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Marc Andreessen slams new multi-family affordable housing
- throwthroyaboat 4y agoMaybe it's time to change the meaning of YIMBY from "Yes In My Back Yard" to "Yes In Marc's Back Yard"?
- jwarden 4y agoI have always wondered my community (Park City, UT) is spending money to build affordable housing rather then just paying subsidies to make existing housing more affordable. The estimated cost for the last development under consideration was something like $600,000 dollars for one unit, and that was a few years ago. I bought my market-rate condo at under $300,000 a few years before. There are plenty of lower-cost units available, and subsidizing rent/purchase of these would allow a small benefit to be realized by a large number of qualified people, rather than a huge benefit to a small amount of lucky people who win the lottery that is used to allocate the small number of inits that exist.
- mrep 4y agoPrices are a little higher lately though. I paid $850k for my 650 square foot condo back in march. How big those $600k units?
- Macha 4y agoBecause the population has grown more than supply in most of the western world, leading the existing housing supply as a shortfall situation versus demand that exists. Therefore by subsidising purchases and thereby increasing the purchasing power of each buyer, you just end up removing one limiting factor on sellers increasing prices, and most of the subsidy ends up pocketed by the sellers in the form of increased house prices, which is both inflationary and not the policy goal of these programs.
- jwarden 4y ago> most of the subsidy ends up pocketed by the sellers in the form of increased house prices This is true if the housing supply is inelastic. But the long-run supply of housing services is very elastic[^1]. Also spending money to build housing is inflationary. [^1]: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2009/R2846.pdf https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2009/R284...
- anigbrowl 4y agoWell, he has just invested $350m in WeWork but for housing...
- karamanolev 4y agoProbably way above median housing prices and also probably above market rate for the size. Guessing backed by some smarts / conveniences. Whoever wants to afford those - good for them. But we sorely lack affordable ones - no need to be fancy, luxurious or new, just affordable.
- newaccount2021 4y ago
- lsllc 4y agoIt's not exactly WeWork, it's Adam Neumann's new startup Flow: https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/15/tech/adam-neumann-flow/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/15/tech/adam-neumann-flow/index....
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y agoSeems appropriately named: A good way to piss away money.
- pvarangot 4y agoHe needs to put the private cook, cleaning lady, pool cleaning guy... somewhere. I mean before the robots he's also investing in get good enough.
- Mimmy 4y agoHere's a link to the original Atlantic article revealing Marc Andreessen's NIMBY-ism (also behind a paywall unfortunately): https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/marc-andreessens-opposition-housing-project-nimby/671061/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/marc-andre...
- helloworld11 4y ago>“I am writing this letter to communicate our IMMENSE objection to the creation of multifamily overlay zones in Atherton,” wrote Andreessen and his wife Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen in an email. “Please IMMEDIATELY REMOVE all multifamily overlay zoning projects from the Housing Element which will be submitted to the state in July. They will MASSIVELY decrease our home values, the quality of life of ourselves and our neighbors and IMMENSELY increase the noise pollution and traffic.” The comment, which was originally reported by The Atlantic’s Jerusalem Demsas, was also reviewed by Fortune. Andreessen did not respond to either outlet’s request for comment. The other executives who opposed the 58 housing units also did not respond to or declined Fortune’s request for comment. Andreessen’s opposition seems to represent a shift from his expressed views in an essay he publish on his venture capital firm’s website at the start of the pandemic, titled “It’s Time to Build.” “We can’t build nearly enough housing in our cities with surging economic potential—which results in crazily skyrocketing housing prices in places like San Francisco, making it nearly impossible for regular people to move in and take the jobs of the future,” he wrote. In the essay, Andreessen also noted that his perspective was probably an uncommon one for someone of his ilk: “I expect this essay to be the target of criticism.” The hypocrisy is delicious, and so typical of many ostensibly progressive tech magnates in California (and elsewhere). NIMBYsm at its peak.
- imapeopleperson 4y agoI don’t understand why NIMBY hate is in vogue. What’s wrong with letting a nice town stay nice? We don’t need to turn everything to shit just to satiate socialist schadenfreude. Build it somewhere else
- aidenn0 4y agoTFA is specifically about Andreessen publicly saying CA needs to build more housing, but then privately saying "don't build it here" > Build it somewhere else If everybody says "build it somewhere else" where are you supposed to build?
- echlebek 4y agoGuess you aren't a people person after all.
- themadturk 4y agoBoo-hoo-hoo, Marc.
- kieselguhr_kid 4y ago
- ilrwbwrkhv 4y agoI have zero respect for this crypto grifter. Try enough number of folks and eventually a few lucky ones like him emerge. Doesn't mean he knows what he is talking about.
- throwayyy479087 4y agoNIMBYism and it’s consequences have been a disaster for the human race
- standardUser 4y agoAnd very specifically for California!
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- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y agoSadly, this is all very predictably Bay Area progressive. Yes, I'll put up the BLM sign on my window, but no, you cannot build anything for the riffraff near my Victorian, we wouldn't want to endanger the historic character of this neighborhood.
- spaetzleesser 4y agoVery true. Just look around Marin County. There are tons of BLM signs but I doubt most of them have ever seen a black person. Certainly not one that wasn't a millionaire.
- legerdemain 4y agoAtherton is not your typical "Bay Area progressive," unless your cartoon idea of Bay Area progressives is Marc Andreessen, Eric Schmidt, or Steph Curry.
- tomjakubowski 4y agoJust curious, has anyone asked Steph's opinion on building multi-family housing in Atherton?
- legerdemain 4y ago"Whooosh!" replied Steph Curry.
- tomjakubowski 4y agoNo, I understood your comment. I'm just curious about Steph's opinion.
- washbrain 4y agoThere's a bunch of this in Seattle too - where neighborhoods are raising upzoning, despite the fact that building mixed use creates walkable neighborhoods, increases character, brings in new businesses, and generally improves things. Thankfully, Washington seems to be moving to do away with single family only zoning.
- mushufasa 4y agoAside from all the hypocrisy etc... isn't this concept just plain wrong? Doesn't more housing + business increase the property value of an area? I could see the first-order effects being a reduction of surrounding property as supply increases, but the second order effects of more people are almost always accretive. The downtown area of a city is typically some of the most expensive real estate.
- legerdemain 4y agoAtherton is literally a town of nothing but mega-mansions with very, very little in the way of commerce or industry. Its entire raison d'être is to be a retreat for the ultra-wealthy. Having ordinary people walk around in your billionaire enclave lowers property values.
- mushufasa 4y ago> Having ordinary people walk around in your billionaire enclave lowers property values I understand this is the argument is being made. This just seems to me like this is an opinion stated as if it were a fact, and not a tautological truth of property valuation.
- legerdemain 4y agoTell that to Marc himself! Atherton residents are the kind of people who call the cops on pedestrians for walking around suspiciously. They have given every indication of not wanting the non-rich anywhere near them.
- SkyMarshal 4y ago>The downtown area of a city is typically some of the most expensive real estate. You're probably correct except in the case of the most expensive and exclusive neighborhoods in the country. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/managing-wealth/062416/10-most-expensive-zip-codes-california.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/managing-wealth/062416...
- PebblesHD 4y agoI’ve never understood how some of these executives support the widening income and wealth gap developing in most of the modern world. Is it not incredibly short sighted to reduce the discretionary money available to your customers and price them out of living within commuting distance of the jobs you need filled? Where I live, it’s so expensive to live anywhere near our major cities that I’m left wondering how the NIMBY classes who live there expect to get their morning coffees or their houses repaired when they’ve finished pricing any young people and trades out of a 50 mile radius from them…
- washbrain 4y agoIt's just greed. Past a certain point it's purely "my pile of money is too small to satiate my ego."
- yazzku 4y agoGreed, and that he doesn't feel very threatened.
- jessaustin 4y agoThis will change. Hopefully soon!
- shrubble 4y agoYou see this everywhere, I would be more surprised if it DIDN'T happen. It's why there are almost never (in the USA) bus lines to the fanciest malls or other shopping areas - if you can't even afford a car to get there, you're not wanted there.
- washbrain 4y agoAnd even if you could get a bus, people like Robert Moses designed parkways and bridges such that it was difficult or impossible to route buses to places where wealthy people gathered. See: hostile architecture and architectural exclusion.
- xnx 4y agoDupe. 11 days ago, 740+ comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32350657 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32350657
- quantified 4y agoHow many children does he have? Any more than two and he's being just super greedy, because he's added to the problem himself.
- tomjakubowski 4y agoHaven't seen it noted that the City of Atherton actually 404'ed the "public comments" on the issue, presumably at Andreessen's request. Here's the page about the project, with a broken link to public comments: https://www.ci.atherton.ca.us/627/Housing-Element-Update https://www.ci.atherton.ca.us/627/Housing-Element-Update It also broke the link from the Atlantic's story. Hopefully someone can get their attention to update it to point to an archived version.
- edmcnulty101 4y ago
- yazzku 4y agoThe people working in tech. This motherfucker needs us, just doesn't want us very close. Close enough that he can siphon the life out of the workforce, but not that close.
- edmcnulty101 4y ago
- ahepp 4y agoI think RHNA is an important measure to make sure communities like Atherton aren't allowed to externalize the cost of their lifestyle onto the rest of the Bay, but I think a land value tax coupled with dramatically liberalized zoning laws would be an even better solution. That way, people who "don't want to see their community change" would be free to buy up land and pay the opportunity cost of not developing it. Society could use that revenue to either invest in the welfare state, or offset taxes for the rest of us.
- edmcnulty101 4y agoThe US admits up to a million immigrants a year and has been for decades and will continue to for many more decades. Could this be having a destabilizing effect on a number of things in America including real eastate?
- rich_sasha 4y agoIt's hypocritical, sort of, but doesn't outrage me. Like other celebrities, these guys have a public and a private persona. Basically tweeting in support of their ventures is part of their job, a bit like 50 Cent's job is to take pictures surrounded by wads if cash. It wouldn't offend me if it turned out actually he had a bank account. It might be that their position on new housing in their region is an egregious one, i haven't really thought about it, but the hypocrisy around it is, I think, par for the course.