That’s not really how a process would work. The character of San Francisco would change but it would remain a highly desirable place to live assuming competent policies. Like NYC. People only don’t move to NYC because there is no room - probably most of the population would be living there if we had the technology to make a true mega-city. (The limiting factors become crime and transit when you imagine a city growing from 10 million residents to 100-300 million)
I’m fine with zoning laws, borders, national parks, national forests and other land use restrictions.
Smaller apartments will not be built with plenty of space around them for parking. CA Density Bonus Law sees to that. Parking requirements get waived if a developer can build a super dense project. And besides, I thought you were against zoning that required parking spaces? Although, even Houston who you hold out as having no zoning has fairly restrictive parking requirements.
I don’t live in the city of SF proper. I personally hate going into the city and avoid it whenever possible. My focus is in the outlying cities, most of which are small in comparison. Bedroom communities and suburbs where people raise families. These aren’t places that are in the thick of the action like Cupertino (which has a fairly restrictive track record on housing). These are hardly the richest people on the planet. In comparison to the rest of the country, or probably even the rest of the state, there is no doubt that these are people who are fairly comfortable.
For the people who are truly wealthy, then zoning and increasing density has little impact on them because they can afford larger properties, etc. But the two income family who has to work to make a mortgage payment, who’s largest and only real investment is their home, who is basically house poor paying over 30-40% of their income in housing costs but choose to do so because they want a better life for their kids - those are the people that stand to lose when the 8 story high density apartment complex comes in to the bedroom community.
Here’s the thing. your house is not valuable because of the house on the property. It is valuable because of the land it sits on. The land is valuable because many people want to live in the area, but the number of people who want to live in your home is much, much smaller.
I’ve seen it around here, where housing prices get inflated, then all it takes is a couple of foreclosures or short sales, and then you have unsold housing inventory in your neighborhood. People really want to live in your area, but they don’t want to pay a couple million for a house. Banks don’t typically let you have a mortgage payment greater than 30% of your income, no matter how much you tell them that you’ll suck it up and pay them. They know that defaults go up quite substantially at those earning to paying ratios. No one who can afford to live in your house will want to, and anyone who wants to will not be able to afford it.
Those wealthier than you have no interest in your home or property, and those who are of the same or lessor means than you have no access to purchase your home or property.
Once you have a few unsellable houses in your neighborhood, your house is unsellable too. Your property value will plummet, and if you find yourself needing to move, you will take a loss. Your whole neighborhood will be underwater, and will be begging to sell to a developer that wants to put a high rise in where your house is now.
Your actual best self interest would be to work towards lifting these zoning restrictions, because then your land becomes far more valuable. Instead of trying to find someone to pay millions of dollars for it, we are instead looking for dozens or hundreds of people to pay hundreds of thousands each for it.
Your house is not worth anything. The materials and labor that went into it are a tiny fraction of your property’s value. If someone puts in a 50 story high rise next to your house, that would lower the value of your house as a house, but it would increase the value of your property, as it is not the house, it is not the structure that accommodates a single family, that gives your property value. In fact, it is that structure that limits the value your property could have.
I think it was when the Transamerica Pyramid was built. You mention"San Franciscans", I think that gets to the issue. How much of the development is by San Franciscans vs outside interests just looking for money. To me, the people living, working, paying taxes, and trying to improve their community should have more power than outsiders.
If you look at Portland, the people there have tried to maintain it as a livable city. There are neighborhoods that are desirable to live in because personal morality and public policy have tried to preserve their character. Should moneyed interests be able to come in, tear down a bunch of single family houses, and erect apartment building that look as though they could be anywhere in the world? The developers are benefitting from the fact that people before them have been unwilling to just chase money. If you tear down the houses on a block near me you lower my quality of life. Now it may be that my property value goes up because I could sell to another developer (or develop it myself), but where do I move to when the entire country is nothing but cookie-cutter cities?
We choose to preserve unique places of interest like the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone. Santa Fe has restrictive building requirements to maintain its character. I think that is a good thing.
How do we draw the line? Always a good question.
If you define self interest in the narrowest of terms. It was in my personal interest to sell my child, too. He was pretty cute, couldla got a good price.
I got that, do you acknowledge the costs of those policies and who bears those costs?
Yes, but I am not defining in the nearrowest of terms, and I am also not advocating for illegal activity.
Small apartment complexes will have parking because the market will demand it. The natural way for cities to grow is to have a densely packed urban core and around it progressively less dense suburbs with density only occurring near mass transit hubs. What building restrictions do is to push people away from the city core. Thus SF’s zoning laws make people want to live in the bedroom communities. By trying to overturn all of the areas building restrictions it will make the communities further out safer from change.
People living in San Francisco suburbs are definitely some of the richest people on the planet. All of them have average household income well above the $32,400 that allows them to be in the top 1% worldwide.
The people who are house poor would be better off in an area where housing prices are not skyrocketing. What sense does it make to trap another generation of people in a cycle where they have to scrimp and save in order to find a place to live, where they have to spend extra hours commuting to work, and can’t afford actual investments because all of their money is tied up in their house and they never get to enjoy it?
Yes. And for the most part I don’t have an issue with political entities making decisions in their proper realm. If a city wants low density I don’t see a problem with that.
First you have to define “small”. But second, no. The market will not demand parking. For example, voters in SF just eliminated the requirement. Also, are you aware of the CA Density Bonus law? It allows reductions in parking requirements by right if certain density thresholds are met. This doesn’t apply to just dense cities, it applies statewide.
I personally don’t give two shits what SF city does with their zoning. If they think that’s best for them, great. My objection are state mandates that force the smaller outlying cities to increase density, overriding local control against the wishes of the vast vast majority of people who live there.
Who cares if they would be better off. I don’t presume to know what’s better for people more than they know themselves. These folks choose to live where they do for a reason and if they think it’s worth it, I’ll believe them. If people think they would be better off somewhere else, great they should go there.
Quick sanity check to this last post.
You build an apartment complex but you don’t supply any parking. You then notice…it isn’t filling up very fast.
Why is that? Oh, right, nobody can move in because they can’t find a place to park their cars. Instead of potentially anyone who can afford the rent potentially moving in, you can only take in residents who already are ubering everywhere.
This will lower the rent you can charge to get full occupancy.
So yeah, the market does demand parking.
And what about this scenario?
You build an apartment complex but you don’t supply any parking. You then notice…it is filling up very fast.
Why is that? Oh, right, more people can move in because they don’t need a place to park their cars. Instead of trying to appeal to everyone, you’re attracting residents who already are ubering everywhere.
This will raise the rent you can charge to get full occupancy.
So yeah, the market does not demand parking.
This isn’t how markets work.
Sure it is.
ETA: and even if it isn’t, there’s no need for a law to require new housing developments to provide parking. If you are right and it is a sin not to build more parking with every residence, then no developer will build such buildings, and those that do will be driven out of business. Clearly, the law is unnecessary, no matter how you slice it.
It does around here. They’re putting in a new subway stop near us and all the new nearby development has a single parking spot per unit (required by zoning). Many spots aren’t being used. But most previous developments have more parking, usually two per unit. While my family would love to have two dedicated parking spots it’s not as much of a selling point to many younger urban buyers.
Being next to a subway stop, having lots of things within walking access, and Uber/Lyft/Zipcar/BlueBikes mean car ownership is less important and as a result, parking is less important.
That’s precisely how markets work.
I think at least one parking spot will remain part of the zoning requirements for a while yet, but two spots as a bonus is less of a draw than it used to be. And plenty of older units (like mine) have no dedicated parking and they are still in heavy demand.
I don’t think you have any idea how the SF Bay Area is. Something near 30% of households do not have vehicles in SF. Compare that to a place like Columbus, OH where it’s about 10%.
The markets work around here, but the fact pattern is different than most other places in the country.
Fair point. I will change my view then. And, actually, you could build such an apartment complex, and have less parking than the number of units, but and lease the parking separately from the apartments. (at almost the same cost per square foot, of course!)
This would be a more efficient solution all around. It would lower the rental rates you advertise and with careful management of the cost per parking space, you would actually have your lot be both a revenue stream and one that is being fully utilized.
What I was thinking was market tiering - if you are trying to lease new luxury apartments - and in SF, you might as well make all new apartments be luxury until that part of the market is saturated, right? - your potential tenants are going to all have cars and demand a place to put them.
Again, you aren’t familiar with SF markets. Parking is already a separate cost in many new builds. 10-50k for a parking spot. And it’s illegal to have all units be luxury units. Depending on the build, something like 10-20% have to be low income because the state and city demands it.
Seattle got what most cities want: high-paying tech jobs and plenty of them. But Seattle didn’t think about what would happen to those earning mid- or low-incomes and didn’t plan/build accordingly. That’s one of the top reasons cited for the terrible homeless issue there.
And while the requirement for 10-20% low-income housing requirement in your neck of the woods is a step in the right direction, it’s a drop in the bucket, according to this article.
Down the road in Palo Alto, where the median housing price is over $3 million, people are renting old RV’s parked on the street for $400 a month.
NIMBY all you want. The neighboring communities don’t want it in their back yards, either. It’s coming anyway.