16 ms·

You can build a skyscraper anywhere in Davis, California

263 points by kevinburke 5y ago

ashtonkem 5y ago
Genuinely curious if you could make more money as a developer purposefully pissing off zoning authorities in California rather than trying to keep them happy. The state has such a long history of purposefully trying to stop development that it doesn’t seem to me like playing nice is a successful strategy.
andrewfromx 5y ago
Though no one has tried this yet, there is a loop-hole in the Davis law that says very tall buildings are legal anywhere. The author wants a brash, no holds bared kind of real estate investor to push the boundaries and try this for real.
- wsinks 5y ago
  It's certainly an interesting proposition! In general, Davis has been very very NIMBY for the city center, just getting a Target on the very outskirts of city limits around 2010. I love the brash interesting solution the author has brought up! It's how we move into the future, trying new things. Is it the right thing for Davis? Probably not, but it sure would be interesting. I struggle between novelty, interesting, and sustainable. :)
  - kevinburke 5y ago
    To be clear, you don't have to build a skyscraper, you could build a "5-over-1" (5 floors of apartments over ground floor retail) which would not be out of place at all in Davis. One of the earliest test cases for the law was just a guy who wanted to build an ADU without also building two parking spaces for it, back when that was legal for cities to require. https://twitter.com/CSElmendorf/status/1474286668936998914 https://twitter.com/CSElmendorf/status/1474286668936998914 It's just that you probably want the biggest building possible so the potential profit is worth the years of delay while inevitable legal challenges and possibly an EIR work their way through the courts and planning process.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > It's just that you probably want the biggest building possible ...to maximize the loss when the lack of local infrastructure to support people using a building of that size makes it impossible to sell or lease space in it. There's still giant holes in the ground from abandoned skyscrapers the Sacramento market wouldn't support a decade ago, and that was a place not obviously insane for them.
      - kevinburke 5y ago
        This law wouldn't exempt you from paying any impact fees that Davis charged to e.g. support additional school or water infrastructure. I'll also note that the alternative to infill housing is single family home suburban sprawl, which is a lot more taxing infrastructure wise - apartment dwellers use less water, less electricity, and are less likely to own a car than suburban single family homeowners. Further the consequence of less homebuilding in California is more homebuilding in places like Texas, which are a lot less friendly for the environment.
    - brendoelfrendo 5y ago
      Pedant time! "5-over-1" doesn't refer to five floors of residential over one floor of retail, but any configuration of timber stick construction (IBC Type 5) over a concrete podium (IBC Type 1). Thus, you can have a 5-over-1 that's only 4 stories, or a 5-over-1 that's all residential, etc.
      - ISL 5y ago
        TIL.
      - sokoloff 5y ago
        That was very informative pedantry; thanks!
      - kevinburke 5y ago
        Correct, but the law at issue is specifically about housing needs, so you’d need to build apartments in this case, you couldn’t build commercial.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Davis has been very very NIMBY for the city center, just getting a Target on the very outskirts of city limits around 2010. The only reason Target had to be that far out is no place in the city center area had space for the literal sea of parking Target wanted. It's had major chains much closer to downtown for a long time (Borders and then Whole Foods right in downtown, Gottschalks at UMall until the chain went bankrupt in 2009, etc.)
    - fotta 5y ago
      Too bad nothing in the plaza where the Borders and WF used to be ever stays open. Everything that opens there closes after 5 years.
    - tkojames 5y ago
      It is also was built on super fund site. I still will not understand why Davis and other places are ok with a Target but will die before getting a Walmart. It is very impressive how target is able to pretend like they treat there employees any better..
      - barry-cotter 5y ago
        > I still will not understand why Davis and other places are ok with a Target but will die before getting a Walmart. It's all about social class. There's no website dedicated to calling people who shop at Target landwhales.
      - nobody9999 5y ago
        >I still will not understand why Davis and other places are ok with a Target but will die before getting a Walmart. It's the cachet of having the French store[0] in the area, over one that's from flyover-country. ;) [0] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tarjay https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tarjay
    - wsinks 5y ago
      That is a very good point that I didn't think of when I went there. You're definitely right, I don't know where they would've built that big of a building closer to the core. Thank you!
- jldugger 5y ago
  > the Davis law that says very tall buildings are legal anywhere But theres also no law stating this would be profitable, even as a oneoff
  - kevinburke 5y ago
    Was doing to do a post on this tomorrow but my guess is construction costs would be around $300 per square foot and new condo construction downtown is probably getting about $500/square foot. Also you’d be offering something that’s not on the market - a 30th floor view or whatever - and people might pay a lot for that. So I think that it’s not unreasonable, at least based on back of the envelope math.
    - Finnucane 5y ago
      Are there suitable lots available?
    - jldugger 5y ago
      > Also you’d be offering something that’s not on the market - a 30th floor view or whatever Does Davis have anything worth seeing? The Central Valley is all flat farmland with the dry side of some mountains in the distance.
    - nawgz 5y ago
      Surely you have a mistaken factor of 1000 in there?
      - kevinburke 5y ago
        yes - thank you - edited the comment.
- thebradbain 5y ago
  Not by Davis law (quite the opposite!), nor by loophole: this is explicit intent of California law passed in the 90s to try to stop NIMBYism and increase housing production (though in the past it just gave NIMBYs a shield to hide behind by zoning things they knew would never get developed as high density so they could abide by the letter of the law and not the spirit, until it was revamped to take into account likelihood of redevelopment in high income areas in 2019). Davis's zoning is noncompliant with state housing allocations, and as punishment, they are legally required to accept any housing without regard to density or height limit that is 20% affordable _until they are compliant again_. Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Pasadena, Palo Alto, Cupertino, and (my favorite) Atherton, will also soon see their housing limits invalidated as noncompliant, based on their current (bad-faith) plans they're trying to squeak by, and in _those_ markets, I guarantee you someone _will_ try to take advantage of it. Maybe not as skyscrapers, but as fourplexes, 10-plexes, and missing middle housing this state so desperately needs in affluent areas. As an example: Beverly Hills is now required to zone 3096 net-new housing units that are likely to be re-developed in the next 10 years. Last year they zoned... 4. Good luck fudging that!) This is a return to market-based development, too, and not some government intervention: real estate developers still aren't going to build where it doesn't make sense to, but now they'll have some of the red tape artificially holding development back removed in places where it does make sense.
- renewiltord 5y ago
  This is an accurate summary. It shouldn’t be downvoted.
  - TulliusCicero 5y ago
    It's actually not accurate at all, so it's good that it's being downvoted.
    - renewiltord 5y ago
      Oh? What do you think is inaccurate?
      - TulliusCicero 5y ago
        It's not a loophole. It's an intended part of the regulations at play.
        renewiltord 5y ago
        Oh, fair enough.
renewiltord 5y ago
Sure, there's no density-based law, but you could just make the fire egress rules onerous and there'd be an army of disingenuous people arguing that you don't care about safety. Here's a quick one: every building under 3 stories must have two independent egress mechanisms, for every story taller they must have one additional egress path per story. Done. There are no loopholes for you because you are not a friend. The system intentionally is all based on human to human trust because that allows complete discretion, and therefore abuse. You can't rules lawyer it. They will simply wait you out because they pick the wait period and they're paid to wait and you pay to wait.
- kevinburke 5y ago
  My understanding (not legal advice!) is rules that preclude development at a given density would not be enforceable especially if they deviate from e.g. the International Builders Code, unless you could make some case that Davis was uniquely susceptible to fires, which it isn’t. Like Los Altos Hills could mandate that new apartments be covered in real gold, but they don’t do that.
  - zbrozek 5y ago
    No, but we have plenty of other policies designed to prevent construction. Like having needlessly complicated and subjective lot coverage rules where simple objective ones would work fine. Or nerfing SB-9. Our town government also extorts conservation easements out of folks in exchange for permits. I've been struggling for two years just to fix a leaky roof. When my town fails to get an approved Housing Element, I'll probably build condos out of spite. And move to a red state so I have some property rights and better ROI on taxes.
- defen 5y ago
  The state government is pretty explicitly anti-NIMBY / pro-density (relatively speaking) right now, so bad-faith attempts to restrict growth like that might not go over well.
  - renewiltord 5y ago
fotta 5y ago
Off-topic but I love Davis. It has a smaller-town vibe but is close enough to Downtown Sac that one can go over there for a night out. The local politics are more to my lean than anywhere equidistantly east of Sacramento. It's extremely bike-friendly (most students bike around the town). It's also a little closer to the Bay which is nice for day trips.
- tkojames 5y ago
  Davis is cool if your young. I went to UC Davis and lived there a few years after I graduated. But some of the residents that live there are just something else. Some people hate the college even though they owe everything the town has to the college. I wish it was more affordable.
  - oceanghost 5y ago
    I lived next to a major university for a decade... I could see how it would be very easy to lose your patience with a university. The core problem is that... you encounter the same problems with students year after year, but they cycle out every so often, so to them, these are new problems. I found several students passed out in my yard or on my stool steps. Each one was given a medical exam (my partner was a nurse) and a burrito, and a ride home. I didn't mind the constant parties so much except when i had a kid-- her first year was very tough sleeping and on numerous occasions outrageously loud parties kept her up all night. 2-month-olds don't care if its Halloween or not. One kid vaguely threatened me saying he had a "party right of way" to do whatever he wanted. I informed him I was a gun owner. One time a woman directly out my front door was screaming "RAPE! RAPE!" and I felt obligated to interdict. The ex-wife and I would stay up on nights there was likely to be trouble, having gotten the rhythm of the place after a decade. That being said, if you kept your wits about yourself it was a really fun place to live, any problems the kids caused were way overshadowed by the vibrancy of the neighborhood.
    - princeb 5y ago
      > any problems the kids caused were way overshadowed by the vibrancy of the neighborhood. All that you mentioned looks like features to me, not bugs.
forgotmyoldacc 5y ago
Davis is primarily a college town. Is there enough demand to fill up a skyscraper?
- fotta 5y ago
  If you price it for the college crowd, absolutely. The university keeps expanding, a lot of first-year housing is becoming triples, and then after the first year most students move off-campus. Of course, any new construction won't be priced toward that crowd. But yes the demand could feasibly exist.
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    The real issue is that Davis is farm country. Taller buildings cost somewhat more per square foot. You need a stronger foundation and building materials, past a certain height you need pumps for water and things like that. That's worth the cost where land is expensive and you're building a 30 story building next to a bunch of 15 story buildings you'd otherwise have to knock down. When you're building next to cows, you just build five story buildings or two story buildings and build more of them, because the land isn't that expensive. This is presumably why it's easier to pass there. Not going to be a lot of takers on the skyscrapers. Though it could still be useful if you get some five story buildings where there might have only been single family homes.
    - kevinburke 5y ago
      True, though, you could potentially buy land near downtown at single family home prices, which would help. Also the same rules currently apply in Redondo Beach which is a little bit more expensive.
- toast0 5y ago
  Depends what a skyscraper means these days. My school has a third the enrollment of davis and has two 12 story residential towers plus a smaller one (or something, they've been doing a lot of construction), so assuming everything is like for like (which is a terible assumption), you could have similar housing for Davis with a 72 story tower. That's definitely a skyscraper, although not in competition for any height prizes. Usually something that big will be in a dense urban core though. My impression is that Davis doesn't have the density where it makes economic sense to build that high. Probably would be easier and cheaper to do something around 10 stories, maybe with a large footprint.
jujube3 5y ago
Giant towers full of low-income housing is actually something we've tried before. Over and over. https://newsone.com/1555245/most-infamous-public-housing-projects/ https://newsone.com/1555245/most-infamous-public-housing-pro...
- jdavis703 5y ago
  And they are certainly better than forcing people to live in homeless camps (I write this as someone who’s neighborhood had both public housing and tents).
- kevinburke 5y ago
  A lot of issues here, and the historic placement of public housing was often set up to fail (cut off from the rest of the city by freeways, for example, and then underfunded), but I'll just note that housing is so expensive now that a family making $74,000 qualifies as "low income" in Yolo County. https://www.yolocounty.org/home/showdocument?id=66968 https://www.yolocounty.org/home/showdocument?id=66968 There's no requirement that the developer is a public agency and only 20% of the apartments must be made available to families making $74,000 or less. This is far into the salary scale for Davis School District educators, for example. https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1593632639/davisk12utus/glo6umaefzurq2y7ggdl/Table12020-2021.pdf https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1593632639/davisk12u...
  - epistasis 5y ago
    Using the 30% requirement for below-market-rate rents, that's $1850/month for an apartment, which could go pay for nearly $400,000 of construction costs. Which could be a fairly large apartment, actually! Time to start working through some pro-formas, this might have a lot of potential. Prop 13 typically makes it really really hard for new landlords to compete, since long-time landlords pay nearly zero in taxes, but this might actually pencil.
- gyc 5y ago
  20% low income housing (and we're not talking about dirt poor people but people with solid middle class jobs)is hardly giant towers full of low income housing.
lom 5y ago
This just shows how complex and convoluted zoning and housing laws are. I did not understand a single thing why this is legal now.
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  The law involved is actually pretty simple. Localities are incentivized by Prop 13 and many other things to not approve housing. This is good for localities' budgets because people demand more services than office space, but is bad for California if every locality does it because then where will new residents live? So the state, which is keen to have more residents, requires each locality to "do its part" and accommodate some number of housing. Davis currently doesn't meet these targets, and so state law now overrides local zoning laws to allow any amount of density to be built so that Davis can catch up. In our federal US system, states are sovereign, so the feds can't just lord it over states, but cities have no such predefined relationship to their state. In fact, all cities only get the powers that states choose to delegate them, which is why state preemption (e.g. "every county must do X" or "no county can do Y" is a thing.)
notacoward 5y ago
Do college students count as low-income?
- newsclues 5y ago
  Some are, others have more money to spend than many people with full time jobs.
- mikeryan 5y ago
  If it’s federal section 8 requirements, then no. Full time students or being under 24 disqualifies eligibility.
  - aspenmayer 5y ago
    That seems inherently discriminatory based on age and based on what they choose to do with their time and what little money is had by thkse who would otherwise qualify.
    - AvocadoPanic 5y ago
      Not providing limited public services to individuals that have other options is the sort of discrimination demanded by taxpayers. Taxing the nearly 2/3 of taxpayers without a degree to fund the housing of university students doesn't seem egalitarian.
      - aspenmayer 5y ago
        Sounds like investing in upskilling the next generation to me.
    - notacoward 5y ago
      It's a hard problem. Many students have very low income on paper, but also have options that poor non-students don't. There's low-cost housing available only to students. There's parental money - not for all, certainly wasn't for me personally, but for many. There's student loans. It would be unfair to those poor non-students to use the same classification for students based only on their paper income. The exclusions that exist might be imperfect, but they also close loopholes that would defeat the whole purpose of ensuring availability of housing for low-income people in general.
labster 5y ago
- labster 5y ago
  Dear downvoters: You must be Davis townies so let me say this. Your inability to permit development in your pretty little town is a major reason why I still have thousands in student loans, a twenty years after I arrived. I therefore downvote you too.
  - SubiculumCode 5y ago
    You are not wrong about the costs of apartments, but bringing politics into it is beyond naive. Every wealthy town has nimby-itus.
    - labster 5y ago
      Ah yes, how dare I bring politics into a discussion of housing policy. I totally apologize.
  - nullc 5y ago
    I'm curious about the law that forced you to go to college and to go to Davis specifically and how those troublesome davis townies managed to get it passed and managed to make you subject to it.
simonebrunozzi 5y ago
> possibly additional cities in the Bay Area, soon. Curious to know which ones.
- kevinburke 5y ago
  It would depend on which cities actually try to meet their housing allocation - RHNA - and which try the same sort of bad faith stuff that Davis did. San Francisco is a very likely candidate and some of the richer suburbs - San Mateo, Palo Alto, Orinda - but it’s still very early in the process. (The submissions are staggered across the state; the Bay Area’s deadline is later than Yolo County’s.)
  - eganist 5y ago
    At least part of SF is already there, and as posted elsewhere here, at least one developer is taking a crack at using the state code as intended. https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/How-one-S-F-housing-project-is-using-state-laws-16375684.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/How-one-S-F-housing-p...
    - kevinburke 5y ago
      That's a really neat project, but it's using a different state law than the one in the article; the project there is using density bonuses, but does not have unlimited density. However, if San Francisco does not submit a valid Housing Element by the end of the year, then unlimited density could potentially be available on any lot in the city.
ummonk 5y ago
> "Because most developers are playing a repeated game with cities, housing applications have historically relied on a lot of goodwill to get through the planning process, and they haven't wanted to upset the apple cart for one big and uncertain return. So there is room for a brash outsider who doesn't care what people or planning staff in Davis think about them." Thankfully, some developers are starting to become more aggressive. At some point you have to decide that appeasement is more trouble than it's worth, and there is untapped potential for developers who will target pro-housing exceptions rather than try to work with the normal planning bureaucracy. https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/How-one-S-F-housing-project-is-using-state-laws-16375684.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/How-one-S-F-housing-p...
throw_away 5y ago
Munger should move his dorm from UCSB to UCD https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29130378 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29130378
- labster 5y ago
  The thing with Charles Munger is somehow worse than the time Linda Katehi let kids get pepper sprayed on the quad. At least hers was a mistake of oversight. Whoever is in charge of UCSB is so desperate for dollars they’re willing to give generations of students depression via architecture. People will probably die because of that, from suicide.
  - kevinburke 5y ago
    The building he wants to build in UCSB already exists in Michigan and it has the highest ratings of any student dorm there. "In fact the building has a rating of 8.8 out of 10 on veryapt.com. Reviewers praise the building's amenities, including study rooms and a fitness center." My quality of life at college improved a lot when I switched from having a roommate to getting a single room. https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/02/business/munger-residences-michigan-windowless/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/02/business/munger-residences-mi...
    - ciphol 5y ago
      The building in Michigan is in the same style but not as extreme. From what I remember, it has worse ratings than other dorms, and the complaints are about the lack of light.
supperburg 5y ago
They’ve been building tons of apartments in Davis. Tons. I’m afraid of oversupply if the college becomes less popular.
- kevinburke 5y ago
  Per censusreporter.org, Davis had about 29,500 homes in 2019: https://censusreporter.org/profiles/40000US22420-davis-ca-urbanized-area/ https://censusreporter.org/profiles/40000US22420-davis-ca-ur... Per California HCD, Davis issued permits for about 1350 homes between 2013 and 2020, or roughly, Davis grew by about 4.5% in that time frame. California grew its population by about 6% between 2010 and 2020 and the total housing stock by about 5.2% which puts Davis at just about average in terms of construction, far from "tons." https://www.census.gov/library/stories/state-by-state/california-population-change-between-census-decade.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/state-by-state/califo...
  - brucelidl 5y ago
    To be fair, UCD has built a ton of new student housing in that time frame, including the entire West Village complex. That may be what they are thinking of, even though I don't think that would be included in the town of Davis numbers.
  - supperburg 5y ago
    I lived in Davis. Have you ever even been to Davis? They are building gigantic monoliths of apartment buildings everywhere you look. Maybe check your sources again.
    - TulliusCicero 5y ago
      This is hilarious to me. "Oh, the data says I'm wrong? Well, check your data again I guess. What, provide my own data? As if!"
      - supperburg 5y ago
modeless 5y ago
I can just imagine developers lining up for a decade long legal fight with bonus character assassination in the press for the chance to build impractically expensive housing (that still has to abide by a whole bunch of other restrictions) and then give 20% away below cost.
TedShiller 5y ago
Anyone who believes dense housing will lower rent or home prices has never been to a city with dense housing
- kevinburke 5y ago
  Buy a single family home, tear it down and construct a fourplex, sell each unit of the fourplex for less than the single family home cost to purchase. Congrats, you have lowered home prices by adding dense housing.
  - TedShiller 5y ago
    Ever been to NYC?
    - kevinburke 5y ago
      Yes, New York is expensive because it doesn't build enough housing. Per capita, New York builds less new housing than California (1.8 permits per 1000 residents vs. 2.7 permits), and that's saying something, because California does not build a lot of housing. New construction in NYC is opposed by residents who are opposed to the Manhattanization of Manhattan. Michael Bloomberg significantly downzoned the city while he was in office. Tokyo is even bigger than New York, and you can rent a one bedroom in the heart of downtown for $1,000 a month, because they actually build a lot of new housing there. "New York City issued fewer housing unit permits on a per capita basis than nearly every other large city, including not only fast-growing Seattle and Austin, but also cities that face similar constraints to development. New York issued permits for 40 percent fewer units per capita than San Francisco, half as many as Boston, and nearly two-thirds less than Washington, D.C. New York also lags on other metrics like the net change in the number of housing units." https://cbcny.org/research/strategies-boost-housing-production-new-york-city-metropolitan-area https://cbcny.org/research/strategies-boost-housing-producti...
      - TedShiller 5y ago
        Well there ya go
brucelidl 5y ago
10 year Davis resident here, with generally quite Yimby tendencies. I would support something like this, as we do absolutely need more (and if possible) cheaper housing in town for students. The university is the whole reason the town exists and it's just not healthy to make it prohibitive for students to live here, while at the same time force university staff to live in cheaper surrounding towns and then commute in and out, in my opinion. But I do have to be realistic, the Nimby feelings in this town are VERY strong. Everybody who buys a house here seems to feel the town should stay exactly the way it was on the day after they arrived, without any recognition of how blinkered that is. The legal fight against something like this would be intense, to say the least. It would require a developer with great lawyers, very deep pockets and the thickest of skins.
- wsinks 5y ago
  Nice response! I only went to Davis, I was definitely curious what someone living there currently thinks. I was fortunate to always live in Davis while I went there, but it definitely wasn't inexpensive!
- SubiculumCode 5y ago
  16 years resident of Davis who just bought a house in nearby Woodland. Davis homes are impossible to afford without two 100k+ salaries. I loved a lot of things about Davis, but this is not one. edit: for those curious about Davis, visit the wiki: https://localwiki.org/davis/ https://localwiki.org/davis/
- vinhboy 5y ago
  I don't live in Davis anymore, but I did live there for 10+ years and used to own a home there. I love Davis. As Sheldon Copper from Big Bang theory puts it, it's my "zero-zero-zero-zero". While I don't consider myself a NIMBY, because I wouldn't go out of my way to stop a development project, I do appreciate how it has kept Davis a really nice place to live. I now live in Elk Grove, there are 3 Walmart within 5 minutes of me. Urban sprawl here is ridiculous and can be measured by how many dead skunks, and homeless coyotes you find on the road because farm land and wild spaces are turning into giant air conditioned homes (which I am totally guilty of owning). Folsom, Rancho Cordova, Roseville are the same. If you want to see what happens when Davis grow into a giant city, move to one of these places. I am not sure what my point is. I guess I am just saying that what Davis is, is not bad, it can be worse. But for the sake of conversation, if we are going to raze small towns like Davis in the quest of more housing friendly cities, I recommend we model it after Bellevue, WA. They have skyscrapers, and it's beautiful. But then again, that just speaks to the wealth disparity more than anything else... Which is also what keeps Davis so nice.
wavesounds 5y ago
And Redondo Beach!? I feel like they buried the lead here. Davis is nice and all but Redondo Beach is nearly twice the price per square foot since it's close to LA and ... on the beach!
tibbetts 5y ago
The pro move, at least with a similar law in Massachusetts, is for the developer to threaten a ridiculous skyscraper with 20% low income housing, and then negotiate with the town to instead, out of the grace of their heart, build a more reasonable all market rate building.
diogenescynic 5y ago
We need more housing at all levels. I don't think mandatory low income housing is a scalable solution and instead just raises the prices on the other units exacerbating the problem. Let supply meet demand.
asterizer 5y ago
You might want to think twice about the future of the Davis housing market. Remote learning is changing how students get degrees and UC schools are no exception. Online and "hybrid" classes are here to stay at every level. Who wouldn't want a morning class when all you have to do is roll over and open your laptop? This is going to seriously impact demand for housing in Davis. I'd wait and see how enrollments and housing patterns settle out before planning any project.
- neilparikh 5y ago
  I'm in university right now, and know a lot of university students. Online learning is not popular, and many students are clamoring to get back to in person classes as soon as they can (many Canadian universities are still primarily remote).
- mateo1 5y ago
  In theory most university courses, especially common ones on the undergrad level such as most mathematics, physics and engineering, could all be replaced by standardized tests. Long tests, sure, but tests you could simply sit for a small fee. This is not likely to happen though.
- anonAndOn 5y ago
  Davis is a gem of an opportunity for myriad reasons. The target market for new housing is not more students, it's more young (and young at heart) professionals. A modern mid-rise within walking distance of downtown would likely sell out before it's even built.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
cmclaughlin 5y ago
Kevin (the author) and I worked together around 10 years ago at Atlassian. It’s always great to see his blog posts here! This one rings home because I moved from SF to Davis during the pandemic. I attended UC Davis around 15 years ago and moved back because it’s a great place to race a family. I would like to see more infill development here. It’s a shame that so many smart and successful people that work here can’t afford to buy homes here. I’ve toyed around with the idea of building multi-family housing here. Generally, there are easier places to make money in real estate but I would feel pretty good about making something like this happen. Crazier things have happened, but if there are other HN readers that would like to chat more about this idea I’ll put my email address in my profile if it’s not there already. I’ve become friends with the realtor that helped me buy a house here (Tanner Mohr) - we’ve previously talked about getting a small group of people together for projects like this. So far we looked at one empty lot, but the seller already had plans for something like I had in mind. Personally I don’t think I could stomach the risk of trying to build something huge here. That sort of speaks to the point Kevin is making about nimbyism. I certainly wouldn’t want my money tied up in a legal fight. But I could imagine more 4-5 story condos close to campus and downtown doing well here.
brailsafe 5y ago
I'm kind of sick of skyscrapers personally, unless they're necessary, which they are sometimes. An argument for skyscrapers depends on their being a lack of available real estate that could otherwise be used to build many multi-rise or multi-family buildings, but often that space is taken up by parking lots. Take out the fucking surface parking lots, replace them with 5 story tall, pretty to look at and live in buildings, surround them with cafes and stuff and narrow the roads, then talk to me about skyscrapers. While you're at it, give people incentive to upgrade their single family lots to be more productive, and you might create a vibrant community, which you don't really get with skyscrapers as much. You could build a skyscraper in the middle of my dumb suburban wasteland of the neighborhood I grew up in, but why the hell would I live there when the businesses are all off-the-shelf franchises with giant dusty shitty lots and nobody around to talk to. Hell, build a skyscraper and surround it by the things I mentioned, that's cool too.
- kevinburke 5y ago
  If Davis had made it legal to do any of the things you suggest, they would not be in the position where it's legal to build skyscrapers now.
- Seattle3503 5y ago
  I feel you. NIMBYs always say "well let's build more density downtown" (aka away from me). But this isn't cost effective. The most cost effective is the missing middle, which can be wood construction.
dybber 5y ago
In Denmark a billionaire wanted to build a 320m skyscraper - the tallest in western europe - in the small town Brande (population 7000). https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/apr/01/like-the-eye-of-sauron-western-europes-tallest-building-planned-for-tiny-danish-town-brande-bestseller https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/apr/01/like-the-eye-... It was however shelved recently.
- the_mitsuhiko 5y ago
  A skyscraper in a tiny town sounds like a tricky thing to do. Those buildings require a lot of supporting infrastructure that is expensive if you only run it for a single building.
  - londons_explore 5y ago
    I disagree... All the infrastructure scales with the population supported. It doesn't matter if it's 2000 people living in a huge 500-flat skyscraper or 2000 people living in 10 streets 50 houses long. They're all gonna need the same amount of parking, parks, shops, employment, education, entertainment, etc. They'll also pay the same taxes to fund all that stuff. The construction effort or materials of a skyscraper probably isn't much different to 10 streets of 50 houses either.
    - the_mitsuhiko 5y ago
      > I disagree... All the infrastructure scales with the population supported. It doesn't matter if it's 2000 people living in a huge 500-flat skyscraper or 2000 people living in 10 streets 50 houses long. It does. Because a Skyscraper needs infrastructure which flat houses do not (Special water pumps, specially trained firefighters, support for rapid evacuation). Having a lot of people in one tall building creates challenges that a small town is not ready for.
timwaagh 5y ago
Fair housing... I just don't think it's very useful or even fair. I don't like it that I paid solid money and worked for years to pay off my debts whereas the neighbor lives in a similar appartment for free. Why not allow cities to drop that requirement if they go over the norm by 50%?
- oarsinsync 5y ago
  I used to feel this way. I was earning just above minimum wage, working 12 hour days 6 days a week, meanwhile my mate was living on benefits, and after all essential bills were paid (rent, electric, water, heating), he had more disposable income left over each month than I did. It was really quite upsetting to think that despite not even having a job, he effectively "made" more money than I did. Then I thoguht it through a little more, and realised that was as good as his life would ever get unless he did something to change it. TL;DR: I don't begrudge people who are able to subsist and are happy at that level. Even if it means they get what can appear to be nicer accommodation than what I'm paying for at that time. I'm not wired that way. I want more.
  - timwaagh 5y ago
    I never moved up so for me it's a little harder to accept.
- kevinburke 5y ago
  Historically cities throughout the state have added new density in their lowest income, most polluted neighborhoods, with the worst schools. In San Francisco for example big developments are planned for Treasure Island and Candlestick Point but not so much for Noe Valley. Of course you also have the issue that a lot of the low density, high quality neighborhoods were redlined - the FHA would not guarantee loans to minorities in the best neighborhoods so white families got a huge head start in the housing market and higher yearly appreciation that they could then pass to their kids. The idea is that this is not fair - it’s not so much about subsidies for individual people but the fact that if you’re born in 2000 vs. 1980 you’re much more likely to live in a polluted area because the population is bigger now and that’s where we’ve been adding the housing. Fair housing laws are about adding more housing in the areas of your town that have historically been unwelcoming to minorities and have less pollution and better schools. Also it’s bad for public health to have many more people living in polluted areas, bad for social mobility to increase the student count at the worst schools instead of the best schools, etc.
fbn79 5y ago
Not related but in Italy, not too far from my city there is Cesenatico. A small turistic sea city of 26K inhabitants with a skyscraper (from late sixties). https://www.google.it/maps/@44.2011112,12.4049907,3a,90y,144.61h,101.72t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s4_1X04vt6rAezL9A4ISd9w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.it/maps/@44.2011112,12.4049907,3a,90y,144... It's a solitarie brute tall building but segnale the city center from very far like a Lighthouse
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
nextstep 5y ago
> I know a lot of venture capitalists who hate California NIMBYism, care about climate change lol citation please!
lbrindze 5y ago
I take issue with a hard 20% cap on low income units. I'm not against low-income units in general but in practice this is the same exact policy that lead to less affordable housing in SF as a whole. Because these caps were set as hard limits (without equivalent caps on commercial developments) people built office buildings instead of housing which made the problem worse overall... compare this to a city like Boston where these caps are negotiated and set on a per development basis. As a result, while each new residential building may have proportionally less low-income units, boston as a whole has more affordable units available for rent since more housing was built in the first place due to the flexibility of these caps. I was born and raised in CA, but for the progressive a state we claim to be, some of these policies are down right counterproductive (despite having great intentions) and should be revisited. * my source here is I used to rent an apartment from the head of affordable housing commission in boston. If there is published materials that contradict this please correct me!
- rcpt 5y ago
  > this is the same exact policy that lead to less affordable housing in SF as a whole Cynical take: that's the reason the cap exists
Handytinge 5y ago
For anyone who doesn't know the term (I didn't), NIMBY[0] stands for "not in my backyard" and refers to people who are anti-development/change close to them. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIMBY?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIMBY?wprov=sfti1

263 points by kevinburke 5y ago

Genuinely curious if you could make more money as a developer purposefully pissing off zoning authorities in California rather than trying to keep them happy. The state has such a long history of purposefully trying to stop development that it doesn’t seem to me like playing nice is a successful strategy.

andrewfromx 5y ago

Though no one has tried this yet, there is a loop-hole in the Davis law that says very tall buildings are legal anywhere. The author wants a brash, no holds bared kind of real estate investor to push the boundaries and try this for real.

wsinks 5y ago
It's certainly an interesting proposition! In general, Davis has been very very NIMBY for the city center, just getting a Target on the very outskirts of city limits around 2010. I love the brash interesting solution the author has brought up! It's how we move into the future, trying new things. Is it the right thing for Davis? Probably not, but it sure would be interesting. I struggle between novelty, interesting, and sustainable. :)
- kevinburke 5y ago
  To be clear, you don't have to build a skyscraper, you could build a "5-over-1" (5 floors of apartments over ground floor retail) which would not be out of place at all in Davis. One of the earliest test cases for the law was just a guy who wanted to build an ADU without also building two parking spaces for it, back when that was legal for cities to require. https://twitter.com/CSElmendorf/status/1474286668936998914 https://twitter.com/CSElmendorf/status/1474286668936998914 It's just that you probably want the biggest building possible so the potential profit is worth the years of delay while inevitable legal challenges and possibly an EIR work their way through the courts and planning process.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > It's just that you probably want the biggest building possible ...to maximize the loss when the lack of local infrastructure to support people using a building of that size makes it impossible to sell or lease space in it. There's still giant holes in the ground from abandoned skyscrapers the Sacramento market wouldn't support a decade ago, and that was a place not obviously insane for them.
    - kevinburke 5y ago
      This law wouldn't exempt you from paying any impact fees that Davis charged to e.g. support additional school or water infrastructure. I'll also note that the alternative to infill housing is single family home suburban sprawl, which is a lot more taxing infrastructure wise - apartment dwellers use less water, less electricity, and are less likely to own a car than suburban single family homeowners. Further the consequence of less homebuilding in California is more homebuilding in places like Texas, which are a lot less friendly for the environment.
  - brendoelfrendo 5y ago
    Pedant time! "5-over-1" doesn't refer to five floors of residential over one floor of retail, but any configuration of timber stick construction (IBC Type 5) over a concrete podium (IBC Type 1). Thus, you can have a 5-over-1 that's only 4 stories, or a 5-over-1 that's all residential, etc.
    - ISL 5y ago
      TIL.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      That was very informative pedantry; thanks!
    - kevinburke 5y ago
      Correct, but the law at issue is specifically about housing needs, so you’d need to build apartments in this case, you couldn’t build commercial.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Davis has been very very NIMBY for the city center, just getting a Target on the very outskirts of city limits around 2010. The only reason Target had to be that far out is no place in the city center area had space for the literal sea of parking Target wanted. It's had major chains much closer to downtown for a long time (Borders and then Whole Foods right in downtown, Gottschalks at UMall until the chain went bankrupt in 2009, etc.)
  - fotta 5y ago
    Too bad nothing in the plaza where the Borders and WF used to be ever stays open. Everything that opens there closes after 5 years.
  - tkojames 5y ago
    It is also was built on super fund site. I still will not understand why Davis and other places are ok with a Target but will die before getting a Walmart. It is very impressive how target is able to pretend like they treat there employees any better..
    - barry-cotter 5y ago
      > I still will not understand why Davis and other places are ok with a Target but will die before getting a Walmart. It's all about social class. There's no website dedicated to calling people who shop at Target landwhales.
    - nobody9999 5y ago
      >I still will not understand why Davis and other places are ok with a Target but will die before getting a Walmart. It's the cachet of having the French store[0] in the area, over one that's from flyover-country. ;) [0] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tarjay https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tarjay
  - wsinks 5y ago
    That is a very good point that I didn't think of when I went there. You're definitely right, I don't know where they would've built that big of a building closer to the core. Thank you!
jldugger 5y ago
> the Davis law that says very tall buildings are legal anywhere But theres also no law stating this would be profitable, even as a oneoff
- kevinburke 5y ago
  Was doing to do a post on this tomorrow but my guess is construction costs would be around $300 per square foot and new condo construction downtown is probably getting about $500/square foot. Also you’d be offering something that’s not on the market - a 30th floor view or whatever - and people might pay a lot for that. So I think that it’s not unreasonable, at least based on back of the envelope math.
  - Finnucane 5y ago
    Are there suitable lots available?
  - jldugger 5y ago
    > Also you’d be offering something that’s not on the market - a 30th floor view or whatever Does Davis have anything worth seeing? The Central Valley is all flat farmland with the dry side of some mountains in the distance.
  - nawgz 5y ago
    Surely you have a mistaken factor of 1000 in there?
    - kevinburke 5y ago
      yes - thank you - edited the comment.
thebradbain 5y ago
Not by Davis law (quite the opposite!), nor by loophole: this is explicit intent of California law passed in the 90s to try to stop NIMBYism and increase housing production (though in the past it just gave NIMBYs a shield to hide behind by zoning things they knew would never get developed as high density so they could abide by the letter of the law and not the spirit, until it was revamped to take into account likelihood of redevelopment in high income areas in 2019). Davis's zoning is noncompliant with state housing allocations, and as punishment, they are legally required to accept any housing without regard to density or height limit that is 20% affordable _until they are compliant again_. Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Pasadena, Palo Alto, Cupertino, and (my favorite) Atherton, will also soon see their housing limits invalidated as noncompliant, based on their current (bad-faith) plans they're trying to squeak by, and in _those_ markets, I guarantee you someone _will_ try to take advantage of it. Maybe not as skyscrapers, but as fourplexes, 10-plexes, and missing middle housing this state so desperately needs in affluent areas. As an example: Beverly Hills is now required to zone 3096 net-new housing units that are likely to be re-developed in the next 10 years. Last year they zoned... 4. Good luck fudging that!) This is a return to market-based development, too, and not some government intervention: real estate developers still aren't going to build where it doesn't make sense to, but now they'll have some of the red tape artificially holding development back removed in places where it does make sense.
renewiltord 5y ago
This is an accurate summary. It shouldn’t be downvoted.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  It's actually not accurate at all, so it's good that it's being downvoted.
  - renewiltord 5y ago
    Oh? What do you think is inaccurate?
    - TulliusCicero 5y ago
      It's not a loophole. It's an intended part of the regulations at play.
      - renewiltord 5y ago
        Oh, fair enough.

renewiltord 5y ago

Sure, there's no density-based law, but you could just make the fire egress rules onerous and there'd be an army of disingenuous people arguing that you don't care about safety. Here's a quick one: every building under 3 stories must have two independent egress mechanisms, for every story taller they must have one additional egress path per story. Done. There are no loopholes for you because you are not a friend. The system intentionally is all based on human to human trust because that allows complete discretion, and therefore abuse. You can't rules lawyer it. They will simply wait you out because they pick the wait period and they're paid to wait and you pay to wait.

kevinburke 5y ago
My understanding (not legal advice!) is rules that preclude development at a given density would not be enforceable especially if they deviate from e.g. the International Builders Code, unless you could make some case that Davis was uniquely susceptible to fires, which it isn’t. Like Los Altos Hills could mandate that new apartments be covered in real gold, but they don’t do that.
- zbrozek 5y ago
  No, but we have plenty of other policies designed to prevent construction. Like having needlessly complicated and subjective lot coverage rules where simple objective ones would work fine. Or nerfing SB-9. Our town government also extorts conservation easements out of folks in exchange for permits. I've been struggling for two years just to fix a leaky roof. When my town fails to get an approved Housing Element, I'll probably build condos out of spite. And move to a red state so I have some property rights and better ROI on taxes.
defen 5y ago
The state government is pretty explicitly anti-NIMBY / pro-density (relatively speaking) right now, so bad-faith attempts to restrict growth like that might not go over well.
- renewiltord 5y ago

fotta 5y ago

Off-topic but I love Davis. It has a smaller-town vibe but is close enough to Downtown Sac that one can go over there for a night out. The local politics are more to my lean than anywhere equidistantly east of Sacramento. It's extremely bike-friendly (most students bike around the town). It's also a little closer to the Bay which is nice for day trips.

tkojames 5y ago
Davis is cool if your young. I went to UC Davis and lived there a few years after I graduated. But some of the residents that live there are just something else. Some people hate the college even though they owe everything the town has to the college. I wish it was more affordable.
- oceanghost 5y ago
  I lived next to a major university for a decade... I could see how it would be very easy to lose your patience with a university. The core problem is that... you encounter the same problems with students year after year, but they cycle out every so often, so to them, these are new problems. I found several students passed out in my yard or on my stool steps. Each one was given a medical exam (my partner was a nurse) and a burrito, and a ride home. I didn't mind the constant parties so much except when i had a kid-- her first year was very tough sleeping and on numerous occasions outrageously loud parties kept her up all night. 2-month-olds don't care if its Halloween or not. One kid vaguely threatened me saying he had a "party right of way" to do whatever he wanted. I informed him I was a gun owner. One time a woman directly out my front door was screaming "RAPE! RAPE!" and I felt obligated to interdict. The ex-wife and I would stay up on nights there was likely to be trouble, having gotten the rhythm of the place after a decade. That being said, if you kept your wits about yourself it was a really fun place to live, any problems the kids caused were way overshadowed by the vibrancy of the neighborhood.
  - princeb 5y ago
    > any problems the kids caused were way overshadowed by the vibrancy of the neighborhood. All that you mentioned looks like features to me, not bugs.

forgotmyoldacc 5y ago

Davis is primarily a college town. Is there enough demand to fill up a skyscraper?

fotta 5y ago
If you price it for the college crowd, absolutely. The university keeps expanding, a lot of first-year housing is becoming triples, and then after the first year most students move off-campus. Of course, any new construction won't be priced toward that crowd. But yes the demand could feasibly exist.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  The real issue is that Davis is farm country. Taller buildings cost somewhat more per square foot. You need a stronger foundation and building materials, past a certain height you need pumps for water and things like that. That's worth the cost where land is expensive and you're building a 30 story building next to a bunch of 15 story buildings you'd otherwise have to knock down. When you're building next to cows, you just build five story buildings or two story buildings and build more of them, because the land isn't that expensive. This is presumably why it's easier to pass there. Not going to be a lot of takers on the skyscrapers. Though it could still be useful if you get some five story buildings where there might have only been single family homes.
  - kevinburke 5y ago
    True, though, you could potentially buy land near downtown at single family home prices, which would help. Also the same rules currently apply in Redondo Beach which is a little bit more expensive.
toast0 5y ago
Depends what a skyscraper means these days. My school has a third the enrollment of davis and has two 12 story residential towers plus a smaller one (or something, they've been doing a lot of construction), so assuming everything is like for like (which is a terible assumption), you could have similar housing for Davis with a 72 story tower. That's definitely a skyscraper, although not in competition for any height prizes. Usually something that big will be in a dense urban core though. My impression is that Davis doesn't have the density where it makes economic sense to build that high. Probably would be easier and cheaper to do something around 10 stories, maybe with a large footprint.

jujube3 5y ago

Giant towers full of low-income housing is actually something we've tried before. Over and over. https://newsone.com/1555245/most-infamous-public-housing-projects/ https://newsone.com/1555245/most-infamous-public-housing-pro...

jdavis703 5y ago
And they are certainly better than forcing people to live in homeless camps (I write this as someone who’s neighborhood had both public housing and tents).
kevinburke 5y ago
A lot of issues here, and the historic placement of public housing was often set up to fail (cut off from the rest of the city by freeways, for example, and then underfunded), but I'll just note that housing is so expensive now that a family making $74,000 qualifies as "low income" in Yolo County. https://www.yolocounty.org/home/showdocument?id=66968 https://www.yolocounty.org/home/showdocument?id=66968 There's no requirement that the developer is a public agency and only 20% of the apartments must be made available to families making $74,000 or less. This is far into the salary scale for Davis School District educators, for example. https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1593632639/davisk12utus/glo6umaefzurq2y7ggdl/Table12020-2021.pdf https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1593632639/davisk12u...
- epistasis 5y ago
  Using the 30% requirement for below-market-rate rents, that's $1850/month for an apartment, which could go pay for nearly $400,000 of construction costs. Which could be a fairly large apartment, actually! Time to start working through some pro-formas, this might have a lot of potential. Prop 13 typically makes it really really hard for new landlords to compete, since long-time landlords pay nearly zero in taxes, but this might actually pencil.
gyc 5y ago
20% low income housing (and we're not talking about dirt poor people but people with solid middle class jobs)is hardly giant towers full of low income housing.

lom 5y ago

This just shows how complex and convoluted zoning and housing laws are. I did not understand a single thing why this is legal now.

bobthepanda 5y ago
The law involved is actually pretty simple. Localities are incentivized by Prop 13 and many other things to not approve housing. This is good for localities' budgets because people demand more services than office space, but is bad for California if every locality does it because then where will new residents live? So the state, which is keen to have more residents, requires each locality to "do its part" and accommodate some number of housing. Davis currently doesn't meet these targets, and so state law now overrides local zoning laws to allow any amount of density to be built so that Davis can catch up. In our federal US system, states are sovereign, so the feds can't just lord it over states, but cities have no such predefined relationship to their state. In fact, all cities only get the powers that states choose to delegate them, which is why state preemption (e.g. "every county must do X" or "no county can do Y" is a thing.)

notacoward 5y ago

Do college students count as low-income?

newsclues 5y ago
Some are, others have more money to spend than many people with full time jobs.
mikeryan 5y ago
If it’s federal section 8 requirements, then no. Full time students or being under 24 disqualifies eligibility.
- aspenmayer 5y ago
  That seems inherently discriminatory based on age and based on what they choose to do with their time and what little money is had by thkse who would otherwise qualify.
  - AvocadoPanic 5y ago
    Not providing limited public services to individuals that have other options is the sort of discrimination demanded by taxpayers. Taxing the nearly 2/3 of taxpayers without a degree to fund the housing of university students doesn't seem egalitarian.
    - aspenmayer 5y ago
      Sounds like investing in upskilling the next generation to me.
  - notacoward 5y ago
    It's a hard problem. Many students have very low income on paper, but also have options that poor non-students don't. There's low-cost housing available only to students. There's parental money - not for all, certainly wasn't for me personally, but for many. There's student loans. It would be unfair to those poor non-students to use the same classification for students based only on their paper income. The exclusions that exist might be imperfect, but they also close loopholes that would defeat the whole purpose of ensuring availability of housing for low-income people in general.

labster 5y ago

labster 5y ago
Dear downvoters: You must be Davis townies so let me say this. Your inability to permit development in your pretty little town is a major reason why I still have thousands in student loans, a twenty years after I arrived. I therefore downvote you too.
- SubiculumCode 5y ago
  You are not wrong about the costs of apartments, but bringing politics into it is beyond naive. Every wealthy town has nimby-itus.
  - labster 5y ago
    Ah yes, how dare I bring politics into a discussion of housing policy. I totally apologize.
- nullc 5y ago
  I'm curious about the law that forced you to go to college and to go to Davis specifically and how those troublesome davis townies managed to get it passed and managed to make you subject to it.

simonebrunozzi 5y ago

> possibly additional cities in the Bay Area, soon. Curious to know which ones.

kevinburke 5y ago
It would depend on which cities actually try to meet their housing allocation - RHNA - and which try the same sort of bad faith stuff that Davis did. San Francisco is a very likely candidate and some of the richer suburbs - San Mateo, Palo Alto, Orinda - but it’s still very early in the process. (The submissions are staggered across the state; the Bay Area’s deadline is later than Yolo County’s.)
- eganist 5y ago
  At least part of SF is already there, and as posted elsewhere here, at least one developer is taking a crack at using the state code as intended. https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/How-one-S-F-housing-project-is-using-state-laws-16375684.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/How-one-S-F-housing-p...
  - kevinburke 5y ago
    That's a really neat project, but it's using a different state law than the one in the article; the project there is using density bonuses, but does not have unlimited density. However, if San Francisco does not submit a valid Housing Element by the end of the year, then unlimited density could potentially be available on any lot in the city.

ummonk 5y ago

> "Because most developers are playing a repeated game with cities, housing applications have historically relied on a lot of goodwill to get through the planning process, and they haven't wanted to upset the apple cart for one big and uncertain return. So there is room for a brash outsider who doesn't care what people or planning staff in Davis think about them." Thankfully, some developers are starting to become more aggressive. At some point you have to decide that appeasement is more trouble than it's worth, and there is untapped potential for developers who will target pro-housing exceptions rather than try to work with the normal planning bureaucracy. https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/How-one-S-F-housing-project-is-using-state-laws-16375684.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/How-one-S-F-housing-p...

throw_away 5y ago

Munger should move his dorm from UCSB to UCD https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29130378 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29130378

labster 5y ago
The thing with Charles Munger is somehow worse than the time Linda Katehi let kids get pepper sprayed on the quad. At least hers was a mistake of oversight. Whoever is in charge of UCSB is so desperate for dollars they’re willing to give generations of students depression via architecture. People will probably die because of that, from suicide.
- kevinburke 5y ago
  The building he wants to build in UCSB already exists in Michigan and it has the highest ratings of any student dorm there. "In fact the building has a rating of 8.8 out of 10 on veryapt.com. Reviewers praise the building's amenities, including study rooms and a fitness center." My quality of life at college improved a lot when I switched from having a roommate to getting a single room. https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/02/business/munger-residences-michigan-windowless/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/02/business/munger-residences-mi...
  - ciphol 5y ago
    The building in Michigan is in the same style but not as extreme. From what I remember, it has worse ratings than other dorms, and the complaints are about the lack of light.

supperburg 5y ago

They’ve been building tons of apartments in Davis. Tons. I’m afraid of oversupply if the college becomes less popular.

kevinburke 5y ago
Per censusreporter.org, Davis had about 29,500 homes in 2019: https://censusreporter.org/profiles/40000US22420-davis-ca-urbanized-area/ https://censusreporter.org/profiles/40000US22420-davis-ca-ur... Per California HCD, Davis issued permits for about 1350 homes between 2013 and 2020, or roughly, Davis grew by about 4.5% in that time frame. California grew its population by about 6% between 2010 and 2020 and the total housing stock by about 5.2% which puts Davis at just about average in terms of construction, far from "tons." https://www.census.gov/library/stories/state-by-state/california-population-change-between-census-decade.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/state-by-state/califo...
- brucelidl 5y ago
  To be fair, UCD has built a ton of new student housing in that time frame, including the entire West Village complex. That may be what they are thinking of, even though I don't think that would be included in the town of Davis numbers.
- supperburg 5y ago
  I lived in Davis. Have you ever even been to Davis? They are building gigantic monoliths of apartment buildings everywhere you look. Maybe check your sources again.
  - TulliusCicero 5y ago
    This is hilarious to me. "Oh, the data says I'm wrong? Well, check your data again I guess. What, provide my own data? As if!"
    - supperburg 5y ago

modeless 5y ago

I can just imagine developers lining up for a decade long legal fight with bonus character assassination in the press for the chance to build impractically expensive housing (that still has to abide by a whole bunch of other restrictions) and then give 20% away below cost.

TedShiller 5y ago

Anyone who believes dense housing will lower rent or home prices has never been to a city with dense housing

kevinburke 5y ago
Buy a single family home, tear it down and construct a fourplex, sell each unit of the fourplex for less than the single family home cost to purchase. Congrats, you have lowered home prices by adding dense housing.
- TedShiller 5y ago
  Ever been to NYC?
  - kevinburke 5y ago
    Yes, New York is expensive because it doesn't build enough housing. Per capita, New York builds less new housing than California (1.8 permits per 1000 residents vs. 2.7 permits), and that's saying something, because California does not build a lot of housing. New construction in NYC is opposed by residents who are opposed to the Manhattanization of Manhattan. Michael Bloomberg significantly downzoned the city while he was in office. Tokyo is even bigger than New York, and you can rent a one bedroom in the heart of downtown for $1,000 a month, because they actually build a lot of new housing there. "New York City issued fewer housing unit permits on a per capita basis than nearly every other large city, including not only fast-growing Seattle and Austin, but also cities that face similar constraints to development. New York issued permits for 40 percent fewer units per capita than San Francisco, half as many as Boston, and nearly two-thirds less than Washington, D.C. New York also lags on other metrics like the net change in the number of housing units." https://cbcny.org/research/strategies-boost-housing-production-new-york-city-metropolitan-area https://cbcny.org/research/strategies-boost-housing-producti...
    - TedShiller 5y ago
      Well there ya go

brucelidl 5y ago

10 year Davis resident here, with generally quite Yimby tendencies. I would support something like this, as we do absolutely need more (and if possible) cheaper housing in town for students. The university is the whole reason the town exists and it's just not healthy to make it prohibitive for students to live here, while at the same time force university staff to live in cheaper surrounding towns and then commute in and out, in my opinion. But I do have to be realistic, the Nimby feelings in this town are VERY strong. Everybody who buys a house here seems to feel the town should stay exactly the way it was on the day after they arrived, without any recognition of how blinkered that is. The legal fight against something like this would be intense, to say the least. It would require a developer with great lawyers, very deep pockets and the thickest of skins.

wsinks 5y ago
Nice response! I only went to Davis, I was definitely curious what someone living there currently thinks. I was fortunate to always live in Davis while I went there, but it definitely wasn't inexpensive!
SubiculumCode 5y ago
16 years resident of Davis who just bought a house in nearby Woodland. Davis homes are impossible to afford without two 100k+ salaries. I loved a lot of things about Davis, but this is not one. edit: for those curious about Davis, visit the wiki: https://localwiki.org/davis/ https://localwiki.org/davis/
vinhboy 5y ago
I don't live in Davis anymore, but I did live there for 10+ years and used to own a home there. I love Davis. As Sheldon Copper from Big Bang theory puts it, it's my "zero-zero-zero-zero". While I don't consider myself a NIMBY, because I wouldn't go out of my way to stop a development project, I do appreciate how it has kept Davis a really nice place to live. I now live in Elk Grove, there are 3 Walmart within 5 minutes of me. Urban sprawl here is ridiculous and can be measured by how many dead skunks, and homeless coyotes you find on the road because farm land and wild spaces are turning into giant air conditioned homes (which I am totally guilty of owning). Folsom, Rancho Cordova, Roseville are the same. If you want to see what happens when Davis grow into a giant city, move to one of these places. I am not sure what my point is. I guess I am just saying that what Davis is, is not bad, it can be worse. But for the sake of conversation, if we are going to raze small towns like Davis in the quest of more housing friendly cities, I recommend we model it after Bellevue, WA. They have skyscrapers, and it's beautiful. But then again, that just speaks to the wealth disparity more than anything else... Which is also what keeps Davis so nice.

wavesounds 5y ago

And Redondo Beach!? I feel like they buried the lead here. Davis is nice and all but Redondo Beach is nearly twice the price per square foot since it's close to LA and ... on the beach!

tibbetts 5y ago

The pro move, at least with a similar law in Massachusetts, is for the developer to threaten a ridiculous skyscraper with 20% low income housing, and then negotiate with the town to instead, out of the grace of their heart, build a more reasonable all market rate building.

diogenescynic 5y ago

We need more housing at all levels. I don't think mandatory low income housing is a scalable solution and instead just raises the prices on the other units exacerbating the problem. Let supply meet demand.

asterizer 5y ago

You might want to think twice about the future of the Davis housing market. Remote learning is changing how students get degrees and UC schools are no exception. Online and "hybrid" classes are here to stay at every level. Who wouldn't want a morning class when all you have to do is roll over and open your laptop? This is going to seriously impact demand for housing in Davis. I'd wait and see how enrollments and housing patterns settle out before planning any project.

neilparikh 5y ago
I'm in university right now, and know a lot of university students. Online learning is not popular, and many students are clamoring to get back to in person classes as soon as they can (many Canadian universities are still primarily remote).
mateo1 5y ago
In theory most university courses, especially common ones on the undergrad level such as most mathematics, physics and engineering, could all be replaced by standardized tests. Long tests, sure, but tests you could simply sit for a small fee. This is not likely to happen though.
anonAndOn 5y ago
Davis is a gem of an opportunity for myriad reasons. The target market for new housing is not more students, it's more young (and young at heart) professionals. A modern mid-rise within walking distance of downtown would likely sell out before it's even built.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

cmclaughlin 5y ago

Kevin (the author) and I worked together around 10 years ago at Atlassian. It’s always great to see his blog posts here! This one rings home because I moved from SF to Davis during the pandemic. I attended UC Davis around 15 years ago and moved back because it’s a great place to race a family. I would like to see more infill development here. It’s a shame that so many smart and successful people that work here can’t afford to buy homes here. I’ve toyed around with the idea of building multi-family housing here. Generally, there are easier places to make money in real estate but I would feel pretty good about making something like this happen. Crazier things have happened, but if there are other HN readers that would like to chat more about this idea I’ll put my email address in my profile if it’s not there already. I’ve become friends with the realtor that helped me buy a house here (Tanner Mohr) - we’ve previously talked about getting a small group of people together for projects like this. So far we looked at one empty lot, but the seller already had plans for something like I had in mind. Personally I don’t think I could stomach the risk of trying to build something huge here. That sort of speaks to the point Kevin is making about nimbyism. I certainly wouldn’t want my money tied up in a legal fight. But I could imagine more 4-5 story condos close to campus and downtown doing well here.

brailsafe 5y ago

I'm kind of sick of skyscrapers personally, unless they're necessary, which they are sometimes. An argument for skyscrapers depends on their being a lack of available real estate that could otherwise be used to build many multi-rise or multi-family buildings, but often that space is taken up by parking lots. Take out the fucking surface parking lots, replace them with 5 story tall, pretty to look at and live in buildings, surround them with cafes and stuff and narrow the roads, then talk to me about skyscrapers. While you're at it, give people incentive to upgrade their single family lots to be more productive, and you might create a vibrant community, which you don't really get with skyscrapers as much. You could build a skyscraper in the middle of my dumb suburban wasteland of the neighborhood I grew up in, but why the hell would I live there when the businesses are all off-the-shelf franchises with giant dusty shitty lots and nobody around to talk to. Hell, build a skyscraper and surround it by the things I mentioned, that's cool too.

kevinburke 5y ago
If Davis had made it legal to do any of the things you suggest, they would not be in the position where it's legal to build skyscrapers now.
Seattle3503 5y ago
I feel you. NIMBYs always say "well let's build more density downtown" (aka away from me). But this isn't cost effective. The most cost effective is the missing middle, which can be wood construction.

dybber 5y ago

In Denmark a billionaire wanted to build a 320m skyscraper - the tallest in western europe - in the small town Brande (population 7000). https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/apr/01/like-the-eye-of-sauron-western-europes-tallest-building-planned-for-tiny-danish-town-brande-bestseller https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/apr/01/like-the-eye-... It was however shelved recently.

the_mitsuhiko 5y ago
A skyscraper in a tiny town sounds like a tricky thing to do. Those buildings require a lot of supporting infrastructure that is expensive if you only run it for a single building.
- londons_explore 5y ago
  I disagree... All the infrastructure scales with the population supported. It doesn't matter if it's 2000 people living in a huge 500-flat skyscraper or 2000 people living in 10 streets 50 houses long. They're all gonna need the same amount of parking, parks, shops, employment, education, entertainment, etc. They'll also pay the same taxes to fund all that stuff. The construction effort or materials of a skyscraper probably isn't much different to 10 streets of 50 houses either.
  - the_mitsuhiko 5y ago
    > I disagree... All the infrastructure scales with the population supported. It doesn't matter if it's 2000 people living in a huge 500-flat skyscraper or 2000 people living in 10 streets 50 houses long. It does. Because a Skyscraper needs infrastructure which flat houses do not (Special water pumps, specially trained firefighters, support for rapid evacuation). Having a lot of people in one tall building creates challenges that a small town is not ready for.

timwaagh 5y ago

Fair housing... I just don't think it's very useful or even fair. I don't like it that I paid solid money and worked for years to pay off my debts whereas the neighbor lives in a similar appartment for free. Why not allow cities to drop that requirement if they go over the norm by 50%?

oarsinsync 5y ago
I used to feel this way. I was earning just above minimum wage, working 12 hour days 6 days a week, meanwhile my mate was living on benefits, and after all essential bills were paid (rent, electric, water, heating), he had more disposable income left over each month than I did. It was really quite upsetting to think that despite not even having a job, he effectively "made" more money than I did. Then I thoguht it through a little more, and realised that was as good as his life would ever get unless he did something to change it. TL;DR: I don't begrudge people who are able to subsist and are happy at that level. Even if it means they get what can appear to be nicer accommodation than what I'm paying for at that time. I'm not wired that way. I want more.
- timwaagh 5y ago
  I never moved up so for me it's a little harder to accept.
kevinburke 5y ago
Historically cities throughout the state have added new density in their lowest income, most polluted neighborhoods, with the worst schools. In San Francisco for example big developments are planned for Treasure Island and Candlestick Point but not so much for Noe Valley. Of course you also have the issue that a lot of the low density, high quality neighborhoods were redlined - the FHA would not guarantee loans to minorities in the best neighborhoods so white families got a huge head start in the housing market and higher yearly appreciation that they could then pass to their kids. The idea is that this is not fair - it’s not so much about subsidies for individual people but the fact that if you’re born in 2000 vs. 1980 you’re much more likely to live in a polluted area because the population is bigger now and that’s where we’ve been adding the housing. Fair housing laws are about adding more housing in the areas of your town that have historically been unwelcoming to minorities and have less pollution and better schools. Also it’s bad for public health to have many more people living in polluted areas, bad for social mobility to increase the student count at the worst schools instead of the best schools, etc.

fbn79 5y ago

Not related but in Italy, not too far from my city there is Cesenatico. A small turistic sea city of 26K inhabitants with a skyscraper (from late sixties). https://www.google.it/maps/@44.2011112,12.4049907,3a,90y,144.61h,101.72t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s4_1X04vt6rAezL9A4ISd9w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.it/maps/@44.2011112,12.4049907,3a,90y,144... It's a solitarie brute tall building but segnale the city center from very far like a Lighthouse

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

nextstep 5y ago

> I know a lot of venture capitalists who hate California NIMBYism, care about climate change lol citation please!

lbrindze 5y ago

I take issue with a hard 20% cap on low income units. I'm not against low-income units in general but in practice this is the same exact policy that lead to less affordable housing in SF as a whole. Because these caps were set as hard limits (without equivalent caps on commercial developments) people built office buildings instead of housing which made the problem worse overall... compare this to a city like Boston where these caps are negotiated and set on a per development basis. As a result, while each new residential building may have proportionally less low-income units, boston as a whole has more affordable units available for rent since more housing was built in the first place due to the flexibility of these caps. I was born and raised in CA, but for the progressive a state we claim to be, some of these policies are down right counterproductive (despite having great intentions) and should be revisited. * my source here is I used to rent an apartment from the head of affordable housing commission in boston. If there is published materials that contradict this please correct me!

rcpt 5y ago
> this is the same exact policy that lead to less affordable housing in SF as a whole Cynical take: that's the reason the cap exists

Handytinge 5y ago

For anyone who doesn't know the term (I didn't), NIMBY[0] stands for "not in my backyard" and refers to people who are anti-development/change close to them. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIMBY?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIMBY?wprov=sfti1