Mira Mesa: no longer affordable for <$200k

[flyer]

I think there is great value in having NIMBY’s and Non-NIMBY’s involved in these decisions–as was proven with One Paseo. These developers were actually lucky to reach a compromise, since the developer of the Agua Hedionda Lagoon project in Carlsbad just conceded defeat by a small margin.

If everyone wanted to live their lives in the same way, there would be no conflict. Fortunately, we don’t, so I think the checks and balances these opposing POV’s offer help keep things in balance.

Soon, there will be no more buildable land–especially in coastal SoCal–so these discussions will be moot.

[svelte]

[quote=flyer]I think there is great value in having NIMBY’s and Non-NIMBY’s involved in these decisions–as was proven with One Paseo. These developers were actually lucky to reach a compromise, since the developer of the Agua Hedionda Lagoon project in Carlsbad just conceded defeat by a small margin.

If everyone wanted to live their lives in the same way, there would be no conflict. Fortunately, we don’t, so I think the checks and balances these opposing POV’s offer help keep things in balance.
[/quote]

…agree so far…

[quote=flyer]
Soon, there will be no more buildable land–especially in coastal SoCal–so these discussions will be moot.[/quote]

Disagree. Even cities that have been built out for close to 100 years have land use disagreements and NIMBY residents. Old buildings come down, new buildings go up, ad infinitum.

http://www.salon.com/2016/01/24/dont_blame_sfs_left_leaning_anti_growth_nimby_homeowners_for_the_citys_housing_crisis_its_not_as_easy_as_building_our_way_to_victory/

[flyer]

“Disagree. Even cities that have been built out for close to 100 years have land use disagreements and NIMBY residents. Old buildings come down, new buildings go up, ad infinitum.”

Understand how that could be the case in some areas.

Also found the excerpt below from the article you posted provided a particularly interesting take on the issue. Build as we may, many will still be priced out of CA per. . .

“Supply-side cheerleaders can keep crying “build, build, build!” as much as they want but greasing the wheels of the market is not going to have any net benefit for most people, and certainly not for the vast army of low paid service workers that are also part of the Bay Area’s tech economy. And it’s not just voices on the left voicing skepticism that trickle-down housing policy simply doesn’t work. No one denies that we need more housing but unless the focus is on building affordable housing, more construction does not mean less crisis.”

[bearishgurl]

svelte seems to be using an article comparing the SF housing market to the rest of the housing market in CA for his argument that old bldgs with 2-4 flats in them can be torn down to build high-rise “affordable” condos or apts in their place (or create more “competition” for housing, ostensibly making the City more “affordable” to live in). This comparison is flawed because SF is apples to oranges to the rest of the housing market in CA. SF is an animal unto itself.

First of all, a developer who had visions of building condos/apts in SF would need to successfully acquire 2-4 adjacent lots to have enough room to build a higher rise condo or apt complex and would have both the City and County of SF to deal with in doing so. A good portion of these buildings are rent-controlled and have been for ~35 years. Regardless of the actual condition of these buildings today, a builder today wouldn’t likely be able to acquire a building in any condition for less than $1M per 5-7K sf parcel. Therefore, they would likely already have an outlay of $3M+ in just the land purchase (sans any demo and permit fees) before even beginning to start the eviction process on the building’s tenants. This is also entirely assuming the developer is successful in purchasing enough adjacent lots for their proposed project AND that longtime residents in that district (residing within 300 feet of the proposed project) don’t successfully fight their evictions and keep the developer’s permits in suspense for years and are successful themselves in getting the developer’s project scrapped, which is a distinct possibility. Longtime homeowners and LL’s in SF aren’t going anywhere. Many SF LL’s live in their own buildings, next door to their (rent-controlled) buildings or down the street in another building they own. Their property assessments are ultra low, due to this group heavily benefiting from Props 13, 58 and 193. As such, they can well-afford to minimally maintain their propertie(s) for habitability and keep them rent-controlled into oblivion. Many (most?) SF tenants have been occupying the same rent-controlled unit for decades.

If a luxury or even mid-grade high or low-rise apt bldg in SF IS successfully completed, it does absolutely nothing for the city’s “affordability crisis.” In fact, it likely displaced dozens of longtime tenants from their rent-controlled units and created “luxury” condos or very high-rent apts for the “nouveau-riche” newbies to move into SF and scoop up.

SF is the worst possible example svelte could have used to bolster an argument here that infill in the choicest CA urban areas could be razed and rebuilt to create more units and thus more “affordability” (if that is actually what he was trying to convey here), IMO. Because of the exorbitant land cost in SF, the “numbers” don’t pencil out to create “affordable units” today, although I did read somewhere that an “affordable housing commission” of some sort purchased up adjacent parcels many years ago in the Mission District and was looking for a developer to create “affordable” units on them. However, this situation is a Big Outlier in SF.

Again, CA owes newcomers nothing. Especially brand new housing in a coastal county. Newcomers can live in what is on offer in CA or go elsewhere. CA doesn’t need any more people. Nearly all CA counties (except the most rural) have had a larger population than they could properly service for at least the past 25 years.

[bearishgurl]

H@ll, I’m still waiting with baited breath to see if that awesome “master-planned community” in armpit Corona (which Pigg shoveler has recently touted here “THE place to be” new-construction project in So-Cal) will actually be completed as the developers have promised their buyers who are already moved in.

Weren’t there two holdout dairy farms “in the way” which these developers “built around,” hoping for the best at a later date??

LOLOL ….

[bearishgurl]

[quote=flyer]BG, I admire the fact that you are doing everything you can in your area to at least try to “curb” the growth–much as the citizens of CV did with One Paseo.

With so little buildable land left, builders are definitely desperate these days, and are willing to exploit any scrap of dirt they can find–especially in San Diego.

Places like Playa Vista are great developments, and have a lot to offer. Yet, although friends who are long-time residents of Marina Del Rey, Manhattan Beach, etc., like having the amenities they offer nearby, they are not looking forward to the added congestion they will bring to the area–especially the beaches–which are already a zoo. I’ll take our beautiful and peaceful Del Mar and Torrey Pines beaches any day compared to that.

Like you, we don’t live near any of these concrete jungles, so, continue your valiant efforts, but also try to enjoy the fact that these developments bring added resources–just far enough away–so that we too can enjoy what they have to offer without sacrificing our way of life.[/quote]flyer, I suspect the real problem with SD North City communities is that their City Council clowns/reps in the past proposed a “City of Villages” theme 10-15 years ago among communities along City’s proposed “transportation corridors.” At this time, a “general plan” was drafted by City and adopted by the City Council and the affected residents really didn’t understand the long-term ramifications of what was being proposed for their communities at that time. Hence, there was a lack of citizen involvement whilst the Council clowns just bulldozed their “General Plan” through the paces.

For example, it was tough for One Paseo opponents (10-15 years after the fact) to recently “fight city hall” on a “general plan” for their area which was adopted in an era when CV had 1/3 to 1/2 the housing (and congestion) they now have. I imagine that a lot of recent opponents to One Paseo either were too young to know about the City’s proposed “General Plan” for their community or were asleep at the switch at the time it was proposed and adopted.

I’m glad to hear that a CV community group was able to get the One Paseo project significantly reduced in size but the fact that it will be built anyway with inadequate parking for its size is still going to create a lot more traffic in an area which is already one of SD’s most notoriously congested communities. The adoption of the One Paseo project speaks volumes as to the non-effectiveness of CV’s lame-duck Councilperson and its community group’s subsequent lack of power in opposing City and Big D. The whole debacle was akin to trying mightily to close a heavy barn door long after the horses ran off, IMO.

[FlyerInHi]

BG, if we don’t figuratively and literally build, then how do we increase wealth?

We need more people to grow sales and increase profits, broaden the tax base.

People want pay raises to live better and move up to bigger, newer, better, fancier. Government wants bigger city halls, courthouses and higher pensions. Maybe you don’t, but that’s what people want in general.

Sure, we want our individual bubbles, but take yourself out of the picture and look at it objectively.

[bearishgurl]

flyer, the “old-timers” living near dtn Chula Vista may have been successful in keeping an inappropriate monstrosity out of their charming little downtown strip, but the same can’t be said for those mostly newbie homeowners in Chula Vista’s most distant annexation (over 12 mi from dtn CV). The high-density “Millenia” project will likely mostly be completed within the year …

Welcome

… which is situated smack in the middle of lizardland and a well-known coyote crossing just south of Otay Ranch Mall (a stone’s throw from the infamous RJ Donovan Correctional Facility and Otay Landfill, lol).

Methinks the 91915 resident-cohort doesn’t really care if it is going to take them another 5-10 mins to get to a freeway (not expensive toll road) to get to work in the morning after this behemoth of a project is finally completed. After all, the vast majority of these homeowners who bought a SFR in the area live within 5-6 feet from their neighbor’s home, INCLUDING both side setbacks and do not have adequate clearances in their easements to successfully drive into their rear-facing garages on the first try, lol. As such, their “expectations” for a stress-free, uncrowded lifestyle are much lower than are Chula Vista residents’ expectations who reside in the older, more established areas.

[FlyerInHi]

millennia chula vista is awesome.

I loved the Otay Ranch Town Center. Years ago I drove down there just to look.

Corona has Dos Lagos. Like it or not, builders are building and people are coming. NIMBYism only causes sprawl.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=FlyerInHi]BG, if we don’t figuratively and literally build, then how do we increase wealth?

We need more people to grow sales and increase profits, broaden the tax base.

People want pay raises to live better and move up to bigger, newer, better, fancier. Government wants bigger city halls, courthouses and higher pensions. Maybe you don’t, but that’s what people want in general.

Sure, we want our individual bubbles, but take yourself out of the picture and look at it objectively.[/quote]FIH, if CA and its subdivisions need more revenue for “modernization purposes,” they need to put their legislative heads together and agree to repeal Props 58 and 193 ASAP and limit Prop 13 original assessments + 2% yr to the original 1978 resident-owners who are still residing on the same parcel today. All assessments of all other parcels with formerly-reduced assessments in accordance with these sections should be raised to FMV forthwith (as almost all other states do at least every two years).

It is grossly unfair to owners of parcels who bought in the last 20 years to have 2-10 times the tax bill of the owners of their adjacent parcels. Props 58 and 193 beneficiaries, in particular, do not in any way, shape or form deserve this gubment largesse at the expense of their neighbors and the budgets of the city/county they live in. These millions of property owners in CA (they or their tenants) whose assessments are 1/8 to 1/10 of the market value of their properties use just as much or MORE municipal services as their neighbors who are paying taxes closer to “market-rate assessment.”

It is also unfair that millions of CA landlords are allowed to rake in the dough every month on properties which cost them a mere pittance to hang onto, especially those LL’s who own multi-unit properties in high-cost coastal cities which can command exorbitant rents.

The original beneficiaries of Prop 13 whom it was passed to protect and who are still residing today in the homes they purchased pre-1978 should be allowed to keep their old assessments. They will all inevitably die off one by one and those properties could be immediately reassessed to market rate retroactive to the date of the last owner’s death.

CA doesn’t need any more population to tax. It needs to properly tax the HUGE population it already has. If Prop 13 and its progeny are limited and repealed, CA (and its subdivisions) should be fiscally solvent forever. Problem solved.

The way the “system” is now “rigged” in CA, the “rich” (and their families) just get richer and richer and all other property owners and the state, cities and counties are left with the bill. In other words, the families who have lived in CA the longest and bought multiple properties long ago and held onto them are the only families winning this game.

[FlyerInHi]

Anyway, Mira Mesa is no longer “affordable” and sprawl will go on to Corona.

Those who bought rentals in Mira Mesa did well. Better to rent to tech workers with stable paychecks then the riffraff in Lemon Grove. Sorry, BG, the two neighborhoods may be comparable in decades past, but not anymore.

Talking about development in SD, did you ever drive by this:
https://goo.gl/maps/ZLkJZCCdFZR2

Why can’t we have much, much more of this along the major arteries rather than the junk we have now?

[recordsclerk]

Blvd63 does shuttle service to SDSU. Smart way to maximize the student rental pool.

[Author]

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