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Construction cost a mere $50k? These guys should be promoted to top management in SF public servants, with that kind of money management they could house all th

Construction cost a mere $50k? These guys should be promoted to top management in SF public servants, with that kind of money management they could house all the homeless.

SllX 3y ago
Bringing them into the system would only bring costs in line with existing costs now. It's not that construction labor and materials are overly expensive, it's that union construction labor, materials, permits, inspections, lobbying, and community meetings, are expensive. Plus they didn't pay for the land either.
- csharpminor 3y ago
  More people need to know about the role unions play in obstructing new construction. From locking up permits in CEQA reviews to blocking pre-fabricated structures, they are one of the driving factors behind a housing unit costing $700k at the very minimum. This puts housing out of reach for anyone making less than $150k/year. It’s a 3rd rail issue for anyone in the democratic machine, which is why we won’t see meaningful progress in housing or homelessness under the current incumbents. I’m actually pro union in most other contexts, especially when workers are underdogs. But in CA there are some unions which are quite powerful, exclusionary, and have negative effects on society.
  - Moru 3y ago
    If not the unions, there is always someone else that drives the prices up. In Sweden we don't have this problem with the Unions but it's still very expensive with housing.
    - csharpminor 3y ago
      The same problem can have different causes. Forgive me, but this sounds like rationalized fatalism. I’m genuinely curious, what keeps Sweden from building more cheap housing?
  - ako 3y ago
    I bet the unions are seeing pre-fabricated structures the same way actors and writers are looking at AI, technology taking away jobs. I’m sure we’ll see much more of this in the future.
    - jamil7 3y ago
      Apparently the city was outsourcing to prefab firms outside of SF and many of the projects had safety violations that couldn’t be inspected because everything was already put together on arrival.
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        Put aside for a moment that this is a classic tactic to ban something. Tear through a bunch of them looking for any imperfections whatsoever, ignoring any equivalent imperfections in the status quo, then exaggerate the issue and propose prohibition as the solution. Even if the problem is real, why is the solution prohibition? Put liability on the manufacturer for regulatory non-compliance, the same as we do for cars or appliances or any other prefabricated product.
        sokoloff 3y ago
        > Even if the problem is real, why is the solution prohibition? Because the problem for the union isn’t the safety concerns, it’s the fact that labor from outside was used to make it.
      - LanceH 3y ago
        Another tactic in the bay area is for a union to demand the environmental impact assessment until they are put on the job, then they withdraw their objection.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > I’m actually pro union in most other contexts, especially when workers are underdogs. But in CA there are some unions which are quite powerful, exclusionary, and have negative effects on society. The premise of unions is "bargaining power". Bargaining power comes from having alternatives. Nobody can make you take a deal worse than your next best alternative, so the way to get a good deal is to have a lot of alternatives. The best way to get it for labor is to have lots of prospective employers for people with your skill set, i.e. for your industry not to be a monopoly. Unions nominally do this the other way around. Instead of giving employees more options, they try to give employers less. But most of the time that doesn't work. You can unionize some baristas or something, but then you go on strike and the company hires different baristas and doesn't care. By contrast, if the employer is a monopoly, then they often have to hire most of the people with that skill set. If they're all in the union, the employer can't just replace them because there are no more. This is when unions can behave like a monopoly themselves and dictate terms. But monopolies are bad. When a union has a monopoly, they do exactly the sort of things which are happening in this case, which is terrible for society and especially anyone who needs the product the union makes. The correct solution isn't unions, it's to break up monopolistic employers so that individual workers -- and customers -- have bargaining power. Which is to say, alternatives, not their own adversarial monopoly.
    - mrandish 3y ago
      > it's to break up monopolistic employers Indeed. And the primary method employers use to gain monopolistic leverage is limiting competition by barring new entrants through government regulation, licensing, permitting, etc. Anytime we give government bureaucrats power to regulate, license, permit, etc, that power becomes a highly desirable target for crony capture, either legal through lobbyists, campaign donations etc or illegal through bribes and revolving-door influence peddling. Like you, I have no problem with unions in concept. Employees should be free to organize and choose who to work for (or not to work for) as they see fit — as long as employers also have the corresponding freedom to choose who to hire (or dismiss) as they see fit. When everyone is free to opt-in or out, everyone has an incentive to find mutually agreeable terms. This creates a naturally sustainable market-driven balance between the parties. The problem comes in those states which don't have "right to work" protections. In those states a union can legally force an employer to hire only union members (or the government sends police to shut the business down). It can also force an existing employee to join the union (ie give the union part of their paycheck) or they lose their job, even if the employee sees no benefit to joining the union (which happened to a friend of mine). As you'd expect, once any party in a transaction loses their freedom to choose, this imbalance is eventually exploited and abused.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - gosub100 3y ago
    > This puts housing out of reach for anyone making less than $150k/year Then more labor sectors should unionize! Make the wealthy pay the true cost for living in their communities. Not live with all this government protection and regulations, then outsource production to a free state a thousand miles away. If regulation and taxes are the problem, then fix the problem. You can't have it both ways.
- oivey 3y ago
  Do you have any numbers showing labor driving the price of housing in cities like San Francisco? It seems like almost certainly the #1 cost is the price of the land by a wide margin.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    You can build an arbitrarily tall building on a piece of land, allowing the price of the land to be split between arbitrarily many housing units. Suppose that land is extremely expensive. A single acre of land is ten million dollars. How much is a housing unit? An acre is 43560 sq ft, so a building that allocates half the size of the lot to housing units could have at least 10 housing units of 2000 sq ft per floor and a 50 story building would have at least 500 units making the land cost per unit $20,000. You can't get a 2000 sq ft condo in San Francisco for anywhere near $20,000. The difference is attributable to zoning and construction costs. But it's worse than that, because if building tall buildings wasn't inhibited then the land wouldn't cost as much because the inability to make space-efficient use of the land drives up its scarcity.
    - MichaelZuo 3y ago
      An acre in the mediocre parts of Palo Alto is ten million, an acre near anywhere it makes sense to put a 50+ storey building in SF is much closer to 100 million. Plus at most only about 2/3 of the floor plate is saleable square footage. So $300,000 of land cost per 2000 sq ft condo. Realtor fees, taxes, surcharges, local improvement fees, etc., and everything else legally mandated is another $250k on top. Builder overhead, insurance, interest on the bank loan, a margin for delays, etc., is at least another $200k. So even if construction cost was zero and the zoning process flawlessly smooth, the builder would need to charge at least $750k per unit to break even. Even if land cost was zero as well, it would still be at least $450k per unit to break even.
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        > in SF is much closer to 100 million. The cost of land in SF is less than $10 million/acre: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1376626/land-price-in-selected-cities-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1376626/land-price-in-se... > an acre near anywhere it makes sense to put a 50+ storey building What is "makes sense"? Are condo units available in Palo Alto for anywhere near $20,000? It makes sense anywhere that the cost of land is high. > Plus at most only about 2/3 of the floor plate is saleable square footage. So actually more than the 1/2 used in the numbers above. > Realtor fees, taxes, surcharges, local improvement fees, etc., and everything else legally mandated is another $250k on top. Builder overhead, insurance, interest on the bank loan, a margin for delays, etc., is at least another $200k. Half of these aren't part of the list price and the other half are just other words for "zoning and construction costs". > Even if land cost was zero as well, it would still be at least $450k per unit to break even. You now seem to be arguing that the land isn't the primary cost.
oefrha 3y ago
They didn’t construct shit. > For a mere $42,000, Navarro allegedly installed a kitchenette, shower, plumbing and security cameras [to an existing office]. Doesn’t sound cheap or impressive when you are doing it yourself instead of hiring someone and still managed to spend $42k.
- energybored11 3y ago
  Trust me SF's office can spend $4.2M on the exact same shit.
  - 77pt77 3y ago
    Well, salaries must be paid.
- filoleg 3y ago
  > $42k and just a little bit of time for a functional mini-apartment, complete with plumbing/kitchenette/etc. > “Doesn’t sound cheap or impressive” Let me introduce you to the glory of construction experience in San Francisco[0] and how ridiculous it gets. Direct quotes from the article: * “It takes 523 days, on average, for a developer to get the initial go-ahead to construct housing — and another 605 days to get building permits.” * “And after spending five years and more than $500,000 to design bespoke trash cans — with the prototypes costing more than $12,000 apiece — the city has shelved a plan to put 3,000 of them on street corners because of a budget deficit.” * “The toilet project broke down the minute taxpayers realized the city was planning an event to celebrate $1.7 million in state funds that local politicians had secured for the lone 150-square-foot structure. That’s enough to purchase a single-family home in San Francisco — with multiple bathrooms.” What I am getting from this is that the whole mini-apartment cost the construction workers in the OP about as much to build as it cost for the city to produce 4 trash cans (that all got shelved anyway). Or about 2.9% of how much it cost the city to build a single 150sqft public bathroom (or, in other words, you could build around 34 of those mini apartments for the cost of 1 public bathroom). Not going to lie, at this point, I would much rather see the people responsible for those spending decisions to be charged, as opposed to two random construction dudes who dont even own that mini-apartment they built. 0. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/24/us/san-francisco-toilet.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/24/us/san-francisco-toilet.h...
wyclif 3y ago
This story is just another data point on the enshittification of SF, along with fentanyl dealing on streetcorners and feces on the sidewalks.
- duxup 3y ago
  >enshittification of SF Does "enshittification" just now mean "I don't like it"? Even some of the more broad usages wouldn't seem to involve a municipality.
  - slingnow 3y ago
    I generally take this word to mean "I'm a redditor and I want everyone to know it".
    - hooverd 3y ago
      I post on the orange website, unlike you, who posts on the orangered website.
ok123456 3y ago
They converted some disused offices into a sleeping area and kitchenette. If they used discretionary funds allocated for a break room, which is what it sounds like from the sound of the $3000 cap, I don't think this is a problem.

Construction cost a mere $50k? These guys should be promoted to top management in SF public servants, with that kind of money management they could house all the homeless.

SllX 3y ago

Bringing them into the system would only bring costs in line with existing costs now. It's not that construction labor and materials are overly expensive, it's that union construction labor, materials, permits, inspections, lobbying, and community meetings, are expensive. Plus they didn't pay for the land either.

csharpminor 3y ago
More people need to know about the role unions play in obstructing new construction. From locking up permits in CEQA reviews to blocking pre-fabricated structures, they are one of the driving factors behind a housing unit costing $700k at the very minimum. This puts housing out of reach for anyone making less than $150k/year. It’s a 3rd rail issue for anyone in the democratic machine, which is why we won’t see meaningful progress in housing or homelessness under the current incumbents. I’m actually pro union in most other contexts, especially when workers are underdogs. But in CA there are some unions which are quite powerful, exclusionary, and have negative effects on society.
- Moru 3y ago
  If not the unions, there is always someone else that drives the prices up. In Sweden we don't have this problem with the Unions but it's still very expensive with housing.
  - csharpminor 3y ago
    The same problem can have different causes. Forgive me, but this sounds like rationalized fatalism. I’m genuinely curious, what keeps Sweden from building more cheap housing?
- ako 3y ago
  I bet the unions are seeing pre-fabricated structures the same way actors and writers are looking at AI, technology taking away jobs. I’m sure we’ll see much more of this in the future.
  - jamil7 3y ago
    Apparently the city was outsourcing to prefab firms outside of SF and many of the projects had safety violations that couldn’t be inspected because everything was already put together on arrival.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      Put aside for a moment that this is a classic tactic to ban something. Tear through a bunch of them looking for any imperfections whatsoever, ignoring any equivalent imperfections in the status quo, then exaggerate the issue and propose prohibition as the solution. Even if the problem is real, why is the solution prohibition? Put liability on the manufacturer for regulatory non-compliance, the same as we do for cars or appliances or any other prefabricated product.
      - sokoloff 3y ago
        > Even if the problem is real, why is the solution prohibition? Because the problem for the union isn’t the safety concerns, it’s the fact that labor from outside was used to make it.
    - LanceH 3y ago
      Another tactic in the bay area is for a union to demand the environmental impact assessment until they are put on the job, then they withdraw their objection.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > I’m actually pro union in most other contexts, especially when workers are underdogs. But in CA there are some unions which are quite powerful, exclusionary, and have negative effects on society. The premise of unions is "bargaining power". Bargaining power comes from having alternatives. Nobody can make you take a deal worse than your next best alternative, so the way to get a good deal is to have a lot of alternatives. The best way to get it for labor is to have lots of prospective employers for people with your skill set, i.e. for your industry not to be a monopoly. Unions nominally do this the other way around. Instead of giving employees more options, they try to give employers less. But most of the time that doesn't work. You can unionize some baristas or something, but then you go on strike and the company hires different baristas and doesn't care. By contrast, if the employer is a monopoly, then they often have to hire most of the people with that skill set. If they're all in the union, the employer can't just replace them because there are no more. This is when unions can behave like a monopoly themselves and dictate terms. But monopolies are bad. When a union has a monopoly, they do exactly the sort of things which are happening in this case, which is terrible for society and especially anyone who needs the product the union makes. The correct solution isn't unions, it's to break up monopolistic employers so that individual workers -- and customers -- have bargaining power. Which is to say, alternatives, not their own adversarial monopoly.
  - mrandish 3y ago
    > it's to break up monopolistic employers Indeed. And the primary method employers use to gain monopolistic leverage is limiting competition by barring new entrants through government regulation, licensing, permitting, etc. Anytime we give government bureaucrats power to regulate, license, permit, etc, that power becomes a highly desirable target for crony capture, either legal through lobbyists, campaign donations etc or illegal through bribes and revolving-door influence peddling. Like you, I have no problem with unions in concept. Employees should be free to organize and choose who to work for (or not to work for) as they see fit — as long as employers also have the corresponding freedom to choose who to hire (or dismiss) as they see fit. When everyone is free to opt-in or out, everyone has an incentive to find mutually agreeable terms. This creates a naturally sustainable market-driven balance between the parties. The problem comes in those states which don't have "right to work" protections. In those states a union can legally force an employer to hire only union members (or the government sends police to shut the business down). It can also force an existing employee to join the union (ie give the union part of their paycheck) or they lose their job, even if the employee sees no benefit to joining the union (which happened to a friend of mine). As you'd expect, once any party in a transaction loses their freedom to choose, this imbalance is eventually exploited and abused.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- gosub100 3y ago
  > This puts housing out of reach for anyone making less than $150k/year Then more labor sectors should unionize! Make the wealthy pay the true cost for living in their communities. Not live with all this government protection and regulations, then outsource production to a free state a thousand miles away. If regulation and taxes are the problem, then fix the problem. You can't have it both ways.
oivey 3y ago
Do you have any numbers showing labor driving the price of housing in cities like San Francisco? It seems like almost certainly the #1 cost is the price of the land by a wide margin.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  You can build an arbitrarily tall building on a piece of land, allowing the price of the land to be split between arbitrarily many housing units. Suppose that land is extremely expensive. A single acre of land is ten million dollars. How much is a housing unit? An acre is 43560 sq ft, so a building that allocates half the size of the lot to housing units could have at least 10 housing units of 2000 sq ft per floor and a 50 story building would have at least 500 units making the land cost per unit $20,000. You can't get a 2000 sq ft condo in San Francisco for anywhere near $20,000. The difference is attributable to zoning and construction costs. But it's worse than that, because if building tall buildings wasn't inhibited then the land wouldn't cost as much because the inability to make space-efficient use of the land drives up its scarcity.
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    An acre in the mediocre parts of Palo Alto is ten million, an acre near anywhere it makes sense to put a 50+ storey building in SF is much closer to 100 million. Plus at most only about 2/3 of the floor plate is saleable square footage. So $300,000 of land cost per 2000 sq ft condo. Realtor fees, taxes, surcharges, local improvement fees, etc., and everything else legally mandated is another $250k on top. Builder overhead, insurance, interest on the bank loan, a margin for delays, etc., is at least another $200k. So even if construction cost was zero and the zoning process flawlessly smooth, the builder would need to charge at least $750k per unit to break even. Even if land cost was zero as well, it would still be at least $450k per unit to break even.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      > in SF is much closer to 100 million. The cost of land in SF is less than $10 million/acre: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1376626/land-price-in-selected-cities-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1376626/land-price-in-se... > an acre near anywhere it makes sense to put a 50+ storey building What is "makes sense"? Are condo units available in Palo Alto for anywhere near $20,000? It makes sense anywhere that the cost of land is high. > Plus at most only about 2/3 of the floor plate is saleable square footage. So actually more than the 1/2 used in the numbers above. > Realtor fees, taxes, surcharges, local improvement fees, etc., and everything else legally mandated is another $250k on top. Builder overhead, insurance, interest on the bank loan, a margin for delays, etc., is at least another $200k. Half of these aren't part of the list price and the other half are just other words for "zoning and construction costs". > Even if land cost was zero as well, it would still be at least $450k per unit to break even. You now seem to be arguing that the land isn't the primary cost.

oefrha 3y ago

They didn’t construct shit. > For a mere $42,000, Navarro allegedly installed a kitchenette, shower, plumbing and security cameras [to an existing office]. Doesn’t sound cheap or impressive when you are doing it yourself instead of hiring someone and still managed to spend $42k.

energybored11 3y ago
Trust me SF's office can spend $4.2M on the exact same shit.
- 77pt77 3y ago
  Well, salaries must be paid.
filoleg 3y ago
> $42k and just a little bit of time for a functional mini-apartment, complete with plumbing/kitchenette/etc. > “Doesn’t sound cheap or impressive” Let me introduce you to the glory of construction experience in San Francisco[0] and how ridiculous it gets. Direct quotes from the article: * “It takes 523 days, on average, for a developer to get the initial go-ahead to construct housing — and another 605 days to get building permits.” * “And after spending five years and more than $500,000 to design bespoke trash cans — with the prototypes costing more than $12,000 apiece — the city has shelved a plan to put 3,000 of them on street corners because of a budget deficit.” * “The toilet project broke down the minute taxpayers realized the city was planning an event to celebrate $1.7 million in state funds that local politicians had secured for the lone 150-square-foot structure. That’s enough to purchase a single-family home in San Francisco — with multiple bathrooms.” What I am getting from this is that the whole mini-apartment cost the construction workers in the OP about as much to build as it cost for the city to produce 4 trash cans (that all got shelved anyway). Or about 2.9% of how much it cost the city to build a single 150sqft public bathroom (or, in other words, you could build around 34 of those mini apartments for the cost of 1 public bathroom). Not going to lie, at this point, I would much rather see the people responsible for those spending decisions to be charged, as opposed to two random construction dudes who dont even own that mini-apartment they built. 0. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/24/us/san-francisco-toilet.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/24/us/san-francisco-toilet.h...

wyclif 3y ago

This story is just another data point on the enshittification of SF, along with fentanyl dealing on streetcorners and feces on the sidewalks.

duxup 3y ago
>enshittification of SF Does "enshittification" just now mean "I don't like it"? Even some of the more broad usages wouldn't seem to involve a municipality.
- slingnow 3y ago
  I generally take this word to mean "I'm a redditor and I want everyone to know it".
  - hooverd 3y ago
    I post on the orange website, unlike you, who posts on the orangered website.

ok123456 3y ago

They converted some disused offices into a sleeping area and kitchenette. If they used discretionary funds allocated for a break room, which is what it sounds like from the sound of the $3000 cap, I don't think this is a problem.