
A Bay Area developer wants to build 4,400 homes where they may be sorely needed - jseliger
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-small-city-controls-big-housing-project-20170728-story.html
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dalfonso
>> _“We’re a small town,” City Councilman W. Clarke Conway said at a meeting
on the project last fall, “and we’re a small town by choice.”_

>> _Last year, Brisbane hired a consultant who found that the city would net
$1 million a year in tax revenue by approving the Baylands. But if the city
instead approved a project with lots more commercial space, a larger hotel and
no housing, Brisbane would gain $9 million annually — an amount equivalent to
more than half the city’s current day-to-day operating budget._

>> _“I’d like to think if just the fiscal incentives were reversed, if a city
could make as much money off housing as they could retail, we’d be having a
very different conversation in California,” Stivers said._

>> _“I see a lot of stuff,” Dettmer said. “I see beds in garages. You have to
increase the [housing] supply. If you really want to help out people, let them
live in dignity. It just seems like a no-brainer.”_

>> _“I do feel sorry that the younger generation is not going to get to live
the life that we did,” she said. “But it’s a different time.”_

These were the quotes that stood out to me. It seems like, for various
reasons, the only benefit to existing residents and policy makers is "we may
be able to help other people". That's not enough of an incentive.

~~~
cylinder
A "small town" ... 7 miles from the center of a major global city and metro
area ... even closer to a major international airport. These people are
assholes.

~~~
getemback
There's nothing wrong with small villages 7 miles from a major city or even a
capital city, if the principal city is built properly. If you walk 7 miles
from the center of Zurich, Switzerland you'll probably find yourself in the
middle of a vineyard or pasture.

~~~
greglindahl
Your statement appears to have nothing to do with the area that Brisbane, CA
is located in.

~~~
getemback
I was just objecting to the idea that a small town was inappropriate in this
context. With a suitable urban form there's no reason why you couldn't take
the entire population of Brisbane and put them all on 640 acres, with 80% open
space.

But Brisbane, California is not a "small town" it's a disgusting example of
exurban sprawl.

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brisbane,+CA/@37.679201,-1...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brisbane,+CA/@37.679201,-122.330704,3a,78.3y,90t/data=!3m8!1e2!3m6!1shttps:%2F%2Fthumbs.trulia-
cdn.com%2Fpictures%2Fthumbs_6%2Fps.102%2Fe%2F7%2F5%2Fd%2Fpicture-
uh%3D9c9ef53f4781e89553177368d022-ps%3De75d7f71be33c23a4e3456941b73ffa7-142-Elderberry-
Ln-Brisbane-
CA-94005.jpg!2e7!3e27!6s%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fproxy%2FjFOwihIPa-3H8QgXCGQ-
ml2v3OklBa9hKVt3vmtj1YKCdX7sXcJmtp5tXnET_ujA_xFhQZl_IYdtZkrQZ2sh6wI0WGNMQjDnXoM-5_fMEFuHsctScZjCUljHrMmoniDsXhgA0YrAwUgBSS7q-Pif_R1prKxUtAs%3Dw159-h106-k-no!7i1440!8i960!4m5!3m4!1s0x808f78d8f2a30531:0xff55e02fce53ae30!8m2!3d37.6807661!4d-122.3999715)

~~~
glibgil
> Brisbane, California is not a "small town"

Brisbane is a small town. It is dense, not sprawling. It has a town square and
a handful of shops. It has schools. It is surrounded by empty space on all
sides. It is in a canyon of San Bruno Mountain on three sides and surround by
bay water and rail yards on the north side. You don't know what you are
talking about

~~~
getemback
[https://www.google.com/maps/@37.6888189,-122.4091851,410a,35...](https://www.google.com/maps/@37.6888189,-122.4091851,410a,35y,39.33t/data=!3m1!1e3)

~~~
glibgil
That's not the town. That's the industrial park. The town is just south of
there. It's made up of houses, not warehouses. Even including the industrial
park, Brisbane is small, a town, not sprawling, and is completely detached
from SF by water and a couple miles of rail yards. Tunnel Ave is really long
and no one drives on it. It is effectively a country road that leads from SF
to Brisbane. Go drive it or bike it or walk it some time. Brisbane is a
completely separate place from SF

~~~
getemback
You obviously have no idea what the boundaries of Brisbane are.

~~~
glibgil
Here you go. It's EXACTLY as I described.
[http://www.zipmap.net/California/San_Mateo_County/Brisbane.h...](http://www.zipmap.net/California/San_Mateo_County/Brisbane.htm)

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Animats
Redwood City is encouraging apartment construction in a big way. Block after
block of buildings in the 8-story range are going up near the railroad
station. Meanwhile, Stanford University is building an additional campus about
a mile from downtown. The strip-mall area in between is starting to be
replaced with larger buildings. It's happening fast; there are construction
cranes all over town.

Meanwhile, real estate in SF is dropping in price. The bubble seems to be
popping there.

~~~
Animats
I just found out that Stanford's "Redwood City campus" is entirely
administrative. 35 acres of bureaucrats. 2700 people. "School of Medicine
administration. Stanford Libraries and University Archives administration.
Business Affairs. Land, Buildings and Real Estate. Human Resources.
Residential & Dining Enterprises. Office of Development (i.e. fund-raising).
And those are just the off-site administrators. There are more back on the
main campus.

Stanford has only 2,180 faculty members.

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getemback
This has been going around, but even this plan to build 4400 dwellings is
still total nonsense, because the plan also includes office space for 15000
people. 15000 jobs requires much more than 4400 dwellings, so this plan will
just make things worse.

I recommend comparing and contrasting with this plan for Coyote Valley, to see
what real urbanism looks like. [http://www.greenbelt.org/wp-
content/uploads/2012/01/Coyote-V...](http://www.greenbelt.org/wp-
content/uploads/2012/01/Coyote-Valley-Vision-Document.pdf)

~~~
djb_hackernews
That plan is from 2003. Not familiar with the area, how did it turn out?

~~~
getemback
It's on ice. Nobody is building anything in Coyote Valley. But it's a
wonderful plan.

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jpao79
I think the issue as it stands is that the current residents have only 2
options:

A.) Approve high density housing and then see the value of their current house
drop (and rental income drop if they are landlords) and their schools, grocery
stores, parks, open space, parking, favorite restaurants, fitness centers and
traffic become all be super crowded

B.) Approve high density office and then see the value of their current house
skyrocket, see additional community benefits from developer concessions and no
impact to their current community amenities.

What happens if the developer proposed a third option of profit sharing so the
current residents each benefit as individuals:

C.) Build high density housing and high density office and give a significant
share of the profits to the existing residents. For 4400 units, the profits
could easily be in the $500M to $1B range. With only ~2350 (4700/2)
households, profit sharing of $50 to $100K per household would be $120M to
$235M. That could be a nice down payment for a house in the Central Valley if
they want to have that small town feel. Profit sharing on the annual office
rent could also provide some UBI income for the residents and keep apartment
rents stable.

~~~
santaclaus
> B.) Approve high density office and then see the value of their current
> house skyrocket, see additional community benefits from developer
> concessions and no impact to their current community amenities.

The state of California needs some sort of Beds for Butts in Office Chairs
legislation. Want to build office space and expand your tax base? Pony up the
space to house those employees.

~~~
jpao79
Agreed! Even then though you still need to get it past the existing NIMBY
population. I think buying them out via cash payments is really the only way
to get existing NIMBYs on board with high density residential units which were
not zoned when the bought into the community.

Basically the issue is that the developers are changing the rules of the game
AFTER the existing NIMBYs bought into the community.

~~~
wbl
Nope. Zoning codes that existed when NIMBYS bought are no protection against
opposition to housing.

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Mz
_It might be easier for residents and elected officials to welcome growth if
the city received more tax dollars for doing so. But the opposite is true.

Because of tax limits established in 1978 by Proposition 13, local governments
generally receive more revenue from sales and hotel room taxes than property
taxes. Proposition 13 limited property tax rates to 1% of a home’s taxable
value and restricted how quickly that taxable value could increase after a
purchase.

Last year, Brisbane hired a consultant who found that the city would net $1
million a year in tax revenue by approving the Baylands. But if the city
instead approved a project with lots more commercial space, a larger hotel and
no housing, Brisbane would gain $9 million annually — an amount equivalent to
more than half the city’s current day-to-day operating budget._

I have suggested before that tax incentives are part of why we have this
issue. This isn't exactly the way I figured it was screwing things up, but it
is evidence that tax structures are part of the problem.

~~~
dragonwriter
Low fixed property taxes means cities rely on sales and use tax, which means
retail is favored and housing disfavored.

Prop 13 ruins everything.

~~~
kqr2
Prop 13 is the big elephant in the room. Repealing Prop 13 and rent control
would probably align everybody's incentives to keep housing "affordable".
Owners would probably welcome higher density housing to help keep property
taxes down. Renters would likewise welcome more housing to increase the rental
supply.

However, there doesn't really seem to be a way to actually repeal any of these
laws.

~~~
s73ver
Problem being, a lot of people would get absolutely screwed by that, and end
up losing their home. There needs to be a way to fix that, without going back
to the original problem Prop 13 was intended to fix, which was people being
unable to afford the property tax on homes that they had been living in
forever.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Problem being, a lot of people would get absolutely screwed by that, and end
> up losing their home.

Would there be many? Certainly, there were some cases pre-prop 13, but prop 13
wasn't narrowly focussed on protecting homeowners. Those were exploited as
pretext, they weren't the motivation.

And you could make it protect homeowners while fixing the local government
incentives by providing a refundable state income tax credit for 100% of the
property tax due to assessed value increases beyond the existing Prop 13
limits. You could do this without or without, modifying the 1% fixed rate.

If you don't want that big of a subsidy, you could just allow homeowners to
defer without penalty the excess amount until transfer of the property. Still
stops people from being priced out of their homes.

~~~
getemback
In retrospect, even the pretext was bunk. It turns out that turfing old people
out of their giant, valuable houses is a benefit rather than a problem. Today,
thanks to Prop 13, Boomers are massively over-housed.

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billhathaway
How could the net increase in tax revenue only be $1M? At 4400 units, that
would be only be $227 per unit per year.

While prop 13 limits increases, for new units, they would be assessed at
current value.

~~~
maxerickson
In the report, the $1 million is a fiscal surplus. So it factors in the cost
of providing services.

~~~
thephyber
To expand, city services are more expensive for a resident of a city than an
employee, hence the asymmetry of the fiscal surplus numbers.

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HoppedUpMenace
May not be a popular opinion but I'd have to say that I value the idea of
having space between me and my neighbors, so I'm definitely not in favor of
maxing out the land for homes to the point where the houses might as well be
attached and labeled condos or apartments.

I can understand where the people are coming from in wanting to maintain what
they've invested into. I'd hate to see a sudden boom in population and sudden
traffic spikes due to the knee jerk reaction of building 100's of more houses
in an area that wasn't even planned to support more than what is existing.

People do need housing but people also need to be realistic about where they
live and how they plan to keep on living there.

~~~
getemback
With respect to your and our values, the people of the state have mandated
that greenhouse gas emissions be reduced below 1990 levels by year 2020, and
state law requires every city to adopt a climate action plan to that effect.
Brisbane's adopted plan recognizes that transportation is the majority of the
city's greenhouse gas emissions, and acknowledges that "Lack of affordability
in urban core housing causes people to live far away from where they work",
but does not propose fixing this problem. The only solution their climate
action plan proposes is to install public electric car chargers!

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zaroth
How can 4,400 homes net only $1 million in property taxes? Tell me where I can
sign up to pay $227 in annual property taxes!

~~~
thephyber
As mentioned elsewhere, gross is not net. Once you factor in city services
costs for those new residents, the net change is far lower than the gross
property taxes per new resident.

~~~
zaroth
Ah, well in that case, property taxes in theory should be neting exactly $0!
The government isn't supposed to be for-profit after all...

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notadoc
Build up, not out.

Easy solution.

