CA Proposition 98/99

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=Le Corbusier]
I don’t think anyone is trying to fool you with the “altruistic developer.” Of course they are in it for the money, and frankly they are going to build somehow, someway. At least with public/private partnerships we can force them into doing good things for the community.
[/quote]

I’d say that building a hotel and providing jobs is a good thing for the community.

Of course, by “good things for the community” you mean “a bunch of things politicians want these developers to do in order to make the politicians look good.”

No. Why should we do this? Why should a hotel developer be forced to provide “affordable housing” (however it is defined) in order to build something? It’s his property, so why should he have to build a bunch of other stuff for him to get the permission to build on it? Your idea that somehow politicians should be able to extort a variety of goodies in return for letting people build on their own property shows an appalling lack of respect for property rights. If this is how most urban planners think then we certainly need much more stringent property rights laws on the books.

Whatever. The urban planning you love so much does a lot to drive up the price of housing. Strict zoning and land use laws increase the cost of housing by an incredible amount. Rent control also drives up the price of housing for every other unit of housing not included in rent control. Furthermore, laws mandating “affordable housing” likely drive up the cost of housing, too. For instance, if you charge up to a certain amount of rent you must accept Section 8 vouchers. Many landlords don’t want Section 8 folks, so they simply set their rent above that level.

42

[QUOTE=Campion]
By “handful of apartments” I meant citywide. As you are no doubt aware, there are ways that a landlord can exempt a particular apartment from rent control, or can raise the rent up to market levels. Thus, although a particular building may be rent-controlled, that doesn’t mean that every apartment there is rent-controlled, or that all the apartments rent at the same amount.

[/QUOTE]

I’m just reiterating what I learned in grad school, but in Los Angeles, an owner can’t pick and choose which apartments gets protected under rent control. If a building fits the time criteria, then all the apartments are covered. If you have a cite that proves otherwise, my apologizes.

43

[QUOTE=Renob]

Whatever. The urban planning you love so much does a lot to drive up the price of housing. Strict zoning and land use laws increase the cost of housing by an incredible amount. Rent control also drives up the price of housing for every other unit of housing not included in rent control. Furthermore, laws mandating “affordable housing” likely drive up the cost of housing, too. For instance, if you charge up to a certain amount of rent you must accept Section 8 vouchers. Many landlords don’t want Section 8 folks, so they simply set their rent above that level.
[/QUOTE]

So we shouldn’t have ANY zoning laws whatever and let people build whatever they want?

44

[QUOTE=Renob]

Of course, by “good things for the community” you mean “a bunch of things politicians want these developers to do in order to make the politicians look good.”

[/QUOTE]

Actually redevelopment agencies in California do not contain any elected officials, in order to prevent any political influence in their decisions.

45

[QUOTE=Le Corbusier]
I’m just reiterating what I learned in grad school, but in Los Angeles, an owner can’t pick and choose which apartments gets protected under rent control. If a building fits the time criteria, then all the apartments are covered. If you have a cite that proves otherwise, my apologizes.
[/QUOTE]
As was pointed out above, some owners get around that by building new apartments every x years.

Do you really think that rent control is a net benefit, even to those who rent the apartments?

If the landlord is limited in how much the rent can increase, doesn’t that just result in all landlords establishing “starting” prices that were high enough that, over the average stay of a renter, the risk balances out?

People who live in one place for a longer-than-average time get some benefit, but it’s at the expense of people who have to (or want to) move more regularly. And, of course, providing incentives for people not to move out of an apartment is completely counter-productive in terms of many measures of economic efficiency. People end up with longer commutes because they won’t move from a rent-controlled apartment (or, because people where they want to move to won’t), worse conditions because they’re less willing to stand up to “slumlords” for fear of eviction, and probably lots of other things that I’m not thinking of right now.

46

[QUOTE=Le Corbusier]
So we shouldn’t have ANY zoning laws whatever and let people build whatever they want?
[/QUOTE]

Personally, I think that would be fine. However, merely lightening up the zoning and land use laws would go a long way towards providing more affordable housing.

You seem to think that the only way people have affordable housing, avoid HIV, get health care, stay away from a life of crime, etc., is through government programs. You have still failed to answer my question about why you think more government programs would help Baltimore, for instance. Are you unable to see the government interventions in our lives that have caused a lot of these problems? Or is the answer just more government intervention in your opinion?

So? They are still influenced by the lack of respect for property rights that seems to be firmly ingrained in your mind, too. The idea that people should pay extortion to build on their own property is very disturbing in my view. The idea that some notion of “good for the public” (as defined by some group of either appointed or elected people) must be met before I can use my property destroys the notion that my property is mine. Apparently in your view someone should only be able to use their property after you (or your ilk) determine that they can.

It would be like me telling you that you can’t drive your car unless you also pick up my grandmother and take her to her doctor’s appointment. Sure, it’s great to take an old lady to the doctor, but should people be forced to do that in order to use their own property?

47

[QUOTE=Renob]
Personally, I think that would be fine. However, merely lightening up the zoning and land use laws would go a long way towards providing more affordable housing.

You seem to think that the only way people have affordable housing, avoid HIV, get health care, stay away from a life of crime, etc., is through government programs. You have still failed to answer my question about why you think more government programs would help Baltimore, for instance. Are you unable to see the government interventions in our lives that have caused a lot of these problems? Or is the answer just more government intervention in your opinion?
So? They are still influenced by the lack of respect for property rights that seems to be firmly ingrained in your mind, too. The idea that people should pay extortion to build on their own property is very disturbing in my view. The idea that some notion of “good for the public” (as defined by some group of either appointed or elected people) must be met before I can use my property destroys the notion that my property is mine. Apparently in your view someone should only be able to use their property after you (or your ilk) determine that they can.

It would be like me telling you that you can’t drive your car unless you also pick up my grandmother and take her to her doctor’s appointment. Sure, it’s great to take an old lady to the doctor, but should people be forced to do that in order to use their own property?
[/QUOTE]

Do you want to see what unrestricted growth looks like? It probably looks a lot like Lagos, Nigeria - pure chaos. Name one city you would live in that doesn’t implement any type of zoning laws. I’m sure you are totally against zoning until a chemical plant decides to build next door to you (which, FYI, zoning laws currently prevent).

Re: your Baltimore thing. I didn’t further that point because I don’t have time to “cite” all my sources, but if Baltimore’s police was able to expand, drug treatment centers were provided, a better public school system was in place, and HIV treatment centers were available, I’m sure Baltimore would be a much more pleasant place to live. I’d like to see your citation where you claim government did less in the 1950’s than it does now.

Honestly, I am going to back out of this debate because it has shifted entirely away from the point. I don’t have time to check this board every hour to defend my posts. I really don’t understand the vitriol directed at urban planning both as a profession and an academic field. We don’t become urban planners to make money (ha!), we do it because we want to improve the lives of our neighborhoods . We enter this profession wanting to help the public, just like teachers and police officers do, yet all we get are people who attack us constantly like we are the evil government working to bring them down.

48

[QUOTE=Le Corbusier]
Do you want to see what unrestricted growth looks like? It probably looks a lot like Lagos, Nigeria - pure chaos. Name one city you would live in that doesn’t implement any type of zoning laws.
[/quote]
When I lived in Houston, it was my understanding that there were no zoning laws. To what extent that’s true, I don’t really know – I only lived there for a couple years. I can say that it didn’t appear that there were zoning laws; if there were, they either weren’t very strict or they weren’t enforced. To be honest, I rather liked it.

I just did did a quick google and found that it’s become a hot issue recently (although I couldn’t establish whether there is no zoning or just lax zoning). One of the concerns is that the cost of living will go way up.

49

[QUOTE=Digital Stimulus]
When I lived in Houston, it was my understanding that there were no zoning laws. To what extent that’s true, I don’t really know – I only lived there for a couple years. I can say that it didn’t appear that there were zoning laws; if there were, they either weren’t very strict or they weren’t enforced. To be honest, I rather liked it.

I just did did a quick google and found that it’s become a hot issue recently (although I couldn’t establish whether there is no zoning or just lax zoning). One of the concerns is that the cost of living will go way up.
[/QUOTE]

Houston does not have a formal zoning code, but they do have “legal covenants” which pretty much is another way to say zoning without saying zoning. It’s not like you can build anything you want where ever you want in Houston either way - with or without a formal zoning code.

50

[QUOTE=Voyager]
The Pro-98 people are a bit sneaky in never mentioning rent control explicitly.
[/QUOTE]
Huh? It’s the second bullet in the Prop 98 description.
I read through the all the arguments in the Voter Info Guide and the text of the props themselves. Prop 99 is good by itself, but doesn’t go far enough. I like Prop 98. When the opposed arguments talk about “hidden provisions”, I’m reflexively think “Cite?”. The whole thing is there in black and white. I don’t understand them.

I’m against rent control. Government shouldn’t muck needlessly with the market. If people need help with rent, then give them subsidies and/or tax breaks. (Considering the tax benefits home-owners get, renters really should get something, too.) It’s unfair that only renters subsidize renters (since rent control ultimately puts a higher burden on other renters); it’s better for that cost to be spread among everyone.

I’ll probably vote yes for both.

51

[QUOTE=Le Corbusier]
Honestly, I am going to back out of this debate because it has shifted entirely away from the point. I don’t have time to check this board every hour to defend my posts. I really don’t understand the vitriol directed at urban planning both as a profession and an academic field. We don’t become urban planners to make money (ha!), we do it because we want to improve the lives of our neighborhoods . We enter this profession wanting to help the public, just like teachers and police officers do, yet all we get are people who attack us constantly like we are the evil government working to bring them down.
[/QUOTE]

Dude, I disagree with you utterly, but you shouldn’t let what you characterize as vitriol put you off this board.

My knowledge of the rent control laws of LA comes entirely from the (very little) pro bono work I’ve done representing tenants who have been or are being evicted. Some evictions in LA are motivated primarily by a landlord’s interest in bringing an apartment up to market rates. I am, to some degree, sympathetic to the landlords: when you’re forced to permit someone to pay thousands of dollars a year less than the market permits, you can start to get creative about protecting your bottom line. (I am entirely unsympathetic, however, to someone who violates the law to do so.)

But while I do think that the government can force people to incur de minimus costs as a cost of doing business (i.e., all gas stations in CA must give free water and air to all travelers), I don’t agree that the government should be able to shift its responsibilty for caring for its less fortunate citizens as a purported cost of doing business.

52

[QUOTE=Pleonast]
Huh? It’s the second bullet in the Prop 98 description.
I read through the all the arguments in the Voter Info Guide and the text of the props themselves. Prop 99 is good by itself, but doesn’t go far enough. I like Prop 98. When the opposed arguments talk about “hidden provisions”, I’m reflexively think “Cite?”. The whole thing is there in black and white. I don’t understand them.

I’m against rent control. Government shouldn’t muck needlessly with the market. If people need help with rent, then give them subsidies and/or tax breaks. (Considering the tax benefits home-owners get, renters really should get something, too.) It’s unfair that only renters subsidize renters (since rent control ultimately puts a higher burden on other renters); it’s better for that cost to be spread among everyone.

I’ll probably vote yes for both.
[/QUOTE]

As I understand it the people who put together 98 feeling strongly that if you support 98 you should NOT vote for 99. I believe that 99 supersedes 98. So if 99 passes and 98 passes, 99 controls.

And I believe that 99 does NOT eliminate rent control. Indeed, I think that is one of the explicit goals of the 99 folks: to get ride of the section of 98 that eliminates rent control.

53

[QUOTE=constantine]
As I understand it the people who put together 98 feeling strongly that if you support 98 you should NOT vote for 99. I believe that 99 supersedes 98. So if 99 passes and 98 passes, 99 controls.

And I believe that 99 does NOT eliminate rent control. Indeed, I think that is one of the explicit goals of the 99 folks: to get ride of the section of 98 that eliminates rent control.
[/QUOTE]

I hasten to add that I’m not suggesting you should vote yes or no on either one or both. Just passing along a point I heard raised by 98 supporters.

54

[QUOTE=constantine]
I believe that 99 supersedes 98. So if 99 passes and 98 passes, 99 controls.
[/QUOTE]

The text of 99 states that, if both pass, only the one with the higher number of yes votes will be enacted.

55

[QUOTE=Punoqllads]
The text of 99 states that, if both pass, only the one with the higher number of yes votes will be enacted.
[/QUOTE]
Does the text of 98 say that, too? It would seem to be necessary for that contingency to hold.

56

[QUOTE=Campion]
Dude, I disagree with you utterly, but you shouldn’t let what you characterize as vitriol put you off this board.

My knowledge of the rent control laws of LA comes entirely from the (very little) pro bono work I’ve done representing tenants who have been or are being evicted. Some evictions in LA are motivated primarily by a landlord’s interest in bringing an apartment up to market rates. I am, to some degree, sympathetic to the landlords: when you’re forced to permit someone to pay thousands of dollars a year less than the market permits, you can start to get creative about protecting your bottom line. (I am entirely unsympathetic, however, to someone who violates the law to do so.)

But while I do think that the government can force people to incur de minimus costs as a cost of doing business (i.e., all gas stations in CA must give free water and air to all travelers), I don’t agree that the government should be able to shift its responsibilty for caring for its less fortunate citizens as a purported cost of doing business.
[/QUOTE]

I should clarify how rent control works in Los Angeles. So Los Angeles doesn’t have a “set rate” on how high a landlord can charge for rents. How rent control works is that landlords can rent out the apartment at the market rate, but after the tenant moves in, they can only increase the rent by something like 3% a year. So if you’ve been living in the same apartment for like 10 years, odds are you will be paying a lot less than market rents.

I didn’t mean vitirol of this board specifically, but my profession is attacked quite frequently.

57

This is a relatively quiet thread (not many views), but I’d like to point out one thing. It has been suggested several times that rent control is one reason there aren’t as many units in cities like SF as some would like. Not so. As has been noted, rent control only applies here (in LA, too, apparently) to buildings several decades old. New buildings are exempt. New buildings are held off not by rent control but by notions of urban planning. The argument is that substantial new construction would overburden infrastructure, e.g., streets, highways and mass transit. One may legitimately disagree with this policy (I do), but the fact is that rent control isn’t causing the problem.

Meanwhile, when urban planning creates a shortage, the question remains of who should benefit from the shortage. Rent control seeks, in an imprecise way, to preserve part of that benefit for tenants. Here, too, one may legitimately disagree with that balance (I don’t). But, we’re no longer talking about the issues raised by the raw use-of-ED for private development. That’s a different problem, if it is one, which requires only a narrow remedy.

58

[QUOTE=Le Corbusier]
Honestly, I am going to back out of this debate because it has shifted entirely away from the point. I don’t have time to check this board every hour to defend my posts. I really don’t understand the vitriol directed at urban planning both as a profession and an academic field. We don’t become urban planners to make money (ha!), we do it because we want to improve the lives of our neighborhoods . We enter this profession wanting to help the public, just like teachers and police officers do, yet all we get are people who attack us constantly like we are the evil government working to bring them down.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t see where anybody has critcized urban planning. Most of the shops on the main drag west of me are abandoned and we should redevelop them into an outdoor mall or something to spur the local economy.

The question is: should the city of Long Beach be allowed to ED the storefronts?
If it for a public use - sure. But what if MegaMall wants to build the outdoor mall? What if they offer to extend a trolly the few miles to the metrorail station? What if they offer to donate money to the local high school just up the street? It of course would raise employment in the area. Why say no?

Because it involves taking a private citizen’s property and giving it to a private corporation SO THEY CAN PROFIT FROM THE PERSON"S PROPERTY! How is that a knock on urban planning as a field. It is simply an acknowledgement that this is not a perfect world and not everyone can do whatever they want in the name of some view of a “public benefit”.

Maybe you own a home Le Corbusier and maybe you don’t, but let’s assume you do. The county wants to buy your home (in this depressed market for less than you bought it for) to convert the block into a homeless shelter/halfway home. What would you say?

Now let’s say that the city is the one that wants to buy your house (again in this depressed market for less than you bought it for), but they want to give it free to WalMart to build a huge market. WalMart promises to donate 1% of their profits to the local elementary school. They guaranty to hire at least 35 employees and every employee will make at least $12/hr. They also guaranty to match city subsidies for low-income housing up to $500,000. Incidently, you will not personally benefit from any of these offers.

What do you see as the major difference between the two scenerios? Which one would you prefer - not as a member of the community, but as the person losing their house?

59

[QUOTE=Le Corbusier]
Houston does not have a formal zoning code, but they do have “legal covenants” which pretty much is another way to say zoning without saying zoning. It’s not like you can build anything you want where ever you want in Houston either way - with or without a formal zoning code.
[/QUOTE]
Thanks – somehow, I didn’t think it could be as easy as “there’s no zoning laws”. At the same time, one of the things that struck me about Houston was having an electricity substation next to a gated community next to a shopping center next to a “gentleman’s club” next to a…you get the idea. Do you happen to know off-hand what the extent of these “legal covenants” are?

60

[QUOTE=kaylasdad99]
Does the text of 98 say that, too? It would seem to be necessary for that contingency to hold.
[/QUOTE]
No, 98 doesn’t say that. Now, if only one of them passes, or if 98 passes with more yea votes than 99, it won’t really be an issue. If they both pass and 99 gets more yeas, then I expect a lot of stern lawyers in really expensive suits spending the next two years getting paid a lot of money.

Well, more money.