San Francisco passes New York to become world’s costliest place to build

https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/San-Francisco-passes-New-York-to-become-world-s-13760541.php

by jseliger • 7 years ago

28 15 7 years ago

As a resident of San Francisco, I would love to see more housing built here. The fact that there are so many low rise buildings in San Francisco is ridiculous. It’s a city for gods sake! Build the hell out of it.

Counter point 1: “the buildings will be ugly and we’ll lose our community”. I disagree. Plenty of cities have common sense laws about how buildings should look. Your community is changing whether you like it or not. I don’t see how tall building erase community. They may change it, sure. But change is inevitable.

Counter point 2: “the increase in traffic will be terrible.” So run bart 24 hours, add more stops, extend the likes and run a train every 5 minutes. upgrade muni with all the extra tax base. Introduce congestion charges.

Counter point 3: “all the housing will go to rich people”. Maybe true, maybe not. But by the basic law of supply and demand, more supply means prices go down. If you build a bunch of luxury appartments, then that willl vacate some supply of slightly less expensive housing, and a trickle effect all the way down. Plus you can mandate controls on what types of units get built. The fact is that rich people like to live in cities, and if you can’t afford to live here then move.

Basically, it’s all possible but because of short sighted stupid policies and whining about “community” it won’t happen.

aeternus3• 7 years ago

For homeowners and landlords in SF, voting for more housing is counter to their rational self-interest. It drives down their home prices in many ways: simple supply + demand, obstructed views, increased traffic, school overcrowding.

Until we align incentives, why would homeowners or prospective homeowners vote for increased housing?

joejerryronnie• 7 years ago

You’re right about incentives. How about offering homeowners something for their trouble - e.g. if a neighborhood votes to rezone for higher density, all existing homeowners get a yearly rebate to offset some portion of their property tax. I guarantee most people value cash in their pocket now more than some nebulous property value at an undisclosed time in the future.

clay_the_ripper2• 7 years ago

I’m curious how other cities handle this. It seems like homeowners have far too much power in this situation, and are able to vote in their own self interest to the detriment of everyone else.

I guess it’s a politics problem more than anything. How do we take away their influence? Genuinely curious if anyone knows more about this and how this might be done.

waffleguy• 7 years ago

They bought their home in a city. No one in a city should expect the community/buildings to stagnate. That is counterintuitive to how a city operates.

tehlike• 7 years ago

Actually this may not be true. The home owners own the land thr homes are on, so by that definition, if you can build lots of housing on the same surface area, the land would appreciate

San Francisco passes New York to become world’s costliest place to build

Related Stories