
California Homeowners: Please Convert Garages into Apartments - laurex
https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2019/04/convert-garage-apartments-affordable-housing-crisis-adu/587434/
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mc32
No; this a band-aid, not a solution. A solution is changing laws and allowing
or encouraging development to happen and allow all kinds of development, from
mixed use, luxury, middle class and subsidized, not necessarily in the same
place. Allow gentrification to happen, but also build housing for the poor.

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Zenbit_UX
No? No you're against a good idea that helps because it doesn't outright solve
the problem?

Band-Aid or not, it's solid and well thought through. Don't be so quick to
dismiss something because it doesn't solve all the world's problem
immediately.

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mc32
Look, what’s going to happen? Garages prove to be a safety valve, it’ll become
a new normal that allows this “can” of housing issues to get kicked down the
road. I don’t see how this helps.

It’s not all that different from saying allow six to a room or something.
Sure, it increases “density” but it’s not a solution.

One of their examples is garages in the mission (SF). Those things are low
ceiling, dingy, etc. Students might be okay. Not grown adults. Like I said,
it’d become a new normal, an accepted solution. But it’s not a solution. It
just postpones things and makes sub-par acceptable.

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Zenbit_UX
Tackling a solution from multiple angles isn't a con.

If I had the choice of a garage in SF or a 2h commute to my barrista job for a
something more in my price range it would be a no brainer. You're dismissing a
good idea because it doesn't help you personally... I expert more from HN
commenters than "no because this doesn't benefit me or conform to my world
view".

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sharkmerry
Not to be a grump, but really we need to repeal Prop 13 in part or whole,
while creating some new possible issues, I think it will solve more than it
causes.

Converting to garages just passes more windfall to people who just happened to
move to California a while ago.

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joejerryronnie
Prop 13 will never be repealed, especially not with housing prices the way
they are now. If you want to see one issue unite every single demographic with
great vengeance and furious anger, then try to take on prop 13.

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Johnny555
I don't think prop13 needs to be repealed entirely, just changed so it only
applies to the owner's primary home.

Then prop 13 will meet its ostensible purpose -- so the elderly don't get
forced out of their homes by taxes, while those that own investment properties
pay taxes on the market value of their property.

(note that I say this as someone that owns a couple rental properties in the
California and benefit from Prop 13)

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jdashg
Or we can restrict it to just the elderly and disabled, instead of letting
every single incumbent hitch a ride.

One of my favorite alternatives is to bring back regular tax reassessments,
but owners can choose to cede excess property value to the city/state. This
forces a choice between having your cake and eating it too.

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Johnny555
I'm ok with rewarding people that choose to live in one community for a long
time by reducing their property taxes -- living in one area is what helps
build communities.

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closeparen
Long term communities need young adults forming new households to survive past
a single generation.

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Johnny555
True, but the elderly will leave through attrition, forcing them to leave
through high taxes that make their homes affordable doesn't seem like a good
way to ensure neighborhood turnover.

I lived in a rent controlled apartment in San Francisco, and about 30% of my
neighbors were over the age of 60 including an 80 year old neighbor who'd been
there for 40 years and had great stories to tell.

Then I lived in a 20 year old building with no rent control, and almost all of
my neighbors were age 30 or below working in the tech field (few lived there
for more than a couple years) -- with no elderly people that I was aware of.
(we had a few months of of false fire alarm activations, so it was pretty easy
to see all of the residents)

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closeparen
Grandma's low property tax bill is not the problem _per se_ , it is the
punitively high property tax bill we charge more recently sold properties to
make up for it. This is popular because it punishes techie migrants, but it
also punishes downsizing late and life and new household formation early in
life.

If we don't need the extra revenue from rising property values, we should cut
property tax rates accordingly. City residents getting the same public
services for a smaller percentage of their wealth would be an immensely
positive impact of tech's prosperity.

If we do need it (and I suspect we do, because higher prices mean government
facilities and staff are more expensive), we should collect it fairly across
the board. Maybe "fair" means flat, maybe it means progressive, maybe it even
means "tenure in city" or "tenure in neighborhood," but "tenure in current
address" is crazy. At least use a mechanism with some thought put into its
incentives and possible unintended consequences.

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king_magic
Yeah, no thanks. I do not want anyone else living on my property. Especially
not in my garage.

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intopieces
The article mentions something called “Naturally Occuring Affordable Housing”
that doesn’t require public subsidy and then goes on to talk about a plan to
publicly subsidize these conversions in the very next paragraph. Feels like a
bait and switch.

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scottlegrand2
Yeah they're already doing that in Santa Cruz and it sucks across the board.

Evidence: I live there and I like to go to open houses just to gloat at how
badly people have f __*ed up otherwise perfectly workable floor plans to make
a little extra cash.

OTOH reducing the cost of in-law unit permits to zero across the board would
work wonders.

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jmspring
A lot of those conversions are illegal and substandard. It has been going on
for decades. The various city fees for a 500 sq ft ADU, when I investigated it
about a decade ago, ran well into 20-30% of the budget for the ADU.

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scottlegrand2
You are preaching to the choir here. I loved when Micah Posner, one of the
chief NIMBYs of Santa Cruz, turned out to be an illegal ADU slumlord. That in
my opinion explains a lot about how Santa Cruz really works. Or as I refer to
it to outsiders: Mayberry politics by the sea.

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01100011
Shouldn't we wait for a solution to our traffic and resource issues before
trying to increase our density? Is it really so terrible for people to
consider living somewhere besides California?

I'm a renter now, so I sympathize with people like me who are suffering from
the current situation, but I feel like efforts like this just create sub-
standard housing and enable more irresponsible growth. Are we just trying to
lower the quality of life for everyone in CA until enough people leave?

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closeparen
Density is the solution to traffic issues. (Rather: traffic issues are never
going away, the best we can do is minimize the need to drive).

If small apartments are substandard, the roommate situations that are most
people’s best alternative are then sub-substandard.

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jayd16
Doesn't really make sense. Even less parking in our low density residential
neighborhoods? No thanks.

My understanding is the issue is really about rezoning. Homeowners are willing
to sell to each other so I assume they'll be willing to sell to a high density
high-rise but no one wants to approve the new construction. We should figure
out how to get it through city planning. As we increase density we can more
efficiently manage public transit.

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your-nanny
I am generally in favor of supply side solutions to housing, but I'm also
pissed about the environmental cost of that develop ent, especially in a
market favoring construction of giant homes on giant lots.

Not just environmental. Very productive and irreplaceable farmland in the east
side of California's Central Valley is be being eaten up by housing
development.

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HillaryBriss
> productive and irreplaceable farmland in the east side of California's
> Central Valley is be being eaten up by housing development

seems like an under reported story.

where is this happening?

is it housing tracts with hundreds of units or individual homes with large
lots?

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your-nanny
most cities in the central valley are growing. My hometown has grown from a
population of 27k in 1970 to 133k today, with massive developments on West
side replacing walnut groves. Same story pretty much everywhere. Farmers can
make a lot of cash selling land to developers, and people complain about the
dust and smell and other pollution from farms neighboring their new homes.

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starpilot
My bedroom in LA was like this. 10x20 ft, so a distinctly "long" room. It
actually worked really well. My bed was in one end, then there was a tall
paper divider, then a loveseat, coffee table, and desk in the remainder.
Basically a room that divided in thirds for bed, living, and study.

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NDizzle
No thanks. I have hobbies.

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taborj
Even if you don't have hobbies, that's square footage you own. You should be
able to use it how you want, within legal limits. Even if you want to store
boxes full of crap, that's your right.

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HillaryBriss
This ADU law was passed at the state level. The state could, if it had the
political will, go even further. It could re-zone every SFD lot (even ones in
Larkspur, Palo Alto, Beverly Hills and Berkeley) into one that would allow,
say, a 4 unit apartment. Magic!

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baroffoos
I know a guy who owns large sheds / warehouses around the place and he finds
homeless people around the place and allows them to live in the sheds so that
he always has someone protecting them from theft.

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bassrattle
At a seminar for HOA managers in Irvine, there was a panel discussion on the
impact of higher Housing costs. Converting garages into dwelling units was top
of the list for action plans. Number two was look for ways to solve parking
issues, but there was no actual solution proposed by the panel. Besides some
system like Parking Boss, I can't see how any community is supposed to manage
the increase in cars, especially if garages are out of the question.

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souprock
I know people who did this. They were a nice well-behaved family, though a bit
clueless about some things. Converting to add an apartment exposed them to
stuff that hadn't really been a part of their world, like prostitution and
drugs. Yep, renters ran that out of the apartment.

The downsides are real. If you dislike having police raid your house in the
middle of the night, this isn't for you.

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ScottFree
My parents lived in the front half of a duplex house and rented out the back
half for years. One night, the tenant fell asleep with a cigarette in his
mouth and burned our house down.

The downsides are real.

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aasasd
Maybe the state should just be filled with apartment blocks a-la Le Corbusier.
Put them on springs for the earthquakes.

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blacksmith_tb
Seems more practical in Los Angeles than it would be in San Francisco. Though
I suppose it's not impossible to imagine building down in a one car garage
(though in a state with lots of earthquakes, that would be expensive, and not
everyone will want to sleep in a batcave).

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HillaryBriss
this will probably result in more cars parking overnight on the streets. at a
certain point in the future, the streets in LA will become as over-parked as
the streets in SF.

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unstatusthequo
... And then my garage gets rent controlled and I lose control of part of my
house.

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dgzl
i think we should just try convincing the big tech companies to build offices
in less populated areas of the country.

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closeparen
Much as I respect the logic, there is something symbolically icky about living
in another household’s outbuilding.

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mtw
From an outsider point of view, why aren't there any high-rise residential
buildings in that area?

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mikeg8
The article is referring to the entire state which is geographically diverse.
Cities like San Francisco, L.A., San Diego, and even Sacramento have some
taller housing options. Also, CA has major earthquakes so high-rises are
generally not as common. We've been building out vs up but can't match the
demand. Part of it is also due to CA's strict building/environmental
regulations that make any construction project a slow and tedious process.

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giancarlostoro
There was a couple who lived out in somebody's garage for a few years after
they got married and bought a house cash. I heard if on that Dave Ramsey show
or whatever, it's amazing what people do to get through life. Some are
strategizing ahead of others. Here in Florida if you live in a garage you
might die without a proper A/C in there.

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jiveturkey
It should be obvious from the word "convert" in the title, you don't simply
call it a living space and bingo, you're done. You actually have to outfit it
as such.

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giancarlostoro
My last bit about florida was a sidenote, because I never considered people
living in a garage a thing. Here in Florida I never see that kinda thing
anywhere I've lived, but I'm just one person and there's a whole lot of
Florida I have not seen.

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nautilus12
Before eeking out the small spaces in people's garages, we need to solve the
issue of houses sitting empty due to money laundering and foreign investment.
Why try to encourage people to convert their garages when they are hundreds of
thousands of living units sitting completely empty for people's portfolios? I
am libertarian, but I feel like in a housing crisis this is something that
needs to be tamped down on ASAP

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tropo
Think about why an investment property might sit empty. At first glance, that
seems absurd. An investor wants to earn money, and rent would be one way to
get that.

As high as rents might be, they are clearly not enough to put these properties
on the market. Find the cause and fix it.

Possible causes: too difficult to evict non-paying tenants, too difficult to
sue tenants for damages, too many expensive upgrades required (fire
protection, disability access, etc.), too difficult to avoid getting sued by
the government, etc.

Investors don't leave property idle for fun. There is a reason.

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whenchamenia
Many investors find a property momentarily unprofitable and set it on the back
burner while the neighborhood they dont have to live in goes down the drain.
It is a huge negative externality that affects millions directly. But
prvitizing gains and socializing losses seems to be the cali way.

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danschumann
earth scrapers + hyper loops

