7 ms·
Single Family Zoning is now banned in California
- meowtimemania 5y agoSurprised there aren’t more comments here. This is great news for affordable housing right?
- commoner 5y agoThere was some discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28559517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28559517
- aresant 5y agoSB9 is highly politicized, I'd assume a little much for Sat night for most of us haha :) I imagine if this wound up higher on the page it would be flagged out
- nixpulvis 5y agoThe rush to comment while relevant is getting out of hand frankly. Some things require actual research. EDIT: However, I have some personal experience in single family zoned housing in the Bay Area, but I would really need to read up on the proposed changes first... That said, I can say I felt very out of place and wish I had found a better, smaller place to live, for less. Meanwhile, my first apt in SF was clearly built in a rush, the light switches were leaking, and homeless people would shoot up by the door. All for just over $3k/mo. No thanks.
- throwaway27281 5y agoAffordable housing (or rather the zoning changes needed to realize it) is not always a popular topic on this site.
- foxpurple 5y agoIt’s not surprising when people earning $200k aren’t so enthusiastic when the rest of the population gets the chance to buy a house. Honestly the lack of empathy from people here is a little gross.
- colechristensen 5y agoHas there ever been an effort of freeing up high density construction that resulted in lower housing prices? In the places I lived, new construction of big apartment complexes was correlated with prices going up. The new buildings charged more for rent, people paid it, and the surrounding housing followed.
- fighterpilot 5y agoZoning laws are responsible for higher prices: https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/2018/pdf/rdp2018-03.pdf https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/2018/pdf/rdp2018-03.... The mechanism is clear cut. Restrict supply, price goes up. There's quite a bit of empirical support as well. I don't doubt what you've observed but I think it needs to be addressed rigorously.
- colechristensen 5y agoAll i’ve seen so far is people explaining their preferred reasons for why things happen and their guesses for what new policy will do. What I haven’t seen is a case study or anecdote of something actually resulting in lower prices. (besides tech busts and covid in SF)
- fighterpilot 5y agoThere's lots of evidence and many studies that show that zoning causes high real estate prices. I don't think it's fair to say it's merely a preferred reason. Here's one of many: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3507803 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3507803 The bar that you're asking for is too high. Relaxing zoning laws in a specific locale shouldn't lead to lower prices necessarily. It should lead to a smaller price increase than what would have otherwise occurred due to supply still being restricted elsewhere and the relative fungibility of low to mid income housing. But I agree that it would be good to see an event study of a natural experiment in addition to the correlational studies. However given the existing evidence we have, as well as the underlying economic logic, we shouldn't pretend as though there's no basis for bringing up zoning as a major cause of high real estate prices.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- umvi 5y agoCalifornia is a big state. Surely this only bans single family zoning in egregious areas like San Francisco and not other parts of California that don't have a housing crisis?
- 0xB31B1B 5y agoThe whole state has a housing crises. Even the little towns in the sierras or way up north.
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoThat isn't a uniform "housing crises" throughout the state. Susanville and Eureka are really different from San Francisco or South Lake Tahoe. The bill also doesn't eliminate single family zoning everywhere, things like no sewers (so have to use septic) still apply to necessarily reduced density.
- jeffbee 5y agoEureka is burdened by high housing prices relative to the local economy, same as San Francisco. Yes houses cost less, but prevailing wages are also less. Eureka has basically no economy to speak of and the houses there still cost $400k.
- judge2020 5y agoThe text of the bill: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB9 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...
- azernik 5y agoBy definition, the places where land is abundant do not face market pressure to build dense
- xxpor 5y agoThe onus should be these "other places" to justify their egregious violation of property rights. The default should be people can build what they want as long as conforms to the building code.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- personjerry 5y agoI remember reading article about San Francisco being the "mercenary city": Young professionals come here, live in tiny apartments, get big tech wages for a couple of years, then move somewhere more affordable. With the remote situation, people are getting out of SF faster than ever. Won't this bill drive up the price of a single family home while driving down the price of multifamily homes? But the dream for most American families is to settle down in a single family home. And so even if this bill lowers rent, won't it actually push more senior tech workers to look elsewhere for their eventual long term home, making the region more "mercenary" than ever?
- WaxProlix 5y agoI wonder how many people will go from "I can afford a single family house in SF" to "I cannot afford a single family house in SF" as a result of this bill.
- freshpots 5y agoI think you have it backwards. More housing reduces housing pressure and prices.
- yoz-y 5y agoAren’t many of the single family houses currently occupied by people flatsharing, which would be better served by other types of housing?
- kelnos 5y agoWho cares? If you are dead-set on a single family house, you probably shouldn't move to a dense, urban area. SFHs are incredibly inefficient uses of land, and that only makes sense where land is more plentiful and in lower demand. SFHs in Manhattan easily go for over $2k per square foot, or even a lot more (just found one listed on Zillow for $5k/sqft). No one seriously complains about that, because "wasting" space in an urban area should cost you. Sure, most of Manhattan is a lot more dense than most of SF, but given demand here, expecting affordable SFHs is unrealistic already.
- gnopgnip 5y ago
- wilg 5y agoSeems great! https://cayimby.org/california-yimby-celebrates-signing-of-historic-housing-legislation/ https://cayimby.org/california-yimby-celebrates-signing-of-h...
- kortilla 5y ago> A study by UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation found that the new law likely would add, at most, fewer than 700,000 housing units across California. A good, a pointless divisive bill that does nothing to fundamentally address the issues. It’s almost as if California politicians have discovered it’s better to have a bill that makes a lot of noise to make it seem like work is being done while simultaneously not doing anything meaningful that would truly disturb anyone. This is another version of banning restaurants from automatically giving water while the majority of the water goes to farms that hardly pay anything for it.
- kadoban 5y ago700,000 is not a tiny amount.
- dado3212 5y ago6% increase in housing units isn't nothing [1]. That said, I think you're right that more aggressive measures would need to be taken to resolve the shortage. Is there a link to recommendations that would have larger impact? I know CEQA's brought up a lot, but is there some paper that's been written around proposals and estimated housing units? [1] https://www.infoplease.com/us/census/california/housing-statistics https://www.infoplease.com/us/census/california/housing-stat...
- kortilla 5y agoThat’s effectively nothing when everything is so constrained already. A 3bd/2ba house in Sunnyvale runs for a couple of million dollars. Do you think 6% is going to bring it down to 300-500k like other suburbs in the country (e.g. around Indianapolis, Atlanta, Dallas)?
- dado3212 5y agoJust in case people don't understanding zoning laws, this doesn't mean you can't have single family homes. It just allows people to split existing lots (with criteria around 3 years of tenancy and some other caveats) and in general removes places where you can only have single family homes. As a general question, I think this means that people who currently own single family homes around the Bay Area are going to make out like bandits even more than they already were.
- esrauch 5y agoI'm not sure about that last part. In general the people who own single family homes in the Bay Area have had nimby opposition to more dense housing being constructed since more supply lowers prices.
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoMore supply also increases traffic. This isn't just about everyone worrying about their housing prices (there are a lot of NIMBY reasons beyond that).
- jeffbee 5y agoMore housing where the jobs are creates less traffic. Putting your jobs in Berkeley and your housing in Vacaville is what creates more traffic. A Berkeley with 300k people - which is the population that would support the number of jobs already in Berkeley today - would have noticeably less traffic. Same for a San Francisco with two million people etc.
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoThat’s true, but it is difficult to do in the USA since the company town concept/complex fell out of style in this country after WW2. People don’t generally live where they work, especially if they bought 10 years ago and switched jobs twice since then (and that isn’t even counting second body problems). Transit is really needed to fill in the gaps, or perhaps renting should be encouraged so people more easily move when they change jobs (but the second body problem remains). WFH works also, but then you don’t need to be near where your jobs is.
- remarkEon 5y agoIf I wanted to move to California and live in a single family home (my wife is from there), won’t this legislation just make those dwellings even more expensive now? Because California government says no more future supply. I get the urgency on addressing the housing situation in California, but this feels to me like “we must do something, and this is something, so we will do it”.
- javagram 5y agoI think you're confusing "Banning single family homes" and "Banning single family zoning". Nothing about this law prevents you buying land and building a SFH on it, so your characterization as "no more future supply" is inaccurate. It simply gives you the right to, in certain circumstances, build an additional home on your property.
- tcmart14 5y agoWouldn't it also allow developers to build apartments in places that previously they couldn't have because the ritzy neighborhood down the street can't bear the site of 'em?
- kelnos 5y agoThere are still lot-size restrictions as to how many units you can build. But if a lot is large enough, and the owner of a SFH wants to sell to a developer that wants to build a 4- or 8- or whatever-is-allowed-unit building, IMO they should be allowed to do so. And maybe that will reduce property values in some places like that ritzy neighborhood down the street. It may also increase property values in others. That's just life. Buying property shouldn't give you an immutable ticket to guaranteed value improvement. If you're lucky, it might, but as a property owner in CA myself, I would certainly give up value appreciation if it meant homes became affordable again. I get that some people wouldn't make that choice, but... tough luck; that's life. Your "right" to make money off of your primary residence shouldn't trump someone else's right to have a stable place to live.
- sharmin123 5y agoSingle Parenting Challenges and How to Raise Children Alone: https://www.hackerslist.co/single-parenting-challenges-and-how-to-raise-children-alone/ https://www.hackerslist.co/single-parenting-challenges-and-h...
- etaioinshrdlu 5y agoI have to wonder if some of the more affluent neighborhoods/cities won't just find a way to stop this in their area. Does anyone have a sense of how effective this law will really be, particularly in cities with NIMBY attitudes?
- nostrademons 5y agoI don't really see it affecting say Atherton or Los Altos Hills much - the people who live there are rich enough that splitting a lot and putting up duplexes isn't going to make a measurable economic difference to them, at least not one worth giving up their prime estate. The hillside communities (mid-peninsula, Oakland/Berkeley hills, Saratoga/Portola/Woodside) likely also won't see much adoption, just because the geology & topography doesn't really support the types of construction & road access to build multi-family housing. I could see it making a huge difference in "affluent suburbia" - places like Sunnyvale, Cupertino, San Jose, the SFH parts of Mountain View and San Francisco, etc. The lots there are generally wide enough to support a lot split, and you have a lot of homeowners that just spent $3M because you need to in order to own property, carrying a massive mortgage. The lot split would immediately let them pay back a good chunk of that principal, and a duplex would give you rental income to cover most of the payment. A lot of homeowners would go from being financially stretched on 2 FAANG incomes to being comfortably able to live on one salary, while still maintaining ownership of a duplex. Many of these neighborhoods are precisely the ones that need it most - they're close to jobs, they're flat, they could support a lot more population, and they already have significant pro-housing contingents. Traffic on 85 is going to suck even more than it already does, though.
- kbob 5y agoIt might be a popular action for people to take just before they move out. Instead of selling one house for $3M, build the duplices, sell them for a combined $5-6M, and leave instead of living with the consequences. That might happen in the really rich neighborhoods too.
- nostrademons 5y ago
- pvg 5y agoDupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28559517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28559517
- stephen_g 5y agoDoesn’t sound like commercial use is included in this? This is more of a problem than I realised - I live in a fairly old suburb (in Australia) where I can walk to some small shops, cafes and restaurants, as well as having the option of two schools in walking distance if I had kids, and sort of take it for granted, but watching some videos about city planning recently (Not Just Bikes on YouTube is great, along with City Beautiful, Strong Towns etc.), I realise now that it is actually something that makes living here so enjoyable that I hardly even thought about. Then, getting an electric scooter sort of opened up a whole new world of exploring bike paths (I have hardly done any cycling since I was a teenager). Our city seems way better than most of the US and Canada at that, but could be so, so much better. So this seems like a positive step, but I think in general the goal should be having mixes of single family houses, townhouses/terrace houses, and low rise apartments with small shops, cafes and restaurants, with good walkability and separated cycle paths. As much as I love the flexibility of having a car, looking into this now I do agree that in a lot of places we have actually sacrificed the freedom to not always need to own and use a car to get a lot of places…
- aasasd 5y agoLe Corbusier had the solutions long ago.
- DantesKite 5y agoI don't know whether this is a good or bad thing. Might look up a YouTube video to explain without politicization.
- js290 5y agoThe People Want Tiny Houses. Zoning Boards, Not So Much. https://reason.com/2015/02/22/the-people-want-tiny-houses-zoning-board/ https://reason.com/2015/02/22/the-people-want-tiny-houses-zo...
- dang 5y agoRecent and related: Newsom signs legislation to boost California’s housing supply - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28559517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28559517 - Sept 2021 (134 comments)
- foogazi 5y agoCan’t see how this is a good thing - property prices will rise since there is no cap on income generation If my neighbor sells his house to a developer building condos, then my property appreciates First house to convert to condos just makes everyone else’s experience that much worse: traffic congestion, parking, schools
- thissuchness 5y agoIt's a good thing because while land prices rise with density, rent prices will decrease as housing stock increases. If your neighbor sells his house and it gets replaced with condos, then more people will be able to live there. Maybe it's counterintuitive to you, but dense housing is actually better for traffic congestion as people are better able to live near the places they need to go, instead of having vast swaths of suburbs a la Los Angeles.
- imtringued 5y agoSuburban living causes traffic congestion and parking problems.
- haspoken 5y agohttps://archive.is/ueggZ https://archive.is/ueggZ
- kumarski 5y agoOnly ~700k of the 7M homes are open to lot splitting. This policy will raise prices faster by squeezing SFH supply and likely only a <30% of the 700k homes will want to have their property tax rates re-assessed. There are 5M USD homes in California that pay 10k/yr in property taxes. Nobody wants to abandon their property tax legacy.