A place like SF DOES have new construction but it is scarce infill lot by lot. In some lesser-expensive areas (such as near SFSU), builders have purchased adjacent lots (probably not all at the same time) and built student-type apartments (at the time of apt building, the dorms on campus were 50-60 years old with small rooms and 1-2 shared bathrooms per floor). They have also renovated 50’s and 60’s era apt buildings.
The mass bulldozing and “imminent domain” will never happen in older, close in areas (unless a fwy is being build thru it). I don’t think there are any more fwys proposed for the urban areas of SD in the county’s plan.
Many parcels in older CA urban areas have Prop 13 protection on their tax bills and so as their owners die or move to assisted-living, their children will take title to them. It doesn’t matter if they want to live in mom/dad’s old home or not. A large fraction of these “heirs” will rent the property out indefinitely or rent or “sell” it to one of the heirs in order to maintain the Prop 13 tax protection (currently abt $380 to $1800 annual tax).
In order for a builder to “bulldoze” a large enough swath of land to build a subdivision in an existing urban area, he needs to buy up all the parcels within it. This would be too cost-prohibitive with buildings already on them. He would have to charge more than the market would bear for each parcel (due to the surrounding area) in a place like Clairemont (SD) in order to make it worth his while to build. In addition, he would have to build on the current 6000-10,000+ lot sizes already there which were subdivided in the 50’s so he couldn’t get enough units on the property to make building profitable today.
If the (infill) builder chose to file a new subdivision map to increase the density, he would have to notify every property owner within 300 feet of the parcels’ boundaries while the map was being considered by the City. In addition, he would have to send all these owners renderings of the models he was proposing to build. After viewing the proposed crackerboxes and sub-5000 sf lots, the notified existing owners (both residential and landlords) would have a field day with him down at the City and force him into a hearing, which he would LOSE.
Even if the builder came up with a palatable lot size and model that the neighbors would accept, it would cost him a minimum of $20K to subdivide EACH *new* parcel and another $20K for EACH *new* subdivision map, due to engineering, survey and City/County fees.
That is why you will only see an occasional infill *new* house here and there in older CA coastal areas. In fact, the vast majority of these *new* infill spec houses aren’t technically *new* but are built on most or all of the original foundation and utilizing at least the frame one of the original walls (usually the wall with utility meters attached).
Too many hurdles, not enough money and not being able to sell the infill subdivision for enough money to make it worth his while would cause a builder to nix this idea quickly.
