuck in a local maxima, and to get to a higher global maxima you need to descend the gradient a little bit and put up with some short-term pain.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      It's supposed to work with the promoter applying for a permit, and if it makes sense either it's granted or the infra is built. Failing infrastructure can have disastrous impacts. It's not somewhere where you can afford to move fast and break stuff. There is no alternative to competent government here, no easy way out.
      - heyda 5y ago
        It's not really possible to move quick and break things, there are only so many home builders, carpenters, electricians, plumbers ect. I agree that failing infrastructure can absolutely have disastrous impacts but city councils in America are not run by the most competent people with decent foresight from what I have seen, they see that a bus route runs 95% capacity every morning at 9am, do nothing, a few months later, it's 105%, people start complaining, then they add another bus during that period and repeat the cycle. The only time I have seen infrastructure be built in advance of new housing is when a construction builds the infrastructure along with a new suburban housing development, which is great for the first 30 years, the taxes on those new houses only needs to be like 3k/year for police/fire/ect because everything is new, except after 30 years then the roads need to be repaved, sewers redone, ect, a 10k+/yr bill starts hitting and the local government is all confused about how to pay for it with the 3k/yr they are collecting, rinse, repeat. Local governments just aren't good at predicting usages until they happen.
aluminum96 5y ago
This is why the next step should be reforming prop 13. If we charge fair property tax to homeowners, based on the actual present value, municipalities will be able to afford the infrastructure improvements.
- zepto 5y ago
  It’s not fair for poor people to be driven out of their houses when rich people choose to enter the neighborhood. That is the very essence of gentrification. If you want to destroy more communities of color in the Bay Area, this is how to do it.
  - aluminum96 5y ago
    If you want to protect poor homeowners, that's a noble goal, but it should be achieved with a narrowly tailored policy. Thousands of rich homeowners in Palo Alto are paying less than 10k per year on multi-million dollar properties because of Prop 13, and that's both unfair and unsustainable. Not to mention the corporate properties: Disney World, for example, pays an indefensibly low tax rate. The negative side effects of Prop 13 far, far outweigh any benefit to poor people (most of whom are renters priced out due in part to Prop 13!).
    - zepto 5y ago
      Renters are just as impacted by prop 13 as buyers, since landlords pass on the costs.
      - 0xB31B1B 5y ago
        That’s now how pricing happens at all. Rent is not based on “cost plus” pricing it is based on supply and demand
    - Schnitz 5y ago
      There’s an obvious and easy first step: End Prop 13 for anything that isn’t an owner occupied home. Business/capital interests won’t allow that though.
BurningFrog 5y ago
All those things can routinely be built, without magic, as needed.
r00fus 5y ago
Rishi Kumar brings up these points in a local article [1]. It's a good question: "These bills will not require developers to invest in infrastructure improvement, rather only provide bare-minimum parking, avoiding costly entitlements. How will the current infrastructure — water, sewer, gas, roads — support the increased population? Who will make the necessary infrastructure investment?" [1] https://padailypost.com/2021/03/19/guest-opinion-sb9-sb10-the-kiss-of-death-for-neighborhoods/ https://padailypost.com/2021/03/19/guest-opinion-sb9-sb10-th...

scottlamb 5y ago

> I never understood why we allow people who don't own the land dictating the terms of the housing that gets built when we need more of every kind of housing in California. So we could keep out black people: https://www.kqed.org/news/11840548/the-racist-history-of-single-family-home-zoning https://www.kqed.org/news/11840548/the-racist-history-of-sin... Folks have come up with reasons more palatable to folks in the 21st reason. Some of those reasons may be valid, and some of those folks honestly believe those reasons are why we have zoning. I'm not going to call them racist, but that article makes a compelling case single-family zoning was originally due to racism.

vmception 5y ago
The prevalance of these state sanctioned laws and their rebranded remnants reminds what I liked about the first few episodes of Lovecraft Country. Its basically like the show Supernatural except with the twist that Dean and Sam Winchester had to hunt demons but also had to escape white only neighborhoods and sundown towns every episode, because they were black. That kind of perpetual threat alongside a different non-race related plot isn't portrayed often.
fieryskiff11 5y ago
absolutely based
handmodel 5y ago
While I 100% think that SFH has often been used for this reason I think larger reason that "my house will go up in value if I restrict all other building" is more accurate. Keeping out black people was one of the early use cases with it but certainly not the only or the first. SFH has existed heavily in New England, Canada, Iowa, pretty much every where in North America in spots where there are very few black people. Even heavily black neighborhoods like Baldwin Hills (aka Black Beverly Hills) historically had quite a bit of single family zoning. I think if that thesis was true you'd see large historical discrepancies with SFH in different states but you really don't. I grew up in a suburban white town next to a city that was 95% white and our town had a lot of NIMBYs who prevented condos from going up. I do no think it was because they were cool with 95 white people moving in but scared of 5 non-white people. I think they just knew that it was bad for property values (for supply/demand reasons) + property taxes (for budgetary reasons) and were selfish. The only reason I push back on this is because I don't think its helpful. I live in LA and the most common cited arguments against SB9/SB10 was that it would hurt "middle class minorities in south LA" and the representatives of these areas all voted against the bill (presumably because their biggest donors are black+hispanic+white landowners in these areas)