
Google demands more office space, threatens to block North Bayshore housing - kushti
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/09/27/google-demands-more-office-space-threatens-to-block-north-bayshore-housing/
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troupe
If I understood it correctly, Google has offered to tear down office buildings
they currently own in order to make room for residential units to be built on
Google's property. They are saying that they need to add additional offices as
part of this demolition and construction. The article title tries to make it
sound like Google is preventing housing from being built on other's land which
seems a bit misleading. (Or maybe I just don't understand what the article is
saying.)

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alistairSH
If I understand it correctly, Google originally offered to place new housing
on their land. They are now demanding that they be allowed more office space
(on, or near, that same land), or they will prevent the housing.

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test6554
As far as I'm concerned, It's their land. They can build office buildings
right up to the millimeter of the easement line for all I care.

But they are actually going to still build some housing which is generous.

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Tempest1981
As long as we agree that "solving" the housing "crisis" is futile at this
ratio. This recent study estimates we need 20% more houses to drop prices by
10%. Current rate is maybe 2%/yr.
[http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/09/27/building-boom-may-
mere...](http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/09/27/building-boom-may-merely-slow-
soaring-bay-area-home-prices-economists/)

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dvdhnt
> We are supportive of the preliminary approval of a North Bay Shore precise
> plan which includes 9,850 units of housing, 1,600 of which would be
> affordable...

I know exactly what they mean by “affordable”, but how the hell are we ok
getting to a point where affordable housing only refers to housing that is
affordable because it’s being subsidized?

Ridiculous.

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beaner
All housing is affordable, otherwise it would never be bought or sold.

"Affordable" in this context is a misnomer that just means "subsidized."

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jdavis703
Who is it affordable by though? By that definition a Manhattan penthouse is
affordable.

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beaner
That's right. "Affordable" by itself doesn't say anything about who can afford
it. If we were talking about affordable for the middle class, we'd call it
"Affordable for the middle class." This is why the term is a misnomer. All
housing is affordable, but the term is being used to describe something other
than affordability (subsidization).

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1_2__4
You’re being so pedantic as to be completely wrong. Affordable does not mean
that at least one person on the planet could theoretically purchase it.

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beaner
I don't think there's anything pedantic about it. The term "affordable
housing" implies that housing which isn't subsidized isn't affordable. But the
vast majority of housing is bought, sold, and owned by regular people without
subsidizing. The term is not accurate at all. The fraction of housing that is
only available to a number of people in the single digits is so small as to
not be worth considering. "All but 0.0001% of housing is affordable" would be
pedantic; "all housing is affordable" is not.

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dragonwriter
> I don't think there's anything pedantic about it. The term "affordable
> housing" implies that housing which isn't subsidized isn't affordable.

No, it doesn't, because “affordable” doesn't mean “subsidized”, it means the
purchase or rental cost is (and, usually when it comes to rental-committed
units in a development plan, is guaranteed by contract or some other binding
arrangement to remain) within the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development’s income-based affordability guidelines for a specified income
level; in the case of the plan under discussion, that income level being 50%
of the Areawide Median Income for Santa Clara County.

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magicalist
There's a _lot_ more information (instead of just two quotes from city council
members) in the coverage here: [https://www.mv-
voice.com/news/2017/09/27/google-throws-uncer...](https://www.mv-
voice.com/news/2017/09/27/google-throws-uncertainty-into-north-bayshore-
housing-plans)

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mikeyanderson
The problem is that the Valley wants to stay suburban and the market is
demanding that it become a city. Google could put a set of huge towers on this
land with housing and office space and retail.

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Tempest1981
Can you clarify who "the Valley" is, and who "the market" is?

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mikeyanderson
The Valley is the combined local governments, and the market is the companies
and workers who both see value in staying in the area. The land is so
expensive that if one locality raised the building restrictions, you'd see
massive towers going up.

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quotemstr
The Bay Area's housing problems arise largely from fragmentation and NIMBY-
ism. The sum of the rationally self-interested being made in all of these
tiny, fragmented municipality equals a giant mess that's getting worse every
year and that's starting to seriously impair economic growth.

The entire Bay Area needs to be incorporated as one giant city all the way
from the Presidio down to San Jose. It's _already_ one giant city: we might we
well recognize the fact. We'll reuse the name "San Francisco" for convenience.

Having had SF annex all its suburbs (like growing cities used to do back when
we remembered what good government looked like), residents can switch the city
to at-large representation and finally start planning the region's growth in a
way that makes sense.

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tudorw
So on the one hand I'm meant to buy into some fully connected global future,
on the other the only way I make real progress is concentrating all my
resources into a small amount of territory to maximise productivity.

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leggomylibro
Yes.

It's a global network of these dense dots, each specializing in different
thing, each exporting their specialties at prices that more bespoke or small-
volume producers cannot even approach, and each producing different types of
negative externalities for their local environment. You might be facing higher
rent, but at least you're not facing cadmium mining runoff in the water, or
lead in the water, or acid rain.

Probably.

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tudorw
When you put it that way, let's green light some tower blocks for the bay area
right away, rack and stack...

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leggomylibro
You certainly don't have to. Just don't expect to reap the collective benefits
of a system that you don't participate in or share the burden of.

~~~
tudorw
no system is isolated though, so if one system benefits at the cost of another
who should collect the benefits ?

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Veratyr
How about they build their office space on their existing land? Looking at
Google HQ on Google Maps satellite view, it looks like their land is 30-50%
parking, i.e. waste.

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bskap
They can't. Zoning laws restrict how much building they can actually build on
lots they own.

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pascalxus
With the incredible emergency we have, you would think, someone would be
working hard to change the laws. It's an entirely man made emergency, that
need not be. Perhaps it'll take a start up company of politicians to "change
the world" to address these types of issues.

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ninkendo
Google not being to develop more offices is by no means “an incredible
emergency”. The fact that there’s not enough space for people to live, that
may qualify as one.

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pascalxus
I meant the housing situation overall in the bay area is an incredible
emergency.

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jklinger410
This website is very bad without adblockers and basically illegible.

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khazhoux
Do we need another 10,000 families in Mountain View [EDIT: in the Bay Area]
right now, though?

Central is always backed up, 101 sucks, schools are full, and you can't get
into restaurants on Castro without a wait.

Can these companies just expand somewhere else, please?

EDIT: I didn't really mean that Googlers should live outside MV and commute to
Mountain View. I mean that it's easy for Google to build office space for 10K
new workers... but it decreases quality of live for everyone else when more
people cram in. Expand in more cities, like Amazon is doing!

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sbov
If 10k families expanded elsewhere 101 would suck even more when they commute
into Google's offices. I think the point is to put work and amenities close to
where they live.

My city of 15k supports its own school district and restaurants. A
neighborhood of 10k families (not sure what population that would translate
into) certainly could. But I'm not sure if that's in their plans.

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khazhoux
Sorry, I didn't mean the families should live elsewhere -- poorly phrased on
my part. I really meant that I wish the big companies would expand more in
other parts of the country, and not increase the pressure on the Bay Area.

