
Facebook’s Answer to Silicon Valley Housing Crunch: Build Apartments - cookscar
http://www.wsj.com/articles/facebooks-answer-to-silicon-valley-housing-crunch-build-apartments-1469534402
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elgabogringo
I know this comment will get downvoted, but I'm going to say it anyway because
I think it's true.

I see in the article how 10-15% of the units will be reserved for "low
income". I understand why they do this. If they didn't, it would never get
approval from the necessary zoning authority. However, I think it's a mistake.

When people think "low income" they usually think of poignant cases of single
mothers trying to raise kids, but in my experience that's not as common as we
think.

I live in an SF building where I'd estimate at least 10% of the residents are
retired. I think most are on Social Security and using Section 8. I know my
neighbor is because she doesn't speak much English (she's Russian) and she
brings me her mail to read. I'm guessing the other retirees (almost all
Russian immigrants) are in the same boat.

In my opinion, if retirees need public assistance, they should live in a
lower-cost area like Livermore, Gilroy, or Santa Rosa, not one of the most
expensive neighborhoods in one of the most expensive cities in the world.
Heck, I'd love to live in those areas if my job didn't require me to be in
downtown SF every day.

But that would make too much sense. Instead, every new housing unit has to
have some portion reserved for "low income" so the local politicians can have
some currency to spread around among their supporters - and if you don't think
they do this you are kidding yourself.

Constantly taking 10-15% of supply and restricting it to low income just
raises housing costs for everyone else - and it's a double-whammy too because
it's our tax dollars funding this unnecessarily lavish lifestyle (and
$3K/month for a studio is lavish - there's no getting around it.)

If you can't afford to live in a certain level of housing in a certain area at
market prices, then you shouldn't live there, you should live somewhere
cheaper. If the people companies want to hire can't afford to live within a
reasonable distance then companies should pay more. If they can't pay more
they should leave.

Companies and jobs leaving will be the only way to lower demand and prices -
and probably the only way to wake leaders up and get them to address our poor
housing policies.

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mattmanser
And their friends? Their support networks? Their families? The place they know
and love?

It only makes sense from a fairly warped point of view.

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elgabogringo
I don't get to live by my family. I had to move for my job. I had to make new
friends and travel to see old ones. When this job ends I'll probably have to
move again. When I retire (God willing) and if I'm still in SF, I'll probably
need to move to somewhere cheaper. I don't see why the same rules shouldn't
apply to them.

If their friends and families care so much they should take them in, not put
them on the public dole. As retirees they are probably better off living
somewhere cheaper anyway, like a retirement community in an exurb, where
_everything_ , food, medical, and entertainment was a lot cheaper.

~~~
CPLX
Empathy is a trait that, were you to cultivate it, would also likely help you
tremendously in business, product design, understanding users, and many other
things you find personally valuable in life, even beyond its intrinsic ability
to make you more human.

~~~
elgabogringo
Do you have something beyond a personal attack to offer?

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pbnjay
Is this a resurgence of the "company town" of yore? Facebook now has work
space, restaurants (nee "free meals"), plenty of other amenities (things like
laundry, childcare, haircuts, massages, etc). Add in housing and you've
basically recreated a mill town centered on tech.

~~~
wmil
The problem is that cities have become so opposed to allowing construction of
middle class rental units that it takes the concerted effort of a multi-
billion dollar corporation to build any.

~~~
matwood
It's also not always quite that simple. My city is trying to pass a moratorium
on residential building permits because the infrastructure is simply not built
out enough to handle all the people moving to town. Yeah, yeah, public
transportation, etc... but all of that takes time and money to build.

The 2 lane road leading to my house is already overloaded and a builder is
wanting to build another 2000 houses at the end of the road. Instead of
waiting and relying on the state to improve the road, maybe we should do a
better job at shifting the infrastructure costs to the builder when they put
up a new apartment building or neighborhood.

~~~
Kalium
You know how in software quick and ugly hacks have this nasty tendency to
stick around long past their sell-by date and hurt everything around them?

A quick and ugly policy hack like a housing moriturium is the same way.

~~~
matwood
It's not a hack. If you want to use a software analogy it is akin to stop
adding features until we get the current system cleaned up. That is often the
_right_ thing to do in software. The hack is not a moratorium, the hack is to
keep adding houses until infrastructure finally fails and the system falls
over. Brilliant plan.

~~~
Kalium
OK. It's a feature moritorium. It's an administrative choice that is very easy
to prolong. Because it solves the immediate problem, it's also a choice that's
very easy to keep making to avoid the significant cost of addressing the
underlying problems.

This is the sort of administrative choice that led to the Bay's housing
crises.

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asuffield
(Tedious disclaimer: my opinion only, not speaking for anybody else. I'm an
SRE at Google.)

Google's been trying to do this for years, but the Mountain View city council
keep blocking it. :(

~~~
asdfologist
That's not an opinion... You made a statement that's either true or false.

~~~
Cursuviam
It is a statement that doesn't indicate how much Google is trying, and the
perception of whether someone is trying to do something can be an opinion
sometimes. For example, if I am trying to get healthy by only eating carbs,
some people might have the opinion that I'm not even trying.

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ghostDancer
A lot of companies used to build housing for their workers, some even had
supermarkets for them. I know this time they are building for others too,
marketing and PR, but looks we are learning from the past.

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msoad
There area bunch of new apartments built near Facebook campus[1]. Those are
not cheap but are much more affordable than actual Menlo Park.

The reason Menlo Park allows building those new apartments is because Menlo
Park has a serious segregation problem. North side of 101 is mostly black and
latino communities and they usually don't have any representatives in the city
hall and don't get involved with the proposals much. So the people of rich
side of the city shoot down any construction near their homes but approve
anything on this side so they can get the taxes come in to make their
neighborhood even nicer.

This new proposal is in this side of 101 again. They're going to make this
side of Menlo Park very crowded and keep their nice homes and probably enjoy
even higher property values.

[1] [http://www.777hamilton.com/](http://www.777hamilton.com/)

~~~
drewg123
I love how their cover photo is of somebody in front of a horribly run down
building with rust & peeling paint. That really makes me want to live there!

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jumprightin
Perhaps FB/Google/Etc should subsidize the cost of employees purchasing
property (similar to tenured track profs at Stanford) until they reach a
critical mass of voters that can affect changes to allow denser housing.

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dangerboysteve
If the rents they charge employees are well below the market rates, won't the
ISR crack down on this as a taxable benefit?

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gist
Ah watch out for the new headquarters building curse.

[https://steveblank.com/2009/05/15/supermac-war-
story-11-the-...](https://steveblank.com/2009/05/15/supermac-war-story-11-the-
curse-of-a-new-building/)

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iKlsR
Can people stop posting articles nobody can read.

~~~
aeharding
Click the "web" button under the article title (in the comments page), click
link in Google.

~~~
dmix
Not everyone knows this. The OP made a fair comment. It's better to upvote him
to spread awareness for this feature. I visit daily and only noticed it
recently.

