I Have Read Prop F

https://medium.com/@emeyerson/prop-f-is-worse-than-you-think-17e395ca8761

by _sentient • 11 years ago

238 160 11 years ago

Marazan• 11 years ago

If you had to divide the world into people who are pro or anti airbnb then I am anti-airbnb. But prop F is horrible beyond belief.

TranquilMarmot• 11 years ago

Why would you say you are anti-airbnb? Just curious if it's their business practices, renters themselves, or what. I've only had positive experiences with airbnb.

lemworld• 11 years ago

I also have had only positive experiences with Airbnb, though I've only stayed in "whole apartment" listings. Maybe the OP had some negative experiences with a host they stayed with?

beachstartup• 11 years ago

i'm anti-airbnb. i prefer to stay in hotels or professionally managed vacation rental units.

for example, there's absolutely ZERO chance a hotel will cancel your room on you 12 hours before you show up in europe.

slg2• 11 years ago

I'm not specifically anti-Airbnb, but I'm anti "disruption is euphemism for just ignoring the law". It is common with companies like Uber, Airbnb, and the most recent uproar is over DraftKings and FanDuel. These companies have a disregard for the law as part of their business model and that rubs me the wrong way.

zorpner• 11 years ago

Exploitation of marginal utility is fundamentally disconcerting, and it should be -- as tech people, we could think of it as being paid for time spent in a chair, or lines of code. It exploits an inefficiency which exists because of an absolute measurement that mis-assesses the situation.

In the case of housing, at the basic level, we pay a monthly rate in order to have a place to sleep (and maybe live & eat). But embedded in our rules and laws are assumptions about how that works, and one of those core assumptions is stability (that is, people who make this exchange of money for housing will remain in the housing for longer spans). Our noise ordinances are based on long timelines for investigation, monitoring, and enforcement because they embed the assumption of stable tenancy. Our building codes assume certain occupancies and our maintenance schedules assume certain rates of wear. Our building security practices assume that people with the keys have an invested interest in restricting access.

These assumptions may or may not be desirable, but they exist, and because of their existence renting an apartment (I have different feelings regarding owned single-family dwellings) for short-term AirBnB-style rentals violates not only the social contract with neighbors, but the unwritten contract involving a number of ambient practices with potentially negative consequences.

I'm not 100% against short-term subletting, and I'm certainly not against having relatives stay over, for example. But this is a classic example of both money and automation fundamentally changing an existing practice -- people are "doing the same thing", but at a scale and in a way that results in an emergent difference.

geebee3• 11 years ago

This is a (slightly updated) repost of an earlier response of mine on this topic.

Everyone has an opinion about airbnb. Here's my big worry.

San Francisco's population of children has plummeted in my lifetime (I grew up in SF in the 70s). In this time, I think it has gone from about 22% to a current rate of 14% or so. I guess it's just important to me that SF continue to be a place people are from, rather than a place where young people move prior to having families, or (increasingly) a place where empty nesters move and enjoy the city after having families.

Here's the thing, I consider this to be a very economically vulnerable stretch of life. I have two kids, in SFUSD, and I'm starting to see just how colossal a disadvantage a family with two kids would be in a bidding war against someone who intends to put the extra bedrooms in a SFH or a 3 bedroom apartment on airbnb instead.

It's no secret that housing is in short supply in SF, and that the price of a house or apartment in SF reflects what the highest bidder is able to pay. It's also probably not surprising that kids are very expensive. A two income family (pretty tough to live in SF if you aren't) means daycare - and daycare costs, conservatively, over $2,000 a month per kid. Even if they're in SFUSD ("free"), after care at school with run you about $4,000 a year per kid, and summer camps will add another $3000 or so per kid, if you're doing things the inexpensive way.

Now, imagine that a family with two kids now has to compete against a bidder who plans to put the "spare" bedrooms on airbnb, and who factors that into the bid. The family has two very expensive, non-revenue generating children. The airbnb buyer has a massive advantage here, and I see it as another factor that could potentially put massive new pressures on an already collapsing population of families with children. It could also reduce turnover - someone who no longer needs the extra bedrooms and might have in the past downsized (opening up a SFH for a new family) now rents the bedrooms out full time on airbnb.

Sure, these problems could have existed with permanent, long term tenants, but I do think that it was less likely. Airbnb definitely makes it far easier and more profitable to do this - this is one big reason why the company is so large and profitable itself. Is this happening? I don't know, I don't have the data. Until then, it's just a fear, though not (in my opinion, obviously) an unfounded one. But if they company won't open up the data and recognize the possible danger, my guess is that the public will support strict regulations.

thechao• 11 years ago

I can't even possibly fathom any reason to be either pro or anti airbnb. It's like being pro- or anti- fuchsia, to me.

Could you explain why you don't like airbnb? Did the CEO kick you in the puppies, or something?

pbreit5• 11 years ago

It's more like being pro or con U2 or bee stings. How could you not have an opinion?

Personally, I think AirBnB has not done a very good job helping communities figure out what the best situation should be. Many/most leases and HOAs forbid short-term leases for very good reason and yet AirBnB turns an eye. And for people who own their residences, many areas are zoned non-commercial, again for very good reasons, and AirBnB turns an eye. Prop F looks terrible but if it somehow manages to pass, AirBnB has no one to blame but itself for not participating constructively in a reasonable solution.

bsder9• 11 years ago

can't even possibly fathom any reason to be either pro or anti airbnb.

How about--because I find the serfitude economy ineffective outside areas that are already well-served through other mechanisms.

Most of these middlemen are actively interfering in the most profitable cities and areas while ignoring those places where they would actively be useful because they are less profitable.

People would find AirBnB, Uber, et al. much less distasteful if they weren't interfering in dense cities where there is existing infrastructure and were instead focusing on areas that are underserved and would welcome them very much. (For an AirBnB example see: Kittanning, PA--almost nothing in spite of the fact that there are no hotels--heaven help you if you need a hotel while helping with a sick relative in that area during graduation season, leaf viewing season, or the start of hunting season--even normal times in winter are difficult because the hotels have quite a driving distance in bad weather).

Add in the fact that these same companies are taking a middleman cut of money in return for pushing all of the risks onto individuals and externalizing the costs onto the general public.

Top it off with the fact that said middleman generally knows that the end users are actively flouting the law.

s73v3r3• 11 years ago

I, for one, am absolutely sick and tired of companies thinking it's "disruptive" to ignore the law. Why do they think they're so special?

idlewords• 11 years ago

This is a really laudable write-up, whether or not you agree with prop F. The problem of "sounds good in principle" propositions that are terribly or deceptively drafted is one that makes every California election a minefield.

cheepin• 11 years ago

That's why a strangely sound election strategy is to just vote no on every proposition. Most of them have heavy corporate sponsorship and are written to deceive the public.

DiabloD3• 11 years ago

I don't know why this guy is being downvoted. I've heard the exact same thing from many friends of mine who have or still do live in SF: just vote no on all of them, and force the city to do it's job by legislating the usual way.

azernik• 11 years ago

And even if you are willing to put in the time to read some props and convince yourself they're a good idea, vote no on all the ones you can't be bothered to research.

skuhn9• 11 years ago

I find the proposition system extremely aggravating. Even for propositions that I largely or wholly agree with I have to ask myself: does this deserve to be an amendment of the state constitution or city charter? That's the power that voter initiatives essentially have, after all.

When you think about it that way, they almost all look pretty ridiculous. Should the San Francisco city charter have an amendment about whether one particular construction project in 2014 can be built at a certain height? Should we have a ballot initiative every time a new building needs to be built?

That might make sense in some alternate reality if we lived in a direct democracy with routine voting and people actually informed themselves about the issues they were deciding. I think it's pretty safe to say that we aren't living in that world today.

ak217• 11 years ago

It's worse than that. The California government is in a long-term constitutional crisis precisely because of the proposition system. The legislative burden from politicized, poorly written, un-repealable propositions paralyzes the state and local governments and budgets, and is the tyranny of the majority embodied. It starts with prop 13 and goes downhill from there. The only thing that will fix it is a constitutional convention and removal of the proposition process.

jfb2• 11 years ago

It all comes back to Proposition 13, which crippled local governments.

Mz3• 11 years ago

Wow:

This is where it’s clear the authors overreached and created a toxic spill waiting to happen.

If the City finds you did indeed host someone or assisted someone else as such, even for one night, then the City can take action against you.

But then it gets absolutely bonkers. If you didn’t host anyone, or it was just your Aunt Rose visiting for the weekend, then your cranky neighbor can still sue you anyway, and the City has to help them do it. And we’re not just talking about filing suit so the City can collect its fines and fees, but filing for “special damages” that the neighbors get to keep for themselves.

This sounds incredibly bad.

abalone3• 11 years ago

It's a bit overblown. Civil lawsuits cost money to prosecute, so they're unlikely to be pursued unless there's a good chance of winning.

cuckcuckspruce• 11 years ago

Have you ever lived in a community with an HOA? Some of the people there take finding violations, infractions, and actionable offenses as their second job, and will not hesitate to sue you just because. So enabling these people by requiring the city to help them sue is like dumping a tanker full of kerosene on a forest fire.

Mz3• 11 years ago

I wasn't really thinking of the "you could get sued" angle so much as the "you could get sued BECAUSE you let your Aunt visit for the weekend" angle. It sounds like the law basically outlaws having family come visit, among other things. It sounds just fucking crazy to me.

Though I don't live in SF and likely never will, so I guess if SF wants to get even crazier than it already is, it can. I have no power to vote in city level stuff in SF.

No12• 11 years ago

You don't have to have a good chance of winning to make money - most civil lawsuits are settled out of court.

You can be guaranteed that that there will be lawyers taking up cases (possibly on contingency) for the most frivolous of claims and offering to settle for a few grand (much less than it would cost to defend the case).

curun1r• 11 years ago

Yes, but by setting a minimum damage amount of $250/night, you've removed the most difficult aspect of a case like this. It would be incredibly difficult to prove that a neighbor's having guest caused a high dollar amount of damages. Without needing to do that, all the person pursuing the case needs to show is that the law was violated and they'll be eligible for potentially thousands of dollars in damages. That creates a huge incentive to pursue cases like this, even when the damages sustained are negligible.

on_• 11 years ago

I Have Read this Medium Post.

The author makes a great case against Prop F, prop F seems like a totally shitty law and isn't going to fix the housing problem. It sounds like that isn't what the law is about anyway, but there is a great way to fix the housing problem. The argument he seems to allude to in his notes, is that people seem to choose sides based on their sentiment surrounding the current resedential/housing market.

In economics there are 2 forces at the heart of most problems. These are called "supply" and "demand" and they govern price. SF has not been keeping up with it's infrastructure, is a decade behind in new construction, and building new resedential properties will take ~5-10 years to complete. They are not actively building properties that will sufficiently meet demand even now. So this won't go away.

Unfortunately, people who paid a lot for houses have a vested interest in not raising supply, and the amount of regulation surrounding new construction creates massive amounts of friction. It will be interesting to see how this problem get's solved. I agree with the author though:

It is not going to be Prop F.

ubernostrum• 11 years ago

Of course, California also interferes with the market to discourage selling real estate. Proposition 13 disconnected property tax rates from the value of the property (by capping the increase in assessed value at 2% per year, far below the increase in actual market value).

Which created a massive incentive to hold real estate as long as possible without selling, since the only time the tax rate can reset to being based on market value is at the time of sale.

gnopgnip• 11 years ago

This is true but in most cases it doesn't matter because your next best alternative is not changed. If you have owned a home for 10 years and want to buy a new home in another area, you will still want to sell your home. If you just moved to CA and want to own a home, you will still want to buy despite prop 13.

mahyarm• 11 years ago

It's basically rent control for property owners. California: The land of rent control.

bcoates2• 11 years ago

Proposition 13 didn't do that; the various governments who petulantly refused to adapt their tax regimes to the Prop 13 limits did. The bizarre incentives created by almost 40 years of attempting to strong-arm voters into giving power back to legislatures could be fixed by legislatures without doing anything to Prop 13.

steven20126• 11 years ago

This is of course patently false, since the real estate market in CA has gone through the roof, and cities are flush with new property tax money at sky high valuations.

The house we bought was last bought at $150k, and we bought it for 10x this amount. The amount of turnover in real estate in our city in the Bay Area has reached a fevered pitch, so the cities are actually benefiting from more tax revenues.

pbreit5• 11 years ago

AirBnB needs to step up and suggest what it thinks are some of the right ways to handle this. The fact is, many/most leases and HOAs forbid short term rentals, and for good reasons. As well, many areas are zoned non-commercial, again for good reasons.

But people certainly should have some degree of autonomy when it comes to their personal property. The question is, what is it?

What I never understood is why short term rental regulations aren't modeled more closely off BnB laws than hotel laws. Many jurisdictions have BnB laws and AirBnBs obviously compare much more closely to BnBs. BnBs typically have lighter regulation, different taxes, are frequently in residential areas, etc.

bsder9• 11 years ago

But people certainly should have some degree of autonomy when it comes to their personal property. The question is, what is it?

That is why we elect people. To answer these kinds of hard questions.

What I never understood is why short term rental regulations aren't modeled more closely off BnB laws than hotel laws.

Part of the whole kerfuffle is because AirBnB was encouraging people to break the laws that actually existed.

For example, if I buy a house in an area zoned "residential", I don't expect to have someone next to me running different people in an out every week as part of AirBnB. If you want to do that you should have to be zoned "commercial", thanks. Then, we'll get to discuss this at the next council meeting when you ask for a zoning exemption. If it's your hunting lodge, probably nobody is going to object. If it's right next to the elementary school, people are probably going to complain. etc.

fraserharris• 11 years ago

The heart of your argument is that there is some clear distinction between residential and commercial which doesn't actually exist. Residential properties have always been used for profit - its called an apartment. These visitors are renting in a residential area precisely because they want a residential experience.

The "burden" on your neighbors from short-term visitors is highly overblown. What actual impact on the elementary school is short-term visitors going to have? Is their driving to & from the home ever so more frequent than a full-time occupant? Do you think they are having rowdy parties despite self-selecting to stay in a residential neighborhood? Or that they would be a pedophile (which federal laws already ban from staying within a short distance from an elementary school?)

toby4• 11 years ago

That is why we elect people. To answer these kinds of hard questions.

Yes, and the people we elected actually already answered this question wrt short-term rentals. Propositions like this one undermine this process.

How many people do you think voting for Prop F will have read it?

dragonwriter• 11 years ago

That is why we elect people. To answer these kinds of hard questions.

In California, its arguable that the premise of the model of government we have (as articulated in the State Constitution) is more that we elect people to exercise legislative power in the regular case not because we have other things to do on a day-to-day basis, but that the people reserve superceding legislative powers of initiative and referendum specifically because we don't think that the people we hire to deal with the day-to-day drudgery of dealing with legislation are necessarily any better or more trustworthy when it comes to answering the tough questions.

douche3• 11 years ago

There are already laws regarding any objectionable behavior that the AirBnB transient renters might engage in. If they are being loud and obnoxious and partying at illegal hours, call the cops and put in a noise complaint. If they are parked illegally, they can get ticketed by zealous meter-people like the rest of us.

Rental agreements often have clauses barring subletting. If you are a landlord and object to a tenant subletting on AirBnB, that's a violation of the terms of the lease, and you can threaten eviction. I would imagine it's obscenely Byzantine to actually get someone evicted, even with good cause and when they are in breach of contract in SF, though.

I'm glad I live in a relatively unregulated area where people mostly mind their own business and aren't jackasses.

smsm426• 11 years ago

I'm not sure why you are placing onus to fix it on AirBnB. The assumption somehow seems to be that any little stupid local regulation, even if obviously bought and paid for by very specific interests in most transparently corrupt way, is sacred and businesses have absolute moral obligation to abide by it. I have no idea where that comes from. Rather, it should be the burden of local government to find solution that is acceptable both for residents and businesses and does not do unnecessary harm.

It's one thing to zone non-commercial (which has very little to do with individual short-term rentals) and another ban short term rentals altogether.

No12• 11 years ago

I saw some campaign propaganda today.

One side of the flier has a guy named Aaron Peskin imploring me to vote yes on Prop F and Prop I. Prop F is the mess thoughtfully critiqued in this write-up, Prop I is a moratorium on building new market-rate housing. Oh, and he's on the "more affordable rent" campaign platform, because if you want to make rent more affordable, clearly the best way is by preventing construction of market-rate housing. It's like SF voters are brain-dead.

The flip side of the flier derided another candidate. If the point of the flier was to make me aware of which candidate to not to vote for, mission accomplished.

geebee3• 11 years ago

Prop I is just a moratorium in the mission right? Doesn't really matter, I think it's a bad idea as well.

However, I think you may find that voters are far more opposed to prop I than prop F. My guess is that if someone supports I, they will almost certainly support F, but not the other way around. Time will tell, though.

thrwwy707• 11 years ago

Prop I is a moratorium on building new market-rate housing

Are these people completely insane? Shouldn't there be propositions for denser zoning, land reclamation, or other measures that would increase the SF housing stock? Houston has famously lax zoning laws, and as a consequence has seen much greater population growth (31% vs 18% from 1980-2010 per wikipedia) yet experienced none of these same problems.

MCRed• 11 years ago

They're actually operating in a way that is very profitable to them. If you own property- a house or business real estate- you want a moratorium on new supply. Because not giving new supply will cause the value of your current property to go up. Of course its an "anti-affordable housing" position... but it's not insane.

The anti-development types are taking a very profitable position for themselves.

bsder9• 11 years ago

Actually, it would seem that San Francisco's (population density 18,187/sq mi (7,022/km2)) zoning laws worked much better than Houston's lack thereof (population density (3,662/sq mi (1,414/km2)).

However, the real problem is that San Francisco is water locked on three sides and boundary locked on the fourth. It has no way of adding housing that doesn't offend some entrenched interest.

Wingman4l7• 11 years ago

Lax zoning laws has created its own set of problems for Houston -- infamously horrible sprawl, for one.

Bjartr• 11 years ago

Shouldn't there be propositions for denser zoning, land reclamation, or other measures that would increase the SF housing stock?

What, and hurt profit margins?

raldi2• 11 years ago

The two candidates are diametric opposites regarding adding housing, improving transit, and working with the mayor. And the winner of this race will likely be the deciding vote on such issues in the Board of Supervisors, including the vote for who will be president, a powerful role that gets to appoint nearly half the members of important bodies like the Planning Commission. If you're in this district, please register to vote and read up on Julie Christensen and Aaron Peskin so you can make an informed decision in just over a month.

jarnold• 11 years ago

I can't +1 one this comment enough.

Both have track records in office and the choice can't be more clear. I'm shocked that anyone is supporting Peskin after his term of obstructionism. Esp. in contrast to what Christinsen has accomplished in her recent term.

gkop6• 11 years ago

The Sharebetter campaign website mentioned is totally biased, it's true, and it does seem likely that hotel interests are in no small part behind Yes on F. And I have no doubt F contains (perhaps really bad!) flaws.

But this Medium post is also rife with misleading statements and hyperbole, and therefore hypocritical in light of the author's "here's the facts" tone (not a huge surprise since the author earns income from Airbnb, but still annoying):

(Imagine if we were living under the “MySpace Law” of 2006, eh?)

Hyperbole and strawman; who is calling it the "Airbnb Law"?

to assist anyone to offer (emphasized twice) What does “assist” mean? Cleaning a house before guests arrive? Proofreading someone’s listing? Helping a family member find temporary housing? Nobody knows because it’s undefined in the text, even in the lengthy Definitions section. The judge will decide what it means.

Clearly this is referring to the marketplaces and holding them accountable. If I can figure that out, any judge can.

But wait, there’s more! How do you feel about criminal penalties? ... Six months? (in jail)

The author is a "long-time SF resident" and pretending that an SF judge would want to jail somebody over renting out on Airbnb illegally?

If you host someone in a room in your home for less than 30 days, you best not miss a quarterly report of dates and durations. You’ll be violating the new law.

If it's a paid rental. That's the whole point of the law! In order to regulate the short-term rentals, the city needs you to report your rentals. And remember, up until this year it was completely illegal to rent for less than 30 days.

Why are in-laws banned, even for one night per year? Nobody knows.

The reason Prop F bans in-laws that they are a hot-button issue, generally speaking, to do with the legality of the construction of the units and the connection thereof with new rent-controlled housing units (IE the city may be willing to bless your unpermitted in-law, if you rent it out under rent control).

ps. did anybody else get "Aw snap!" opening the post in Chrome?

toby4• 11 years ago

The author is a "long-time SF resident" and pretending that an SF judge would want to jail somebody over renting out on Airbnb illegally?

It seems like giving judges that power because "they obviously won't use it" has gotten us into a lot of trouble in the past.

gkop6• 11 years ago

For sure. My point is the author's hyperbole doesn't elevate the conversation, but rather the opposite.

mrgordon4• 11 years ago

Agreed, the law shouldn't say you can send someone to jail for 6 months if we don't think that is reasonable

owlmonkey• 11 years ago

I don't follow your train of thought on in-laws. Because they're small, they're unlikely to serve for 'hosted' rentals and more likely to be only short term rentable up to 90 days. e.g. when the existing renter in the in-law goes on vacation. So why does this proposition want to ban that use case entirely instead of just restrict it to 75 days?

gkop6• 11 years ago

There is recent legislation enabling the legalization of unpermitted in-laws and creation of new in-laws. Therefore short-term in-law rentals are disallowed by Prop F, idea being the new in-laws are hoped to contribute to regular (mostly rent-controlled I believe) housing. See http://hoodline.com/2015/09/supervisors-approve-in-law-legis... .

smsm426• 11 years ago

who is calling it the "Airbnb Law"?

I think a lot of people do, not only in SF. Same for Uber laws, etc. Of course, they don't call it exactly that, but the intent is clear.

Clearly this is referring to

Judging laws by "clearly this is referring to" is rather risky proposition, unless you are one of the nine people who have the power to actually decide such questions (aka The Supreme Court). Because otherwise you won't be deciding it, the judge or jury would, and what is clear to you may not be as clear to them. And you can land in a big trouble for it.

Not to mention being pursued by regulators is a very expensive and complicated thing even if you win. And regulators can be very zealous in their prosecutions, and they would try to twist every letter against you. There are numerous cases where judges had to rebuke regulators and prosecutors for excessive zeal and misinterpretation of the law. You do not want to be on the wrong end of that. So any law that leaves opening for that is extremely dangerous for the citizen.

SF judge would want to jail somebody over renting out on Airbnb illegally?

It doesn't have to get to the judge even. It can be just "do you want to close your business now or do you want to risk prosecution that can land you in jail?" Criminalization of regular business behavior is dangerous because it grant immense powers to prosecutors by leveraging the threat of imprisonment - even if imprisonment itself does not follow. I.e. if prosecutors want something from you (like testify on unrelated case) and they discovered you let your friend stay in your apartment and took money for it, or even helped one friend to star at other friend's house (and you had no idea if any money changed hands, but prosecutors say they did so you are prosecutable now for "assisting") - they can threaten you with 6 months in jail now. Would you risk it, relying on the kindness of SF judges, or would you just bend over and do what the prosecutors tell you to do? Criminalizing common behavior may not land you in jail immediately, but it makes you more and more dependent on the good mood of the law enforcement. It is not a good thing.

If it's a paid rental.

"Paid" is a very stretchable term. Any consideration can be considered payment. Did they offer to pay for your tickets on the game you go to see together as thanks for hosting them? This can be treated as the same as rent - you hosted them and got something in exchange. Etc., etc.

And remember, up until this year it was completely illegal to rent for less than 30 days.

"It was worse in the past" is not really an argument for it being good currently. You can always think of something worse.

The reason Prop F bans in-laws

is that they want less rentals unless it's under conditions under which people do not want to rent. Somehow it does not sound to me like and argument for, but a rather strong argument against.

gkop6• 11 years ago

Thanks for the response! Your points are reasonable - in fact I fully agree with several - but I am afraid you misunderstood my meaning.

I am not arguing for or against the proposition - I just don't think the OP is a quality article around which to have this debate. It's a political scare piece.

timr2• 11 years ago

It's really quite remarkable that you can know so little about something, yet be so judgmental about it at the same time. Go 'mericuh!

Prop I is a temporary (18 month) moratorium in one neighborhood (the Mission), for only a limited subset of projects, coupled with the requirement that the city has to create a "neighborbood stabilization plan" by the end of that period [1].

It is not a "moratorium on building new market-rate housing", as you say.

The idea is that the Mission is undergoing a land-grab by speculators, that poor people are losing (they are), and that the battle will be over by the time a coherent plan is formulated to do anything about it. Whether or not you believe this to be the correct approach, it does nobody any good to mischaracterize it as something that is obviously and painfully stupid.

I realize it's not at all fashionable on HN to point out that life is more complicated than chapter one, paragraph one of a high-school economics textbook...but prop I might actually be a good idea over here in the real world, where actual poor people are being evicted from the only places they can afford in the city, at alarming rates.

[1] http://ballotpedia.org/City_of_San_Francisco_Mission_Distric...

toby4• 11 years ago

Just want to point out that some of us have read the full text of the Proposition, know exactly what it does, and the rationale, and still think it will be completely ineffective.

For example, SF's Chief Economist: http://sfcontroller.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid...

timr2• 11 years ago

The point of the moratorium is not to affect prices; it's to give the city a chance to come up with a plan that will protect affordable housing in this one neighborhood, without losing the ability to act.

Viewed in that light, this report is a vote for the plan, not against it: it gives a little breathing room, and probably won't affect prices either way. Whether or not it "works" is entirely speculative: someone has to come up with an actual solution in the longer term.

I believe the advocates of this proposition want the city to buy the remaining vacant lots in the Mission, and use them to build affordable housing projects, but I could be wrong about that.

scurvy2• 11 years ago

The city has found that the temporary moratorium would have no effect on pricing. http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2015/09/long-term-effect-...

s73v3r3• 11 years ago

Isn't the moratorium there to give the city time to come up with a plan? So by itself it wouldn't have an effect, but whatever the city comes up with should have the effect (whether it does or not depends on which crystal ball you're looking at).

scurvy2• 11 years ago

Out of curiosity, what is the actual "alarming rate" of people getting just-cause evicted from their homes? I know that Ellis Act evictions dropped from 2013 to 2014. I'm guessing that the trend held steady. The number of units city-wide is also still in the hundreds, not thousands. That doesn't sound like a crisis.

mylons2• 11 years ago

sorry, tim, but this sounds like a moratorium on building new housing. nobody should support this.

mylons2• 11 years ago

I'm also VERY upset that I cannot downvote this into oblivion. Yet Another NIMBY.

raldi2• 11 years ago

You're characterizing opponents of Prop I as people who have only read the first chapter of an economics textbook, but the city's chief economist, who is well-respected, has a PhD in this, and has taught the subject as a professor at Berkeley, just finished a long, careful review of the proposition, and issued a scathing report concluding that it's a terrible idea.

http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/City-report-Missi...

dang3• 11 years ago

It's really quite remarkable that you can know so little about something, yet be so judgmental about it at the same time. Go 'mericuh!

As I'm sure you know, there is no place on Hacker News for inflammatory attacks against other users.

The commenters who have taken what was a substantive, reasonable thread about an interesting (beyond just local SF politics) subject and turned it into an angry insult match are breaking everything we're trying to achieve in this community. Users who do this disqualify themselves from participating in the discussion.

We've detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10281057 and marked it off-topic.

luckydata• 11 years ago

reading the proposition would help, but that's beside the point ain't it?

Someone really needed to let us know how fantastic things are when the gubmint gets out of the way. Got it.

dang3• 11 years ago

Please stop posting uncivil comments to Hacker News.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10281311 and marked it off-topic.

bsder9• 11 years ago

Edit: Thread parent lost due to moderator detach: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10281311

Houston also has four freakin' beltways (I610, TX 8, TX 6, and TX 99).

Comparing a city that is the poster child for "sprawl" with a chunk of real estate that is more than a little landfill and locked on 3 sides with water is more than a little disingenuous.

Houston's second beltway would encircle San Mateo, some of Oakland, and Sausalito if transplanted to San Fransico.

If transplanted to San Francisco, Houston's fourth beltway (TX 99--currently under construction) would encompass almost all of San Pablo bay, Walnut Creek (maybe even as far as Concord), easily all of Oakland, Hayward, and Redwood City. And be more than 50% underwater.

The differences are more than the "gubmint reg-you-lashion" my good man.

noyounoyounoyou• 11 years ago

San Fransisco is no where near the top when you measure population density, other cities can fit more people in less space, San Francisco is not unique, it simply represents the failure of local laws.

Also, what's with constant 'gub' slurs, are people on HN little children who must insult people who are willing to criticize inept policy makers?

bsder9• 11 years ago

San Fransisco is no where near the top when you measure population density, other cities can fit more people in less space, San Francisco is not unique, it simply represents the failure of local laws.

Actually, you are factually wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

San Francisco is only behind New York, Los Angeles, and Miami in density. It's probably in or close to the top 20 in Europe.

Sure, none of our cities compares to anything in Asia. We also don't seem to like to live that dense.

Also, what's with constant 'gub' slurs, are people on HN little children who must insult people who are willing to criticize inept policy makers?

Invoking a lack of regulations as proof of success when the factual metrics (Houston's population density is ridiculously, laughably low) easily refute said statement is going to provoke a response appropriate for someone who clearly is impervious to fact.

selectodude• 11 years ago

The density of Brooklyn is almost double San Francisco, and I wouldn't consider Brooklyn a very high rise city.

irq11• 11 years ago

You have it exactly backwards. The density of SF is almost double Brooklyn. 18k/mi^2 vs 10k/mi^2

bsder9• 11 years ago

The density of Brooklyn is almost double San Francisco, and I wouldn't consider Brooklyn a very high rise city.

What are you smoking? I want some of that.

Brooklyn has a density of 35,369.1 people per square mile.

That would make it the 5th most dense city in the US. Behind only other New York areas. It would even put it in the top 10 in density for Europe.

What the hell DO you consider a dense city?

dang3• 11 years ago

Your comments are breaking the site guidelines. Please comment civilly and substantively or not at all.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10281311 and marked it off-topic.

beatpanda• 11 years ago

I have been a part-time homesharer

You have not. You are a rentier. You are running a business. Please stop this violence against the English language.

I use hospitality exchange websites to actually share my home, that is offer my home as a place to stay free of charge. What people do on AirBnB, VRBO, and others is not sharing, it's commerce, and we have different words for describing that.

Appropriating the language of mutual aid and generosity to describe a business transaction is insulting. Please stop it.

MichaelGG• 11 years ago

Yeah I agree that abuse of "sharing" as a term is silly. I'm no longer a software designer. I'm a "Software Design Knowledge Sharer".

joeevans1000• 11 years ago

Absolutely agree. He tipped his hand a little there. It's clear at the end he may be biased against the proposition for personal reasons. He cites very valid reasons against the proposition, but these are points for adjustment in the proposal down the road. Something like this will pass sooner or later in one form or another. The basic gist of the proposition will be approved by some means sooner or later.

rl3• 11 years ago

Serious question: has subterranean housing ever been considered for SF? If you can't build out or up, may as well build under.

Feasibility aside, the only problem I see is it'd create a literal underclass—as opposed to the proverbial one that exists now as a result of absurd rent prices.

smsm426• 11 years ago

Or you can just live outside of San Francisco, and take 20 min train :)

steven20126• 11 years ago

It's either bedrock you'd have to drill through, or sand. I don't think it's a good place to have underground dwelling.

eru6• 11 years ago

If you can't build out or up, may as well build under.

You can only not build up because of regulation. Building under probably comes with regulation, too.

Dylan168073• 11 years ago

Going down more than a floor gets stupidly expensive. The underclass would be the ones on the surface.

I Have Read Prop F

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