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Trabisnikof posted:So the problems and solutions are entirely warped by that focus. The reason developers aren’t building in Oakland or Richmond at the scale required aren’t mainly zoning, and when there are zoning issues there are lots of good reasons, like fire or climate change or industrial waste. If further deregulating housing gets a bunch of new building in those cities I’d be worried what kind of housing was built. Oakland is seeing a good bit of development lately but it's not happening in neighborhoods like Montclair or Rockridge, despite the fact that the Rockridge neighborhood has its own BART station, and zoning is among the first of many hurdles to changing that. Hell, even Adams Point scale with its mix of SFH and 3-5 story apartment buildings wouldn't be legal to construct under today's zoning in most Oakland neighborhoods. There was a strain of criticism over the last few years from the "development causes gentrification" mindset that it's hosed up that upzoning projects only seem to happen in currently affordable neighborhoods, and they weren't wrong about that. gonger fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Jan 31, 2020 |
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Jan 31, 2020 18:07
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Soy Division posted:make sure never to bring up tokyo in these density discussions I have, in literally this thread I believe. Now you can say Tokyo is an argument for deregulation because they don't particularly have zoning like we do, and they just build as needed. But at this point, developers aren't going to build nearly enough to put much of a dent in anything, they're just going to build the most profitable stuff and rents are, at best, going to stay flat(BS, they're going up). We're too deep in the mess. Major government spending, either subsidies, public housing, or both, is the only way we're getting out. And I know that's politically unfeasible right now so, gently caress.
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Jan 31, 2020 18:10
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Trabisnikof posted:My frustration is how these conversations center the wealthiest communities first, so we talk about rebuilding Palo Alto or Outer Sunset or Venice and great that’s cool. That's just a matter of timing. Yesterday we were all beating each other over the head with arguments about whether or not SB 50 disproportionately harmed poor people and promoted gentrification. Today it's Palo Alto and the rich. Tomorrow is Chula Vista day where we all talk about middle class cul de sac suburbs. And we can always argue by boiling down other people's arguments to their most extreme interpretations. That's the foundation the Internet was built on. But now we're at the point where there is concrete legislation to argue over. Turning the Bay Area into Hong Kong is fun to talk about, but will SB50 actually do that? Is that it's intention?
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Jan 31, 2020 18:26
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Trabisnikof posted:My frustration is how these conversations center the wealthiest communities first, so we talk about rebuilding Palo Alto or Outer Sunset or Venice and great that’s cool. this seems like a really odd reading of what deregulation means currently it is flat-out illegal to build anything other than detached, single-family houses in vast ranges of the urban areas of california sb50 was meant to address this by overriding these historically racist restrictions, so that homes like what's in the middle here can actually be built  btw here's how that initial vote went https://twitter.com/Goobergunch/status/1222702198011785216 (yellow is abstentions and grey is vacant)
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Jan 31, 2020 18:39
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God I miss townhouses and rowhouses
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Jan 31, 2020 18:58
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The focus tends to be on richer communities because at current rates only wealthy people can afford new construction housing. If it costs $500k to build a single unit, it doesn't matter if that is in Santa Monica or Compton - only well off people will be able to afford to live there. A developer knows not many people in Compton can afford a $500k+ apartment so they just dont build there. Now if the entirety of LA were rezoned from the SFH hellscape it currently is, maybe developers could start to build more affordable, denser units in places like South Central or Compton. SB 50 would have done just that - huge swaths of low income areas in LA are near transit and the upzoning would have helped reduce costs. Of course upzoning alone is not going to drop the cost of construction down to $100k or whatever, but it's a necessary first step.
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Jan 31, 2020 19:12
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Seph posted:The focus tends to be on richer communities because at current rates only wealthy people can afford new construction housing. If it costs $500k to build a single unit, it doesn't matter if that is in Santa Monica or Compton - only well off people will be able to afford to live there. A developer knows not many people in Compton can afford a $500k+ apartment so they just dont build there. Yeah what would South Central or Compton look like if they started building apartment buildings there 
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Jan 31, 2020 19:18
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Seph posted:Now if the entirety of LA were rezoned from the SFH hellscape it currently is, maybe developers could start to build more affordable, denser units in places like South Central or Compton. SB 50 would have done just that - huge swaths of low income areas in LA are near transit and the upzoning would have helped reduce costs. That's exactly why many leftist groups opposed it. "Low income areas" are full of low income people who would most likely (realistically, almost always) have to be displaced to build near transit. It would almost certainly lead to those areas being gentrified and pricing out the people who live there. Otherwise, developers wouldn't recoup their losses, not to mention get as much of that delicious, delicious profit as possible. And your apparent blindness to this is why people call you a developer shill.
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Jan 31, 2020 19:25
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Jaxyon posted:Yeah what would South Central or Compton look like if they started building apartment buildings there What a bad faith post. Have you ever been to those areas? It's miles of single family homes in every direction. If we want to build enough housing units then entire corridor down the blue line would need to be yellow. Not the various shades of low medium and high it is right now.
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Jan 31, 2020 19:28
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Cup Runneth Over posted:That's exactly why many leftist groups opposed it. "Low income areas" are full of low income people who would most likely (realistically, almost always) have to be displaced to build near transit. It would almost certainly lead to those areas being gentrified and pricing out the people who live there. Otherwise, developers wouldn't recoup their losses, not to mention get as much of that delicious, delicious profit as possible. And your apparent blindness to this is why people call you a developer shill. sb50 had demolition restrictions protecting low-income housing after those were added the criticism in the media turned to "too many homeowners are barely hanging on"
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Jan 31, 2020 19:30
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Cup Runneth Over posted:That's exactly why many leftist groups opposed it. "Low income areas" are full of low income people who would most likely (realistically, almost always) have to be displaced to build near transit. It would almost certainly lead to those areas being gentrified and pricing out the people who live there. Otherwise, developers wouldn't recoup their losses, not to mention get as much of that delicious, delicious profit as possible. And your apparent blindness to this is why people call you a developer shill. Exactly so. Right now anywhere at or near transit in LA is getting gentrified out so rich tech types who can't afford to buy near work(downtown or on the beach) can snap them up. Anywhere near the Crenshaw line got snapped up years ago and it's not even open yet.
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Jan 31, 2020 19:30
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Cup Runneth Over posted:That's exactly why many leftist groups opposed it. "Low income areas" are full of low income people who would most likely (realistically, almost always) have to be displaced to build near transit. It would almost certainly lead to those areas being gentrified and pricing out the people who live there. Otherwise, developers wouldn't recoup their losses, not to mention get as much of that delicious, delicious profit as possible. And your apparent blindness to this is why people call you a developer shill. So we need to focus on low income areas, but can't build there because it will displace residents. Where do you think this low income housing is going to go? Santa Monica? Beverly Hills?
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Jan 31, 2020 19:33
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Cup Runneth Over posted:God I miss townhouses and rowhouses First time I saw a bungalow court in LA it charmed me to death. Those seem lovely
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Jan 31, 2020 19:34
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Seph posted:So we need to focus on low income areas, but can't build there because it will displace residents. Where do you think this low income housing is going to go? Santa Monica? Beverly Hills? That's why housing advocates are against laws that make it easy to build but don't protect the poor. Which is why they opposed SB50. Now you're getting it. Go volunteer with a housing advocacy group.
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Jan 31, 2020 19:35
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Talked to my boomer dad about Prop 13, told him to support lifting it on commercial buildings. He said he didn't feel that was a good idea because then they would just raise the rent to compensate. Sigh.
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Jan 31, 2020 19:35
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Talked to my boomer dad about Prop 13, told him to support lifting it on commercial buildings. He said he didn't feel that was a good idea because then they would just raise the rent to compensate. Sigh. i've had this reaction with my parents too. they don't benefit from prop 13. it's surprising that people can't grasp that if the tax burden on a property increases then the sale value of the property will go down since the yearly fixed costs are now higher, but whatever.
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Jan 31, 2020 19:37
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Jaxyon posted:That's why housing advocates are against laws that make it easy to build but don't protect the poor. Please describe the mechanism by which we build millions of affordable housing units without touching any low income housing areas. These areas will need to be upzoned if we want a larger stock of cheap housing that is centrally located. You can't do that just by filling in parking lots in Santa Monica with mid rises.
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Jan 31, 2020 19:44
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habitat for humanity supported sb50 so did united way california. that's p significant
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Jan 31, 2020 19:44
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Cup Runneth Over posted:That's exactly why many leftist groups opposed it. "Low income areas" are full of low income people who would most likely (realistically, almost always) have to be displaced to build near transit. It would almost certainly lead to those areas being gentrified and pricing out the people who live there. Otherwise, developers wouldn't recoup their losses, not to mention get as much of that delicious, delicious profit as possible. And your apparent blindness to this is why people call you a developer shill. That argument would be a lot more persuasive to me if I hadn't spent the last ten years seeing large sections of "low income areas" in my city get gentrified with absolutely no new construction. At least where I am, the choice isn't between no gentrification and building near transit, it's between shaping growth so that transit can actually work and allowing it to gentrify as low density high income car oriented suburbs. The only thing that will stop gentrification is government intervention and that can still happen if we promote transit oriented developement. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Forbidding anything from happening until you get what you want won't stop those areas from gentrifying and is why people call you a NIMBY.
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Jan 31, 2020 19:46
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Seph posted:Please describe the mechanism by which we build millions of affordable housing units without touching any low income housing areas. Why would I have to do that nobody is looking for that to happen including the housing advocacy groups that opposed it. Is SB50 just a magical codephrase that renders people unable to discuss in anything but straw men? vvv oh poo poo the magic is too powerful Jaxyon fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Jan 31, 2020 |
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Jan 31, 2020 19:47
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Jaxyon posted:Exactly so. Right now anywhere at or near transit in LA is getting gentrified out so rich tech types who can't afford to buy near work(downtown or on the beach) can snap them up. So I guess we need to stop building transit too.
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Jan 31, 2020 19:48
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Jaxyon posted:Why would I have to do that nobody is looking for that to happen including the housing advocacy groups that opposed it. I guess I'm confused what exactly you oppose then. The general framing that I see from development opponents is: New apartments get built --> gentrifiers move in --> residents end up displaced from higher rents Which I think is reversing cause and effect. Rents are going up because a lack of housing supply, which then makes it profitable for developers to build in those neighborhoods. If we are suddenly able to build 500,000 units in south LA at a reasonable price, it's not going to cause massive gentrification. It will keep rents in check and allow more low income people to live in those areas rather than commuting 2 hours every day from San Bernardino.
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Jan 31, 2020 19:55
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Seph posted:So we need to focus on low income areas, but can't build there because it will displace residents. Where do you think this low income housing is going to go? Santa Monica? Beverly Hills? Provide good quality temporary housing or prompt relocation assistance for the current residents and give them highest priority for residence in the denser buildings that are built. All housing built should be rent controlled and there must be a greater number of units in the new construction (preferably by a factor of two or three). Those are just the basics; there's plenty more in the videos I linked last page. Read up.
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Jan 31, 2020 19:58
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Seph posted:I guess I'm confused what exactly you oppose then. The general framing that I see from development opponents is: I agree you are confused. Housing advocates aren't development opponents and much of the housing advocacy groups that oppose SB50 aren't development opponents. What they're saying is that, and we've already seen this in LA because we already relaxed zoning restrictions, is that developers aren't going to drop down 500,000 units. They're going to drop down 25-50k units, at market rate, that are going to move out people in neighborhoods that are gentrifying, and mostly to wealthier folks. This won't be enough to offset demand, and will raise rents nearby, causing even more displacement. So housing advocates saying "yeah we of course want you to build, but if you don't do it with protections for the poor, you're going to make it so the people who use transit the most can't live near transit.". Which is already happening, as transit ridership goes down in LA because the people who ride the train can't afford to live near the train. The reason for the split among housing groups with some supporting and most opposing, is that some groups are hoping that something, anything, is better than what we have now and support SB50, and many are saying "no it won't do much to make things and may make things worse." If you want developers to drop down 500k units in affordable part of LA quick enough to actually drop rents, I'm all for it. SB50 is not likely to do that. The article and letter I was quoting earlier is literally from an advocacy group that specifically wants to make affordable housing near transit.
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Jan 31, 2020 20:03
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Cup Runneth Over posted:Provide good quality temporary housing or prompt relocation assistance for the current residents and give them highest priority for residence in the denser buildings that are built. All housing built should be rent controlled and there must be a greater number of units in the new construction (preferably by a factor of two or three). Those are just the basics; there's plenty more in the videos I linked last page. Read up. Yeah I'm not sure why you think I'm against any of that. All of that can happen and at the same time we can reduce red tape and zoning controls. It's not some binary choice.
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Jan 31, 2020 20:05
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Seph posted:Yeah I'm not sure why you think I'm against any of that. All of that can happen and at the same time we can reduce red tape and zoning controls. It's not some binary choice. It's not a matter of being against them. Those are the minimum mandatory requirements. Any bill which does not meet them must be opposed because it will harm low income people.
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Jan 31, 2020 20:08
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There literally aren't enough private developers to build 500k units in LA. I think one issue that doesn't get discussion is the shortage of available skilled construction labor. If the regulatory environment were perfect and/or a huge commitment to government-funded construction were made, I'd guess it'd still take a decade to increase the supply of qualified construction capacity to a point needed to fulfill those contracts. I think we're in a housing-shortage hole that simply cannot be dug out of at a satisfying rate under any proposed circumstance. I'm looking to support action that makes any incremental improvement possible, because I don't think any other kind of improvement is possible. Politically it might be possible, barely, but in practical terms - the supply chain, the labor force, the complexities of planning and stuff, I just don't think the construction boom we'd need to cause normal market forces to bring down rents to a reasonable level is physically possible in the next decade or maybe even two decades. We are going to be stuck in housing-crisis hell for the forseeable future no matter what. We are reaping what was sown through obstacles to market-force-driven adequate housing construction placed between the end of the 1950s construction boom and today, and there's no way out. And before anyone says "if the jobs are there, people will come from out of state to fill them"... like, where would those people live, man? How they gonna pay rent? How is the government, even if it suddenly decided to spend those billions on gov't housing, going to handle the monumental task of planning and designing and construction of that housing? Who is gonna do those jobs? Where they gonna live, if they come from out of state? How do we avoid the likely scenario of labor-desperate construction crews staffed with unqualified schmoes throwing up faulty substandard poo poo housing that we then move the low-income people into? I see a different future, one in which california's housing crisis turns into a labor crisis as unaffordable housing drives out affordable labor, and while this will eventually put the brakes on the economy (through the destruction of affordable services, maybe), in the meantime it makes the housing crisis worse because labor costs for constructing new housing have to rise in order to retain labor, and as costs rise, the financial feasibility of private construction and/or the political feasibility of publicly-funded construction drops accordingly, to meet an equilibrium in which the rate of housing construction is semi-permanently fixed at below the rate of increase of demand. e. or to put it another way, I think the actual way out of CA's housing crisis is the export of ten or twenty million people to places where they can afford to live, the concomitant collapse of service industries in the state, and finally a collapse in house prices as demand drops due to the increasingly undesirable nature of CA cities' living conditions where all services are prohibitively expensive. That's what I think is likely to happen, anyway, more likely than voters choosing to spend half a trillion dollars on public housing and that housing magically springing up out of the ground in excellent livable conditions overnight, the way it does in Cities & Skylines videos. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Jan 31, 2020 |
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Jan 31, 2020 20:19
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75% of LA is SFZ. In 75% of LA you cannot legally build apartments. Like yes, zoning is not the only problem, but to pretend it isn’t a huge part of it is crazy. If we relaxed zoning and made it easier to build the dreaded apartments it wouldn’t singlehandedly solve the housing crisis but it sure as hell wouldn’t make it worse. The status quo right now is displacement and gentrification, just without construction.
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Jan 31, 2020 21:23
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Kill Bristol posted:75% of LA is SFZ. In 75% of LA you cannot legally build apartments. Aw poo poo, looks like the "only speak in strawmen" poo poo triggered again. Please feel better! quote:If we relaxed zoning and made it easier to build the dreaded apartments it wouldn’t singlehandedly solve the housing crisis but it sure as hell wouldn’t make it worse. LA already has relaxed zoning near transit, and incentive programs to build there. That passed years ago. The status quo right now in LA is what you're talking about not doing enough.
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Jan 31, 2020 21:43
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The vast majority of LA is still only single family zoning. I don’t know how many times I have to repeat this before it sinks in, but I evidently haven’t done it enough. There absolutely have not been massive changes to the zoning laws in LA at anywhere near the level needed. That’s the loving problem! If your own arguments are so absurd that they look like strawmen, maybe that should be a cause for reflection!
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Jan 31, 2020 21:53
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You really don't understand what a strawman is, huh? Just keep whacking it, I guess.
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Jan 31, 2020 22:04
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Cup Runneth Over posted:You really don't understand what a strawman is, huh? Just keep whacking it, I guess. Try being more specific about what he is missing about your argument.
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Jan 31, 2020 22:19
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high or medium density is a way to go, but california needs to fix more: 1- it takes years to get a permit to build anything in california, even a sidewalk, while in socialist european countries that gets done in a month or two 2- for some reason everyone that lives nearby or sees it from 100 miles away can have input, delay or sue to stop and many other issues
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Jan 31, 2020 22:23
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Weembles posted:Try being more specific about what he is missing about your argument. I have, repeatedly. People in this thread, with few exceptions, aren't in favor of single family homes, and aren't against upzoning.
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Jan 31, 2020 22:24
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The serious, good faith argument that I am apparently refusing to engage with appears to be that LA loosened some zoning laws a few years ago and there are some places in the 25% of the city where you can build apartments that do not have apartments in them. Therefore, upzoning will not help with the housing crisis and spur construction of new housing, and 75% of the city being SFZ doesn’t mean anything.Celexi posted:high or medium density is a way to go, but california needs to fix more: “Community input” overwhelmingly favors older and wealthier people who can afford to take a day off work to attend a meeting in the middle of the day and shout down any effort at new housing. Get rid of it entirely. It’s like assembling a jury out of neighborhood busybodies concerned about crime and it give wealthy homeowners effective veto power over any kind of density (think of the parking!!!). Fill Baptismal fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Jan 31, 2020 |
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Jan 31, 2020 22:30
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Kill Bristol posted:The serious, good faith argument that I am apparently refusing to engage with appears to be that LA loosened some zoning laws a few years ago and there are some places in the 25% of the city where you can build apartments that do not have apartments in them. Therefore, upzoning will not help with the housing crisis and spur construction of new housing, and 75% of the city being SFZ doesn’t mean anything. You forgot to mention that if you go to downtown LA, you can see cranes. I think that's the missing piece to the argument that makes it fit together.
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Jan 31, 2020 22:35
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nrook posted:You forgot to mention that if you go to downtown LA, you can see cranes. I think that's the missing piece to the argument that makes it fit together. Developers building in wealthy areas with high rents and dense zoning and not the parts of LA where we need affordable housing(that is already full of apartments)? My word
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Jan 31, 2020 22:38
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Celexi posted:high or medium density is a way to go, but california needs to fix more: To add a few more: - The broken CEQA process that allows basically anyone to file a frivolous lawsuit to tie a project down for a few years - Impact fees. These are basically local governments arbitrarily charging developers to pay for unrelated things, to the tune of about $25k/unit on average. Examples of this would be "if you want to build your project, pay $5M to help build this road a few miles away" Of course this cost gets passed on to the occupants.
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Jan 31, 2020 22:39
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Jaxyon posted:Developers building in wealthy areas with high rents and dense zoning and not the parts of LA where we need affordable housing(that is already full of apartments)? Just be patient and the whole LA basin will be a wealthy area and then they can build wherever they want while the poors drive in from the inland empire. We would build transit out to them, but that brings gentrification, you know.
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Jan 31, 2020 22:44
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If housing shortage, why crane? Owned YIMBY. In the interest of not just shitposting, I will again recommend Jessica Trounstine’s Segregation by Design. Ryan Enos’s The Space Between Us, and Clayton Nall’s The Road to Inequality are all good deep dives on the politics of housing in America, although Enos’s book is on segregation more generally as well. tldr of all: the suburbs, they’re bad folks! But seriously they’re all good books on housing if you have an interest in the subject. Fill Baptismal fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Jan 31, 2020 |
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Jan 31, 2020 22:44
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