Yeah, make housing more expensive. That’ll solve the shortage. I’d love to know what goes on in the brains of California politicians.
Myths: ADUs, affordable housing, tolerance towards the homeless who are drug addicts works
Realities: Restrictions on zoning, Nimbyies , EPA, government over regulation and increased drug addiction
” Shaw says. “When you have zoning restrictions that prevent you from building the housing you need, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get in the situation we have.”
Solutions… None, as long as California has single party rule and blames housing problems on landlords
Tech can’t solve people problems 
Four years ago, Liccardo set a goal to create housing for all of San Jose’s 7,400 homeless. The city has just about hit that goal, sheltering 6,937 people this year. The problem, Liccardo explains, is “as quickly as we’re housing residents, we’re seeing three more getting pushed out into the street by the economy.”
People don’t have a right to live in the city of their choice. The most realistic solution is to help the people move to cities they can afford.
“But in the past five years, San Jose has built only one unit of housing for every six jobs it’s created — a recipe for rising rents, rabid competition for available units, and, ultimately, economic evictions like the ones many of the families in the parking lot described when Rolling Stone visited in March.”
Either politicians can’t do basic math or they don’t care about fixing it.
Anyone going?
On Common Ground: Economic Inequality & the Housing Crisis
DESCRIPTION
Does economic inequality threaten the social fabric of the Bay Area? And what are we going to do about it together?
It’s not news anymore: the Bay Area has a housing crisis in need of urgent action. A housing shortage, plus rising rents and stagnant wages, are leaving more and more people vulnerable to homelessness. The crisis has prompted leaders from every sector–private companies, philanthropy, government, think tanks and community organizations–to design proposals, sponsor bills and launch coalitions for tackling the issue. Can these solutions outpace the problem, and the income inequality at its core?
Join KQED host Mina Kim and our distinguished panel as they discuss the complexities of the housing crisis, the proposed solutions, Prop 13, and more.
Guests:
- Fred Blackwell, CEO of the San Francisco Foundation
- Karen Chapple, Professor of City and Regional Planning, UC Berkeley
- Sarah Karlinsky, SPUR Director of Policy on housing and land use special projects.
How about a builder on the panel…Oh I forgot, they just want to share their feelings…solutions are too painful to discuss
Um, how is that different than requiring new apartment buildings to include a percent of units as below-market rate units? It’s literally the same thing. Has it solved the problem? All it’s done is drive up market rate rents to offset the lower rent collected from below-market units.
The issue is construction costs which are driven by permit fees, other fees, and building code. The building code is almost as bad as the tax code, and neither one is benefiting the average person. They both benefit the special interests groups that spend money on having them modified.
The whole BMR program has been a total disaster. In fact it is one of the biggest causes of fewer units being built. It drives up the cost and forces developers to go out of state to areas where they can make more money. I personally have invested in projects in Arizona Oregon and many other areas that are more profitable
Yes, Soviet style apartment buildings will solve the housing “crisis”… (sarc/off).
I read recently that one plan to pull downtown SF out of it’s doom loop was to convert commercial buildings into “student housing”. WTF??? There aren’t that many students willing to live in DTSF and commute to school. Any theoretical economic benefit to this idea is razor thin. Here in SoCal, DTLA converted many old buildings into Condo’s and Lofts. It’s still a very dangerous and resource poor area, but young professionals are willing to make the sacrifice of living close to work instead of commuting inbound from traditional suburban neighborhoods. Sure, a few are being flipped to apartments (blegh) but most of the conversions are to owned units. Is there serious talk - not just articles on-line - about converting a few DTSF towers into condos/co-ops?
I thought the proposal is to create a university (or extension of an existing university) in DTSF, not have the students live in DTSF and commute to other places to go to school. It actually makes some sense, if there is enough will to build a new university campus in DTSF. It’s going to need lots of $$$ from the state to get this idea going and it’s a very high bar.
But nobody likes the homeless, drug addicts, and the mentally ill, regardless of what they say about how much compassion they have. Students don’t like them either. As long as these people are still out there roaming freely, there is no coming back.
I was in a meeting yesterday with someone who is an energy provider to these CRE, in DTSF, and he seems to think that as soon as the leases are up, landlords are going to convert the buildings to housing as some form of WFH is here to stay and the demand for CRE is perpetually less. I agree with him, the type of work done in SF/BA is conducive to WFH and while FAANGs may required in person, most startups are fine with in person in someone’s apt/living room to save on office costs.
There’s no way they could acquire land and build a school. The cost would be insane.
I invested in Oakland 25 years ago helping build Jerry Browns 10,000 housing units…basically converted industrial and commercial buildings like the Sears store into housing. Industrial lofts … Jerry Brown himself lived in one. Now the current city officials want to force all landowners to leave the city to economic devastation. Still has moratorium on evictions
It’s not the students as much as the parents who fear for their children. They pay the bills. They make the rules, not college kids.
Curious ELT1 if you can show some examples of these converted buildings - either Zillow or Redfin links. I’m wondering how they look, what resale and price velocity they have, and also the HOA costs. It might be nice to buy a “close to work” loft, but if the $1.5m price tag comes with a $2.5k per month HOA due, it doesn’t pencil.
Thanks for the link data.
Most of the surrounding properties are $200-$300 less per month for comparable square footage. Density is significantly lower. Some have better amenities and closer parking. Seems like that whole “conversion of commercial to affordable rentals” dream doesn’t really match reality.