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Why blanket punish and make every single development on the waterfront more expensive because of a single Warriors arena project that was eventually moved to Mi

Why blanket punish and make every single development on the waterfront more expensive because of a single Warriors arena project that was eventually moved to Mission Bay? All of these little costs, process hurdles add up and make housing more expensive. The broad point is that these citizen anti-growth initiatives, which might have a single poorly-designed and consulted project in mind, end up having very long-term and consequential impacts on housing prices across the board. This 2014 study examined 7,300 land parcels in the Bay Area and found that if you increase the number of independent reviews for a construction project by one standard deviation, average land prices increase by about eight percent. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2014/07/01/regulatory-constraints-on-supply-are-a-key-factor-in-san-franciscos-affordable-housing-crisis/ http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2014/07/01/regulatory-const... I agree and am concerned about how the point of the economic cycle we're in affects the profile, goals and objectives of people we attract to Silicon Valley. You tend to get more true believers at the low points in the cycle versus the gold-rush folk we're seeing now. What do you think is the best way of dealing with this? We can either build a lot more housing or drive away jobs and companies if we think they're too greed or speculation-driven.

timr 12y ago
"Why blanket punish and make every single development on the waterfront more expensive because of a single Warriors arena project that was eventually moved to Mission Bay?" It's a long and detailed backstory, but the executive summary is that you've got a group of lawmakers who were inclined to rubber-stamp the sweetheart deal, so you can't just write a law that allows them discretion on the outcome. The arena plan required a zoning variance that was being granted for this particular project, and so the initiative targeted the exception-granting process for zoning. It was as specific as possible to the arena project, while still being effective and legal. In any case, it's still possible to build housing on the waterfront -- it's just not possible to get zoning exceptions without public review. I think that's probably a good thing.
- techsupporter 12y ago
  This isn't public review, it's a public vote. A vote is a vastly different barrier to entry than review. One of the biggest complaints I have about the west coast--and, yes, I'm a transplant so I bring my own ideas to the party--is this obsession that everything should be put to a vote. The initiative process is broken in this regard because it increases that expectation. Public officials, especially elected ones, are supposed to have discretion. That's why we elect them. If they screw up, we vote out the people responsible, not erect more set-in-amber barriers to doing things in the future.
  - timr 12y ago
    Yeah, well...you're sort of grinding your axe on the wrong stone, here. This law wasn't passed because people believe "everything should be put to a vote" -- it was passed because a lot of people were (IMO rightfully) pissed that their elected representatives were essentially giving away public land to the wealthy. It's a story as old as politicians. I wish there was another way to block that sort of thing that didn't require citizen initiative. But if it comes down to passing an initiative that requires populist approval to violate existing laws or shrugging and walking away because we can't vote the bastards out until after there's an arena on the waterfront...well, I'm glad we have initiatives for that. I don't generally like the outcome of direct democracy, but this is a case where the initiative process worked exactly the way it was supposed to.
    - techsupporter 12y ago
      But if something violates the law isn't that why we have courts instead of passing something that will continue on for the next few decades?
      - timr 12y ago
        The law allows an (IIRC unelected) review board to grant zoning variances. What happened here was that the review board was rubber stamping the exception because powerful local politicians wanted it to happen, because...well, money talks. Essentially, the citizens passed an initiative that ensured that the existing zoning laws had some actual teeth, instead of just trusting politicians not to violate them with impunity.
- ktothemc 12y ago
  Still possible, but you have to run an entire political marketing campaign, complete with mailers, etc. Furthermore, with a ballot-box planning process, developers are going to bypass the typical considerations that the city's professional planning staff usually asks for in favor of whatever they think is broadly marketable to a voting public. The cost of these additional processes adds up. Urban containment and growth control are not free. In many cases, these policies do legitimately protect a certain quality of life, but they are also effectively a tax on newcomers and prospective residents. California home prices started deviating from national norms around the mid-1970s after individual communities and the state supreme court started enacting growth control policies. It created a system that is so politically unpredictable that we're simply not able to produce enough housing to keep up with population growth at a time when the country is re-urbanizing.
  - timr 12y ago
    "Still possible, but you have to run an entire political marketing campaign, complete with mailers, etc." ...to get an exception to zoning rules that have been around for decades. Want to build within the established rules? No election required. Let's not confuse this with something truly ridiculous, like the statewide proposition that capped property taxes at their 1970s levels. I'm not arguing that every citizen initiative is a good idea.
    - ktothemc 12y ago
      Yeah, but those zoning rules like the one affecting Pier 70 are their own products of bizarre, political, anti-development NIMBY-ist quirks. I believe some of the buildings on the pier are actually 92 feet high from the pre-war period, but some good, old downzoning in the 1970s moved it to the forty-feet level like much of the city.
    - ktothemc 12y ago
      Agreed on Prop. 13. Nightmare. Totally messed up municipal and public school finance for decades. Sucks that even though the SF city budget is nearly $2 billion larger annually than it was in 2011, we can't seem to divert more funds to teachers because of how convoluted the school financing formula has become post-Prop. 13.

timr 12y ago

"Why blanket punish and make every single development on the waterfront more expensive because of a single Warriors arena project that was eventually moved to Mission Bay?" It's a long and detailed backstory, but the executive summary is that you've got a group of lawmakers who were inclined to rubber-stamp the sweetheart deal, so you can't just write a law that allows them discretion on the outcome. The arena plan required a zoning variance that was being granted for this particular project, and so the initiative targeted the exception-granting process for zoning. It was as specific as possible to the arena project, while still being effective and legal. In any case, it's still possible to build housing on the waterfront -- it's just not possible to get zoning exceptions without public review. I think that's probably a good thing.

techsupporter 12y ago
This isn't public review, it's a public vote. A vote is a vastly different barrier to entry than review. One of the biggest complaints I have about the west coast--and, yes, I'm a transplant so I bring my own ideas to the party--is this obsession that everything should be put to a vote. The initiative process is broken in this regard because it increases that expectation. Public officials, especially elected ones, are supposed to have discretion. That's why we elect them. If they screw up, we vote out the people responsible, not erect more set-in-amber barriers to doing things in the future.
- timr 12y ago
  Yeah, well...you're sort of grinding your axe on the wrong stone, here. This law wasn't passed because people believe "everything should be put to a vote" -- it was passed because a lot of people were (IMO rightfully) pissed that their elected representatives were essentially giving away public land to the wealthy. It's a story as old as politicians. I wish there was another way to block that sort of thing that didn't require citizen initiative. But if it comes down to passing an initiative that requires populist approval to violate existing laws or shrugging and walking away because we can't vote the bastards out until after there's an arena on the waterfront...well, I'm glad we have initiatives for that. I don't generally like the outcome of direct democracy, but this is a case where the initiative process worked exactly the way it was supposed to.
  - techsupporter 12y ago
    But if something violates the law isn't that why we have courts instead of passing something that will continue on for the next few decades?
    - timr 12y ago
      The law allows an (IIRC unelected) review board to grant zoning variances. What happened here was that the review board was rubber stamping the exception because powerful local politicians wanted it to happen, because...well, money talks. Essentially, the citizens passed an initiative that ensured that the existing zoning laws had some actual teeth, instead of just trusting politicians not to violate them with impunity.
ktothemc 12y ago
Still possible, but you have to run an entire political marketing campaign, complete with mailers, etc. Furthermore, with a ballot-box planning process, developers are going to bypass the typical considerations that the city's professional planning staff usually asks for in favor of whatever they think is broadly marketable to a voting public. The cost of these additional processes adds up. Urban containment and growth control are not free. In many cases, these policies do legitimately protect a certain quality of life, but they are also effectively a tax on newcomers and prospective residents. California home prices started deviating from national norms around the mid-1970s after individual communities and the state supreme court started enacting growth control policies. It created a system that is so politically unpredictable that we're simply not able to produce enough housing to keep up with population growth at a time when the country is re-urbanizing.
- timr 12y ago
  "Still possible, but you have to run an entire political marketing campaign, complete with mailers, etc." ...to get an exception to zoning rules that have been around for decades. Want to build within the established rules? No election required. Let's not confuse this with something truly ridiculous, like the statewide proposition that capped property taxes at their 1970s levels. I'm not arguing that every citizen initiative is a good idea.
  - ktothemc 12y ago
    Yeah, but those zoning rules like the one affecting Pier 70 are their own products of bizarre, political, anti-development NIMBY-ist quirks. I believe some of the buildings on the pier are actually 92 feet high from the pre-war period, but some good, old downzoning in the 1970s moved it to the forty-feet level like much of the city.
  - ktothemc 12y ago
    Agreed on Prop. 13. Nightmare. Totally messed up municipal and public school finance for decades. Sucks that even though the SF city budget is nearly $2 billion larger annually than it was in 2011, we can't seem to divert more funds to teachers because of how convoluted the school financing formula has become post-Prop. 13.