[quote=Myriad][quote=bearishgurl][quote=Myriad]
Scott’s quote said he “would like” to stay near family. No where does he say he expects or should.
I think Scott makes a valid point about SF. Just because no new housing is built doesn’t mean people don’t move in. Prices just go up for long time residents, locals, seniors, new residents, etc.
Then people want rent control which is entirely the wrong answer. The correct answer is to build more supply.
It probably won’t be SFR, but it makes sense to build more dense multi-family with good mass transit options. Just look at Asia, where many shopping areas, and restaurants, have residential mixed in.
The problem with not doing anything is that eventually prices become extremely expensive for both renters and owners, and traffic becomes terrible. So yeah, people that are still here have their homes, but the overall society is worse.[/quote]
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Rent-controlled tenants have more stringent protections than do market-rate tenants under their municipal code.
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There is no other place on earth just like it and certainly no other city compares to it in the US.
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This time-consuming procedure of getting homeowner input and going through multiple public hearings to listen to community testimony could increase the permit time from 1.5 years to as much as 4 years for a typical 1-4 unit dwelling. Completing the permitting process for a high-rise residential project in SF could take up to 15 yrs, depending on the amount of surrounding neighbors, the district and what is proposed to be built.
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Asia (China?) has many grossly OVERbuilt cities and its planning was virtually non-existent with horrific consequences … including fouling their own air to the point that city residents and workers wear face masks just to walk to/from work to the train and do their errands.
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OTOH, San Franciscans, like longtime residents of many other CA coastal communities, don’t want more density in their districts.
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The streets are too steep and the lots too narrow, in many cases, to build parking garages under the living units.
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Well not surprisingly, BG provides a close-minded, negative, and unnecessarily verbose answer.
On rent control – Actually I have no idea where your response came from. I wasn’t saying that existing renters with rent-controlled apartments will get kicked out. But now that you brought it up, the problem of rent-controlled is that it artificially reduces supply (basic supply/demand economics) and is biased against new residents (also may impact individual economic mobility for existing rent-controlled residents).
On SF being unique in the world – That’s obvious, but also completely pointless. The same thing can be said about any tier 1 city (HK, London, Paris, NYC, etc).
SF permitting – I’ll take your word on the details. But the permit process is why housing is so expensive in SF. http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-novel-move-to-expand-housing-in-san-francisco-1469578675
“Grappling with a housing shortage that has sent rents soaring 50% since the recession, city officials on Tuesday passed legislation allowing landlords to carve fresh apartments out of underutilized spaces, including storage areas and utility rooms.”
On Asia – I didn’t specify China. Have you actually traveled to any major Asian city in the last 5 years? Ever?
I’m not going to talk about the air/water/land quality in China. What the topic discussed was the integration of commerical/residential/mass transit. People don’t drive cars everywhere and are able to live peacefully though in a more dense population. Not every country is blessed with the wealth, space, and resources of the US. But, the urban planning is something that should be studied and the parts that work, we in the US should learn from.
The streets are too steep and the lots too narrow, in many cases, to build parking garages under the living units.
LOL, nothing in SF is too steep and narrow. Look at anything on Hong Kong Island.
BG, I encourage you to visit Hong Kong, Tokyo, Bangkok, and even Shanghai to gain some perspective.[/quote]Myriad, here is my reply to your verbose reply to my post.
SF already has plenty of different kinds of public transportation. When I was riding it there 2 years ago, it cost only $2.50 per day to ride every type in any direction all day. Yes, SF traffic IS terrible (I’ve driven in it many times) but its residents don’t care. SF has the cheapest and most varied public transportation in the nation. Residents don’t need to own a vehicle. Street parking there can be a hassle and most residents don’t have garages. And public parking lots and parking garages are very expensive.
SF is earthquake prone. They will not allow the 40+ story high rises that exist in Asia. SF’s new code creating apartments out of unused space would likely be ground floor units created from remodeled 1 or 2 car (tandem) garages which a lot of LL’s seem to use for storage. Some of the bldgs with 8-12 units were also built with boiler rooms, either on the ground floor or partly underground on a sloping lot. If the HVAC in the bldg has been upgraded over the years, the former boiler room might be able to be converted into an apt.
Rent control in SF is not going away. Those who are lucky enough to have it don’t care about mobility. They will live there until they die and by the time they become frail, they will have moved in one or more relatives to assist them and have them put on the lease so that when they pass on, their relatives will have permanent rent control . . . which follows the UNIT in SF, not the tenant.
Whether SF has a population of 300K or 900K (about its max capacity), life will go on and it will be okay (barring a major earthquake). It doesn’t matter whether ANY CA coastal counties approve even one more subdivision or infill project. They will all be okay just like they are. Their economies won’t crater just because they stopped building due to reaching their capacity in population (to ensure a good quality for life for their existing residents and the cities/counties’ ability to properly service their populations). Coastal county dwellers will move out of their homes (just like they do today) and replacement people will move in to take their places. The replacement people might move in from out of county or from a dwelling just down the street but this won’t cause the population to change. SF doesn’t owe newcomers a particular kind of housing at an “affordable” price (whatever “affordable” means to each of them).
The CA coast and its natural resources should be preserved. There is only ONE in our country and it was never meant to house everyone who wants to live there but at present, newcomers still can find housing, even if every coastal county ceases to approve any more subdivision or infill permits today. Newcomers must take the available housing that is on offer and there will always be people moving, thereby creating vacant living units. We don’t owe them anything else.
Why do you think Americans should live as dense as Asians do in the cities you mentioned above? I don’t need any “perspective.” I’ve seen more than I cared to just from “armchair surfing.” I have no desire to see it (and breathe it) up close and personal. I don’t believe that level of density offers any kind of quality of life to its inhabitants. Witness Chinese workers wearing masks all or part of every workday they spend in the city … and every day if they live there. That environment can’t be good for anyone and US cities should NOT aspire to follow Asia’s lead in creating “density” as it wasn’t smart. It was stupid and short sighted and their citizens pay the price every single day.
The land mass of the US is only 1% larger than that of China’s yet they have 373 people per square mile and we have 90.6 people per square mile. Go figure. How is this America’s problem? The US preserved its National, state and county parkland into perpetuity. The fact that China grossly OVERbuilt their large cities and left entire streets of high rises and factories half built and unfinished, rusting in the elements and decimated their environments in their big cities by polluting the h@ll out of them is also not our problem. They had the open space but their leaders effed it up by overbuilding hundreds of behemoth unneeded structures. They obviously didn’t have any building codes and little, if any zoning laws, they didn’t plan properly and their cities with heavy industry turned into stinking h@llholes in just 15-20 years. Why do you think so many Chinese citizens want to come to the US and buy residential real estate?
And yes, I’ve been to the Philippines, Guam, the NMI and the Carolines but that was nearly 30 years ago. The islands I was on were for the most part more rural than any Pacific coast towns or cities I’ve been to in the US, including HI. Except for one small village on Guam (Tumon, which had a handful of low-rise hotels), they were bucolic, low density paradises because they DIDN’T build and ruin their environments.
As it should be.
All the Piggs who want to see “Asian-style” density in the US are welcome to move to the Asian city of their choice. I won’t try to stop you :=]
