
California bill to add more housing in single-family neighborhoods blocked - ilamont
https://sf.curbed.com/2019/5/16/18617019/transit-housing-bill-sb-50-approproations-committee-suspense-wiener
======
mullingitover
California's housing crisis benefits existing homeowners, and this group has
the greatest sway with legislators. It seems like a ponzi scheme, even if it's
not intentional: people who can't afford to live here move away, and are
replaced by wealthier people who can. Eventually we're going to run out of
wealthy people and the whole thing will come crashing down.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _California 's housing crisis benefits existing homeowners, and this group
> has the greatest sway with legislators_

Because they vote. New York renters are a powerful contingent. Because they
vote.

A large fraction of California has self-selected out of the political process.
That is the root of a lot of its problems.

~~~
B-Con
Also because they exist. People who would move to CA but don't because of the
housing problem can't vote to fix the issue.

~~~
tomatotomato37
To be fair democracy needs some type of locality limit to keep it in the
specific sovereignty's influence; US citizens don't get to vote in Canadian
politics just because some people in Maine are thinking of moving over to
Montreal

------
crimsonalucard
In cupertino there was a similar drive and a similar movement to stop it.

The slogan for the people against it were saying "Don't turn cupertino into
condotino!" There are a lot of condos in cupertino now.

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mnm1
> But opponents of the legislation argued that the changes anticipatedunder SB
> 50 would have unalterably diminished the quality of life in many California
> neighborhoods dominated by single-family home development.

Interesting. The quality of life in such neighborhoods seems to me to be some
of the lowest in the nation. Sure there are worse places but overall, in my
experience, such neighborhoods have no stores, no desirable public lands where
people spend any time, and really nothing at all other than houses and ghost
streets. One needs a car to go anywhere. There is nothing to do, no one to
see, and no one to interact with. It's no wonder people who live there end up
using drugs and coping with a ton of anxiety and depression. It's one of the
worst places to raise teenagers and young adults especially ones not old to
drive. Having lived in such neighborhoods all my life, I still can't
understand what people are talking about in regards to the quality of life.
The quality of life is shit. But I can see putting up with that for more
money. I guess that's what they mean by quality of life. Low taxes and home
value appreciation.

~~~
notJim
Based on what I see on Nextdoor and from anti-housing groups in Seattle, I
suspect quality of life is coded language for "undesirable" types moving in.
If you make your city affordable, you don't get to live in an enclave where
everyone has a 7-figure net worth and went to Stanford.

~~~
WillPostForFood
Yes, and the effects of that on local schools as well.

~~~
sbov
Our local school in California busses in out of district students. By their
claim, they can offer higher quality education with more students because the
state funding scales faster than the burden.

~~~
thowfaraway
That's atypical of most high income, high quality districts in California.
E.g., Palo Alto is currently fighting with Stanford over a housing expansion
because of the impact of additional students at local schools.

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chrischen
Who blocked this? I am a California voter and I do not recall having any say
over this blockage.

~~~
yonran
From the latimes article, it was a state senator from the Los Angeles area:
“Sen. Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada Flintridge), chairman of the Senate
Appropriations Committee, announced at the beginning of the committee hearing
Thursday that Senate Bill 50 would not advance this year, meaning the bill
would not be debated again until 2020.”

Edit: Here is a video of him saying that despite the crisis, he doesn’t think
the bill is right, and maybe something better will come along
[https://twitter.com/BryanRAnderson/status/112911212601702809...](https://twitter.com/BryanRAnderson/status/1129112126017028096)

~~~
chrischen
As Chairman he blocked it from even being voted on... looks like I know who to
axe on the next elections.

------
dangjc
The bay area will lose more experienced older workers if the only way to exist
here is to share an apartment with other young single people. Companies should
care about this.

~~~
WillPostForFood
Companies should move out of the Bay Area.

~~~
malandrew
Yup. The more that move out of the Bay Area the better. There are a lot of
other nice places to live. It would be awesome for those nice places to get
good tech jobs.

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steven111
Thanks for writing. A veteran who has VA loan entitlement wouldn't be
extending this benefit to anyone else, but he or she could look to have the
new spouse as a co-borrower on a new VA loan. You can talk with a Veterans
United loan specialist in more detail at (431) 300-7649
elijahcapitals@gmail.com

------
neonate
[http://archive.is/KUDl1](http://archive.is/KUDl1)

~~~
jiveturkey
lol for all the 1.1.1.1 users!

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fmajid
If defeating NIMBYs was easy, it would have been done a long time ago.

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profreez
Really insightful story. I do hope that we'll soon find a way to solve the
California housing crisis!

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just_myles
I have seen a lot of luxury apartments springing up but, not actual homes
people can buy. That is a problem.

~~~
xvedejas
It's largely illegal to build units that are sufficiently small to be
affordable. Zoning requirements in most places have square foot minimums and
amenity requirements (such as parking).

That said, even "luxury apartments" give the wealthy a place to live rather
than bidding on existing housing stock, and so do relieve price pressure on
older buildings.

------
dang
Url changed from [https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-housing-single-
fa...](https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-housing-single-family-
zoning-senate-bill-50-dead-20190516-story.html) to one that seems to contain
more info and is less paywalled.

------
manfredo
"We'll do anything to solve the housing crisis!"

"How about building more housing?"

"Anything but that!"

~~~
Zombiethrowaway
People currently living there don't see it as a "housing crisis". They see it
as "too many people coming here, trying to change our single family house
peaceful residential neighborhood into bigger buildings".

So "how about limiting influx of new people / new development?"

"Sure, let's do that"

I understand newcomers may disagree with that approach, out of understandable
self interest.

But implying people currently living there are clueless or more selfish by
defending their interests?? Trying to make newcomers sound morally superior?
Come on.... You can do better that than that.

~~~
manfredo
So their plan to solve the housing crises essentially involves trying to keep
new people out of the SF Bay area? Keep in mind that this is an area that
heavily prides itself on being diverse and inclusive.

People aren't clueless for defending their interests, but they absolutely are
being highly deceptive in the way they are going about it. Many even go so far
as to try and claim that increasing housing supply will actually _increase_
prices. There was even a ballot initiative to ban market rate housing
construction in central San Francisco.

~~~
Zombiethrowaway
Again, from the people living there, what's the housing crisis?? Yes, they are
trying to limit how many people are coming in, that's obvious. This is
different from inclusive and diversity issues. This is about 100 new diverse
people rather than 1,000.

Again you can disagree with them, it is fair, but I think their approach is
perfectly understandable, and if you want to argue and debate, no one should
assume they are hypocritical or morally inferior. I read thosr comments all
the time on HN.

The minute you say "housing crisis", you show which situation/point of view
you're coming from. It's not a crisis that "needs" to be solved with more
housing, it is just your viewpoint.

~~~
manfredo
It's not an _assumption_ of hypocrisy. It genuinely is hypocrisy. A group of
people are praising themselves for their inclusivity, while pushing for
exclusionary policies. If they want to pursue these policies without being
hypocritical then they need to change their messaging to be transparent about
their desire for exclusion rather than inclusion.

~~~
Zombiethrowaway
Are you saying that unless one welcomes an infinity of people in their
backyard, one cannot be inclusive?

I think you should explain and defend the policy you wish, instead of
critizing an imaginary adversary by putting words in their mouth.

If you want more housing, hoping that prices will go down, say so. If you
favor a SF Bay area looking progressively more like NY City, say so. Many
people are very happy in NYC. And prices are also very high there.

Just expect some people to frankly disagree with that proposed evolution, and
don't attack them by being non inclusive: this is not the question.
Misrepresenting their arguments is not helping further your point of view.

(whose incumbent said "we will do anything to solve the housing crisis?" in
your original point?)

~~~
manfredo
I'm saying that if one supports policies with the intended effect of excluding
people from moving into one's neighborhood, it's hypocrisy to call oneself
inclusive.

> If you want more housing, hoping that prices will go down, say so. If you
> favor a SF Bay area looking progressively more like NY City, say so. Many
> people are very happy in NYC.

Yes, absolutely. Build more housing and build denser housing. This is what
pro-housing people have been saying for years.

> And prices are also very high there.

There's 8 million people in NYC instead of 800,000 in San Francisco.

> Just expect some people to frankly disagree with that proposed evolution,
> and don't attack them by being non inclusive: this is not the question.
> Misrepresenting their arguments is not helping further your point of view.

Pointing out the contradiction of one's purported values with their actions is
not an attack. When people support exclusory policies like rent control and
curbing housing development with the goal of reducing the ability of people to
move there, they are being exclusive. This is not a misrepresentation. People
who support said policies while simultaneously purporting to foster an
inclusive community are indeed being hypocritical. This is not an attack, this
is a factually correct observation.

------
anon1m0us
The simplest solution to all this is limiting the number of houses a person
can own. You only NEED one. Two is more than enough. Three is excessive.

It's not gold or silver or stocks and bonds.

People need houses to _live_ in. Other investments don't have practical value.
If people want to protect their assets, do it outside real estate.

~~~
dgzl
This is an example of ridiculous government overreach. Should fit right in for
California.

~~~
brianpgordon
It's drastic. I'm not taking a position either way because I don't know enough
about the tradeoffs. But it's _really_ bad out there, particularly here in SF;
maybe worse than you realize.

When mobs of zombies start shuffling out of the Pacific and swarming coastal
cities, you call the National Guard and impose martial law, "government
overreach" be damned. And when things reach this level of dysfunction in the
housing market, it is appropriate to start rationally examining practices
we've always taken for granted in the past like unfettered real estate
investment.

~~~
dgzl
It's my opinion that if the proposed resolution is to strip people of their
rights, then the resolution isn't worth the brain power used to discuss it.

~~~
brianpgordon
I don't really want to get drawn into this because – again – I don't have an
opinion one way or the other, but I have to point out that just because you're
able to do something today doesn't mean it's automatically a "right" that
needs to be "stripped" from you. We adopt reasonable legislation all of the
time which restricts legal activity in various ways. When the SEC issues
guidance on some little-known regulation that affects the way that hedge funds
are allowed to account for certain trading costs, nobody worries that
important rights are being eroded. Their investment activities will be a
little bit more restricted, but they have tons of money anyway and they have
plenty of other options. Maybe you can see by analogy why I wouldn't be
terribly impressed by owners of multiple California properties crying about
their rights if some reasonable light-touch restrictions were added that
slightly threatened their future revenues.

~~~
dgzl
Yes I've noticed that many times people don't feel the need to defend other
people's rights because it wouldn't also affect them directly.

~~~
anon1m0us
I would be forced to sell many pieces of property I do not want to sell if my
ideas were implemented.

I don't think it's my right to own all that. I don't need it. Someone else
does. Unfortunately, they can't afford it and I can. Doesn't make it right.

~~~
dgzl
You definitely have rights to your property, it's one of the most important
ideas established in the Constitution.

It's also your right to give that property away if you like.

~~~
anon1m0us
You need to consider the difference between something being right and
something being _a_ right.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_property](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_property)

Article 23 of the declaration states: “Every Person has the right to own such
private property as meets the essential needs of decent living and helps to
maintain the dignity of the individual and of the home.[10]”

\-- This is not the case with real estate in America. It isn't dignified.

------
baggy_trough
It was an awful bill. It removed density limits in any jobs-rich area (so
basically all of the Bay Area). It forced any single family zoned area to
allow fourplexes.

This would have greatly changed the character of neighborhoods that people
have lived and invested in for decades. If you can't see the political problem
with that, well, you might want to learn more about California politics.

~~~
clairity
what's wrong with fourplexes? i live in a neighborhood full of them and think
they're great. they add a lot of character without additional massing, and the
additional density unlocks commercial areas that are a walk away.

~~~
baggy_trough
That's great that you like your neighborhood. Presumably you thought it was
the best choice for you.

I don't want to live in a high density area, so that's why I chose to live
somewhere else.

~~~
clairity
fourplexes fit in with single family homes[0]. what makes you averse to a
fourplex in your neighborhood?

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

~~~
baggy_trough
More people - more noise - more traffic - more fuss.

------
i_am_nomad
This bill would have created enormous resentment on behalf of homeowners, the
ones who would have watched ugly four-story boxes go up in their
neighborhoods. They would have wondered why the problems of the big cities
were being dumped onto them, and the answer is found no farther then Weiner's
list of campaign contributors.

[https://votesmart.org/candidate/campaign-
finance/129655/scot...](https://votesmart.org/candidate/campaign-
finance/129655/scott-wiener#.XN3G26Z7mV4)

~~~
esoterica
The McMansions are uglier anyway. Is your right to not look at ugly boxes more
important than other people’s right to have a home for less than $2 million?

~~~
i_am_nomad
This bill doesn't propose upzoning the kinds of neighborhoods where the
"McMansions" are. Those houses are generally speaking way out in the suburbs
and exurbs. SB 50 targets regions close to major cities, and most of that are
"old growth" neighborhoods.

And, to your second statement: if people do indeed have a "right" to a home
less than $2 million, they can exercise that right. It just might not be in
Palo Alto.

~~~
esoterica
Alternately, if people want to exercise their “right” to not look at apartment
buildings, they should move somewhere rural where land is cheap enough that no
one builds them.

~~~
WillPostForFood
That’s exactly what people did ~60 years ago. Bought some farmland way outside
San Francisco, built houses and a community. No because a few billionaire
execs want to keep their companies close to their houses, we are going to tear
it all down? By all means, densify downtown San Francisco, Oakland, and San
Jose. But I don’t understand the perverse desire to add density to far
suburbs.

~~~
cgy1
One big reason to densify the suburbs (speaking of the bay area in particular)
is that they're in Silicon Valley and that's where most of the tech jobs are
(e.g., Apple, Google, Facebook, etc.). These cities are willing to let
companies come in and collect that sweet tax revenue but are not willing to
allow sufficient housing to be built to house all of those workers.

~~~
WillPostForFood
What sweet tax revenue are you talking about? Cities would make more from a
car dealership or an Apple store than a mega office complex. Regardless, it is
easier to move the office than build housing for the office. Incentivize
companies to be downtown SF/SJ/Oak near transit if density is the goal.
Building medium density mid-peninsula is a mess of an idea that will end up
creating as many commuters as local workers.

