
California's constitution makes affordable housing hard to build - jseliger
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-affordable-housing-constitution-20190203-story.html
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joshe
This is a nice change to consider, and would help. But it won't be a massive
improvement. Public housing isn't much of the housing stock and this won't
change that. If we even built another 20K units in SF or Oakland in the next
10 years I'd be shocked.

The real ones to watch (and support) are things which require local
governments to approve housing. Like SB 50, which defaults to approval for
buildings up to 35-45 feet near transit. That's Paris / North Beach / Haight
style density approved quickly enough to keep costs low. Then you can look at
every existing 1 story retail building along bart and imagine 3 stories of
apartments on top of them.

[http://www.oaklandpost.org/2018/12/20/wiener-revamps-bill-
de...](http://www.oaklandpost.org/2018/12/20/wiener-revamps-bill-denser-
housing-transit-rich-areas/)

[https://www.vox.com/policy-and-
politics/2018/12/7/18125644/s...](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-
politics/2018/12/7/18125644/scott-wiener-sb-50-california-housing)

[https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB50)

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purplezooey
Another messed up thing with CA -- it takes a 2/3 vote, very difficult, raise
any kind of tax. Yet, only 50 percent to _change the constitution_. Wtf.

~~~
masonic
Initiative constitutional amendments require a much higher threshold of
signatures to get on the ballot.

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aninteger
The biggest problem with public housing and low income housing is that they
become unsafe (at least in Los Angeles). Many of these places are not safe
enough to walk around at night. Is it really any surprise that people don't
want areas of high crime in their neighborhoods?

~~~
crooked-v
"The projects" as a phenomenon are the inevitable result of concentrated
poverty and the usually awful design choices that go with public housing.

Public housing should be mixed into other neighborhoods, or (as my city does)
developers should be incentivized to operate a certain percentage of
subsidized low-cost housing in otherwise normal apartments.

~~~
MagicPropmaker
Ha! Read Hanna Rosin on this:

[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/america...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/american-
murder-mystery/306872/)

Hannah Rosin studied this for The Atlantic (which is a progressive, left-
leaning publication) and concluded that this simply spreads crime around
making overall crime rates even higher.

~~~
r00fus
The Atlantic is hardly a “left leaning” publication (perhaps they seem left if
they challenge Trump?).

~~~
doggydogs94
If you believe that The Atlantic is not left leaning, you must be very far
left.

~~~
wwweston
The Atlantic might be fairly described as technocratic or liberal... but
because liberal and left are distinct things, "left-leaning" isn't a good
description for it.

"Left" and "right" tend to be about specific political positions and values,
but an entity that's "liberal" tends to orient less around specific positions
and more around meta-values that are about _approach_ (and have a lot in
common with western academic and especially post-enlightenment thinking), but
will accommodate a variety of other values into discourse, just refereed by
the meta-values. So, depending on what you define as "left leaning", you might
find examinations and even cases for it (alongside conservative leaning
points) in the pages a liberal publication, but they'll be grounded in liberal
approach and will likely not be alone.

And that's why you'll see things like "Why can't people hear what Jordan
Peterson is saying" in the pages of the Atlantic, even though Peterson seems
frequently hostile to the left and vice versa, or discussions like "The Two
Clashing Meanings of 'Free Speech'" that aren't value judgments about people
like Milo Yiannopoulos.

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Pharmakon
Talk about burying the lede.

 _Today, as the state grapples with an unprecedented affordable housing
shortage, Article 34 has limited effects on the construction of low-income
developments. But it remains an obstacle: Los Angeles officials believe that
without a public vote in the coming years, the city will no longer be able to
finance such projects — even though it has the money to do so._

I realize that screaming at “NIMBYs” is practically a hobby for some, but I
can see their perspective too. For one, the resources exist today to do
better, but it’s not done. Rather increased housing leads to billionaires,
Russian oligarchs and others buying up expensive real estate and not actually
living there. For all that new plans claim to be aimed at housing the poor, it
rarely works out that way.

If you want to reduce concerns, use the existing funds responsibly, and prove
that future loosening of restrictions wouldn’t just be a bonanza for the
wealthy, and lead to even more tech influx. Listen to people who express
concerns that leveling smaller structure and building vertically:

A.) Would lead to a predictable boom-bust leaving California at some future
date, with a load of ugly, crumbling infrastructure.

B.) That attempts to house the poor will go hand in hand with other efforts to
increase economic opportunities for them, expand mental healthcare, and
improve policing. Without that it’s just warehousing, and communities do
suffer.

C.) Would change what drew people there in the first place, leading to the
afformentioned boom-bust.

D.) That this isn’t all about extremely well-paid techies who will move
where’ve the money goes.

I see more of a dynamic, in practice, of rich existing interests clashing with
rich incoming interests, while the poor are used as little more than a
rallying cry or scapegoat. I suspect that I’m one of many unconvincedby
arguments of “the character of a community” under threat, as well as facetious
arguments from “digital nomads” who are mostly just tired of the commute. I’ll
say it again, as the article states the money is there, Article 34 isn’t a
significant impediment, yet the poor are still systemically screwed.

~~~
crooked-v
> Rather increased housing leads to billionaires, Russian oligarchs and others
> buying up expensive real estate and not actually living there.

I've become a firm supporter of the idea of gradually increasing non-occupancy
taxes, with some scaling factor based off local overall vacancy rates.

~~~
rcpt
The vacancy rates in CA cities are typically low. Vacant apartments aren't the
problem - non-existent ones are.

If you want to fix this with taxes it's easy: repeal prop 13. We don't need
golf courses in city centers or untaxed empty lots in prime locations.

~~~
ridgeguy
There's some movement towards modification of Prop 13 [1]. As I understand it,
the proposal would lift Prop 13 on commercial properties only. Residential
properties would continue as now. It's claimed this would bring in an
additional $11B+ in tax revenue.

On a brief search, I didn't find an estimate for revenue increase if Prop 13
were abolished. I'd guess it would be at least as much as the proposed
commercial-specific mod.

My Prop 13 anecdote: a neighbor who bought a 3BR house on 0.8 acre in the
1950s pays less in annual property taxes than I do on one month's utility
bills. I'm fine with that, she's pushing 100 and probably wouldn't be able to
stay home without Prop 13.

Meantime, a 1940s 3BR house on a 0.35 acre lot right across the street from
her sold for $2.9 million last December. Anecdotal, but suggests the potential
magnitude of tax revenue change if Prop 13 were entirely removed.

[1] [http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/08/california-to-vote-
on...](http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/08/california-to-vote-on-partial-
repeal-of-sweeping-tax-law.html)

~~~
rcpt
Reform for only commercial property is what we're voting on in 2020. It'd be
great for public services if that passed but housing will remain as fucked as
ever. Empty lots will stay empty, entrenched wealthy homeowners will continue
to organize against new housing, long time landlords will keep thier fat
profit margins.

I understand that your neighbor is old and that we should provide a social
safety net for her. But that can be done in many different ways that don't
involve massive handouts to real estate investors.

[http://projects.scpr.org/prop-13/](http://projects.scpr.org/prop-13/) is a
good read if you like prop 13 anecdotes

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jarjoura
I actually don't think this is as nefarious as the article makes it out to be.
Section 8 housing in SF is basically little pockets of shitty, poorly
constructed, slum lord managed ugly buildings. Would I rather have this than
tent cities? Perhaps, but I also want to call out that when you think
affordable housing, you think teachers, and dish washers, jobs that simply do
not pay enough to afford market rate housing. These units are not that.

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DrScump
The legislation is here:

[https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SCA1)

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crb002
Nah, it is NIMBY zoning. Forcing builders to have large buildouts without
efficiency apartment or parking space free units.

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SCAQTony
I don't buy the article 34 argument. It's simply "bait and switch" on the part
of the politicians so as to make the city even denser. The end result, more
political power, and federal money. I suspect the next attack will be on
zoning regulations so neighborhoods can be razed to make highrise apartment
buildings.

The traffic in L.A. is the worst in the country. San Francisco, San Diego, and
the OC too. That's where they want more "affordable housing." In areas that
are already too crowded.

~~~
space_fountain
Do you think the cost of living in those areas are not too high. If not how do
you propose lowering housing costs without building more?

~~~
SCAQTony
A city will only grow as big as it takes a citizen to travel from one end of
the city to the other in about an hour or so. If forced to make a suggestion,
I would say create a superb transportation service so people could traverse
the city quickly and thereby could afford houses and apartments in outlying
areas.

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sokoloff
TFA> Taxpayer subsidies for homeowners, through the mortgage interest
deduction and other means, long have dwarfed the public funding available for
low-income housing development.

Those same subsidies apply to rental properties as well (now, with fewer caps
as a result of recent limits to owner-occupied). Mortgage interest deduction
for owner-occupied property serves to put owner-occupant usage (generally
considered “good” for a neighborhood) on equal footing with commercial renting
of property.

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fredgrott
now just image if all software co's in ca actually paid their full state and
fed income taxes instead of dodging them like some oh well known ones...

ah ah hold on...

All US software co's use both state and fed infrastructures for such things as
net access, IP rights enforcements, etc

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mifreewil
public housing

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DrScump
_Government-funded or subsidized_ housing.

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holoduke
Why don't they start a basic income project in California? If there is one
place where you have money and lots of inequality it is California. Is there
really noone there from the bigger corps willing to initiate something like
this?

~~~
tfmatt
What? Why would anyone choose to give free money to landlords that are already
well to do? A basic income project to do what exactly?

~~~
briandear
Why do we assume landlords are “well to do?” After paying the note,
management, maintenance, taxes, etc., many properties net just a few hundred
dollars per month, per unit, if that. Certainly there is capital appreciation,
but there is also risk as well. Rental property ownership is a business like
other businesses and subject to price pressures just like any other. We could
argue that giving money to the poor simply makes well-to-do grocery store
owners richer as well. Except grocery stores aren’t required to sell their
products at discounts to poor people as a condition of doing business. Why do
we expect housing owners to discount their product for a certain percentage of
the population or else they aren’t allowed to operate? The difference is that
there aren’t widespread restrictions on food production, so grocery stores are
able to serve the market demand without having set-asides for specific groups.
Want lower housing prices? Make it easier to supply houses. It really is that
simple. The reason housing in Houston is affordable is because there is plenty
of it and it’s relatively easy to build more. There isn’t a need for
artificially “affordable” housing in Houston because the government there has
a less hostile attitude towards building housing. In California, if you want
to build something, you might get your plan denied if there is even a chance
that some endangered worm is within a 50 mile radius or if some Palo Alto
matron is afraid of “undesirables” living too close, or if there’s a chance
someone’s view might be impeded. Building housing in the Bay Area is a total
mess. I am not sure why Tokyo or Seoul style high-roses aren’t a thing in
California — but that could be a solution if there was the political will to
allow it.

~~~
chrisdhoover
Every landlord I ever had was middle class who had a second property to bring
in a little income.

