
How Much Housing Will Be Built? - apsec112
http://ternercenter2.berkeley.edu/examplecities/index.html?city=San+Francisco
======
raldi
If you click the link and, leaving all the rest of the defaults alone, drop
the required affordable housing percentage from 10% to 0%, you lose about
4,000 affordable units but gain 6,000 market-rate ones.

So, would this change increase or decrease displacement?

Well, another recent Berkeley study concluded that a new market-rate apartment
has about half the displacement-fighting impact of a below-market-rate
apartment:
[http://www.urbandisplacement.org/sites/default/files/images/...](http://www.urbandisplacement.org/sites/default/files/images/udp_research_brief_052316.pdf)

Therefore, the benefit of the extra market-rate units fails to offset the
damage from the loss of affordable units (6000/2 < 4000). It fails similarly,
but to a lesser degree, if you drop it to 5%.

But if you crank it up to 15%, the gains from the extra affordable units are
overwhelmed by the lost market-rate units (4000/2 > 784). So it looks like the
default value of 10% is the sweet spot.

By the way, the math is even easier for the 25% threshold that Supervisors
Jane Kim and Aaron Peskin are proposing
([http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Prop-C-...](http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Prop-
C-a-tool-to-help-solve-our-housing-crisis-7938760.php)), because that would
actually lead to _less_ affordable housing being built. Less market-rate, too.
A double displacement whammy.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
The entire concept of low income housing is a scam to keep market rate prices
high. Build enough market rate housing that the price falls to what low income
people can afford and you don't need any low income housing.

If the government spent the money it spends subsidizing rents on subsidizing
construction then the problem would be solved.

~~~
tsmffh
Government price controls do not fundamentally change the _cost_ only the
price. If the government is so efficient and can, somehow, make housing
cheaper than it would be in a free market why shouldn't they also take control
of the food supply? Computers? Software? _All_ industry?

~~~
AnthonyMouse
The government created a market failure by passing restrictive zoning
regulations leading to a severe under-supply of housing. Resolving the market
failure requires either eliminating the restrictions or providing enough cash
money to justify the builder's expense in contending with them.

Obviously the better solution is to do away with the restrictions, but
politics is the devil's day job and all that.

~~~
mcguire
"The government"?

Good thing there's no actual people involved.

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mickrussom
The bay area. The best, brightest, smartest, pedigreed, hardest working most
motivated people on earth. And we cant solve the simplest problems in the
Maslow's hierarchy. American Indians solved the housing problems with Teepees
and Wigwams - so much for being "smart." There was an article recently where a
google employee was living in a 24 ft truck in the google parking lot. This
Bay Area mess is a self inflicted joke. What I find amazing is Tokyo. Tokyo,
1945, burned to the ground, population 3.5 million. Today, Tokyo is at 13
million and the Tokyo-Yokohama urban area is 37.8 million. And if you've ever
been to japan public transportation is functioning and the society seems to
nail basic needs much better than smarty-pants bay area.

~~~
pjc50
"What do you mean 'we', white man?"

The problem is there's no solidarity with the newcomers, and a strong desire
by incumbents to keep the place the same and not turn it into skyscraper-
filled Guangzhou. For a lot of people _not_ building housing is an important
priority in their life that they will fight for. Not to mention the question
of money.

You might equally ask why the tech industry feels the need to be stuck so
tightly to SF when it's far more amenable to remote work than most industries.

There's also the little matter of the earthquake zone.

~~~
rsync
"... a strong desire by incumbents to keep the place the same and not turn it
into skyscraper-filled Guangzhou. For a lot of people not building housing is
an important priority in their life that they will fight for."

Which is _totally reasonable_.

You or I may not like it, or disagree with it, or work against that idea, but
it's incorrect to claim that incumbent property owners (anywhere) protecting
their perceived value in the status quo is somehow wrong or morally bankrupt
or misinformed or illiberal.

~~~
natrius
Sorry, it's morally bankrupt. Four middle class families spend more on housing
than most Bay Area single-family homeowners. If it were legal for those
families to live in a four-plex, they'd outbid wealthy families for that land.
The wealthy pay cheaper prices by using the law to prevent people with less
money from bidding against them. The wealthy can't actually afford the idyllic
single-family neighborhoods they claim the right to without economic
segregation laws.

~~~
rsync
"Sorry, it's morally bankrupt. Four middle class families spend more on
housing than most Bay Area single-family homeowners. If it were legal for
those families to live in a four-plex, they'd outbid wealthy families for that
land."

Yes, I _also_ wish I had a pony.

~~~
natrius
In the face of injustice, some accept it as the way the world works. Others
fight to end injustice. Economic segregation laws are abhorrent, and I am
fighting to end them in Austin. I hope others fight to end them everywhere.

[https://www.facebook.com/DesegregateATX/](https://www.facebook.com/DesegregateATX/)

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jrockway
This was a fun game!

I'm running for governor next whenever that happens. I really had to put
myself in the shoes of a California voter to get the numbers to work out. I
think for all new housing going forward, it's important that we enrich the
state's coffers so that all y'all don't have to pay as much property tax -- as
manded by the State Constitution. I'm therefore raising the fees per unit to
the maximum this game allows (really not high enough but it's good as a
working model). I also think the whole point of California is big open parking
lots and lots of freeways; so I'm going to require that density be lowered by
40% and parking increased by 40%. I've noticed that there's no affordable
housing in the entire state pretty much, so each new project will be required
to set aside 40% of their units to qualified people-in-need-of-affordable-
stuff. It's a real problem and these fat cat housing developers only care
about themselves. Additionally, the banks going bust really fucked our economy
a couple years ago, so I'm mandating that they charge no less than 10% per
year of interest. Finally, as a show of good faith, the State of California is
levying a tax on property development of 16% of the total project cost.

With this, there is a 0% chance of any new housing being built. You won the
lottery when you happened to be alive 40 years ago to buy a house, and it's my
job as the Governor of California to protect that asset for you and your
children.

Vote for jrockway!

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eru
Building denser has to be part of the solution. One way is to build up.
Another is to also remove minimum parking requirements:

See
[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/business/economy/15view.ht...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/business/economy/15view.html?_r=1)
and
[http://www.uctc.net/research/papers/351.pdf](http://www.uctc.net/research/papers/351.pdf)

~~~
IndianAstronaut
An easy fix might be to turn single story strip malls into two story dual
purpose buildings. Stores on bottom, rooms on top. I doubt this would do much
to change aesthetics.

~~~
rwhitman
Usually when a strip mall is re-zoned for mixed use, they demolish the older
structure.

But on the aesthetic side it's possible to turn these buildings into something
interesting if they're renovated by someone creative. Worked across the street
from this place when an architecture firm bought and renovated it:
[http://www.rchstudios.com/639-larchmont-
boulevard/](http://www.rchstudios.com/639-larchmont-boulevard/)

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youngButEager
Even if all the tougher regs were removed tomorrow, very few builders with the
large $$$ it takes to build housing are also stupid enough to risk government
seizure in the future. The population _will_ keep growing. The demand for
housing _will_ increase. The city leaders have already proven that stealing
control of someone's personal asset is something _they will do._ (the personal
asset in this case is a pre-1979 mom-and-pop rental property)

After 1979, long-term tenants moved in and the supply of rent controlled units
dropped to nothing very quickly. Then what? You can't tell the entrenched
'fast movers' who got there first with the cheaper rent control units "move
out and give someone else a chance."

Once a government shows a willingness to steal control of someone's personal
assets, NO one who is smart enough to afford to build housing is also DUMB
enough to build in rent control zones.

Only enticements get builders to build in those areas. And most builders see
this:

\- in Southern California there was a move to 'move the goalposts' and instead
of pre-1979 rentals being rent controlled, now everything built pre-1995 would
become rent controlled.

\- here recently on the Peninsula the same topic came up -- re-classify
candidate rental properties for rent control up to 1995.

Both of those were defeated. But it signaled to developers that the goalposts
can be moved.

Until leadership stop stealing control of people's personal assets, it doesn't
matter if all building code/zoning/etc. rules are removed -- very few builders
will put a new project in a rent control area, where city leaders have already
stolen control of personal assets.

"You like to steal control of assets that don't belong to you? I won't be
building assets near you."

SIMPLE AS THAT.

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cbr

        Properties included in the model have total development
        potential, measured by FAR and residential units, of 20%
        or less of the maximum allowed under local zoning law. 
        All properties above this level are considered "built 
        out" and do not factor in to the maximum potential units
        number.
    

FAR is "floor area ratio" and controls how many square feet of building you
can have on a given lot. I'd love to have a slider for this, since increasing
the allowable FAR is a good way to make more efficient use of limited land.

(For example, zoning where I live sets a maximum FAR of 0.75, but most
properties are over that limit and grandfathered in, averaging more like 0.90.
Allowing people to build to 0.90 instead of 0.75 would not substantially
change the feel of the area, and would make a lot more units available.)

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norea-armozel
I think the housing troubles could easily be fixed if those jobs which can
easily be moved over to telecommuting were done so over time. Like honestly,
how many devs and QA staff have to physically be in the same place throughout
the work week? I'd understand if we're talking a firm that built physical
prototypes for products but a website/service is easily accessible from the
high rise office as it is from home office. At some point, software
development is going to have to suck it up and be 100% remote for day-to-day
concerns (excluding certain meetings with clients and the like).

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yetanotheracc
Looks like streamlining the red tape would be a good place to start (19k
additional units, 500M in taxes).

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ksec
I could only wish the same can be done for Hong Kong.

