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Still possible, but you have to run an entire political marketing campaign, complete with mailers, etc. Furthermore, with a ballot-box planning process, develop

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.
  - muzz 12y ago
    The effect of Prop 13 is much, much more than this. It gives homeowners an incentive to hold on to property as long as possible. The article mentioned "this uninhabitable home possibly infested by rodents and held up by a couple of poles" selling for $1.8M, but neither that or the linked one mentioned the owner was paying tax on only $70k of assessed value. There are often comparisons made to Texas-- in this case, someone owning a $1.8M house would be taxed around $54,000 a year in Texas, versus the $700 he was paying in property taxes in California.

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.
- muzz 12y ago
  The effect of Prop 13 is much, much more than this. It gives homeowners an incentive to hold on to property as long as possible. The article mentioned "this uninhabitable home possibly infested by rodents and held up by a couple of poles" selling for $1.8M, but neither that or the linked one mentioned the owner was paying tax on only $70k of assessed value. There are often comparisons made to Texas-- in this case, someone owning a $1.8M house would be taxed around $54,000 a year in Texas, versus the $700 he was paying in property taxes in California.