
Mountain View approves razing rent-controlled units for $1.5M homes - vector_spaces
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/04/03/mountain-view-approves-razing-rent-controlled-units-for-homes-worth-1-5-million/
======
llbowers
Just some casual observations from someone who doesn't know a lot about city
planning, zoning laws, and other things like that but...

I have spent a lot of time in various cities in eastern Asia, namely Hong
Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, and Taipei.

I was always amazed at how much more efficiently space was utilized. Dense,
high-rise housing. Smaller apartments for single occupants. Vending machines
and convenience stores near ubiquitous so one did not have to go far for basic
necessities.

Also, the public transportation was wonderful. Whether subway, taxi, or bus
one could get around without any need for a car.

I always wonder why our cities can't be "denser". Perhaps we are too used to
our cars and driving everywhere? I'm sure there are a myriad other reasons
though.

~~~
marcell
I live in Mt View, and I can tell you that a rallying cry of anti-development
people is "Do you want Mt View to become Tokyo?"

There is a large contingent of people who own single family homes who want to
keep things exactly as they are now. They vote in elections. The contingent of
people who DO want development largely doesn't live here, so they don't vote.
There is no constituency of people who will live here in 10 years when we have
higher density!

~~~
DoreenMichele
A quick search indicates Mountain View has a population of 80k and Tokyo has a
population of nearly 14 million.

SMH.

~~~
marcell
FWIW, Tokyo's density is only 3x that of Mt View:

Mt View: 2,300/km2

Tokyo: 6,224.66/km2

~~~
DoreenMichele
And everything I've heard indicates it has remarkably afffordable housing for
a big city. A quick search turned up this article, for example:

[http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/08/lai...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/08/laissez-
faire-in-tokyo.html)

Seems like "becoming Tokyo" would be an improvement. (But I still find the
comparison hyperbolic and ridiculous. It sounds like a deluded scare tactic,
frankly.)

~~~
bane
This is an excellent video on the subject.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv6SbFlZMbU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv6SbFlZMbU)

Short answer: a decent house for a family can be had for about $400k in Tokyo
and that's considered expensive.

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usaar333
Doesn't seem they had a lot of choice in the matter:

"Since the project fully complied with the city’s zoning code and met all the
application requirements, City Attorney Jannie Quinn told council members
Tuesday that it would be “very difficult” to “come up with a rationale to deny
the project.”

Quinn also informed the council that placing a moratorium on the demolition of
rent-controlled apartments could put the city in a legal predicament due to
the state’s Ellis Act, which protects landlords who want to leave the rental
market."

~~~
yonran
> Doesn't seem they had a lot of choice in the matter:

Nonsense. The restrictively zoned cities in the Bay Area are leaving a lot of
value on the table in order to protect their squat neighborhoods. If Mountain
View truly preferred tenant protections over protecting neighborhood
character, I’m sure they could have made a win-win solution with the developer
to provide replacement rent-controlled units in exchange for an upzoning, even
late in the process.

~~~
robbiemitchell
Rent control is not a solution. Build more housing.

~~~
nostrademons
That was a part of yonran's proposal: offer the developer increased density
(upzoning) in exchange for rent-controlled apartments in addition to the
townhomes. It's a win-win-win-win all around: the developer gets to sell more
units (for more profit), the existing tenants get to maintain their rent
control (in exchange for disruption while their old building is demolished and
rebuilt), new homeowners get additional supply of housing, and the city
doesn't have to deal with the protests of any of these groups.

~~~
cycrutchfield
... or just build enough new housing without having to introduce market-
distorting artificial price controls

~~~
xnyan
Agree 100%, but people need to move into places today and tomorrow and I get
that rent control is not a long term solution, but in the long term we are all
dead as the saying goes. When more housing exists, rent control can end. In
the mean time, I pick market distortion over people out on their ass do to
impossibly high rent.

~~~
fossuser
Tricky part of this is rent control adds an entire new group that no longer
cares about housing being built and is interested in the status quo (as well
as making it less attractive to build new housing and rent it out).

I suspect if you put it in place it becomes politically impossible to end and
even harder to build new housing.

~~~
xnyan
I suppose I don't agree with the premise of your argument. Economic and market
forces are only a part of the political decision making process, poor
investments and low public good projects are pursued all the time as well as
many good projects.

Getting things done in politics is about political will, organization,
sacrifice and being determined to accomplish a cause, not really much to do
with how good or bad of an idea it is.

The economic costs of rent control are real, but distributed and I think its
difficult to make people resonate with that. I don't think it would have a
significant effect on the viability of other projects one way or another.

~~~
fossuser
I think you're being unfairly downvoted for disagreeing with me.

I generally agree with you, but would argue that in this case evidence
suggests that building housing in the bay area is extremely difficult given
the local government situation and how it leads to all local areas
incentivized to not allow development while the larger group as a whole would
benefit from it. This is why I tend to think the only way to fix this is at a
higher level (like SB827) where you can avoid some of these affects by
coordinating for the entire state.

I understand that this doesn't solve the issue of long term residents who
can't afford current rent so I think reasonable people can disagree about this
issue. I just tend to think that the negative affects of rent control outweigh
that benefit.

The negatives being:

\- Creating a bimodal market where new comers have even more extreme rents to
subsidize the rent controlled units

\- Landlords incentivized to do the absolute minimum maintenance because they
want their tenants to move out so they can increase rent to market rates.

\- Developers less interested in building units if renting them will be market
controlled and ROI is less certain.

\- People living in rent controlled units caring less about housing getting
built.

Rent control seems to only help existing tenants - with high levels of
immigration to the state it probably causes more problems overall.

I agree with your point that it's about political will, but I think rent
control reduces some of that support for building housing (and creates a large
contingent extremely in favor of never removing rent control).

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who_what_why
It's amazing how the politicians representing the people of the Bay Area don't
possess egalitarian values. There's so much unused and undeveloped land
available in the mountains yet the property is crazy expensive.

~~~
slavapestov
There's no need to develop any more open space. The south bay has plenty of
dilapidated strip malls and empty parking lots that could be repurposed into
high density housing.

~~~
stevenwoo
The financial incentive that kept office buildings along 237 empty for decades
need to go away.

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jweir
Construction is a major contributor to climate change. So, how does tearing
down and then replacing with town homes of similar density fit into the city’s
climate change plan?

[https://www.mountainview.gov/depts/comdev/sustain/climate_ch...](https://www.mountainview.gov/depts/comdev/sustain/climate_change/default.asp)

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geekrax
1.5M for a brand new house in Mountain View ? That's a bargain.

/s

~~~
gumby
town house, not standalone house with a yard

~~~
burfog
It's odd that they would debase it like this. Even if getting the floor space
means you have to build a place with 3 stories above and 2 basements below,
that seems like a better plan. Being unattached from neighbors is highly
desirable.

~~~
xnyan
It's why I live in a less exciting and not as progressive geographic location.
I could not afford to have a buffer space around my house in new york or
california and for me I value my solitary personal home with yard and trees
over some (really great) economic and cultural benefits that would come from
living in other more expensive regions.

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powera
There is only one solution to this problem. MOVE SOMEWHERE ELSE.

These houses would cost less than half this amount in 99% of the country. So
long as too many people insist on living in the same zip code, the problem is
not solvable.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
People like to make money via jobs. Those cheaper houses come with fewer
appropriate jobs or jobs that pay less.

------
gubbrora
Aren't all rentals in mountain view rent controlled?

~~~
jeffbax
Not sure about Mountain View but in SF its > 60%

[https://sf.curbed.com/2018/7/12/17565192/housing-needs-
trend...](https://sf.curbed.com/2018/7/12/17565192/housing-needs-trends-
report-rent-control-san-francisco)

It's a disastrous policy, and one of the main reasons SF housing is such a
mess. Tenant laws also tend to incentivize booting everyone at once and
converting to condos instead of renting units.

~~~
femiagbabiaka
>disastrous policy

it's literally the only reason most of the remaining long time citizens who
aren't wealthy can live there still

~~~
ninth_ant
Rent control rewards the entrenched people who were lucky enough to find a
unit early, at the expense of everyone who came later. The beneficiaries of
this may not consider it that way, but it most certainly is a form of wealth
for them. So I would argue that even they too, are wealthy.

The victims of rent control are everyone who is pushed out of the city -- or
those who cannot move there -- because of how rent control makes building
rental units unprofitable.

~~~
vkou
> Rent control rewards the entrenched people who were lucky enough to find a
> unit early, at the expense of everyone who came later.

And market housing rewards well-paid, rich professionals at the expense of
everyone who isn't pulling in a FAANG salary.

Neither is a 'fair' distribution of shelter - that much is true.

> The victims of rent control are everyone who is pushed out of the city -- or
> those who cannot move there -- because of how rent control makes building
> rental units unprofitable.

If you remove rent control tomorrow, there's going to be no shortage of
immediate, acutely suffering victims of that political decision. Forgive me
that I have more sympathy for those individuals, then some nebulous group of
'People who, for whatever reason, really want to move to SF, and can afford a
$2,800 apartment, but not a $3,400 one, so they don't move to SF.'

~~~
cycrutchfield
News flash, in a capitalist society, scarce resources are more readily
available to those with money than those without. Regarding “fair distribution
of shelter”, what do you consider fair? How do you allocate scarce resources
in a fair manner? You make it sound like having an apartment in downtown SF is
some sort of inalienable right.

~~~
xnyan
News flash its no longer 1972 and criticism of capitalism is now allowed.

~~~
cycrutchfield
Great, let's hear that criticism and constructive alternative solutions to the
vexing problem of fair allocation of scarce resources?

------
Eyes
In Mountain View 1.5m homes are the rent controlled units. /s

------
kepler1
Rant:

I imagine that you, posting this story, or even some reading this thread, are
doing so with the sentiment that "oh no, these unfortunate long time residents
are being displaced", and that some cruel unfeeling capitalist society is
allowing this travesty to happen. "How can we let big tech keep on doing this
to our region??"

You, who are likely one of the many tech workers in the Bay Area, should be
_cheering_ every development project like this. You should be cheering when
cities start to free up housing and make it available to people who want to
move here, or are already here and can't find anything affordable. Even if
those people buying the houses are making "big tech salaries", you should be
for it.

Stop being blinded by the symbolic cases of the anti-gentrification sentiment,
that the elderly widow is being forced out of her home to make way for
ungrateful young tech workers. For every 1 of those stories, there are 50
families trying to make a new life in the area, unable to find a house for
less than $1M or $6000/month in rent.

For every 1 of those stories, there are 10 families that have lived here for
40 years, and are sitting on empty houses, maybe even 2nd houses that are
underutilized. They're the rich ones.

For every person occupying a rent controlled home, that's one unit of housing
unavailable to someone else, and moreover, one additional unit of competition
and higher prices imposed on everyone else who needs to find a place to live.
Few among us will ever get to have the benefit of a rent controlled apartment.

Everyone reading here has some degree of numeracy and literacy better than
average. Think about the numbers, not symbols -- and don't let yourself fall
into the trap of thinking that the news is good at reporting the deeper story.

And think about what kind of system you want to incentivize when you vote or
support knee-jerk policies. How does a region / city renew itself and make
sure that it doesn't stagnate and turn into a place only for those people who
got there first, screw everyone who comes afterwards? By ensuring that people
with rent-controlled housing never have to leave? By tying up development for
decades?

I take the side of the majority who no one feels comfortable speaking up for.
The thousands of young people and families who want to live, work, and be
productive here. Not those who already got theirs and want to keep the rest
out. Time for them to move on, and if they need a nudge, it's well past due.

~~~
Jyaif
I'm all for stoping the rent control, but I don't think anyone is happy they
are going from 59 apartments to 55 townhouses. They should be increasing the
density, not reducing it.

