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I want to agree with your main point but I disagree with your reasoning. Regulations exist to to increase safety. Regulatory capture already exists. Yes, it do

by wyre 4y ago

I want to agree with your main point but I disagree with your reasoning. Regulations exist to to increase safety. Regulatory capture already exists. Yes, it does disproportionately effect the poor, but that isn’t the fault of safety regulations, it is the fault of societal issues w.r.t wealth inequality, social mobility, etc. California’s housing crisis isn’t caused because new houses need solar panels, for example.

HideousKojima 4y ago
>California’s housing crisis isn’t caused because new houses need solar panels, for example. Not sure where you're getting that, it sure as hell contributes. Several thousand dollars extra to every house is just another cost on the pile. It's death by a thousand regulatory cuts.
- adrianN 4y ago
  What's the profit margin on a newly built house in California? I can't imagine that construction costs are close to selling price anywhere in commuting distance from a city.
- Espressosaurus 4y ago
  The cost is still dominated by zoning/nimbyism. Yes it's a cut, but when the land alone costs more than any possible house built on it, and and non-single-family-residences are harshly restricted, well, guess what there's more demand than there is supply, and no way to increase the supply, so the prices go up. Way up.
  - throwaway09223 4y ago
    But land doesn't cost that much. Approved plots of land with an existing structure cost that much. Land itself is relatively cheap. There's a LOT of empty space in California. When you say land is expensive you're really saying that regulation is expensive. The regulatory hurdles others have mentioned are why having a zoned and permitted structure is so valuable. Having a home so you can do a single wall teardown is worth hundreds of thousands at least - maybe more because it can clear existential regulatory hurdles that block development. The nimbyism you mention is possible because of these bad regulations, which in theory exist for the greater good -- but which in practice do not provide for it.
    - UncleEntity 4y ago
      > There's a LOT of empty space in California. I grew up in the Bay Area, specifically the east bay, back in the 70’s and 80’s when there was actually empty land to be had. I was driving through there a couple weeks ago and it’s all gone, one big metro all the way down past San Jose. All this land you speak of is far from where the jobs are so there’s no incentive to live there without a three hour commute each way. The Bay Area is restricted by the bay (obviously) and the coastal range which isn’t all that wide. They haven’t really let people develop on the hills (except the rich people building mansions) in my lifetime at the very least which is why they don’t all look like the Oakland hills these days.
      - throwaway09223 4y ago
        It's not. I also grew up here during the same time period. There's been a lot of building, but it's nowhere near full. Far less than half the available valley areas are developed along the 680 corridor between 580/24. The commute to Oakland is 25 minutes and to SF by BART is one hour. Even on the bay side there are large empty spaces which aren't being developed, often because development is tied up in decades of litigation -- litigation which is based around these onerous regulatory laws. I'm sure the change you're seeing during a casual visit is striking. But, have you stopped to look at the empty lots which still remain? Have you researched why they're still empty? I have - and this is why. There's room for entire new cities to be built along 580, between Castro Valley and Dublin. There are vast tracks of empty land along 24, in the lamorinda areas, just minutes away from Oakland.
    - pixl97 4y ago
      Infrastructure is expensive. Unless you want people crapping in a pot and pouring it out their back door or living without water than some method of deciding where and in what density people can live will always be present. This method may be laws and governments of varying qualities. Or it may be fires and plagues turning the cities population to bones. Self regulating systems ain't great either.
      - throwaway09223 4y ago
- oppositelock 4y ago
  I'm in CA, and I know that in my city (Mountain View), the permit costs on new construction, single family home, exceed $100k and in multi-apartment complexes, it's still near $80k per unit. That's permits alone, and a big chunk is the park impact fee. Solar is mandated on roofs, and you still need a permit for it, neat, eh? It is death by a thousand cuts.
- mbreese 4y ago
  That would increase the costs, but so long as the demand (at that cost) outweighs the supply, there will be an incentive to keep building. If there currently aren't enough homes to satisfy the demand, then the reason why there aren't enough homes isn't that the costs are too high. Another way to say this is that supply for housing is currently consumed by buyers who can afford the extra cost for solar panels. Until the supply is high enough to where buyers who can't afford the extra $Xk for solar panels are needed to buy the available new housing, the cost of solar isn't a major factor in the housing crisis. It could eventually be a major factor, but until more housing is built, there are other factors in play that impact the lack of housing more. If it is death by a thousand cuts, the problem is the thousand cuts, not any single cut in particular.
  - mlyle 4y ago
    > Another way to say this is that supply for housing is currently consumed by buyers who can afford the extra cost for solar panels. Until the supply is high enough to where buyers who can't afford the extra $Xk for solar panels are needed to buy the available new housing, the cost of solar isn't a major factor in the housing crisis. You're presuming there's no elasticity in supply. That even if pricing goes up there's not any additional units built.
    - mbreese 4y ago
      > You're presuming there's no elasticity in supply. That even if pricing goes up there's not any additional units built. Maybe I wasn’t as clear as I could have been. I’m not making any assumptions about elasticity. If supply increases, I’m saying that the extra cost of solar doesn’t matter (yet) so long as the pool of buyers is large enough that the supply can be consumed by buyers who can afford the extra cost for solar. It isn’t until either the supply gets bigger or the buyer pool gets smaller that the cost of solar would have an impact (when the entire supply couldn’t be bought by people with the means to afford the extra cost of solar). At that point you’ll see more pricing pressure to finally drive prices downwards (if that ever happens).
      - 4y ago
thrown_22 4y ago
How much money are you willing to pay to prevent a death? There is no upper bound on how safe we can make cars which is why they now cost more than a house did in 1950. We are essentially stopping the poor from reproducing because we've decided that their lives aren't worth living. Which is fine, until you realize that to billionaires neither are ours.
- omniglottal 4y ago
  That's only one side of the argument, which is disingenuous hgetoric. TFA is about, instead, what seemingly subtle effects can we apply which prevent a life unless it's parent(s) pass a wealth test.
  - thrown_22 4y ago
    ?

by wyre 4y ago

HideousKojima 4y ago

>California’s housing crisis isn’t caused because new houses need solar panels, for example. Not sure where you're getting that, it sure as hell contributes. Several thousand dollars extra to every house is just another cost on the pile. It's death by a thousand regulatory cuts.

adrianN 4y ago
What's the profit margin on a newly built house in California? I can't imagine that construction costs are close to selling price anywhere in commuting distance from a city.
Espressosaurus 4y ago
The cost is still dominated by zoning/nimbyism. Yes it's a cut, but when the land alone costs more than any possible house built on it, and and non-single-family-residences are harshly restricted, well, guess what there's more demand than there is supply, and no way to increase the supply, so the prices go up. Way up.
- throwaway09223 4y ago
  But land doesn't cost that much. Approved plots of land with an existing structure cost that much. Land itself is relatively cheap. There's a LOT of empty space in California. When you say land is expensive you're really saying that regulation is expensive. The regulatory hurdles others have mentioned are why having a zoned and permitted structure is so valuable. Having a home so you can do a single wall teardown is worth hundreds of thousands at least - maybe more because it can clear existential regulatory hurdles that block development. The nimbyism you mention is possible because of these bad regulations, which in theory exist for the greater good -- but which in practice do not provide for it.
  - UncleEntity 4y ago
    > There's a LOT of empty space in California. I grew up in the Bay Area, specifically the east bay, back in the 70’s and 80’s when there was actually empty land to be had. I was driving through there a couple weeks ago and it’s all gone, one big metro all the way down past San Jose. All this land you speak of is far from where the jobs are so there’s no incentive to live there without a three hour commute each way. The Bay Area is restricted by the bay (obviously) and the coastal range which isn’t all that wide. They haven’t really let people develop on the hills (except the rich people building mansions) in my lifetime at the very least which is why they don’t all look like the Oakland hills these days.
    - throwaway09223 4y ago
      It's not. I also grew up here during the same time period. There's been a lot of building, but it's nowhere near full. Far less than half the available valley areas are developed along the 680 corridor between 580/24. The commute to Oakland is 25 minutes and to SF by BART is one hour. Even on the bay side there are large empty spaces which aren't being developed, often because development is tied up in decades of litigation -- litigation which is based around these onerous regulatory laws. I'm sure the change you're seeing during a casual visit is striking. But, have you stopped to look at the empty lots which still remain? Have you researched why they're still empty? I have - and this is why. There's room for entire new cities to be built along 580, between Castro Valley and Dublin. There are vast tracks of empty land along 24, in the lamorinda areas, just minutes away from Oakland.
  - pixl97 4y ago
    Infrastructure is expensive. Unless you want people crapping in a pot and pouring it out their back door or living without water than some method of deciding where and in what density people can live will always be present. This method may be laws and governments of varying qualities. Or it may be fires and plagues turning the cities population to bones. Self regulating systems ain't great either.
    - throwaway09223 4y ago
oppositelock 4y ago
I'm in CA, and I know that in my city (Mountain View), the permit costs on new construction, single family home, exceed $100k and in multi-apartment complexes, it's still near $80k per unit. That's permits alone, and a big chunk is the park impact fee. Solar is mandated on roofs, and you still need a permit for it, neat, eh? It is death by a thousand cuts.
mbreese 4y ago
That would increase the costs, but so long as the demand (at that cost) outweighs the supply, there will be an incentive to keep building. If there currently aren't enough homes to satisfy the demand, then the reason why there aren't enough homes isn't that the costs are too high. Another way to say this is that supply for housing is currently consumed by buyers who can afford the extra cost for solar panels. Until the supply is high enough to where buyers who can't afford the extra $Xk for solar panels are needed to buy the available new housing, the cost of solar isn't a major factor in the housing crisis. It could eventually be a major factor, but until more housing is built, there are other factors in play that impact the lack of housing more. If it is death by a thousand cuts, the problem is the thousand cuts, not any single cut in particular.
- mlyle 4y ago
  > Another way to say this is that supply for housing is currently consumed by buyers who can afford the extra cost for solar panels. Until the supply is high enough to where buyers who can't afford the extra $Xk for solar panels are needed to buy the available new housing, the cost of solar isn't a major factor in the housing crisis. You're presuming there's no elasticity in supply. That even if pricing goes up there's not any additional units built.
  - mbreese 4y ago
    > You're presuming there's no elasticity in supply. That even if pricing goes up there's not any additional units built. Maybe I wasn’t as clear as I could have been. I’m not making any assumptions about elasticity. If supply increases, I’m saying that the extra cost of solar doesn’t matter (yet) so long as the pool of buyers is large enough that the supply can be consumed by buyers who can afford the extra cost for solar. It isn’t until either the supply gets bigger or the buyer pool gets smaller that the cost of solar would have an impact (when the entire supply couldn’t be bought by people with the means to afford the extra cost of solar). At that point you’ll see more pricing pressure to finally drive prices downwards (if that ever happens).
    - 4y ago

thrown_22 4y ago

How much money are you willing to pay to prevent a death? There is no upper bound on how safe we can make cars which is why they now cost more than a house did in 1950. We are essentially stopping the poor from reproducing because we've decided that their lives aren't worth living. Which is fine, until you realize that to billionaires neither are ours.

omniglottal 4y ago
That's only one side of the argument, which is disingenuous hgetoric. TFA is about, instead, what seemingly subtle effects can we apply which prevent a life unless it's parent(s) pass a wealth test.
- thrown_22 4y ago
  ?