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Just 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 cr

Just 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 ago
I'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 ago
  More 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 ago
    More 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 ago
      That’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.
      - jeffbee 5y ago
        Tenure of homeownership has more than doubled in the last twenty years, and it is a harmful symptom of the housing crisis, not something to be accommodated. When the housing market was more functional and job mobility in America was more robust, people only owned homes for 4 years at the median. That was the same as the median tenure at jobs. That’s the way it should be.
        seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        That isn’t true in other countries, like most of Western Europe. It isn’t how it should be, especially if you have kids (yes, I moved around almost exactly every 4 years as a kid, it sucked). Good transit in urban areas with a lot of jobs is a wonderful combination. Also, husband and wife don’t need to work in the same neighborhood, which is highly unlikely as you go up the skill chain.
        fmajid 5y ago
        Prop 13 is responsible for the extension of tenure, since when you move, your property taxes are reset, and this creates a strong incentive to stay put, across multiple generations as well.
  - philosopher1234 5y ago
    I think many of the reasons are rationalizations or invented primarily in support of protecting net worth, even if they have some truth.
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      That is disingenuous. A lot of SFH owners like driving cars, dislike transit, and therefore are of the mindset that more housing = more traffic. Density of course needs mass transit if it is going to be feasible (you don't build a 30 story apartment building away from transit and expect that to end well).
  - foxpurple 5y ago
    Only if you don’t build up walkable areas and public transport. With high density housing many people won’t even own cars as there is not much point.
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      That’s how it works in the densest cities. The problem occurs if you get density first without that.
  - shalmanese 5y ago
    More office space also contributes to increasing traffic yet curiously there is no widespread, organized NIMBY opposition to offices like there is to housing units.
  - ryandrake 5y ago
    It also increases the need for new infrastructure, such as electric wires, sewer/plumbing, trash/sanitation, schools, police, fire stations, etc. You can't just plop Moar Housing down and call it a day. You need to build these things, too.
- creato 5y ago
  That only works when they can get together and ban higher density via zoning or whatever other mechanism. If individual homeowners can "defect" without their neighbors blocking the construction, the "union" will quickly fall apart.
- ryukafalz 5y ago
  It lowers housing prices, not necessarily property prices. If you own a single family home right next to an apartment building, and it's permitted to build an apartment building there, that lot's probably worth a lot more than it would be if you could only build a single family home there. Imagine a neighborhood with only two single family homes in it; you can only have two families live there, so if more than two families want to live there, they're going to bid up the price. In this case, the cost of the property is the cost of housing in general in that neighborhood, since it's one home per lot. Now imagine one of those SFHs is replaced by an apartment building with 40 units. Now 41 families can live in that neighborhood, so there's comparatively less competition for housing, which drives down the cost to live there. But the landlord for that apartment building can make a lot more in rent from the units in that building than they could from renting a house to one family, because it's distributed across 40. If there's enough demand for housing in that area (and in general right now there is in many places due to lack of supply), there are probably lots of people who'd be interested in replacing that second house with another apartment building, and the property values would reflect that. So yeah basically: housing prices go down, property values go up.
reactspa 5y ago
There seem to be 2 provisions. If one's lot is smaller, one can have a duplex on it. If one's lot is larger, one can split the lot and have a duplex on each sub-lot (i.e. 2 duplexes total). However, I can't find the guidelines for when one is allowed to split the lot into 2 sub-lots. I'm curious because I have a large-ish empty lot (8,000 sqft in a coastal town) and yes, would make out like a bandit if I'm allowed to split the lot into 2. Anyone know the guidelines? --------------- Update: could someone please clarify "criteria around 3 years of tenancy"... does this mean one has to have owned the lot for 3 years minimum?
- kbob 5y ago
  https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB9 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml... Many, many rules. That ones that stood out to me are: * Do not demolish more than 25% of existing house's exterior walls. * Each sub-lot must be at least 2,400 square feet. * Each sub-lot must be at least 40% of the original lot. * Each housing unit must be at least 800 square feet. I didn't read it closely enough to see how you can turn an existing single-family into a duplex.
  - reactspa 5y ago
    Thank you.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

esrauch 5y ago

I'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 ago
More 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 ago
  More 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 ago
    That’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.
    - jeffbee 5y ago
      Tenure of homeownership has more than doubled in the last twenty years, and it is a harmful symptom of the housing crisis, not something to be accommodated. When the housing market was more functional and job mobility in America was more robust, people only owned homes for 4 years at the median. That was the same as the median tenure at jobs. That’s the way it should be.
      - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        That isn’t true in other countries, like most of Western Europe. It isn’t how it should be, especially if you have kids (yes, I moved around almost exactly every 4 years as a kid, it sucked). Good transit in urban areas with a lot of jobs is a wonderful combination. Also, husband and wife don’t need to work in the same neighborhood, which is highly unlikely as you go up the skill chain.
      - fmajid 5y ago
        Prop 13 is responsible for the extension of tenure, since when you move, your property taxes are reset, and this creates a strong incentive to stay put, across multiple generations as well.
- philosopher1234 5y ago
  I think many of the reasons are rationalizations or invented primarily in support of protecting net worth, even if they have some truth.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    That is disingenuous. A lot of SFH owners like driving cars, dislike transit, and therefore are of the mindset that more housing = more traffic. Density of course needs mass transit if it is going to be feasible (you don't build a 30 story apartment building away from transit and expect that to end well).
- foxpurple 5y ago
  Only if you don’t build up walkable areas and public transport. With high density housing many people won’t even own cars as there is not much point.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    That’s how it works in the densest cities. The problem occurs if you get density first without that.
- shalmanese 5y ago
  More office space also contributes to increasing traffic yet curiously there is no widespread, organized NIMBY opposition to offices like there is to housing units.
- ryandrake 5y ago
  It also increases the need for new infrastructure, such as electric wires, sewer/plumbing, trash/sanitation, schools, police, fire stations, etc. You can't just plop Moar Housing down and call it a day. You need to build these things, too.
creato 5y ago
That only works when they can get together and ban higher density via zoning or whatever other mechanism. If individual homeowners can "defect" without their neighbors blocking the construction, the "union" will quickly fall apart.
ryukafalz 5y ago
It lowers housing prices, not necessarily property prices. If you own a single family home right next to an apartment building, and it's permitted to build an apartment building there, that lot's probably worth a lot more than it would be if you could only build a single family home there. Imagine a neighborhood with only two single family homes in it; you can only have two families live there, so if more than two families want to live there, they're going to bid up the price. In this case, the cost of the property is the cost of housing in general in that neighborhood, since it's one home per lot. Now imagine one of those SFHs is replaced by an apartment building with 40 units. Now 41 families can live in that neighborhood, so there's comparatively less competition for housing, which drives down the cost to live there. But the landlord for that apartment building can make a lot more in rent from the units in that building than they could from renting a house to one family, because it's distributed across 40. If there's enough demand for housing in that area (and in general right now there is in many places due to lack of supply), there are probably lots of people who'd be interested in replacing that second house with another apartment building, and the property values would reflect that. So yeah basically: housing prices go down, property values go up.

reactspa 5y ago

There seem to be 2 provisions. If one's lot is smaller, one can have a duplex on it. If one's lot is larger, one can split the lot and have a duplex on each sub-lot (i.e. 2 duplexes total). However, I can't find the guidelines for when one is allowed to split the lot into 2 sub-lots. I'm curious because I have a large-ish empty lot (8,000 sqft in a coastal town) and yes, would make out like a bandit if I'm allowed to split the lot into 2. Anyone know the guidelines? --------------- Update: could someone please clarify "criteria around 3 years of tenancy"... does this mean one has to have owned the lot for 3 years minimum?

kbob 5y ago
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB9 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml... Many, many rules. That ones that stood out to me are: * Do not demolish more than 25% of existing house's exterior walls. * Each sub-lot must be at least 2,400 square feet. * Each sub-lot must be at least 40% of the original lot. * Each housing unit must be at least 800 square feet. I didn't read it closely enough to see how you can turn an existing single-family into a duplex.
- reactspa 5y ago
  Thank you.

deleted 5y ago

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