Plan Bay Area - (lack of) housing development (San Jose, Santa Clara: real estate, apartments)

[buenos]

Hi,
What do you think about the "Plan Bay Area" by ABAG?
http://apps.mtc.ca.gov/meeting_packe...t_Strategy.pdf

They only seem to be planning new housing developments in the SF Bay Area in the form high density urban housing along the major routes. No single family homes (SFH), no more suburban homes to be built until 2040 only apartment buildings. There is a long term shortage in single family homes on the market, that's why the prices are 3-5x higher than the national average. Most tech jobs are in the south bay, and if you check the map on page-24, you will see that only narrow strips will be developed there that they can only populate with apartment buildings.
I think most people would want to live in decent single family homes that are now super expensive and unaffordable even for educated people. With no more SFH developments and more people moving into the Silicon Valley the demand for these homes increase while supply seems to be held at todays levels. The plan rigs the single family housing supply and therefore housing prices until 2040. It sounds like real estate speculation.
Another controversial aspect is that the many new highly educated residents coming to the SV will have no other option but living in apartment buildings, as the ABAG meant these people to live in housing like that, and that is all they can afford at current local prices. So the older generation or older resident are the home owners owning million dollar homes, while the newcomers will be placed in apartment buildings (slums) while they are the ones making the SV economy going. The sad thing is that those newcomers (like me) will stay in apartment buildings forever, as no one can afford to buy a house from a 100k salary these days in the Bay Area. In their publications they say the younger generation prefers urban housing, where did they get this from?
I think there would be many areas to build homes on them. I see crops in Santa Clara (2216 County Highway G2, Santa Clara), empty grassy land everywhere. Farming in the middle of a big city? What about the hill sides along the south, in the same form as in the west bay, or along the bay, they could build homes there. There are probably building companies who would want to build, but the local governments would not give them a permit. Also people doing land banking. They (the local governments) want to preserve nature or something, at least that's what they are saying...

[justinbro2002]

Single family homes are not an effecient use of land as far as state and local governement is concerned for property tax purposes. You can build a sfh on a 5000ft lot and collect property taxes for one $650,000 home or you can squeeze 4 condos on that same piece of land at $450000 each and collect property taxes on $1,800,000 with of property from the same piece of land. That is 2.75 times the property taxes that goes into to local and state coffers. That alone is the reason they want to build high density housing instead of single family homes. The next step is to declare eminent domain and start seizing peoples SHF's and giving them to developers to build condos so that they can collect more property taxes.

[Carlite]

There's very little developable land left in the Bay Area, yet people keep wanting to move here (and people already here keep having kids). The only way to house all those people is to increase densities. Anybody who wants to buy a single family house can do so, there are currently more of them on the market than people who want to buy them. All the locations which Plan Bay Area identifies for denser housing are areas that the cities themselves chose to be Priority Development Areas. This form of housing also supports transit better, so we can shift some of our travel away from cars.

[buenos]

The number of SHFs on the market is dropped to 20% this year, mostly because of buyer/seller behaviour, but also because of not building new ones. Those who want to buy now complain that there are not many on the market and they get outbid by someone immediately.

When the price of the SFHs is 5x higher that at other areas then something wrong must be behind it. When a family of educated couple cannot afford a house in a place where thousands of uneducated but 20 years older people can own those homes, then something is wrong with it. Is it a fair society?

It is OK to build high density housing, but there is an obvious need for more SFHs as well. They seem to be fixing the number of them for the next 30 years. Forcing people to leave in condos instead of houses just rude, telling people what quality of life they can have, how they must live.

Some countries do landfill and take land area from the sea to expand cities. I think Tokyo was expanded this way. The southern tip of the bay could be utilized this way.

Greenbelt Alliance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I think this is what stops SFH developments.
It has a nice motive, but it hurts more than helps the people who are living here.
There is demand, there must be supply too, but this stops the supply. They have to give up this green belt crap at some point. Only that would resolve inequality between the generations here in the Bay Area.

"That is 2.75 times the property taxes"
-That's it? Can we not do anything about this? When they presented this PBA in San Jose, people were demonstrating against it. But city governments should not just make dictatoric decisions like this.
"can collect more property taxes."
-Maybe the local government is using the green belt alliance to force property prices up on existing homes (by limiting supply: supply/demand) to increase the tax revenue? By screwing the population of the Bay Area, the people not just pay more taxes to the government but pay extra money to the previous owners as well when they buy a first home. If that is true then the local government is purposely screwing everyone living here. Can it be true?

[vrhunski]

unfortunately for You I must admit I agree with this plan. That is basic principle of capitalism. Who has more money or who can earn more he can live in bay area everyone else should move away in some 'cheaper' market.

We are (me and my wife) also couple of two similar to you two guys and sometimes I must admit that I feel same way as you but still we have to accept it if you want to work for google/facebook/apple then its not enough just to be 'smart' or educated you have also to have some money to invest in your house. And this area is really expensive right now (for housing) and it will get worst. Everything what is 1 million today will go up in next couple years. So better buy some condo if you still can (inventory is so low right now) and work to pay off mortgage.

[Wry_Martini]

So, what's wrong with living in condos or apartments?

Maybe I'm misreading some value judgement in the OP but it seems like he (?) is saying a SFH is always more prestigious or desirable than a condo or apartment ("slums", to use his own words).

There's a lot of extremely nice condos and apartments out there. And they can come with amenities that SFHs don't always have-- ex: pool, hot tub, gym, playground, closer to transit, walkable to shopping/errands. Lack of yardwork -- this one is a major plus for me!

[vrhunski]

Right! There are really nice condos out there. Cost a lot right now but there is a reason for that too!
Bay Area's tech-led boom is broadening - San Jose Mercury News

[mysticaltyger]

The Bay Area doesn't have a lot of vacant land. We don't have much choice but to build more high density housing. There is a shortage of housing of all kinds. That's why apartment rents have been skyrocketing the past few years.

I'm 42, so I'm probably not part of their "younger generation" demographic....but I do prefer urban housing. Not all of us think of high density housing as "slums", although I do agree that we absolutely must make such housing with better construction quality and design than we have to this point.

I have nothing against suburbia per se...but the lack of urban housing options in most U.S. metro areas is pathetic. It's very hard to live an urban lifestyle in the U.S. outside of a small handful of (mostly very expensive) cities.

Bottom line: If you want to have the 'single family house with a yard' lifestyle, you either have to make scads of money (no, 100K isn't going to cut it, and hasn't for a while now...at least not for those who didn't want to be "house poor") or you have to leave the area.

[justinbro2002]

There are still "affordable" sfhs in the Bay Area you just need to look outside of the silicon valley (San Jose metro area, pennisula) the prices in alot of communities in this area have already or almost returned to their 2006 pre-bust levels if not exceeded those levels. In the east bay prices are still down 20%+ from those highs sure prices are coming up from the bottom but it isn't crazy yet.

[NickB1967]

ABAG's plan is New Urbanist Soviet Man. Welcome to the future of Kalifornia.