First builder’s remedy plan for Bay Area revealed in Los Altos Hills

https://sfyimby.com/2023/02/yimby-exclusive-first-builders-remedy-plan-for-bay-area-revealed-in-los-altos-hills.html

by jseliger • 3 years ago

72 88 3 years ago

sfyimby.com

gardenfelder• 3 years ago

Wow! 28 cars dumping onto a tiny road. Hard to see this idea ending well...

https://www.google.com/maps/place/11511+Summit+Wood+Rd,+Los+...

gotoeleven• 3 years ago

You know that these 28 cars are unlikely to be driving all at the same time right?

Most of these neighborhoods you could 10x the traffic without anyone noticing.

ed25519FUUU2• 3 years ago

In CA there’s at least one or two cars per bedroom of housing. They’ll be parking all along the street.

But so what? This is a last ditch effort to beef up the critically low housing supply, not intended to be the ideal solution.

ryan93• 3 years ago

Funny to imagine all 28 people leaving for work everyday at the exact same time.

tennisflyi• 3 years ago

I guess. Like they all have the same length commute?

epistasis6• 3 years ago

Thats not many cars, and it's a short road. If each car takes 5 seconds to pass a particular point, that's only a few minutes overall of cars in a day.

I would suggest that Los Altos Hills should start enabling transit if their roads are overloaded. Or even better, they should have done some planning.

malermeister2• 3 years ago

Maybe we should stop overrelying on cars and build some public transport while we're at it?

acchow2• 3 years ago

The Bay Area has absolutely perfect weather for walking and cycling. Wish we would design more for that

refurb3• 3 years ago

In a suburban area far from a major city?

Not going to happen.

Even other countries with great public transit dont do have that.

acdha4• 3 years ago

Pretty sure you could fill that entire place with people who would like the 10 minute bike commute to Foothill College. The weather will be fine for that like 360 days a year.

ETHisso2017• 3 years ago

This is going to be so fun to watch

pvg• 3 years ago

Topic was discussed at great length a week ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34597507 1236 comments

zbrozek5• 3 years ago

Oh hey, I didn't expect my submission would make the front page of HN.

triyambakam2• 3 years ago

Have you received any complaints yet?

zbrozek5• 3 years ago

Nope!

pirate787• 3 years ago

It is a kind of tyranny to override the democratic will of local communities regarding their land use preferences.

BurningFrog2• 3 years ago

What about the land owner's will to build what they wish on their own land?

epistasis6• 3 years ago

It's a greater kind of tyranny to monopolize land use and build walls to block the free association of people, and limit what a person can do with their own land.

guardiangod• 3 years ago

If people want absolute control over the land in their town, they can buy the land and put a fence around it.

BurningFrog2• 3 years ago

Money quote:

The developer hazards to guess construction will take at least five years to start

throwaway20374• 3 years ago

Agree. They will need to win some court cases that will set precedent. That will be brutally hard. After, it will be much simpler going forward. Ten years from now, there will be plenty of precedent in California courts to wave away most objections. Plus, I expect cities will try to enact all kinds of sneaky, unfair legislation to create as many delays and hurdles as possible. Again, these will need to be challenged in local courts as (state-wise) unconstitutional and discarded. This will take time.

quacked8• 3 years ago

I think it's so funny how almost all new housing is incredibly ugly. You could convert a lot of NIMBYs to MIMBYs (Maybe In My Back Yard) if developers picked a style to build other than "box with cheap siding that juts right up to the edge of the lot".

I am aware that many currently-loved styles were considered atrocious when they were invented, and I direct your attention to the thousands of disgusting strip malls, regular malls, and faux-brutalist office buildings from the 50s-70s that the public is at best apathetic towards as proof that simply because some styles became loved, not all styles will do so.

arcticbull4• 3 years ago

I actually really like it haha. But either way my opinion is their property, their call. So long as it's safe.

[edit] It's NIMBY's own fault if they don't like what gets built. They had their chance to participate in the process by designing a reasonable and fair housing element. They said no, and chose violence. It's time to enter the 'find-out' phase.

quacked8• 3 years ago

There is of course no accounting for taste. My most recent comment that wasn't this was similar denouncement of the most contemporary UI design trend--I just can't stand flat, rectangular black-grey-beige minimalism, especially when it's compared to the past 10,000 years of colorful, angular ornamentation from thousands of cultures both alive and extinct.

As for the "find-out" phase--many cities are going into that phase, including my beloved hometown. I'm founding out that what The People want is 5-over-1 stick frame buildings owned by out-of-state development companies. I don't even know what I could possibly do in order to motivate my city to take itself seriously architecturally and build some new housing that doesn't scream "warehouse". Perhaps I should become a housing developer and propagandist and do it myself.

acdha4• 3 years ago

I kind of see where you’re coming from but I would look around the suburbs and note how many houses were constructed on the grounds of “hey, it’s cheap!” — and people generally didn’t mind if it was reasonably built. They probably planted something in front anyway and got on with life.

Given the number of people desperate for housing, I’m content leaving this for the rich people who want custom builds. The NIMBYs aren’t going to relax even if the entire project is designed by a who’s who of architecture.

quacked8• 3 years ago

I get upset that people pay thousands of dollars to go abroad to look at nice, dense towns with pretty buildings and then come back to the US and say "anyone who wants to live in a nice town like the one I just visited needs to get out of the way of Progress, we need cheap people warehouses and we need them now".

I'd happily raze several square miles of land in my hometown and build nothing but housing if what came after was something like Copenhagen, instead of Houston (which is what's currently happening).

epistasis6• 3 years ago

People always complain about the contemporary building style, just as they did about all those ticky tacky Victorian homes built here on the west coast, or the ugly repetitive brown stones in Brooklyn.

Personally, I don't think there would be any less opposition to these homes, no matter the visual appearance. People simply hate change, until they experience it, after which they quickly adjust and forget there was a problem to begin with.

And towards that end, I think that any visual standard should be completely disqualified from evaluation of building plans; that is, unless there is a pre-approved, and affordable, style of building that will always be approved no matter what. Otherwise, quibbling over appearances will always be a veto point that will be used regardless of appearances.

quacked8• 3 years ago

People always complain about the contemporary building style

This is always mentioned, and it's just not true. If it were true that people always "quickly adjust and forget there was a problem" then those all-concrete freeway plaza towns would be "beloved" instead of reviled, and the "all highways all the time" city remodeling would be considered perfectly acceptable by everyone.

It is actually possible to build an ugly city that remains ugly after the contemporary ethos has passed. No one's buying plane tickets to visit the architecture in Columbus, OH.

hooverd2• 3 years ago

No, they're the worst of both worlds. It's design review than makes them look ugly. If it were true that people just don't like change then people would love brutalism by now.

reducesuffering2• 3 years ago

It's a consequence of making housing incredibly expensive. When costs are mostly tied up in land and regulation, already too much on people, then housing prices are attempted to be lowered by reducing the construction cost. If you whack the land and regulation costs, so that everyone can easily afford housing, then you'll see luxury splurging on building design for aesthetic and status factors.

ndriscoll• 3 years ago

If someone is currently living on a forested hillside where everyone's on ~2 acre plots, I doubt they'll be happy about the density suddenly increasing 20x regardless of the architectural style. These people apparently have the money to live in the middle of San Francisco if that's what they wanted.

88913527• 3 years ago

A breath of fresh air. The biggest consequence of locking people out of wealth-building opportunities like homeownership is the terminal state of such decisions leaves us looking more like Mexico than Switzerland. Shouldn't we have all have a shared desire to lift society up? It's the same argument for how I'd prefer the average person in society to have more education than not. When people have no opportunity to get ahead, they have nothing to lose, which is net loss for society at large. We want to encourage people to live in good areas.

jeffbee2• 3 years ago

OK but let's be clear: in any future steady state that actually works, nobody will have a rational expectation of building wealth through homeownership.

djha-skin• 3 years ago

Homeownership shouldn't be about building wealth. It should be about having a place for your family to live while you grow old. The best thing about the rate hike is that it has banished real estate investors and others who drive prices high and are only there to get rich.

epistasis6• 3 years ago

Homeownership should be like a piggy-bank, not like a stock. Because let's be clear, any other homeownership wealth building scheme is a pyramid scheme.

And I don't know how you could say this will stop homeownership being a wealth building scheme, because it certainly allows that to continue.

bumbledraven• 3 years ago

Unless perhaps your home is on a rural property with enough acres.

floren• 3 years ago

Thank god.

outside12342• 3 years ago

The great thing is that this is good for everyone. The value of the land will go up because its value can be realized and amortized across many units. The per mile per capita cost of roads will go down because it is amortized across more people.

This is just good policy in action.

bcrosby95• 3 years ago

It definitely has to happen, but thinking this is good for everyone is lying to yourself.

If, for example, you live in an expensive second-rate suburb, a proliferation of affordable homes in first rate suburbs will eventually drive your home's value into the gutter.

raldi• 3 years ago

Bad for people who want to buy single-family houses, because the price of land will go up and a bunch of the stock will be converted to apartments, bad for people who own apartment buildings because now they have competition, good for pretty much everyone else.

kodah3• 3 years ago

I read through the article and couldn't tell whether these are rentals or whether the units are for sale. The vast majority of duplexes I saw in the Bay were rentals, which doesn't really solve the wealth building side of the equation. A lot of YIMBYs are focused on more housing but at least the ones I've talked to on here seem unconcerned with home ownership.

Here's to hoping the residents can own them.

hooverd2• 3 years ago

Eh, some of them believe that home ownership leads to bad politics.

zbrozek5• 3 years ago

Getting a condo map is hard, so I didn't bother trying. That forces these into being rentals.

scythe• 3 years ago

In expensive California cities, it's common for multiple unrelated (by romance or blood) adults to share a house. These situations outcompete homeowners in the market because they have two or more incomes and no dependents. So in the current market climate, increased multi-unit rental housing also increases opportunities for homeownership.

It's good to give people the opportunity to own a home, but it's also important to recognize that some people simply aren't in a place in life where that's practical — such as me, for instance, doing a residency, where I'll likely move away afterwards.

throwaway20374• 3 years ago

    "...looking more like Mexico than Switzerland."

I'm confused. Is this something specific about Mexico vs Switzerland landscape or culture or strictly economics (GDP per capita)?

Also, the idea that homeownership is about wealth-building is not true in many highly advanced countries, including Germany, France, and Japan. They don't have the "housing casino" that exists in US, Canada, UK, and Australia.

mperham• 3 years ago

The vehicular capacity [28 spaces] is far below the city’s required zoning for 80 spaces.

Holy cow, mandating that many parking spaces is outrageous. That's four parking spaces per unit.

arcticbull4• 3 years ago

Yep minimum parking mandates are wild. Imagine how few buildings you'd have in Manhattan with those kinds of mandates.

StillBored• 3 years ago

Manhattan isn't the bay area, which has better transit than most places but cars are still needed to go many places. 4 spots is very reasonable for a midside+ single family home if you consider two adults and a child or two of driving age, or visitors.

Given that this appears to be basically 5 single family townhomes, and 15 apartments, its probably going to cause real parking nightmares for people who live there if any of those single bedroom units have two adults living in them. Its going to require a hard cap of 1 car per apartment unit and 2 cars per townhome which leaves 3 spots for visitors. I hope the people who live there enjoy walking to the closest public transport because some number of them aren't going to have any choice unless the place is full of single adults who never have live in friends. Except its the bay area, 800sf apartment will probably be full of couples, invariably with kids.

So that isn't to say 80 is the right number either, but i'm guessing anything below 1.5 spots per apartment and 3 spots per townhome (~40 total) is legitimately too few.

remarkEon• 3 years ago

Yep, you'll find this all over California.

I don't have the numbers handy, but the way the math works out ... the only way the economics make sense in a number of different neighborhoods is if lux condos/highrises are built. Otherwise developers don't have a way to recoup the ~$200k/door cost requirement of building that much parking (I think it was $200k, someone correct me if I'm wrong).

Fatnino2• 3 years ago

One for your car, one for your wife's car, one for your weekend sports car and one for the maid.

ed25519FUUU2• 3 years ago

I love the builders remedy. I feel like it doesn’t go far enough though. All local zoning should be removed without any “affordable housing” requirements at all.

Just build high density. That’s it.

outside12342• 3 years ago

Amen - the solution to affordable housing is lots and lots of housing.

eganist3• 3 years ago

Nah the affordable housing stipulation is needed so there's not a glut of luxe homes where builders and sellers collude to prop prices.

At least with that requirement, some people will get into homes sooner. And frankly it's for the best; it'll enable service staff etc. to live closer to the cities that need them.

arcticbull4• 3 years ago

Developers build what the market will pay for. If they overbuild luxury houses, they'll go down in price. All new supply is good supply, period. We need everything from SROs to luxury penthouses. That's the only way we land on affordable housing in a market economy.

hedora• 3 years ago

It has been shown that such gluts eventually lower prices in all cheaper tiers of housing. High end owners trade up for discounted luxury creating a market surplus, then midrange owners trade to high end, and finally, the low end houses become more affordable.

In other words, capitalism actually works at setting prices.

Put another way, would you rather live in a new house that was meant to be sold way below market, and has all sorts of structural shortcuts, or in an older house that was mid- to high-end when it was built a few decades ago?

throwaway20374• 3 years ago

I see that your comment was downvoted, but I want to upvote this part:

    it'll enable service staff etc. to live closer to the cities that need them.

Yes, and other professions like nurses, teachers, police, firefighters, etc.

jeffbee2• 3 years ago

Relatedly, YIMBY Law also launched another fusillade of a dozen lawsuits against jurisdictions that failed to adopt plans by the ABAG deadline. https://twitter.com/Yimby_Law/status/1622994623613358082

epistasis6• 3 years ago

This is very refreshing to see. One of the faux-leftist points that NIMBYs use to block housing in California is to say that developers only want to build in communities with lower rents, and displace existing residents, and therefore all development should be stopped to prevent gentrification.

However, the past year has shown the opposite, and completely disproven this line of argument. What causes gentrification is that city planning forces all development into the communities with the lowest rents. And the bills that would have broadly upzoned, and included protections for at risk communities, would have accomplished more housing affordability without displacing the most at-risk tenants.

Seeing where builder's remedy projects have gone should be a mask-off moment for those that opposed SB50 and SB827, two bills that would have allowed a ton of new development that enables transit. Projects like this one in Los Altos Hills are good for increasing economic integration of the Bay Area, but they do it at a cost of reinforcing car-dependent living.

Fatnino2• 3 years ago

Interestingly, that address is blurred on Google Street view.

The roads to access the property (Summit Wood as well as Rhus Ridge and especially Bassett Lane) are at most a car and a half wide in some places. Quadrupling the number of cars that come and go is going to be catastrophicly hilarious for those of us who don't live there.

Probably a little less funny when a wildfire rips through there.

First builder’s remedy plan for Bay Area revealed in Los Altos Hills

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