What are your thoughts on the Bay Area YIMBY movement? (San Francisco: fit in, real estate)
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Basically the YIMBY movement is a counter-balance to MIMBY's who oppose new development. Especially cases when the development is infil on say are parking lot and projects get downsized. Despite the demands only a fraction is met in new housing.
Laura Foote Clark. Laura is the president of GrowSF, which advocates for affordable and market rate housing in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Topics include:
The Bay Area’s lack of affordable housing
How the housing crisis particularly effects millennials
How integrated public transit provides better access to affordable housing
The severity of the housing crisis, and how a massive increase in housing is needed just to sustain current demands
The miss conception that there is no space to grow in San Francisco, and the twitter series wasteOfUrbanSpace
Mega Developments in the Bay Area, and Laura’s point that focusing on specific projects can distract from the overall housing shortage
Where to build new housing
SF grants density bonuses to affordable housing developments
Micro Apartments
What Silicon Valley Would Look Like if Tech Companies Built Themselves Cities
Laura’s point that if the Silicon Valley became a more urban environment it would ease the demand for housing in San Francisco
The role that suburbs play in the Bay Area’s housing shortage
How the lack of new housing in cities encourages suburban sprawl
The trend in preference for urban over suburban living among millennials
How Environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club are divided on the housing issue
Bay Area’s Greenbelt Alliance and New Urbanism
California Proposition 13
Proposition C: San Francisco Affordable Housing
Rent Control
Why Laura would like to see a unified zoning plan for the Bay Area
Whether there is a limit on how many people the Bay Area can accommodate
How the housing issue is the main political divide in the Bay Area
Krishan’s point that tax cuts effect the rich, welfare the poor, but housing can be the political issue of the middle class
The importance of getting involved in local politics
Basically the YIMBY movement is a counter-balance to MIMBY's who oppose new development. Especially cases when the development is infil on say are parking lot and projects get downsized. Despite the demands only a fraction is met in new housing.
Laura Foote Clark. Laura is the president of GrowSF, which advocates for affordable and market rate housing in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Topics include:
The Bay Area’s lack of affordable housing
How the housing crisis particularly effects millennials
How integrated public transit provides better access to affordable housing
The severity of the housing crisis, and how a massive increase in housing is needed just to sustain current demands
The miss conception that there is no space to grow in San Francisco, and the twitter series wasteOfUrbanSpace
Mega Developments in the Bay Area, and Laura’s point that focusing on specific projects can distract from the overall housing shortage
Where to build new housing
SF grants density bonuses to affordable housing developments
Micro Apartments
What Silicon Valley Would Look Like if Tech Companies Built Themselves Cities
Laura’s point that if the Silicon Valley became a more urban environment it would ease the demand for housing in San Francisco
The role that suburbs play in the Bay Area’s housing shortage
How the lack of new housing in cities encourages suburban sprawl
The trend in preference for urban over suburban living among millennials
How Environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club are divided on the housing issue
Bay Area’s Greenbelt Alliance and New Urbanism
California Proposition 13
Proposition C: San Francisco Affordable Housing
Rent Control
Why Laura would like to see a unified zoning plan for the Bay Area
Whether there is a limit on how many people the Bay Area can accommodate
How the housing issue is the main political divide in the Bay Area
Krishan’s point that tax cuts effect the rich, welfare the poor, but housing can be the political issue of the middle class
The importance of getting involved in local politics
I'm mostly a fan of it. I'm not a fan of "bulldoze everything and rebuild!!!" - but I think we have to start building smarter in the Bay Area. Anytime there is a new plot of land open to development, we have to think as a region about how to best utilize that land. Housing, especially denser housing, needs to be a priority (notice: I'm not necesarilly saying "Dense", but I am saying denser than SFH).
Also, we need to think how these new residents will commute to work or to other things in their life - so development needs to be built with larger plans in mind - particularly transit-oriented planning. It's not realistic to assume we can all continue to drive everywhere. But we need to make it convenient for people to live either car-free or car-lite lifestyles (I live a very car-lite lifestyle in downtown San Mateo currently, and have been doing so for years - it can be done, even in the 'burbs).
We need to get serious about our housing crisis. Either address the affordability issue by building more stock, or accept our fate as a region closed off to everyone but the most fortunate (either the ones who can truly afford it here, or the ones that get "lucky" and win the BMR lottery).
Do we want to see a region that stays the same forever in its built environment? Or do we want to preserve some of the people that are here, possibly at the expense of some of the older buildings?
If you have children, do you want to see a future that sees them staying here where they are growing up? I'd say most parents would want those opportunities for their offspring...our current trajectory is not very promising, though.
Hockey - YIMBY is fine, but Prop 13 deeply incentivizes people holding on to properties, and residents know that keeping production down buoys their property values.
Sadly, I think the region is very, very firm in staying very close to the existing built environment. There are some exceptions on the margins (i.e. SJ, RWC...maybe a couple of others if they realize the oppty, like San Leandro or Richmond?) but on the whole, the region needs to add literally several hundreds of thousands of housing units, and I could see maybe a quarter of that getting built at most over the next few decades.
What will happen over maybe next 10-20 years is this: tech employment in the Bay Area peaks and the industry decentralizes, and eventually, the big companies no longer are as we know them now (think: IBM). Decentralization is already happening. The region settles into its place as one of the 5 or even 10 most expensive in the USA.....but no longer challenges for number 1.
I used to be YIMBY but considering how crowded the area feels right now I've pulled back. SF Bay area needs to solve its infrastructure issues before it opens the floodgates for more people. I'm especially ticked at the large tech companies building these huge campuses without regard for how all these people are going to fit into the area.
Expand BART, expand Caltrain, fix roads and look into urbanizing and developing existing downtowns into micro-cities- then we can talk about growing the region. But I do understand that takes money and money comes from more taxes from more people... so probably a pipe dream.
It seems to be that one of the problems that's really keeping more housing from coming on line out there is that the housing crisis there is regional, but the proposed solutions are mainly local.
From what I can tell there appears little to no coordination between what's going in terms of housing between, let's say, between San Francisco, Marin County, Oakland, Berkeley, and San Leandro -- just to use an example. Every locality has its own zoning, its own building and construction codes, its own preferred model of development, its own height restrictions, its own political issues, its own rent control laws, its own demographics, etc., etc., etc. So instead of a coordinated effort to develop a strong and effective housing policy for the region, everybody is in their own silo and things only get built and developed piecemeal. It's a major market fail IMO. Maybe every municipality doing its own thing worked one, before the tech explosion. But it ain't working now.
Ideally, the Bay Area (however you want to define it) needs a regional housing authority that could preempt or override local laws and zoning that would allow enough construction (public, private, or a mix) of the right type and size, and in the right location, to mitigate the housing crisis whiule considering transportation and other issues.
The state of California would have to establish and empower such a regional authority I'd guess. Needless to say, the local opposition to this would be enormous and the likelihood of such an authority is probably next to nil. But from a frequent visitor's view, that's what you guys need if you want to rationalize housing there.
I used to be YIMBY but considering how crowded the area feels right now I've pulled back. SF Bay area needs to solve its infrastructure issues before it opens the floodgates for more people. I'm especially ticked at the large tech companies building these huge campuses without regard for how all these people are going to fit into the area.
Expand BART, expand Caltrain, fix roads and look into urbanizing and developing existing downtowns into micro-cities- then we can talk about growing the region. But I do understand that takes money and money comes from more taxes from more people... so probably a pipe dream.
Building denser in the center, or near employment centers, means less people have to drive or take public transit long distances to work. These issues you mention could be alleviated simply by planning and building housing better. A lot of the "feeling crowded" issue is there related to the fact that there are too many people commuting ridiculous distances to work. This makes major choke points, like our bridges, chronically-clogged. It then gives the impression that this region is more crowded than it really is. In reality, we have a lot of capacity - just most of it is being wasted in the "center" (or in locations near jobs).
It should be clarified here that I'm not saying we need to turn the peninsula into a giant Manhattan. But there is a LOT of room between mid-century SFH development and Manhattan.
Of course, we need better transit planning, too. Definitely, definitely. Regardless of what happens in the future in terms of an influx of new people.
Last edited by HockeyMac18; 09-15-2017 at 04:19 PM..
It seems to be that one of the problems that's really keeping more housing from coming on line out there is that the housing crisis there is regional, but the proposed solutions are mainly local.
From what I can tell there appears little to no coordination between what's going in terms of housing between, let's say, between San Francisco, Marin County, Oakland, Berkeley, and San Leandro -- just to use an example. Every locality has its own zoning, its own building and construction codes, its own preferred model of development, its own height restrictions, its own political issues, its own rent control laws, its own demographics, etc., etc., etc. So instead of a coordinated effort to develop a strong and effective housing policy for the region, everybody is in their own silo and things only get built and developed piecemeal. It's a major market fail IMO. Maybe every municipality doing its own thing worked one, before the tech explosion. But it ain't working now.
Ideally, the Bay Area (however you want to define it) needs a regional housing authority that could preempt or override local laws and zoning that would allow enough construction (public, private, or a mix) of the right type and size, and in the right location, to mitigate the housing crisis whiule considering transportation and other issues.
The state of California would have to establish and empower such a regional authority I'd guess. Needless to say, the local opposition to this would be enormous and the likelihood of such an authority is probably next to nil. But from a frequent visitor's view, that's what you guys need if you want to rationalize housing there.
Balkanazation in the Bay Area is a huge issue in regards to housing and transit planning. Everyone wants these things. They just don't want them through their back yards. Textbook NIMBY mentality, really. And when every little town has their own planning process, everyone can go complain to their local politicians. Get enough of these people to do so (no shortage of these types here), and development is stopped in its tracks in all but the most obvious places (empty lots, brownfields, or re-purposed land development has an easier time getting through planning processes - but once you start talking about tearing something down, watch out). A single person has an incredible amount of power to bring a project to a halt - it's a great thing on one hand, and a terrible thing on the other.
This is how we find ourselves with cities/municipalities that aren't "pulling their weight" in regards to housing. Since they're off on their own, there is no incentive for them to build, or to not build. They're happy, generally, to bring in more workers, though (better tax money there) - see: Brisbane's latest antics. People like to pick on the big cities - but really, they're not doing that terribly when you look region wide. There are some major, major outliers in regards to jobs:housing ratios. These cities need to feel the pressure.
Transit planning is even more of a mess because every county (And sometimes cities themselves) want to create their own agencies. Since the Bay Area is split up into many counties, planning and funding is a complete nightmare. It's how you end up with BART and Caltrain (and Ace and now SMART) - although, for what it is worth, Caltrain-styled systems are better for long-distance travel...we should have planned better there...BART is good for urban travel, not great for the suburbs.
No one making below 150% of the median income can afford a median priced home. You need 2x the median income and a big windfall to even think about it. That's not sustainable.
And again, homes are flying out the door with multiple offers on each one. It's certainly sustainable. You just forgot to finish your sentence. It's not sustainable for the people earning the median income unless you have roots here or are living in shared housing (which many do). Is that any way to live? I don't think so, but that's up to the individual. There are more than enough upper income families that can afford these prices and they clearly choose to, so welcome to San Francisco...home to the one percenters. The help can live on the outskirts and share a home with 5-7 people. There's your harsh reality.
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