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Did you not read the entire article.. They say one of the largest drivers is trying to navigate the bureaucracy and red tape... --- A 2018 study by the U.S. G

Did you not read the entire article.. They say one of the largest drivers is trying to navigate the bureaucracy and red tape... --- A 2018 study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that 14% of the price tag for California’s affordable housing projects was made up of consulting fees and other administrative costs — the highest in the country and more than developers spend on land. ---

onphonenow 4y ago
I work adjacent to affordable housing. TONS of tax credits and other funding (relatively) HOWEVER I wouldn't wish these projects on an enemy. The funding is a million strings attached / crazy opinions. So you have to be EXPERT to apply and manage the intersection of all the credits and funding. You are still subject to all the zoning / environmental red tape (even if it helps that there is affordable). If you are building luxary units easier to absorb this all, otherwise, again a nightmare. The places with affordable housing money tend to be wickedly expense. If San Francisco took their affordable housing money, and built out at the ends of BART they could build some multiple number of units. To get 100 affordable units into San Francisco is very very expensive. Outside of these crazy subsidizes, most other regulatory rules / delays etc argue against building "cheap" housing. So we house and feed folks in high need in some of the absolutely most expensive places in the US and world. And some of the units (which prioritize families) are relative massive 3 bedroom places. If you go to chinatown in SF, the density is so so much higher (private market) though likely illegal in many cases. If you spent the $1B/year even in California in one or two of the cheaper areas to live in you'd get so many multiples for it that it would blow your mind. Or if you were allowed to build chinatown levels of density.
- basedgod 4y ago
  BART (and all subways in the US) costs $2 billion per mile to build a few years ago (somebody posted a while back BART + other subways recent construction costs), probably close to $4 billion per mile now due to inflation and higher materials costs I don't think spending $100s of billions on subway into the suburbs will even make a dent on housing prices
  - onphonenow 4y ago
    But if you built housing out near these extensions you can build for a relative fraction. Contra costa zoning / permitting is much easier to deal with than SF for example. Concord avg home price is in $600K range. SF avg home price is in $1.7M range (3x higher). And it's easier to do different stuff in Concord. My guess is you'd be 5x cheaper per person unit in concord. 10x cheaper if you get out to places like modesto.
  - andbberger 4y ago
    you're thinking of the second ave subway. that's where the $2B/mile figure comes from. and that's nothing compared to what we're about to blow on the gateway project. portal bridge was coming in at $10B/mile last time I checked, making it by far the most expensive bridge ever built. and it's just a normal bridge. but if VTA gets it's way and builds the SJ BART extension i'm sure they can put out some impressive numbers of their own (this extension should not be built at any price btw). the insane cost of transit development and housing in the states are two sides of the same coin. to a first approximation they are caused by the same thing, and cause the same problems in our cities.
    - dntrkv 4y ago
      Why don’t you think that extension should be built?
      - andbberger 4y ago
        downtown SJ is _already served_ by the transfer to VTA at milpitas (which itself probably should not have been built). extending BART is subsidizing suburban sprawl with transit dollars that are urgently needed in the urban core. it's an s-bahn, and we've got more than enough s-bahn in the bay area. what we need is a proper u-bahn. SJ is a glorified suburb with delusions of grandeur, whose politicians consistently sabotage regional and statewide transit projects. I am of the spiteful perspective that that alone should exclude SJ from receiving big transit bucks, but even from the more level headed perspective the density simply does not justify it. why on earth would you trust an organization that built and operates a light rail system that is so poorly designed and operated that it is amongst the least ridden and most subsidized systems in the entire country? in what is supposedly the heart of silicon valley. san jose is a bad joke, and if you live there I am sorry for you.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- scotty79 4y ago
  > To get 100 affordable units into San Francisco is very very expensive. What's insane is that 100 units is just two small blocks of flats. That I see hundreds of being built at the moment in my largish sized (<700k pop) city in central Poland, purely commercially with zero support from local government.
  - onphonenow 4y ago
    Very impressive. This can only happen if zoning / permitting / enviro stuff is not too overdone. To do 100's of affordable units in San Francisco... I can't even imagine what it would take. I've been to poland. One interesting thing I noticed, some units seemed to be built concrete shells - you could actually buy a unit like this and finish it yourself. Was very interesting. The one I saw had a fair bit of interior surface mount conduit exposed which made repair, expansion etc very easy (in the US you are often going into drywall and more.
    - 988747 4y ago
      Not exactly "concrete shells" - you have windows, you have basic plumbing, central heating, electricity, even cable TV and internet cables already installed, and you have all walls painted in white. Everything else you have to do yourself. All newly built apartments in Poland are like this, because that gives the new owner the opportunity to redecorate the apartment to their liking.
marcosdumay 4y ago
Yeah, after they emphasize the important things, they get into 14% of the costs a few paragraphs down. They still leave some $800k unexplained for each $1M "cheap" apartment.
sokoloff 4y ago
Land is less than 14% of a average project’s cost? That seems really low to me.

onphonenow 4y ago

I work adjacent to affordable housing. TONS of tax credits and other funding (relatively) HOWEVER I wouldn't wish these projects on an enemy. The funding is a million strings attached / crazy opinions. So you have to be EXPERT to apply and manage the intersection of all the credits and funding. You are still subject to all the zoning / environmental red tape (even if it helps that there is affordable). If you are building luxary units easier to absorb this all, otherwise, again a nightmare. The places with affordable housing money tend to be wickedly expense. If San Francisco took their affordable housing money, and built out at the ends of BART they could build some multiple number of units. To get 100 affordable units into San Francisco is very very expensive. Outside of these crazy subsidizes, most other regulatory rules / delays etc argue against building "cheap" housing. So we house and feed folks in high need in some of the absolutely most expensive places in the US and world. And some of the units (which prioritize families) are relative massive 3 bedroom places. If you go to chinatown in SF, the density is so so much higher (private market) though likely illegal in many cases. If you spent the $1B/year even in California in one or two of the cheaper areas to live in you'd get so many multiples for it that it would blow your mind. Or if you were allowed to build chinatown levels of density.

basedgod 4y ago
BART (and all subways in the US) costs $2 billion per mile to build a few years ago (somebody posted a while back BART + other subways recent construction costs), probably close to $4 billion per mile now due to inflation and higher materials costs I don't think spending $100s of billions on subway into the suburbs will even make a dent on housing prices
- onphonenow 4y ago
  But if you built housing out near these extensions you can build for a relative fraction. Contra costa zoning / permitting is much easier to deal with than SF for example. Concord avg home price is in $600K range. SF avg home price is in $1.7M range (3x higher). And it's easier to do different stuff in Concord. My guess is you'd be 5x cheaper per person unit in concord. 10x cheaper if you get out to places like modesto.
- andbberger 4y ago
  you're thinking of the second ave subway. that's where the $2B/mile figure comes from. and that's nothing compared to what we're about to blow on the gateway project. portal bridge was coming in at $10B/mile last time I checked, making it by far the most expensive bridge ever built. and it's just a normal bridge. but if VTA gets it's way and builds the SJ BART extension i'm sure they can put out some impressive numbers of their own (this extension should not be built at any price btw). the insane cost of transit development and housing in the states are two sides of the same coin. to a first approximation they are caused by the same thing, and cause the same problems in our cities.
  - dntrkv 4y ago
    Why don’t you think that extension should be built?
    - andbberger 4y ago
      downtown SJ is _already served_ by the transfer to VTA at milpitas (which itself probably should not have been built). extending BART is subsidizing suburban sprawl with transit dollars that are urgently needed in the urban core. it's an s-bahn, and we've got more than enough s-bahn in the bay area. what we need is a proper u-bahn. SJ is a glorified suburb with delusions of grandeur, whose politicians consistently sabotage regional and statewide transit projects. I am of the spiteful perspective that that alone should exclude SJ from receiving big transit bucks, but even from the more level headed perspective the density simply does not justify it. why on earth would you trust an organization that built and operates a light rail system that is so poorly designed and operated that it is amongst the least ridden and most subsidized systems in the entire country? in what is supposedly the heart of silicon valley. san jose is a bad joke, and if you live there I am sorry for you.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
scotty79 4y ago
> To get 100 affordable units into San Francisco is very very expensive. What's insane is that 100 units is just two small blocks of flats. That I see hundreds of being built at the moment in my largish sized (<700k pop) city in central Poland, purely commercially with zero support from local government.
- onphonenow 4y ago
  Very impressive. This can only happen if zoning / permitting / enviro stuff is not too overdone. To do 100's of affordable units in San Francisco... I can't even imagine what it would take. I've been to poland. One interesting thing I noticed, some units seemed to be built concrete shells - you could actually buy a unit like this and finish it yourself. Was very interesting. The one I saw had a fair bit of interior surface mount conduit exposed which made repair, expansion etc very easy (in the US you are often going into drywall and more.
  - 988747 4y ago
    Not exactly "concrete shells" - you have windows, you have basic plumbing, central heating, electricity, even cable TV and internet cables already installed, and you have all walls painted in white. Everything else you have to do yourself. All newly built apartments in Poland are like this, because that gives the new owner the opportunity to redecorate the apartment to their liking.

marcosdumay 4y ago

Yeah, after they emphasize the important things, they get into 14% of the costs a few paragraphs down. They still leave some $800k unexplained for each $1M "cheap" apartment.

sokoloff 4y ago

Land is less than 14% of a average project’s cost? That seems really low to me.