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    JohnThorntonHamilton Nolan
    5/23/16 9:29am

    Responding to the tech bubble by building new housing is also piss poor planning.

    Edit: or for that matter almost anything.

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      NJRedmanJohnThornton
      5/23/16 9:32am

      Whats your idea then? At least HamNo is throwing something out there.

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      swedeandsourJohnThornton
      5/23/16 9:35am

      The entire point of the article was that SF has needed new housing since the 1960s, and that the rents at their current rates are explicitly not because of the tech bubble.

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    mmsfcHamilton Nolan
    5/23/16 12:19pm

    If high density made housing affordable Manhattan, Tokyo, and London would be inexpensive.

    Articles like this are filled with misinformation and entirely based on abstractions. They should be meaningless, instead everyone jumps all over the buzz words of “NIMBY” and “high density” and “affordable housing” as if those things have a clear definition. It’s easy to make judgments when you’re far away and those judgements suit what you want to be true.

    There is no way to build enough housing for the 30,000 people who come to San Francisco every year imagining they’re going to be rich. Simply can’t be done. What is being built quickly are small on bedroom units that will not house a family, so the entire economy is built on the premise of a never ending supply of young, already well off fools.

    In San Francisco “affordable housing” is 20% below market level. The median home price is $1.4 million. This has allowed multi-millionaires to avoid discretionary review by declaring their monster home “affordable” because it was technically sold for under market value. Now I’m sure these are paper transfers, but there’s no way to prove it.

    As to “high density,” first of all, how little light do you want on your streets? What kind of life do you want to have? Manhattan isn’t a success story and that idea destroys the thing people come to San Francisco for, walkability, social mores, and neighborhoods.

    Right now there is no sunlight in downtown San Francisco streets. At night and on weekends, despite the massive number of high rise buildings, the place is deserted. Because the numbers don’t work unless it’s all residential, there are no ground floor shops, not even a grocery store, for miles. Those that do exist serve commuters and office workers on weekdays and are closed by 6pm.

    More to the point, California is an arid state, meaning it goes through long dry spells. Thanks to global warming, and decisions made in the 1930s to bring more people into the state, we don’t have enough water for the too many people in California right now. Now we have permanent water restrictions and climatologists say that the state will only get more arid over the next ten years. It doesn’t matter how efficient you are with your water because there’s no water.

    There’s no funding for repairing or revitalizing the crashing infrastructure it would take to serve those here now. Where will the money come from? It’s costing almost $2 billion for a short subway that will have operating costs of almost $7 million/year. Our sales tax is 8.5% now and would have to go to 17% just to fund public transportation.

    You know what those awful NIMBYs have done? Tried to stop the wholesale giveaway of public land to private corporations in exchange for them removing the low income residents; tried to get Airbnb to reveal how many of their units were really owner occupied and how many were simply apartments that should have been on the rental market (we think it’s taken 3000-10,000+ units are off the market); insisted that parks be required to have sunlight and that “public plazas” inside housing developments are not considered public parks; fought for money for Parks & Rec when the budget was cut to accommodate the tax breaks given to large companies.

    NIMBYs, always the enemy until you need them to help you fight for something humane, reasonable, and kind.

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      IHaveThoughts Thinks 2016 Has No Chillmmsfc
      5/23/16 12:57pm

      I wish people would look at San Francisco, NYC, Boston, etc and realize that the lesson isn’t necessarily “build more” but “we need better inter-city planning.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but if you work in New York, you can conceivably live in two other states (New Jersey or Connecticut) and make that commute on the daily. Part of the reason for that is that there are solid transportation options. Trains, subways, etc. What a lot of East Coasters fail to realize about the West Coast is that “living elsewhere” is not nearly as easy an option as it seems. First of all, you have significantly more natural features to deal with. Water and mountains are major components of what makes it significantly more difficult to link up cities.

      I also completely agree with you that there needs to be some eye towards maintaining a livable city and that some of the problems lie with the type of housing stock available. In my city they’ll tear down a few houses and either build a block of efficiency apartments (clocking in at 250-300 sq ft and really not suitable for more than one person) or they’ll build high-end apartments that constrict the mid-level housing stock. I think if they’re going to try a plan like this it shouldn’t necessarily skip the planning review process, but perhaps it could go through a fast-tracked process, and that process should be triggered not if the housing is affordable in relativity to the existing housing stock but rather if the housing is affordable in relativity to the median income in the city.

      As for parks versus housing, I think there has to be a balance. For example the mayor in Seattle is constantly trying to build new parks and “parklets” and while it’s lovely to have such a verdant city, it’s also infuriating when they want to put parks five blocks away from each other in some of the most desirable housing areas in the city. I also think it’s insane to be cutting on-street parking to build “parklets” that are the size of a parking space. I’m not even kidding about that last one. We have to accept that there has to be some increase in density, but I don’t think it’s at all ridiculous to insist that it be done in a way that we don’t end up with a dystopian-looking city.

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      bourbon.p.millermmsfc
      5/23/16 1:40pm

      As a Coloradan, whose water surplus ends up in California, I can’t star this enough. Bottom line, the Bay Area, like Phoenix, doesn’t have the resources to sustain more density. What we need is for resource-rich places like Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, etc to invest in development and STEM programs to encourage companies to relocate there (and for their awful governments that have failed to do so the past 20+ years to kick rocks).

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    ArkHamilton Nolan
    5/23/16 10:02am

    Not everyone has to be able to live in the sexiest, trendyist cities. The city has a limited amount of room. Everyone wants to live there. Everyone can’t live there, therefore living there gets more expensive.

    So we bulldoze all the parks and slap up project towers full of affordable housing. What happens then? Fuckin’ rents still go up because it’s a city with a limited amount of room and everyone wants to live there. Except now it’s a city with a bunch of project towers instead of parks.

    You’re just not entitled to live in the trendyist city when your earning potential is limited to 30 hours a week at McDonalds or Starbucks. Sorry. Live somewhere else.

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      TotoroRecallArk
      5/23/16 10:13am

      so...who’s going to be able to work at the McDonalds and Starbucks, then?

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      WhitcombrileyArk
      5/23/16 10:14am

      Hamilton has never been too good with the supply and demand stuff. He’s also part of the crowd that thinks gentrifiers are the people who moved into your affordable neighborhood right after you moved in there.

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    DerpyDoodleHamilton Nolan
    5/23/16 10:54am

    “(Disclaimer: fuck tech millionaires, though, in general.)“

    Cool story bro . . Yet, I bet you use just might use of the tech that some of us created in the 80's and 90's on occasion . . Maybe you should have chosen Engineering, like some of us did, and you wouldn’t be a jealousbitch?

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      Hamilton NolanDerpyDoodle
      5/23/16 11:34am

      Thanks, DerpyDoodle.

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      Lil TuffyDerpyDoodle
      5/23/16 12:26pm

      Yes, everyone should be an engineer. That would solve all of our problems.

      Except that is what is happening in San Francisco and now anyone who isn’t an engineer (or comparable pay-grade) is being forced out. Who will make your burrito? Who will mix your cocktail? Who will launder your clothes? Who will coddle your fragile ego when there’s no one left for you to feel superior than?

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    Sid and FinancyHamilton Nolan
    5/23/16 9:30am

    So, literally build new housing in the backyards of NIMBYs? Brilliant.

    I love me some Jerry Brown. Should have been President in 1992 (or ‘76, for that matter, when he essentially beat Carter in every primary in which he competed).

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      LangostaSid and Financy
      5/23/16 9:38am

      A new law that allows government to collude with developers and do whatever they want despite the wishes of the electorate............what could possibly go wrong?

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      FilthySunsetSid and Financy
      5/23/16 9:38am

      As long as they build up and not out then it’s fine. If they just mimic sun belt urban sprawl it’ll turn the region into an unliveable disaster and the habitat loss and resource strains will be unmanageable for generations.

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    Cam/ronHamilton Nolan
    5/23/16 9:39am

    Good luck building 200K housing units in a 46-square mile city that’s 18 percent parkland and is loaded with protected historical sites.

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      mehtasticCam/ron
      5/23/16 9:45am

      Meh. They’ve got subways in Rome. It’s bound to be easier to build up in SF than that.

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      Ed SpockCam/ron
      5/23/16 9:59am

      Don’t try and inject your fancy “math” and “statistics” into this discussion.

      Just build 200k housing units. Problem solved.

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    crayoneaterHamilton Nolan
    5/23/16 9:46am

    I was just looking at the neighborhood association map for Philadelphia (since many of them have the ability to block developers from building outside of current code - which is often behind the neighborhood’s growth)... .

    Here’s a shot of Manayunk (an outer section of the city)... Those pink lines are boarders of the community organizations registered with the city... look at the overlap and redundancy! One section has three RCOs covering it.

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      crayoneatercrayoneater
      5/23/16 9:47am

      Whoa big picture! Sorry about that!

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      c'est-a-direcrayoneater
      5/23/16 11:26am

      Do you have a link? I’m curious now what my NW Philly neighborhood looks like...

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    ottermannHamilton Nolan
    5/23/16 1:05pm

    How about this for an idea:

    When you take your idea and make it into a product and it’s time to move your business out of the garage and into the real world with actual employees, take it somewhere affordable. Minneapolis is a good example. Rents are reasonable, there’s plenty to attract talent. And since new startups are fond of giving employees wacky perks, have the company pay for a driveway plowing service for all workers.

    I honestly don’t understand why tech companies feel the need to be located in the same general area. Especially nowadays with all the collaboration tools out there. Is it worth forcing your employees to pay exorbitant housing costs just to be in the Bay area?

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      bourbon.p.millerottermann
      5/23/16 1:44pm

      My family moved to Austin in the 1970's when Austin started positioning itself as an alternative to Silicon Valley. The past 40 years have proven this was a good move on Austin’s part- it only takes a few anchor companies (e.g. Texas Instruments, Motorola, Dell) to start a movement. MN or WI or MI are all in need of economic boosts and have the airport infrastructure to support commuter traffic to SF.

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      I Keep Forgetting My Keyottermann
      5/23/16 2:59pm

      People who don’t work in tech vastly overstate the importance and effectiveness of online collaboration tools. I work for a virtual organization, but I earn less as a result and the people I work for also have costs.

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    PopChipsHamilton Nolan
    5/23/16 9:48am

    This isn’t a drastic measure and local review isn’t really blocked. The builders must still conform to the General Plan and to zoning requirements. Additionally, the cities still have 90 days to do design review before approving the project. My city will be adopting a formal resolution to endorse this law at its next meeting.

    Bypassing CEQA is a big benefit.

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      WHOLESICKCREWPopChips
      5/23/16 12:02pm

      I don’t know what town you live in, but avoiding CEQA is a huge development and pretty drastic. The cities have 90 days to complete design review or it is automatically approved, so unless they staff up their design review, a lot of crap will be approved by default. This will cut environmental review from 1-2 years down to 90 days, and will eliminate all risk of litigation (the major problem with CEQA). Of course your city staff and officials want it, they want to build and increase the tax base. Its the rest of the property owners who will fear the impacts of on their quality of life who are being locked out of the process here.

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      PopChipsWHOLESICKCREW
      5/23/16 12:10pm

      In terms of design review, our city is implementing a “strike team” for these developments.

      This law is quite manageable & nothing to fear. Concerned residents have the voting power to elect city officials who will maximize the upside and minimize the downside to their community.

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    tito_swinefluHamilton Nolan
    5/23/16 10:06am

    One big problem is that San Francisco is one (smallish) part of the larger Bay Area. Everyone wants to live in SF, because it has the amenities. Like everywhere, people are moving back into city centers because they’ve realized that there are a lot of benefits (and the cities have done a really great job at removing minorities from the core).

    However, in SF, the people who live in the city may very well work in Mountain View, Palo Alto or Menlo Park. Those cities have millions of square feet of office space, but are never going to build more housing.

    This is not to say that SF doesn’t need to build up, but it’s like saying NY has a housing crunch and only Staten Island should build more housing.

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