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Originally Posted by Bubb90
Any thoughts on the new plan for the former Sacramento Bee site? They want to build a "mini neighborhood" with 62 townhomes and 60 single family homes! I personally don't like this idea.
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It's a quick cash grab by the developer.
It’s also possible that the developer wants to get the site entitled rapidly, so they can turn around and sell it. Properties with entitlements in place tend to be worth more than properties without.
Assuming this new proposal actually happens, it's a real disappointment.
The Sac Bee headquarters site is two entire city blocks. Yet the developer wants to build only 120 for sale 3-story town homes and single-family homes for rich people? What an absolute travesty and a waste of high-value land… Land that should be reserved for high-concentration projects.
Man, I thought the former proposal, with its block-sized Bauhaus boxes and
zero ground-floor retail was bad… This new one makes me want to put my head in the oven. I'd rather see them repurpose the existing structure.
In the past, I was staunchly pro-developer. With each short-stack, uninspiring proposal, I would say roughly the same thing:
Sacramento cannot afford lofty projects right now. These less than exciting proposals are what can get built. Give it some time. Things will change once Sacramento proves itself. We won't run out of building sites.
However, after 15 years (long enough) of the same crap, and now that most new proposals are worse than crap, my opinion has changed.
Of course, we must acknowledge the elephant in the room: We all know that prices in general are too high. Well, construction prices are beyond too high... They are straight up stupid. Add in the "California Premium" that developers pay, and it’s no wonder that smaller towns in other states, like Boise, are getting more privately financed high rise developments than we are. Construction prices are lower in those places.
Bay Area cities must also deal with stupidly high construction prices, but at least they have plenty of rich people who can pay $4,000,000 for a 650 square foot high-rise condo or pay $8,000 a month for high-rise 1 bedroom apartment. That’s why, if you look at the SFYIMBY website, nearly every other proposal is a high-rise. Plus, it seems that Bay Area cities get better-looking or at least more interesting proposals than Sacramento does.
In an effort to justify their existence and build something instead of nothing, Sacramento developers propose developments that can get built quickly and for
relatively little money. I understand that they have families to feed. However, this spate of horrible proposals indicates how short-sited and disrespectful of Sacramento these developers really are.
Plus, continued construction only serves to incentivize ridiculously high construction prices. The cure for high prices is high prices – If developers stop engaging greedy contractors, they will be required to lower their prices. So, I think it is time for developers to put a moratorium on construction projects.
A better option is to bring more young people into the trades. One of the biggest reasons for high construction prices is high labor costs. (After the 2008 economic meltdown, scores of construction workers left the industry and never returned.) With more laborers, construction prices may stabilize or even come down. Plus, what’s the point of getting a degree if you’re just gonna become a barista?
Furthermore, we must seriously curtail CEQA - we should neuter it. That way, annoying union lawyers from Davis can't sue every development that doesn't have a Project Labor Agreement.
Anyway, this is the last straw... I am done with Sacramento. I have spent 25 years getting excited about Sacramento's future and following its "development." But nothing has changed. Every single awesome proposal failed. Even becoming a top destination for displaced Bay Area workers who
only make $200,000 a year has done little to spur exciting changes. At the end of the day, Sacramento is an ugly, dark, dank, boring, nearly useless government town with nothing interesting to offer. It will always play second fiddle to the real California cities. It will never enjoy the kind of development that I want to see... Not in my lifetime anyway.
I moved to Southern California almost 14 years ago because I couldn't buy a job in Sac. I am so glad I did.