
The YIMBYs lost in California but they’re just getting started - jseliger
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/04/where-yimbys-can-win/559001/
======
llsf
SF needs more multifamily homes (apartment buildings). Now, I can see how
SB827 could have scared lots of people, like in SF.

If SB827 had passed, I am sure some SF neighborhoods and cities in the Bay,
would have either defund existing or stop any new public transit projects, to
avoid up zoning.

I think the City should just create a plan like Haussmann did in Paris. The
City should start by preempting all the lots that are underused (parking lots,
gas stations, car wash, single story commercial buildings, etc.) and build to
the limit for the area. We could even keep the single story business at ground
level (car wash, some parking, etc.). That should bring lots of units to the
market.

Cities in the Bay should build more too. It is a bit crazy to have Apple or
Google, creating those giant campuses for 10's of thousands employees, in
cities that do not build anything close to accommodate the families of those
employees. Cupertino and Mountain View welcome taxes from Apple or Google, but
do not do much to house those employees and their families. Maybe every city
should provide at least the same number of units as they have employees.

~~~
nradov
There are only about 20 gas stations in San Francisco. You can't have a city
without gas stations; they're just as essential as housing.

~~~
electricslpnsld
> You can't have a city without gas stations

Manhattan has ~1 gas station per 42,000 residents, and it seems to be doing
just fine. Back of the envelop calculation puts the San Francisco ratio to ~1
gas station per 43,000 residents, so it is about on par with other dense areas
of the US.

~~~
propman
Manhattan has a very robust public transportation system though. It's easier
to get around the city and to friends, attractions and jobs without a car. San
Francisco, definitely not the case. A lot of people live there but work in
Palo Alto or Sunnyvale

~~~
InitialLastName
Right, but the assertion was "You can't have a city without gas stations,
they're just as essential as housing", which is a very, shall we say, suburban
view of things.

------
chrischen
Japan solves the problem by forcing permissive zoning at a national level so
that localities can’t pull their blocking policies. Localities will always
overpower those trying to movie in, forcing people to live further out or move
to a different city, but if it’s a national problem a national law is due.

~~~
knuththetruth
Japan solves this problem by having home values that drop to just about
nothing over time, such that everything outside of commercial property
investment is unattractive to Global Capital.

Zoning is a problem, but without additional stopgaps to prevent this kind of
financialized speculation in the housing market, you can’t resolve the
affordability crisis.

~~~
chrischen
Part of home values dropping is also their culture of preferring new
constructions over old buildings. But then again I think objectively, all
things being equal, everyone prefers a new house, but Americans are more
tolerant of old buildings.

~~~
A2017U1
All the real estate ads in Japan include the year it was built, have never
seen that anywhere else, quite sure my landlord in Australia wouldn't know if
I asked.

~~~
spiralx
You could look it up in the Land Registry in the UK if you wanted to, although
it's often fairly easy to guess roughly when a house was built here from the
style.

~~~
A2017U1
Fair call, I just rarely see it in my country and it's not used as a marketing
tool. There's some very well built old houses, places are judged on merit.

------
danieltillett
Rather than trying to fight NIMBYism directly since development imposes large
costs on the current residents and home owners in an area, fight it by using a
reverse dutch auction process [0].

Developers can bid what they are willing to pay a community for development
approval of what they want to build and the communities can compete against
each other to win the development. The amount the developer is willing to pay
rises each month and the first community to say yes gets the development.

This way rather than all the surplus going to the developer and all the costs
to the community, both sides benefit. Win-win.

Edit. Since it has come up a few times in the comments you can cover the
location issue via the developer's bid requirement documentation. For example,
they could say they need conditions x, y, & z for any site and only
communities with sites that meet those conditions can bid. The developer can
make the conditions as narrow or broad as they like (all the way from only one
site in state meeting the conditions to thousands of sites). It will be in the
interest of the developer to keep the conditions broad since the more flexible
they can be the more communities will compete for the development and the
lower the cost to them.

0\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_auction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_auction)

~~~
stinkytaco
Also, hold those developers responsible for fulfilling their obligations.

I am, perhaps, a bit of NIMBY. I'm willing to accept that some of my concerns
are not in the public interest. I don't want an apartment building in my
neighborhood because of the impacts on street parking, traffic, noise, etc.
All of those things negatively affect me, and so I take a lot of convincing.

But another issue is that developers have a history of claiming they will
ameliorate these issues by improving infrastructure, such as adding
underground parking, upgrading sewers, building sound barriers, etc and then
do not. Or they exploit loopholes to avoid their obligations. An example where
I live is that new developments are required to have sidewalks. Developers
simply tell homeowners they are required to build the sidewalk within 2 years
which, of course, doesn't happen. 5 years later, the city goes in an builds
them and applies specials to the home and everyone is unhappy except the
developer, who walked away from the project long ago.

Sometimes its seems that cities are so beholden to developers that they can
get away with anything.

~~~
rayiner
It’s the government’s job to ensure adequate infrastructure. The people that
buy from the developer will be paying for their proportionate share of that
new infrastructure with taxes. Forcing the developer to cover the costs of
infrastructure is just a sneaky way to shift the tax burden from existing
residents to new residents.

~~~
zdragnar
Isn't this the crux of the issue? Why would current tax payers volunteer to
pay more so that more people can come into their neighborhood, devaluing their
property by increasing noise, light and chemical pollution?

It's curious to me that so many people complain about gentrification in terms
of destroying the nature of an existing community, but then we also have so
many complaints about zoning laws that are designed to protect the visible
characteristics of communities.

~~~
pcwalton
> Why would current tax payers volunteer to pay more so that more people can
> come into their neighborhood, devaluing their property by increasing noise,
> light and chemical pollution?

Rayiner's point is that current tax payers _won 't_ pay more, because new
residents result in a higher tax base in the first place.

In California with Prop 13 and widespread rent control, this is especially
true.

~~~
crzwdjk
In California with Prop 13, the current tax payers' property tax rates are
well below those of newcomers regardless. So they have no incentive to change
things, since their taxes stay at the same low rate either way, whereas in a
normal state, I have an incentive to get as much new development in my town as
possible to add to the tax base, especially if that new development is stuff
that doesn't require lots of expensive infrastructure or tax subsidies.

------
nikanj
If only the young people voted. The average age in most states is ~40, so the
governments should not be completely ignoring the young.

~~~
minikites
The GOP makes it difficult to vote for anyone who isn't a landowning white
person under the guise of protecting us from "voter fraud". They do this in a
number of ways, including (but not limited to) under-staffing or eliminating
polling locations in non-white areas and onerous address/residency
restrictions (to exclude students, other young people just getting started,
and migrant families).

Many young people want to vote, but are discouraged or prevented from doing
so.

~~~
favorited
It got much worse after SCOTUS invalidated portions of the VRA. States which
previously needed federal approval to change voting procedures closed polling
places on college campuses and drastically reduced early voting windows to
make it more difficult for college students to vote. Some states (I know Texas
and N.C. off the top of my head) don't allow student IDs to be used at the
polls, either.

Other states targeted minorities with similar tactics. Alabama (which needed
federal sign-off on changes under the VRA) passed a voter ID law then closed
30-something DMVs across the state, almost exclusively in areas with huge
black populations.

------
8bitsrule
Not many people can build a home these days. So I'm not against developers.
BUT: if there's any public money involved, then a -good- law will protect the
future of those homes from becoming exploitation centers. And a -great- law
will recognize that most people will never be rich, and will still need
affordable housing ... and will be designed to bake that -directly- into the
system.

So we never again wind up with the tragic situation we're faced with today.

------
abalone
_> ...local regulations used by homeowners to block new development._

If the YIMBYs want to win they need to realize their opponents are not just
homeowners. Low-income renters have issues with them too. YIMBYs are generally
in some form of denial about that.

They like to believe that they are fighting the progressive fight against
rich, old homeowners. They like to proclaim they are fighting for "poorer,
younger, and (frequently) non-white people" (Stripe).[1] But when it comes to
explaining why poorer and non-white renters aren't always on their side,
YIMBYs are caught flat-footed. If they're not careful they end up sounding
condescending. Like, _Didn 't you guys take economics? Supply and demand,
bro!_

That's probably why the bill failed. There were significant amendments added
to address the concerns of low-income housing advocates, who see a greater
need for BMR units among other things. But these were added only after
substantial protest.

One low-income housing activist said it best: "The YIMBY movement has a white
privilege problem."[2] They are kind of in denial about the effect of
development-stimulated gentrification on rents in affordable neighborhoods.
They like to think that young tech workers are in the same boat as minimum
wage earners, all in need of "affordable" housing. They really don't like to
think about things like induced demand, where adding capacity can actually
create more demand.

In the long run even the tech industry needs affordable housing for service
industry workers to support its continued growth. It's not just about economic
justice or turning back gentrification. Quite simply, if cooks and teachers
and artists can't afford to work here it's not going to be as desirable a
place to live. If the market alone can't solve that -- and many low-income
housing advocates believe it can't -- then we need to fight for BMR and other
strategies to create and protect truly affordable housing.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16988398](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16988398)

[2] [http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-housing-bill-
failu...](http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-housing-bill-failure-
equity-groups-20180502-story.html)

~~~
pcwalton
Induced demand in housing is a myth. Research confirms that building more
housing reduces displacement.

UC Berkeley's Urban Displacement Project study covers this quite well:
[http://www.urbandisplacement.org/research#section-84](http://www.urbandisplacement.org/research#section-84)

Key summary: "What we find largely supports the argument that building more
housing, both market-rate and subsidized, will reduce displacement. However,
we find that subsidized housing will have a much greater impact on reducing
displacement than market-rate housing. We agree that market-rate development
is important for many reasons, including reducing housing pressures at the
regional scale and housing large segments of the population. However, our
analysis strongly suggests that subsidized housing production is even more
important when it comes to reducing displacement of low-income households."

~~~
abalone
You misinterpreted the summary. Reading the actual study, it confirms induced
demand:

"At the local, neighborhood scale, however, new luxury buildings could change
the perception of a neighborhood and send signals to the market that such
neighborhoods are desirable and safer for wealthier residents, resulting in
new demand. Given the unmet demand for real estate in certain neighborhoods,
new construction could simply induce more in-moving."

"...What we find largely confirms this regional versus local argument;... This
suggests that indeed in San Francisco, and by extension similar strong
markets, the unmet need for housing is so severe that production alone cannot
solve the displacement problem." (p7)

Note that the summary concerns the _regional_ effect of new housing
construction -- with a strong emphasis on subsidized housing. Exactly what
low-income housing advocates are campaigning for.

~~~
pcwalton
You quoted the hypothesis and not the results. The study says that there is no
clear correlation between building in a given neighborhood and displacement.
In one area with new development, significant displacement occurred. In the
other, no significant displacement occurred.

The study concludes that housing should be built. It can't be made to suggest
otherwise.

~~~
abalone
_> You quoted the hypothesis and not the results._

You're simply wrong. As cited, "What we find largely confirms this regional
versus local argument". And again, the study emphasizes the need for
_subsidized_ housing and "investing in the preservation of housing
affordability and stabilizing vulnerable communities." That's exactly why low-
income housing activists fought against the original YIMBY-supported bill.

~~~
pcwalton
The paper doesn't say that market rate development has a negative effect on
displacement at the local level. It says it has no effect on displacement.
There is no support for the idea that building more market-rate housing
_causes_ displacement. Only anti-development ideologues like Tim Redmond claim
that.

Tenants activists in the Bay Area are actually making the problem worse,
contributing to displacement, and driving out the very vulnerable populations
they claim to protect. It is unfortunate that these groups are putting anti-
development ideology over real solutions.

~~~
abalone
_> The paper doesn't say that market rate development has a negative effect on
displacement at the local level._

Again, simply incorrect and a miscomprehension of the study:

"These two block groups illustrate the complex relationships between housing
development and demographic change. While both neighborhoods have witnessed
dramatic development in one of the fastest growing parts of San Francisco, and
have similarly seen significant growth in housing prices, _one may be
classified as experiencing displacement of low-income households_ , while the
other does not." [emphasis mine]

(The one that didn't maintains "high rates of crime and concentrated poverty
which may be dampening the attractiveness of the neighborhood" and the
majority of units are rent controlled.)

~~~
fiter
Your parenthetical seems to prove the other posters original point. It wasn't
the development that caused the displacement, it was the relative appeal of
the neighborhood.

~~~
abalone
It doesn’t. Poster was saying study doesn’t show local displacement due to
development. That’s flat out wrong.

It shows one neighborhood with displacement where development “contributed to
the ongoing transformation of the neighborhood.” The other that resisted
displacement not only maintained high crime, it also had a higher proportion
of rent controlled units (which you didn’t mention).

That demonstrates that development can cause local displacement, although
there are many complex factors at play that can resist it. Like if you build
right next to skid row, maybe your building is not enough to gentrify the
neighborhood, plus rent control protects residents. Absent those, you’ll get
displacement.

~~~
pcwalton
"Ongoing transformation" being the key phrase. As in, gentrification was
occurring regardless of the new development. It's not hard to see how this
happens, either. Not building anything doesn't prevent wealthy people from
moving in: it just reduces the number of units available in newly-desirable
neighborhoods. If new buildings aren't available, buyers and landlords will
just renovate old units and sell or rent them to wealthy newcomers. (Example:
Casa de Dolores in the Mission, a rent controlled building that was Ellis'd,
completely renovated into a TIC, and sold mostly to tech workers. Even Costa-
Hawkins repeal wouldn't have done anything to prevent this! In fact, if it
gets repealed and vacancy control is implemented, you can bet to see a whole
lot more of this, something tenants' rights groups will never admit.)

You are cherry-picking phrases from the study to try to make it sound like
it's stating the exact opposite of what it states. This is obviously a
pointless game, similar to the one creationists play. If the authors of the
study wanted to say "don't build anything", they would have said that in the
conclusion. Instead, they said the opposite.

The solution is to build more everywhere. More market-rate housing, more
subsidized housing. Subsidized housing is especially important, but both kinds
help. That is precisely what SB 827 encouraged. That is why nonprofit housing
developers supported it. Tenants' groups and the DSA were wrong to oppose it.
It is frustrating to see tenants' rights groups refuse to admit responsibility
for hurting the groups they claim to be helping.

~~~
abalone
> _”don 't build anything”_

Every one of your comments contains blatant misrepresentations and devolves
into YIMBY talking points. I have clearly represented the study as supporting
building. The issue is how much emphasis on BMR and how to protect vulnerable
communities from local displacement. The study places strong emphasis on BMR,
preserving housing affordability and protecting vulnerable communities —
phrases “cherry picked” from its conclusion. Thus it supports the very issues
that low income and minority activists have been fighting for against the
original YIMBY-supported bill and the amendments that were added to better
address their concerns.

------
DmenshunlAnlsis
Why the rush to increase the population in a water-poor, earthquake prone
region? It seems crazy to me, and “money” seems an insufficient answer.
California as a whole seems less than sustainable over the next 50 years, so
maybe planning should aim in another direction? Instead of inducing people to
live there, build competitors in less seismically unstable regions that have
access to fresh water that isn’t just about gone.

I appreciate that every place is subject to some kind of disaster, but
massive, regular earthquakes liquefying soil is second only to massive floods
for destructive capacity. It’s also true that if for example you live near a
Great Lake, you have water. In terms of risk to people and infrastructure,
tornadoes are pretty minor compared to earthquakes and drought.

~~~
jimmaswell
This occurred to me too. Why is anybody picking these California cities over
Washington or the like to move to for their tech career? Is the money just
that much better, even adjusted for COL, that it's worth it to put up with the
traffic, density, less visually appealing landscape, noise, and likely not
being able to afford anything resembling a nice living space?

~~~
econner
I chose a company without really considering the city (SF) after college. A
lot of my friends ended up in the area as well. Then my network grew and it's
become harder to leave, even though I keep planning to.

------
olliej
Well the “progressive” people in CA (especially SF) are both xenophobic (only
people from SF should be allowed to live there), and short sighted (if you
don’t build new housing their children won’t have anywhere to live, even
without people moving to the city)

For public servants, and other people whose salary is directly or indirectly
tied to government salaries housing will only get less affordable as prop 13
guarantees that landlords can profit from true market value of their
properties without paying taxes on that value. Prop 13 is literally a tax
payer subsidy to businesses and nothing more.

------
PeterStuer
Wonder how many of the YIMBY's are actually YIYBY's (Yes is YOUR backyard)

~~~
saosebastiao
Only NIMBYs are trying to control other people's backyards. YIMBYs can't do
anything to your backyard, because you own it and can make any choices about
your property for yourself. But you don't own your neighbor's backyard any
more than some schmuck who lives hundreds of miles away does.

Perhaps you had the impression that your title and deed gave you property
rights over your neighbor's yard merely because you live in the same
neighborhood. If so, you were mistaken.

