Land for Mcmansions- are we running out?

[outtamojo]

Here is a link to video from JTR – guy from Davidson pulls out a map and says SD is running out of land for master planned stuff if I understood correctly. http://www.bubbleinfo.com/2012/04/24/bill-davidson/#comments

[ocrenter]

well, more specifically, we are running out of land within close proximity to jobs.

He pointed to downtown, I15 and I5 corridors, and Carlsbad as the centers for jobs here in the county. And basically all of the vacant land in areas surrounding these centers are spoken for.

I must say Pardee had a lot of foresight 50 years ago to buy up and keep so much what is now prime real estate within the 56 corridor.

[The-Shoveler]

There is plenty of land especially in North county, they just don’t want YOU living on it!!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303302504577323353434618474.html
Job centers change, once far off bedroom communities become new hi Tech Job centers all the time.
Irvine, Valencia, Carlsbad, ….. Next !!

I could add Simi Valley, Arcadia, even Ausaz & Chino hills these days, all it takes is a few enginerds and some office space.

[SD Realtor]

Well I heard Simi Valley/Chatsworth is the industrial center for a multi billion dollar industry right now….

[an]

[quote=The-Shoveler]There is plenty of land especially in North county, they just don’t want YOU living on it!!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303302504577323353434618474.html
Job centers change, once far off bedroom communities become new hi Tech Job centers all the time.
Irvine, Valencia, Carlsbad, ….. Next !!

I could add Simi Valley, Arcadia, even Ausaz & Chino hills these days, all it takes is a few enginerds and some office space.[/quote]
What good is all of that land if you can’t build on it? Key word is buildable land, not just land in general. If it can take 10+ years for a school to be built on a piece of land that was designated as a school. I’m not holding my breath for these land to be buildable in the future.

[The-Shoveler]

Simi Valley has a lot of biotech spin offs from Amgen (as well as the movie industry, yea I get it).
There are quite a few Communications and computer industry start-ups there as well (and westlake area).

Buildable is being redefined these days but when I look at the large track of vacant mostly flat or small hill along the 76 and east of the 15 along the 78, there is a lot of room L.A. would die to have.
Look at the large home tack planned along the I15 near dear springs road and tell me that would be easier to build on than the land along the 76. (I think that has 2500 homes in the plan community in those hills).

Laugh if you want but wait 20 years and we will talk of this again.

[an]

I’ll believe it when I see it. If it’s not on the table today, I highly doubt we’ll see anything building there in 20 years. Like I said, if it takes 10+ years to build a school on a site that was flatten out and designated for a school, I’m not holding my breath for new development being build on land that currently are not designated for development. BTW, the area you’re talking about is only ~15 minutes away from Temecula. I’m sure we’ll see more development in Temecula than this area.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=The-Shoveler]There is plenty of land especially in North county, they just don’t want YOU living on it!!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303302504577323353434618474.html
Job centers change, once far off bedroom communities become new hi Tech Job centers all the time.
Irvine, Valencia, Carlsbad, ….. Next !!

I could add Simi Valley, Arcadia, even Ausaz & Chino hills these days, all it takes is a few enginerds and some office space.[/quote]

I read Cox’ article, above. He’s been around a long time but has it all wrong, IMO. He seems to think that people will want to forever commute from further and further out of job centers to their employers (assuming any land is even available for development outside of the fringes).

I realize that reducing greenhouse gases (and even water usage) is a priority among CA regional public officials but I don’t think they are actually wanting to build “massive high-rises” or “30 units per AC” in the entirety of CA’s urban cores. In many, many of these coastal urban cities, the people who bought into some of these “enclaves” inside or adjacent to an “urban core” over the last six decades did so for the express reason of its “downzoned” status and that no apts/condos would ever be built there. 92106, 92118 and 92037 are examples in SD County where multifamily units are highly segregated from SFR neighborhoods by wide commercial thoroughfares. There would be much too much opposition from residents in these areas who paid a lot of money and spent a lot of money on their properties to get any hairbrained idea such as this to even make it on a ballot.

In SD, I could see massive upzoning happening along SD’s commercial thoroughfares such as EC Blvd and University Ave but I don’t see it happening along side streets which are not thoroughfares. Scattered mid-rise apts/condos will likely be built in smaller cities in the future. We’ve had one large parcel cordoned off for several years now in the middle of dtn Chula Vista for this purpose and the opposition to it has been monumental. I don’t see it like Cox sees it. If I’m reading his prediction right, I don’t understand what incentive developers have to build highrise apt/condos in Tracy, CA, so these poor fools who live in them can commute 70+ miles one way to work. There are plenty of cheap SFR’s already there and many are currently sitting vacant! When a developer decides to build a project, he/she has to consider if there will even be a market for it.

I just don’t see a looming terrible “housing shortage” in CA, not even 20 years from now. At present, nearly all areas of the state are grossly overbuilt and SFR vacancies are very high.

Cox also talks about homes in CA being “twice the price” of the rest of the country. Wrong again. He needs to compare apples to apples. The best, most convenient, prestigious and and close-in addresses in ALL major US cities are not “cheap” today and never will be. Except for oceanfront property, the prices of SD’s best addresses are in line with the best addresses of Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Tulsa, Denver, MD/VA/Wash DC area and likely a lot of other major cities that I’m unfamiliar with.

Cox is of the opinion that if only infill is built in CA urban areas from here on out that it will cause prices to rise substantially and cause people and biz to flee CA (as in the nineties – btw at least half of those who fled have come back, lol). I don’t agree with this. Lots of choices exist in CA in every price range.

CA doesn’t owe everyone (from lesser expensive areas in the nation’s midsection) who wants to live here “cheap” housing. Just like in Houston, if you came from a suburban area 60 miles out, you will have to buy the same here unless you have a lot of cash put away earmarked for a downpayment. The place you will buy here might be 2000-3000 sf for the same price you paid for your 4500 sf mcmansion outside of Houston’s beltway.

When comparing density and prices of housing markets in the US, I think you need to compare urban with urban, suburban with suburban, exurban with exurban and rural with rural.

I am in hopes that rampant urban sprawl is gone in CA for good. We don’t need any more tract developments built, the cities/counties will not have enough funds and CA will not have enough natural resources (namely water) to service the areas we already have.

I want to add that people who moved coastal CA counties from out of state before about 1990 did NOT expect to buy or rent a mcmansion in exurbia. They were happy with a WWII box in the city, a 50’s rancher or ranchette, or an 1800-2500 sf Mediterranean in the suburbs on a 10K – 20K lot. Why should it be any different now?

[briansd1]

pri-dk pointed out before that California is about land development and urban sprawl.

In America, cities and neighborhoods are constantly rising and decaying. Lifestyles change and houses become functionally obsolete.

BG, you’re old already and you want everything to remain the same until you die. But remember, the world goes on without you. Population will grow and people will want to live in houses that are functionally appealing to them.

I was talking to a building about hilly development. New technologies allow flattening of hills and make building possible. La Jolla is more hilly that Carmel Valley because back they didn’t have the bulldozers to grade the land.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=briansd1]pri-dk pointed out before that California is about land development and urban sprawl.

In America, cities and neighborhoods are constantly rising and decaying. Lifestyles change and houses become functionally obsolete.

BG, you’re old already and you want everything to remain the same until you die. But remember, the world goes on without you. Population will grow and people will want to live in houses that are functionally appealing to them.[/quote]

brian, your “urban-village” concept may very well become a reality in the next 10-20 years on and in close proximity to major thoroughfares in cities. But your “pie-in-the-sky” ideas that all residential housing should be fresh, new and built densely or heavily modernized flies in the face of reality. That reality is that individual property rights prevail and the decision-makers currently running the show are, for the most part, baby boomers and older. The youngest “boomer” is now about 47.5 yrs old and the oldest “boomer” is now about 64.5 yrs old. This vast demographic spanning nearly two generations isn’t kicking the bucket anytime soon. They represent your elected officials, your appointed officials and your never-ending supply of NIMBY’s up and down the coast of CA. The few Gen-Xers filling these official seats are mentored by …. you guessed it, boomers!

Get used to it. You will likely be very old by the time you see your long wished-for monorail leaving your downtown condo and speeding thru Balboa Park before stopping in front of your doctor’s appt at Mercy Medical Group in Hillcrest in 2.5 mins flat :=]

[bearishgurl]

example of brian’s “dream city:”

[img_assist|nid=16122|title=The Jetsons in Orbit City|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=320|height=219]

http://bcplanningblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/jetsons-and-new-urbanism.html

Lol!!

[briansd1]

I agree, BG. Your latest post is right on.

Sometimes I think that I should have been born 100 earlier or 100 years later.

It’s disheartening to me that the pace of progress is so slow.

BTW, I love modern architecture and furniture. Real modern, not contemporary. When I was growing up, Tomorrowland was the promise of the future.

If you go to Shanghai, the urban planning center is a great place to visit. There is a model of the whole city.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Urban_Planning_Exhibition_Center
http://www.frommers.com/destinations/shanghai/A25938.html

[ocrenter]

[quote=The-Shoveler]There is plenty of land especially in North county, they just don’t want YOU living on it!!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303302504577323353434618474.html
Job centers change, once far off bedroom communities become new hi Tech Job centers all the time.
Irvine, Valencia, Carlsbad, ….. Next !!

I could add Simi Valley, Arcadia, even Ausaz & Chino hills these days, all it takes is a few enginerds and some office space.[/quote]

If there’s a new center of employment developing near or in SD, it would be Temecula. With the new SD county plan, I think we are pretty much done.

[The-Shoveler]

When central planning goes wrong !!
Funny, they had this large empty lot next to our office building, that was supposed to be for more industrial buildings (this is smack in the middle of a large business park), but they are now breaking ground for a senior apartment complex.
I guess they did not need yet another empty office building.
So we have
large office building – large office building – senior apartment – large office building – large office building
LOL
Well I guess the businesses can take advantage of the part time senior labor LOL.

[sdrealtor]

Supply meet demand

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