The problem is that even if it is repealed that way, the state is still under order by the California Supreme court to do something, and they have the final authority. So the court could throw the ballot proposition result out or at least heavily modify it.
Not state wide, but just San Fransisco. If the city can not provide cheaper housing, then this would limit the new office space available. So no new houses, then no new jobs in the city. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2020...le-housing-office-space-proposition-e/604651/
That's profoundly stupid... The problem in San Francisco is that they simply aren't building enough housing and most of that is due to the onerous building permit process and the amount of single family zoning they have. I get that the thought here is that by limiting the amount of office space that can force builders to build more affordable housing, but that isn't the way. Housing prices in San Francisco are already high enough on their own that they don't need to force builders to build housing, they just need to reduce/eliminate the amount of single family zones they have and "streamline" their building approval process. Basically, the only way San Francisco is going to get out of this mess is to build more housing and the only way they can build more housing is to increase density by building up.
Actually a better first step would be to find a way to deal with the issue of unoccupied second homes/air bnb's. This is an issue that extends far beyond SF, in general owners in desirable areas have now realized they can make a lot more money doing short term/vacation rentals rather than rent to long term residents. Like my wife works out near Point Reyes and this issue is pretty much destroying the local community, with long term residents being priced out and businesses losing their labor pool. San Francisco has nearly five empty homes per homeless resident
It's really not, or at least it is something that can be overcome by building more housing. San Francisco is only building about one housing unit per 10 people moving into the city and occupancy rates in their apartments are over 95%. That simply isn't sustainable. AirBnB and the like certainly does have an impact, but its nothing compared to the fact that it can take years for new building projects to get approved in San Francisco and something like 60% of San Francisco's already limited land is zoned for single family housing. Just eliminating or reducing the amount of land that is zoned for single family housing zones and streamlining the building approval process would pretty much instantly create a housing construction boom in San Francisco.
Sorry to quote again, but just to come back to this. Here is the zoning map for San Francisco. The purple areas are places you can't build (parks, schools, hospitals), the light green is low density (1-3 housing units per lot and 1 unit per 800sf), dark green his medium (1 unit per 400sf) and high density (1 unit per 250sf). That's a ton of SF's already limited land (49sqm) taken up by low density housing and parks. SF needs to expand the dark green areas significantly and increase its overall population density. Doing so would significantly address their housing issues.
I suppose so, but I think that's a little misleading considering so many of those 1-3 housing units per lot are broken into multistory flats often housing multiple people in every room. It would be interesting to see what the public response would be if SF made a push to tear down it's older construction and put up more highrises. Especially considering it's already the second most densely populated city in the nation and its public transit and infrastructure are already under strain. Not that that should be what stops it, but you risk the city losing its character with a major construction overhaul.
Why must San Francisco accommodate everybody who wants to live there? Should we tear down central Paris and replace those 6th floor walkups with 60 floor buildings? That way, many more people could live in central Paris, it would be so much more affordable -- and unpleasant.
San Francisco has 1/3 the population density of Paris.. What percentage of Paris is low occupancy housing.. I'm going to bet it is virtually non-existence in comparison to the 60% of SF's land mass..
Yeah, that's the tough balance. The problem with SF right now is that the people who work service industries largely can't afford to live there. So you risk it becoming a sort of touristy museum combined with a home for rich techies rather than the vibrant collection of communities it's known for being.
Well why do poor people want to live there. and in San Francisco, poor means making less than 6 figures.
Well that's true. It does feel like that now. I'm not saying no to adding more high-density housing. I just don't think the issue has an easy answer.
The current mayor also believes it's a housing stock problem SF Mayor London Breed @LondonBreed urging Supervisors to approve funds for housing. “We have to focus on building more housing.” pic.twitter.com/Vg8ysIEic4— Mark Matthews (@MarkMatthewsNBC) January 14, 2020
I'd have an easier time believing that Airbnb is not responsible for the figurative decimation of housing stock if it was only confined to SF. But it's not. Half (HALF!!!) of all NYC apartments are not full time residences. So even if you want to buy a place and you have a few million dollars to spare, half the inventory is already off the market. This is why you have doctors and lawyers living in ghettos and the people who used to live in the ghettos moving to i don't know where. Florida?
That is a lot of foreign buyers, even with our Airbnb this would still happen. 50 thousand out of how many housing units in New York city? https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/03/what-airbnb-did-to-new-york-city/552749/
Well SF is just a playground for the rich/affluent it hasn't been a working class or even middle class city for families for over 30 years. Things have just accelerated in the last decade with the tech boom in the city making cost of living astronomically unlivable. We all heard the stories living in the area that people were renting boxes, closets, attics for over 1k a month. City officials are culpable in this whole scale gentrification and destruction of the diversity of the city. Now the city is yuppie, transplants, hedgefun, oversea money owned and the rest are pushed out. Building affordable housing is laughable because the NIMBY crowd control the levers of power. The Airbnb vacation rental thing is a worldwide problem but it's a cash cow for owners in any desirable place. pied-à-terre” are all over the city. Wish I had one hahah
OK, back to the actual topic of this thread. If someone wants to start a San Francisco Ballot Propositions thread so we can all laugh at what those goofy folks in the city are voting on, that's cool, but this thread is the California proposition thread, and I just got my voter's guide for the March primary, and there's a proposition we gotta discuss. It's not a very interesting one. Proposition 13 - a $15 billion school bond measure. Not to be confused with the older Proposition 13 from 1978 which limited property tax increases for property that doesn't change hands and, in hindsight, ********ed up our finances forever and should be modified to no longer apply to commercial property, but that's a discussion for another day. No, this year's Proposition 13 is to authorize $15 billion for repairs, construction and modernization at schools throughout ranging from preschools to universities. It will pass. I'll probably vote for it. Maybe we should go back to talking about how San Francisco is going to vote on crazier stuff than the rest of the state this year.
Prop 13 is a no-brainer. Nothing to discuss there. There are five propositions in The City. They are described in this link: https://projects.sfchronicle.com/2020/voter-guide/endorsements/ A and B are the typical measures that raise bonds for infrastructure. C seems to be there to cover a bureaucratic technicality. The interesting ones are D and E. Proposition D: This measure was placed on the ballot by The City's board of supervisors. In typical San Francisco fashion, The City wants to address a problem by creating a new tax. The problem is that the city has too many vacant storefronts, and the proposed solution is taxing landlords whose properties remain vacant for 182 days out of the year. This would apply to ground level store properties in commercial districts. At least they were thoughtful enough to allow exemptions for "natural disaster periods" and "earthquake retrofits". Proposition E: This one is even better. Since many locals feel there is way too much office space being built in The City, and The City consistently fails to meet its goals for affordable housing, somebody got the bright idea of tying the two together. The City already is mandated by a previously passed measure to set limits for new office space, but this measure would force it to reduce these limits by the same percentage amount that The City fails to meet its affordable housing goals. Brilliant! All those leftists in the city who are excited to get out and vote for Sanders or Warren will most likely also love these two ideas, so I expect both these propositions to easily pass.
How will the $15 billion we distributed? Will it be equally applied throughout the state? Will title I schools get more $ because you know equity.. how do we know districts won't just use the money for rainy day funds or administrative costs and administrative salaries. How will accountable be tied into this $15 billion... We spend as a state way too much money on shit that never gets fixed education, homelessness, infrastructure, healthcare.
Hell no on 13 if only for the fact the state can’t be trusted to spend wisely. ********ers couldn’t even build train tracks.
That's the sort of brain dead thinking that got Virginia gridlock in the major metro areas - because "you can't rust VDOT to spend money wisely."
The only vocal opposition to prop 13 (the new one) has come from the Jarvis Taxpayers Association. They're written some editorials, but they haven't spent any money to try to defeat it.
No hindsight is required for realizing that the original Prop 13 would play havoc with California financing. Anybody literate knew that at the time. But the future Trumpsters voting on emotional populism washed us away.