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joec.
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July 9, 2014 at 11:28 AM #776320July 9, 2014 at 12:12 PM #776325
Happs
Participant[quote=bearishgurl]I don’t believe that CA coastal counties (and the most desirable cities within them) HAVE A DUTY to provide “affordable housing” to renters and 1st and 2nd time homebuyers and certainly do not have a duty to provide new construction housing tracts (of all prices ranges) TO ANYONE!
The low and moderate income renter and 1st and 2nd time homebuyer can keep driving inland until they find something to live in that they can afford. If they don’t like what’s on offer after they leave the coastal zone, then move out of county or out of state.
That’s the way its always been.
The SF Peninsula is within the “coastal zone.” Whether all of its tech companies stay or move to TX tomorrow, none of its jurisdictions “have a duty” to provide any type of housing to those looking for it except what already exists. If that is a 1180 sf fixer bungalow circa 1947 with a 350 sf granny flat over the garage in back for $850K, then so be it. Prospective buyers must accept these facts or shop elsewhere.
I don’t buy that SM and SC County real estate will “crash” if their local “tech bubble” bursts. Those cities were humming along quite nicely before Big Tech moved in and and will continue to do so. There are enough VERY established residents (and diversified industries) in most of those small cities as well as a LOT of BIG money and OLD money floating around there (often one and the same) that isn’t going anywhere today, tomorrow or ever. In other words, if the Google buses are off the road, it will just clear the ATV lanes and city bus stops they were using for other drivers.
The tech industry is not the be-all and end-all. I guarantee that SV will survive if all the youngish tech nerds exited it tomorrow.[/quote]
I agree that coastal counties don’t have a duty to provide affordable housing or any housing at all for that matter. The taxpayers of Solana Beach just got a bad deal on the city Council’s unanimous approval of an affordable housing apartment complex on Sierra Ave next to the ocean. It would have been cheaper to buy existing housing stock for less and designate them low income vs paying $600,000 a unit for new construction.
Yes, ideally the government should stay out of the housing business, but will the private sector fill the gap for “affordable housing?” Suppose in the next 10 years the coastal cities from Carlsbad to Del Mar become completely upscale with $2000 a month the base rent for a 1 bedroom apartment and houses selling for $600/sq ft. Where are the proverbial fast food workers, cashiers and retail clerks in these coastal cities going to live and will they commute from 20 miles away if petrol is $10 per gallon? Going a step up, how about a veterinarian assistant or a nursing assistant? How are you going to attract them to work in Del Mar if there is no place close for them to sleep at night? I don’t see many dumpy motels along 101 between Del Mar and Carlsbad they can stay at for the night, like in Silicon Valley along El Camino Real.
July 9, 2014 at 12:31 PM #776327livinincali
Participant[quote=Happs] Where are the proverbial fast food workers, cashiers and retail clerks in these coastal cities going to live and will they commute from 20 miles away if petrol is $10 per gallon? [/quote]
At home with mom and dad.
If it’s not economical then I guess there won’t be any low wage businesses in Del mar. It then becomes a crappier place to live and prices of homes and apartments fall until it finds the proper balance. Get rid of Section 8, affordable housing and other nonsense and the free market will eventually figure it out. Rents and prices fall until it makes economical sense again.
July 9, 2014 at 1:02 PM #776329Participant[quote=livinincali][quote=Happs] Where are the proverbial fast food workers, cashiers and retail clerks in these coastal cities going to live and will they commute from 20 miles away if petrol is $10 per gallon? [/quote]
At home with mom and dad.
If it’s not economical then I guess there won’t be any low wage businesses in Del mar. It then becomes a crappier place to live and prices of homes and apartments fall until it finds the proper balance. Get rid of Section 8, affordable housing and other nonsense and the free market will eventually figure it out. Rents and prices fall until it makes economical sense again.[/quote]
My feeling is the people of Del Mar probably don’t want low wage business. Look at how upscale Del Mar, Solana Beach and to an extent Cardiff have become over the last 10 years. For me, not having affordable businesses that are often low wage ones would make it a crappier place to live, but that’s not the trend and I bet most Del Marians would shun a proliferation of low wage or low priced businesses. I am probably the 1% who would say something to the effect of “Residents of Del Mar—I love the location and natural beauty of your city and someday after working hard and saving enough money, I hope to buy the cheapest shack in your lovely hamlet. I am an upstanding citizen, but am allergic to paying full retail and high mark-ups. I drive a 15 year old Camry, buy all my clothes at thrift stores, don’t buy organic or sustainable foods, don’t own a dog, use coupons for pretty much everything I can, shop yard sales, Craigslist, eBay, etc. It would be cool for your town to have the most upscale dollar store in the country, great value dive restaurants that make a profit on huge volume, an affordable place to get a hair cut, etc. I am not materialistic and am not in competition for material goods with my neighbors. I would love to move to your hamlet. Will you welcome me?”
Yes, it’s tongue and cheek but I sadly suspect that I am in the 1%. If there is a “silent majority” out there that think like me and think that desirable cities like Del Mar and Solana Beach will become less desirable because of a lack of low wage and reasonably priced businesses, I would be elated.
City planners probably loathe people like me and push redevelopment to create more upscale areas, without regard for the pocketbook of residents and the effects of personal debt.
July 9, 2014 at 1:16 PM #776330ParticipantJust go to Aspen, CO and walk into the McDonald’s. The prices are higher and the workers aren’t making minimum wage. The free market will figure out the correct balance of number of businesses, wages, rent, and prices. It’s only when the government tries to help that you end up with imbalances and hand picked winners and losers. In many respects the single mom getting food stamps, housing assistance, tax credits, and child care making the 7.25 minimum wage is better off than the same person make $18/hr.
July 9, 2014 at 6:00 PM #776346CA renter
Participant[quote=bearishgurl]
MR bonds DO NOT PAY for ongoing municipal/county services to a development. They only pay for the initial construction of municipal/county facilities and schools which will be used by this new population. A brand new empty police substation, branch libary or school is worthless without humans to staff it.
The sole cause of this “boom-bust” cycle causing fiscal instability to many jurisdictions of this state is undoubtedly too many approved subdivisions.[/quote]
Right, but even when not taking MR or special bonds into consideration, the new housing developments almost always bring more money, per household, into the city’s coffers via regular property taxes because of Prop 13. So, if the new developments aren’t paying their way, then the old residents paying their (highly subsidized by the new taxpayers) Prop 13 taxes sure aren’t, either.
July 9, 2014 at 10:35 PM #776351bearishgurl
Participant[quote=CA renter][quote=bearishgurl]
MR bonds DO NOT PAY for ongoing municipal/county services to a development. They only pay for the initial construction of municipal/county facilities and schools which will be used by this new population. A brand new empty police substation, branch libary or school is worthless without humans to staff it.
The sole cause of this “boom-bust” cycle causing fiscal instability to many jurisdictions of this state is undoubtedly too many approved subdivisions.[/quote]
Right, but even when not taking MR or special bonds into consideration, the new housing developments almost always bring more money, per household, into the city’s coffers via regular property taxes because of Prop 13. So, if the new developments aren’t paying their way, then the old residents paying their (highly subsidized by the new taxpayers) Prop 13 taxes sure aren’t, either.[/quote]
I agree that a large portion of CA’s established homeowners are getting HUGE (up to 90%) discounts on their property taxes. But as a case in point, I CAN tell you that before the City of Chula Vista annexed 3 more zip codes (91913, 91914, and 91915), one after the other, causing it to grow from a population of 52K in 1986 to its 277K people today, it (and its residents) were much better off. It had a small govm’t that was “right-sized” for 52K people and all its blocks were regularly taken care of and a couple of small uninc pockets (180-200 people) were quietly folded into 91911 and subsequently got sidewalks and storm drains. One could drive from the South County courthouse to the dtn SD courthouse (12 mi) in 12-15 min during “rush hour” even though the SR-54 did not exist at that time. Now it takes 23-38 mins to get to dtn SD from dtn CV during rush hr and nearly one hour from the far reaches of 91915. There is a 9.5 to 10 month wait for a tree trimmer after you get your name on a list and police officers are choosy about what types of events they’ll respond to even though there are at least 4X as many of them than in 1986. The fees at the municipal dump are 10x what they were back then and the permitting fees are 4-5x as much. In addition, traffic on some Chula Vista east-west surface streets in the older areas has increased 20-fold due to commuters from the newer areas driving through the older areas to catch the “free” freeways because “their” fwy (the SR-125) is a (pricey) toll road and they feel they’re already “fee’d to death.” This was after CalTrans opened up these residential thoroughfares to go over or under I-805 in recent years. Naturally, the affected residents were livid but lost to CalTrans and their fleet of taxpayer-funded in-house attorneys who were at the behest of Big Development whose palms were undoubtedly being simultaneously greased by City officials.
Chula Vista is but a microcosm of any established city in the state where their leaders elected to sell out to Big Development, letting them run amok over all our land, cutting off the top of every single hill they could get their grubby hands on and putting up crap shacks (mostly 6-8 feet apart mixed with various types of multifamily dwellings). There are so many cars parked on some of the (newer) narrow streets in CV that only one vehicle can get through at a time while oncoming vehicles have to wait until it passes before proceeding. Most of these developers “substandardized” absolutely everything in order to cram the most units they could on one acre. All this happened under the “watchful eye” of City Planning (looking the other way while holding their hands out for campaign donations for their favorite cronies).
I could go on, but suffice to say that the presence of the newer residents has greatly affected the quality of life of the more established residents … all to their detriment.
Why was there a need to develop at all? We didn’t need more residents and bigger gubment in the first place. The established residents already had everything they needed and the city was just fine the way it was and was never in danger of “laying off” or failing to provide needed services as it has been in recent years.
If San Diego County had imposed a residential building moratorium in say, 1992, along with all of its cities (excepting remodel, granting variances under certain conditions and spec and infill construction), then our property values would be much higher than they are (maybe not as high as SV, due to lack of industry, but certainly higher than they are now). Since 1987, when Chula Vista debuted the first CFDs formed in the county, I truly believe that the new housing tracts which have sprung up since then have lured over one million newcomers to the area who otherwise wouldn’t have moved here if they had to rent or purchase existing housing to live in. So goes the phrase, “Build them and they will come.”
But SD County really didn’t need all these new people in the first place!
If newcomers really WANTED to live in a SD County and there was no new construction, they would have rented or bought an existing property, just as those newcomers do who really WANT to be in SF OR SV.
As I’ve stated here before, I don’t believe it is the gubment’s job to build affordable housing, guarantee affordable housing, offer affordable housing (yes, even the military), distribute housing vouchers, etc in a CA coastal county and certainly not in a “coastal zone” (~8 miles from the coast). It is not their “duty” to do so and low and moderate income people shouldn’t even expect to be able to live there.
I saw the question here, “Where would all the service workers live?” In SD County, they would live in an unpermitted granny flat, garage apt, mom and/or dad’s back bdrm, Tijuana, or out of the coastal zone in a cheaper area, as they always have.
I personally have never patronized Walmart, dollar stores, fast food restaurants, etc and could care less if they all go away. The Marin county cities of Tiburon, Sausalito and Mill Valley have never permitted franchises of any kind including fast food and drive thru restaurants. Big box stores are banned as well as chain grocery stores and dept stores. Business signage is limited to 20 feet and billboards are forbidden. As such, the environment there is absolutely pristine and its property values are a testament to that. The same type of restrictions are prevalent in several other northern CA coastal cities and towns, including several in the wine country and that’s the way the local residents like it. In addition, all these areas have residential building moratoriums and ample open space and that is never going to change. There is little industry in any of these small cities and no one cares, nor are any of them in any danger of filing for BK protection.
So many of the “Golden State’s” leaders have sold their constituencies down the river in the name of “adding population” (in effort to increase their own perceived “power”) that its golden sheen wore off long ago, especially in SoCal. It’s disgusting to me to see the quality of life here deteriorate the way it has … mostly through the added “daily hassle factor.” I’ve lived in Cali nearly all my life and can well afford to “retire in place” but am seriously giving thought to trying out another locale, at least for 1-2 years (for comparison purposes).
July 9, 2014 at 10:57 PM #776352Participant[quote=livinincali]Just go to Aspen, CO and walk into the McDonald’s. The prices are higher and the workers aren’t making minimum wage. The free market will figure out the correct balance of number of businesses, wages, rent, and prices. It’s only when the government tries to help that you end up with imbalances and hand picked winners and losers. In many respects the single mom getting food stamps, housing assistance, tax credits, and child care making the 7.25 minimum wage is better off than the same person make $18/hr.[/quote]
Correct … and the median sales price for a resale living unit in Aspen (SFRs + condos but there are a LOT more condos there) was $1,071,675 and the average PPSF was $865 for Apr to July 2014. The average listing price there as of 7/2/14 was $4.44M.
http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Aspen-Colorado/market-trends/
There are actually thousands of service workers who live in Aspen both year-round and seasonally. The vast majority of these seasonal workers (ski season) are put up in condos (4 workers to one unit) owned by their employers as part of their wage pkg. Many of the year-round workers who don’t live with relatives live in nearby towns which are much cheaper to live in. Aspen is a great example of “letting the market find its way,” livincali!
July 10, 2014 at 6:58 AM #776356UCGal
ParticipantNIMBYism on steroids.
You state that Chula Vista residents didn’t want newcomers, new development. But there has been new housing built everywhere in the county, traffic has been impacted everywhere in the county.
Back on the topic of silicon valley prices… Friends moved up there last year when he left Qcom for Goog. They sold their paid off Carmel Valley 4Ksf home for well over $1M. They are renting a 1600sf beater house in Palo Alto for almost $4k/month. They are having no luck finding a house for $2.5M or less in Palo Alto.
The increased google salary was not enough to compensate for the HUGE increase in housing costs.
July 10, 2014 at 8:31 AM #776362Participant[quote=UCGal]NIMBYism on steroids.
You state that Chula Vista residents didn’t want newcomers, new development. But there has been new housing built everywhere in the county, traffic has been impacted everywhere in the county.
Back on the topic of silicon valley prices… Friends moved up there last year when he left Qcom for Goog. They sold their paid off Carmel Valley 4Ksf home for well over $1M. They are renting a 1600sf beater house in Palo Alto for almost $4k/month. They are having no luck finding a house for $2.5M or less in Palo Alto.
The increased google salary was not enough to compensate for the HUGE increase in housing costs.[/quote]
Palo Alto is one of the most expensive cities in SV. Why is it that your friends need to live there? There are many other cities in SV which are in the same league as the Carmel Valley (SD) that they left. Palo Alto is not. It’s several notches above Carmel Valley, so IMO, based upon your post, your friends’ housing sights are set too high for their resources and budget.
Let me ask you something, UCGal. Does your beloved hometown of UC (SD) now have over 5x the population it did in 1986? Has SD increased the density there 500% (multifamily units) since 1986? And if your hometown had turned into what Chula Vista has, would you have moved back to it? And last question, have you ever driven down to Chula Vista (91914/91915) to see exactly what I was discussing here?
I’m aware that the UTC area (adjacent to UC but different zip code) is nearly all multifamily units but a large portion of those units were built prior to 1986. Several large complexes there have oversized garages and alleys easy to turn and park in one’s garage. In addition, those older complexes are built exponentially better than the typical crap shack built in Otay Ranch in recent years and the streets in UTC are wide and easily navigable.
And btw, NIMBYism is legal, whether “on steroids” . . . or not. I believe CA coastal counties should be preserved at all costs … at least the 1st and 2nd tier coastal zones of them (1st 8-20 miles from the coast, depending on topography). As you know, they’re among the finest parts of the country to live in. A low or moderate income family should not be guaranteed a “cushy life” in one of them or any life at all for that matter. They should be reserved for those who have paid their dues or have the resources to live comfortably in them.
July 10, 2014 at 10:25 AM #776364
CoronitaParticipant[quote=UCGal]NIMBYism on steroids.
You state that Chula Vista residents didn’t want newcomers, new development. But there has been new housing built everywhere in the county, traffic has been impacted everywhere in the county.
Back on the topic of silicon valley prices… Friends moved up there last year when he left Qcom for Goog. They sold their paid off Carmel Valley 4Ksf home for well over $1M. They are renting a 1600sf beater house in Palo Alto for almost $4k/month. They are having no luck finding a house for $2.5M or less in Palo Alto.
The increased google salary was not enough to compensate for the HUGE increase in housing costs.[/quote]
Lol. My friends that left for apple and google did the same thing…
And the funny part is the recruiters keep calling me and asking if I want to join them. I keep telling them, sure as soon as they open an office in San Diego.. I figure if I say it enough times, they might do it… and if they do, I’ll be sort of laughing that I didn’t need to relocate.
July 10, 2014 at 10:35 AM #776365The-Shoveler
ParticipantThey got an office in Irvine, Heck that would actually work for me LOL.
July 10, 2014 at 10:49 AM #776367an
Participant[quote=bearishgurl]Palo Alto is one of the most expensive cities in SV. Why is it that your friends need to live there? There are many other cities in SV which are in the same league as the Carmel Valley (SD) that they left. Palo Alto is not. It’s several notches above Carmel Valley, so IMO, based upon your post, your friends’ housing sights are set too high for their resources and budget.[/quote]LOL, I don’t know how else to respond to this.
[quote=bearishgurl]Let me ask you something, UCGal. Does your beloved hometown of UC (SD) now have over 5x the population it did in 1986? Has SD increased the density there 500% (multifamily units) since 1986? [/quote]Don’t you see all of those condos/apartments popping in UTC?
[quote=bearishgurl]I’m aware that the UTC area (adjacent to UC but different zip code) is nearly all multifamily units but a large portion of those units were built prior to 1986. Several large complexes there have oversized garages and alleys easy to turn and park in one’s garage. In addition, those older complexes are built exponentially better than the typical crap shack built in Otay Ranch in recent years and the streets in UTC are wide and easily navigable. [/quote]WTF? They’re both 92122. What are you talking about?
[quote=bearishgurl]And btw, NIMBYism is legal, whether “on steroids” . . . or not. I believe CA coastal counties should be preserved at all costs … at least the 1st and 2nd tier coastal zones of them (1st 8-20 miles from the coast, depending on topography). As you know, they’re among the finest parts of the country to live in. A low or moderate income family should not be guaranteed a “cushy life” in one of them or any life at all for that matter. They should be reserved for those who have paid their dues or have the resources to live comfortably in them.[/quote]LOL, NIMBYism at its finest. Guess what, as population grows, city needs to grow and get more dense. Deal with it or move.
July 10, 2014 at 10:54 AM #776368Participant[quote=UCGal]Back on the topic of silicon valley prices… Friends moved up there last year when he left Qcom for Goog. They sold their paid off Carmel Valley 4Ksf home for well over $1M. They are renting a 1600sf beater house in Palo Alto for almost $4k/month. They are having no luck finding a house for $2.5M or less in Palo Alto.
The increased google salary was not enough to compensate for the HUGE increase in housing costs.[/quote]This is why I’m still in SD and completely rule out the bay area as a possible relocation spot, unless something change (either income there has to go up EVEN MORE, say 50% more, or housing has to decrease). A year ago, as I was pondering moving up there, I ran the numbers and look at housing cost for comparable areas (for me, it’s distance to work and school). For anything that have the distance to work and school like Mira Mesa, you’re look at 2x the price. The salary was higher @ ~25-35%, but with that higher W-2 income, you’ll be paying more taxes, and potentially losing out on some government perks for making less $, so to me, the income increase turn out to be only ~10-15%. There’s no way the number work out.
July 10, 2014 at 11:06 AM #776369CoronitaParticipant[quote=The-Shoveler]They got an office in Irvine, Heck that would actually work for me LOL.[/quote]
I tried the commute since I have to go there sometimes. It sucks, even from north county. especially on a friday..
Google did indicate they have a commuter van from San Diego to Irvine. I guess you can also take the coaster.
Amazon is up there too.
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