To Ease Housing Crisis, California Lawmakers Vote to Open Suburbs to Development

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/26/business/california-duplex-senate-bill-9.html

by bartart • 5 years ago

29 11 5 years ago

lordloki• 5 years ago

They might be better off banning short term rentals such as AirBnB, and banning investment and foreign SFH ownership.

sul_tasto4• 5 years ago

This is about profit for housing developers, period. They can make more money on units on established areas with highly rated schools, instead of building apartments or townhouses further out. It’s no different than the school redistricting initiatives democrat-leaning school boards are pushing under the guise of ‘equity,’ so that more housing can be built near highly rated schools for a higher profit. There’s no noble cause here. It’s plain corruption.

mrcartmenez• 5 years ago

Higher density is more economically efficient for local authorities, does less harm to the environment per resident and encourages greener behaviour from individuals, for example discouraging car use.

Spars suburbs do no one any good other than those fortunate enough to be wealthy enough to live in places that end up being subsidised by high-density neighbourhoods, often home to poorer residents.

grillvogel• 5 years ago

suburbs typically cost less per sq foot than dense areas. higher density only benefits developers who can now get revenue on the N plots of land they converted from 1.

sul_tasto4• 5 years ago

All your points may or may not be true, but they don’t invalidate the corrupt motivation behind this legislation.

dredmorbius3• 5 years ago

From friends who'd grown up, or watched their children grow up, in California, and then discovered that they simply could not afford to remain there --- with family, friends, neighbourhoods, and landscapes they'd grown up and identified with --- this isn't just about providing housing for new arrivals. It's about housing the population that is there already. Likewise those who've retired and would like to remain in the state, preferably not too long a drive from friends and family (or medical services and at least some urban amenities). Or those who've found themselves burned out of homes an unable to find replacement housing.

California's forty-year "just say no" anti-housing campaign simply cannot be sustained while retaining functional cities, towns, and a state as a whole.

Or to put a twist on the tired argument: propertyowners and banks have no right to an ever-accellerating rate of asset inflation if it renders both society and economy unsustainable.

(That housing is now a crisis across the US, and in numerous other countries, doesn't diminish this argument at all.)

sul_tasto4• 5 years ago

The society and economy in California have become unsustainable because the people who have been priced out would prefer to not have too long of a drive? How is this a credible argument?

dredmorbius3• 5 years ago

Per the article: there are 100,000 homeless in the state.

The median home price is $800,000, over 10x the median income of $75,235 (https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/CA)

This isn't 100,000 people, an entire city's worth of people, who would prefer a shorter commute. It's 100,000 people, an entire city's worth, 40,000 families, a generation of children, who need a roof over their head, a bathroom, a kitchen, places to study and rest.

Your comment utterly ignores and misrepresents the reality.

To Ease Housing Crisis, California Lawmakers Vote to Open Suburbs to Development

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