5 ms·

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 bar

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.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Wikipedia says the proliferation of these 4 and 5 stories of wood construction above 1 story of steel/masonry happened because of a 2009 revision to the International Building Code. If that is true, then it would seem like one plus five, one plus four, 5 over 1, and 4 over 1 buildings would refer to how many wood floors the building has above the first floor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5-over-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5-over-1 I do not know how good the source is for Wikipedia, but I have only ever seen 5 and 6 story buildings, and never 7 or more stories with the first floor having masonry/steel and then wood for the rest.
      - brendoelfrendo 5y ago
        You are correct that these buildings were only made possible due to changes in the code as to how many timber stories you could build, and the max is 5 stories. But my point was that they're not called that because they're 5 stories.
  - wsinks 5y ago
    Thank you for the more detailed thought! I wasn't sure how tall it would have to be to be a 'skyscraper', but a 5 over 1 seems like a useful building in Davis.
- 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.

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.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Wikipedia says the proliferation of these 4 and 5 stories of wood construction above 1 story of steel/masonry happened because of a 2009 revision to the International Building Code. If that is true, then it would seem like one plus five, one plus four, 5 over 1, and 4 over 1 buildings would refer to how many wood floors the building has above the first floor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5-over-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5-over-1 I do not know how good the source is for Wikipedia, but I have only ever seen 5 and 6 story buildings, and never 7 or more stories with the first floor having masonry/steel and then wood for the rest.
    - brendoelfrendo 5y ago
      You are correct that these buildings were only made possible due to changes in the code as to how many timber stories you could build, and the max is 5 stories. But my point was that they're not called that because they're 5 stories.
- wsinks 5y ago
  Thank you for the more detailed thought! I wasn't sure how tall it would have to be to be a 'skyscraper', but a 5 over 1 seems like a useful building in Davis.
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.