No more skyscrapers for San Francisco?

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by homebucket

Lol wow. Is this really how people outside the Bay Area view it?

They hate us cause they aint us.

[jtown,man]

Real question:

Where the hell are all these thousands of "affordable" units at in our cities? And why haven't they made a dent in anything?

[chris08876]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

They hate us cause they aint us.

Nobody hates you guys lol.

It just seems like the efforts made to fix the housing crisis are marginal if best.

https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2015/fina...sing-costs.pdf

See above pdf. Some stats.

This study was conducted on March 17, 2015, so its only gotten worse since than. But read the study, interesting stuff.

Based on some of these issues, I don't think people want to be like you guys, at least on the state level. Lots of issues, and as it continues to get worse, its evident that anti-development and anti-growth policies and regs do not help the situation.

This was done by the Legislative Analyst's Office... in California... so its not some conspiracy or voodoo magic.

I'm not sure why folks get so ratchet when folks not in California point out some issues.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

They hate us cause they aint us.

Or we "hate"(I hate no one) you because you guys make comments like this. Not only that, we all know you guys think that we secretly all want to live there but don't because we can't afford it.

Some people would never want to live in California. This might be impossible for some of yall to understand, but it's true. And no, it's not just because we are all poor or conservatives.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Real question:

Where the hell are all these thousands of "affordable" units at in our cities? And why haven't they made a dent in anything?

Because in cities like San Francisco eligibility for affordable units can be for people making up to 110% of the area median income (which is not unreasonable because the rent or purchase price of an affordable unit can be comparable to or more than the cost of a market rate unit in the Midwest or Southeast) and that means more than half the population can qualify in some cases. This is intended to be “workforce housing” allowing teachers and cops and firemen and waiters and store clerks to continue to live in the city and there are many times the number of thousands of those as the numbers of affordable units.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by chris08876

I'm not sure why folks get so ratchet when folks not in California point out some issues.

Because most of the “issues” being pointed out are bogus or distorted. I remember when the main issue constantly pointed out was that California was going broke. It was never true. California held up state payments in a couple of years because the legislature was wrangling over the next years budget and the Treasurer couldn’t legally disburse funds. That was taken to mean the state had no money which was totally wrong.

California may or may not have an actual shortage of housing. It has been pointed out that the state is flooded with immigrants, legal and illegal, but nearly all of whom seem able to find a place to live as soon as they arrive.

What the state has is a housing affordability problem and that may be a simple matter of economics: Supply and demand. The number of people who might like to live in the state may indeed exceed the supply of the sort of housing those people want to live in, thereby driving up prices.

Construction costs in the state are already very high, implying that even if there were no legal impediments to building more homes, the cost of labor and materials to do so might be too exhorbitant to allow it to be done at a level any buyers would be willing to pay. But a shortage of construction labor does not imply homes aren’t being built. Just the opposite.

[bossabreezes]

I'm no genius, however, wouldn't restricting office space just make affordability worse and worse?

San Francisco will always be an important city, but this could cause lots of companies to decide to set up shop in Oakland instead. Which is great for Oakland, but SF can (and still should) handle more development. Both office and residential.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by bossabreezes

I'm no genius, however, wouldn't restricting office space just make affordability worse and worse?

San Francisco will always be an important city, but this could cause lots of companies to decide to set up shop in Oakland instead. Which is great for Oakland, but SF can (and still should) handle more development. Both office and residential.

Yes, it will cause businesses to move to Oakland and they have been. They've also been moving to Texas and various other places. The Bay Area is a business incumbator. For every mature or senescent business (can you say McKesson?) that leaves, new ones are born amnd eventually they too leave the nursery. But the nursery is a crowded place:

Why the Bay Area retains the title of nation's top office market
By Blanca Torres – Reporter, San Francisco Business Times
Dec 3, 2019, 7:06am PST Updated Dec 3, 2019, 11:01am PST

The Bay Area’s core office market retained its spot as the nation’s strongest office market with the lowest vacancy and highest rents.

A third quarter report from Colliers International comparing 10 office markets around the country found that the Bay Area’s vacancy rate of 5.4% and average asking rent of $86.22 put it ahead of its closest rivals: Manhattan at 5.5% vacancy and $80.27 per square foot average asking rent and Seattle at 6.3% and $42.87.

The Bay Area has had the lowest vacancy on Colliers' list for more than three years now.

“There’s a very tight availability of sites to build new construction” in the Bay Area along with policies such as Prop. M in San Francisco that purposely limit new office construction, said Stephen Newbold, national director of office research for Colliers.

Regions on the other end of the spectrum include Houston with 20.8% vacancy and $36.05 per square foot average asking rents, Washington, D.C., with 14.9% vacancy and $49.95 per square foot average asking rents, and Los Angeles at 14% vacancy and $48.74 per square foot average rents . . . .

https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranc...tions-top.html

I voted against the measure so I'm not here to defend it, but its purpose, in the eyes of those supporting it, was to make housing relatively more accessible and affordable by forcing the dispersal of jobs and job holders to places like Oakland and the outer reaches of the Bay Area. It's what they want to take the pressure off housing in the city since for whatever reason the city has demonstrated it can't or won't build as much housing as its workforce needs.

Meanwhile, there's clearly enough demand for existing business space to allow the city not to worry about anybody leaving.

[mhays]

SF does well in many ways. But it's absolutely not building enough housing, by a huge margin, and that's the main factor in its absurd housing prices. I can't imagine a debate point against that.

Loosen the process and zoning, and a lot more housing will be built, with downward pressure on prices. Especially if some public-benefit subsidies are reduced. Change things enough and prices would actually fall substantially. I doubt this is a question among anyone in related fields.

I don't know the details of the new law. But it sounds like an "up" factor for my city as a recipient of much of the SF area's tech overflow. I would expect it to help shift some of the city of SF's office growth to other parts of the area, but they have their pressures too...

It'll do that for a fairly small amount of new housing. One that conveniently sounds free to most voters.

[Doady]

Yet more restrictions upon development as the solution to the housing affordability problems resulting from too much restrictions upon developments. Makes total sense.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by mhays

Loosen the process and zoning, and a lot more housing will be built, with downward pressure on prices. Especially if some public-benefit subsidies are reduced. Change things enough and prices would actually fall substantially. I doubt this is a question among anyone in related fields.

I have an organization for you to join. Welcome bro: https://www.sfhac.org/about-us/

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Because most of the “issues” being pointed out are bogus or distorted.

Exactly.

And the entire country is falling way behind in homebuilding. We just have the most acute crisis, but every major metro area considers itself in crisis mode over the lack of affordable housing.

Google "Housing crisis(insert any city name)"

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by Doady

Yet more restrictions upon development as the solution to the housing affordability problems resulting from too much restrictions upon developments. Makes total sense.

SF "progressives" see it as a matter of a balance between housing and business. As a general principle, they don't like business or commercial towers so they'd rather limit those than boost housing construction. I think the consensus here would be to build more housing but both ways of dealing with the issue are attempts to do the same thing: increase the supply of housing RELATIVE TO the supply of jobs attracting people to the city.

Yes, there are too many restrictions on housing constuction. But Prop. 13 (not to be confused with the older property tax measure) doesn't further restrict housing so much as restrict office building.

[llamaorama]

As someone who actually read the article, I think this is a good plan. Jobs shouldn't be allowed to concentrate in an area that can't really support it. The Bay Area moreso than most other US cities is geographically awkward. The SF peninsula is actually peripheral to the region as a whole, and there are only so many ways in and out whether by transit or car. Having all the jobs and wealth in SF makes everyone else worse off because then while the rich can enjoy the urban core everyone else has a commute from hell.

The only logical argument that opponents make is that restricting commercial development reduces revenue for the city. But the city incurs costs from being so expensive too - how much do public sector workers whether they be cops or janitors or office clerks expect to be paid in order to live in a city as costly as SF? Probably a lot, and if I had to guess this has a huge deleterious impact on municipal budgets that isn't talked about.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

Exactly.

And the entire country is falling way behind in homebuilding. We just have the most acute crisis, but every major metro area considers itself in crisis mode over the lack of affordable housing.

Google "Housing crisis(insert any city name)"

Yeah, local activist groups and politicians always say their areas are in a "housing crisis", does that make it so?

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

As someone who actually read the article, I think this is a good plan. Jobs shouldn't be allowed to concentrate in an area that can't really support it. The Bay Area moreso than most other US cities is geographically awkward. The SF peninsula is actually peripheral to the region as a whole, and there are only so many ways in and out whether by transit or car. Having all the jobs and wealth in SF makes everyone else worse off because then while the rich can enjoy the urban core everyone else has a commute from hell.

The only logical argument that opponents make is that restricting commercial development reduces revenue for the city. But the city incurs costs from being so expensive too - how much do public sector workers whether they be cops or janitors or office clerks expect to be paid in order to live in a city as costly as SF? Probably a lot, and if I had to guess this has a huge deleterious impact on municipal budgets that isn't talked about.

I get it, but still.

Could you imagine how many cities around this country would die just imagining about having to keep businesses from expanding in their city? Jesus.

[badrunner]

A place like San Francisco obviously can't build its way to affordability. The housing situation will always be a "crisis" there.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Or we "hate"(I hate no one) you because you guys make comments like this. Not only that, we all know you guys think that we secretly all want to live there but don't because we can't afford it.

Some people would never want to live in California. This might be impossible for some of yall to understand, but it's true. And no, it's not just because we are all poor or conservatives.

Yet when we acknowledge your point and say "San Francisco isn't for everyone," we get trolled for being "elitists" and all sorts of other negative things by the usual SF antagonists. "How dare you not remake your city to be everything to everyone, what a FAILURE!"

It's similar to when we correctly note that the city has high prices because of strong competition among people who still want to live and work here, we're told we are "fine with outrageous costs" and "don't care about problems x, y, and z," etc.

When we can't even acknowledge facts like these about our own city, lest we get trolled by the usual suspects from faraway, a lot of us get annoyed. Some people seem intent on only pushing a relentlessly negative and intellectually dishonest agenda against SF, usually rooted in partisan politics and culture war. It's even more annoying when it's coming from some momma's boy who has never worked a 60+ hour week or paid his own damn rent (not talking about you here).

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

SF "progressives" see it as a matter of a balance between housing and business. As a general principle, they don't like business or commercial towers so they'd rather limit those than boost housing construction. I think the consensus here would be to build more housing but both ways of dealing with the issue are attempts to do the same thing: increase the supply of housing RELATIVE TO the supply of jobs attracting people to the city.

Yes, there are too many restrictions on housing constuction. But Prop. 13 (not to be confused with the older property tax measure) doesn't further restrict housing so much as restrict office building.

Minor correction: we're talking here about San Francisco's Proposition E; this year's statewide Prop 13 would have paid for school construction and much-needed maintenance around the state. It appears to have failed.

[SIGSEGV]

IMO this is what SF needs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_Programme

[Omaharocks]

Originally Posted by badrunner

A place like San Francisco obviously can't build its way to affordability. The housing situation will always be a "crisis" there.

I'd agree with this. Build build build is a worthwhile strategy in places that aren't an international magnet for scenery, climate, architecture, and economy.

The built environment essentially can't be improved in San Francisco. So I don't fault people for wanting to keep it the way it is - if you build a ton of ugly-ass 2020's apartment complexes, you risk losing some of what makes the area special, but people are still going to crowd in and pay high prices, because they want to be there.

There are ways to fix this issue, but they involve major political changes at the national level. They are not solvable for SF at the local level.