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Old Posted Oct 16, 2020, 4:41 PM
the urban politician the urban politician is online now
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San Francisco mayor flatly calls out NIMBYs

We need more Mayors to do this

San Francisco mayor blasts “lefty movement” for blocking housing
London Breed: Bad politics block solutions to affordability crisis

October 15, 2020 04:30 PM
By Orion Jones

Quote:
San Francisco Mayor London Breed didn’t mince words in telling a leading podcast of her city’s tendency to torpedo new housing developments.

On this week’s edition of Freakonomics, Breed blamed progressives for limiting the supply of dwellings, which she said drives up housing costs.

“San Francisco has a very, very, extremely left group of people on the Board of Supervisors more loyal to a ‘lefty movement’ than San Francisco’s residents,” said Breed, who is allied with Democrats.

She accused the board of undermining her efforts to build more housing despite the high costs of renting and buying in the city, as well as rising homelessness.

“The problem we have, and why we are seeing even more homeless people than we have in the past, has a lot to do with the fact that we have not kept up pace with building more housing,” she said on the popular podcast.

Her remarks were part of a two-part series on New York City’s economic crisis and why cities such as San Francisco are so expensive. It also featured economist Ed Glaeser, a professor at Harvard and an expert in how cities function and grow economically.

“I know how to make New York affordable,” Glaeser said in the first episode. “You build 100,000 new units a year.” A recent study found that over a decade, only 19 dwellings were created for every 100 new jobs in the city.
https://therealdeal.com/chicago/2020...cking-housing/
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  #2  
Old Posted Oct 16, 2020, 4:41 PM
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Can any Mod change this thread title to:

"San Francisco Mayor flatly calls out NIMBYs"

I made an error with the original thread title.
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Old Posted Oct 16, 2020, 7:57 PM
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I voted for Breed. Although a center-left Democratic "woman of color", she was the most development friendly and least "radical" of the choices. And I'm satisfied with the job she's doing under difficult circumstances (a much further left Board of Supervisors).

But I have to disagrew with her that "The problem we have, and why we are seeing even more homeless people than we have in the past, has a lot to do with the fact that we have not kept up pace with building more housing,” she said on the popular podcast.." Our homeless population couldn't afford even the least costly housing possible. Most of them are unemployed and the most troublesome ones are mentally ill and substance dependent.

More housing might help the cops and nurses and other working middle class folks stay in the city, but it won't help the homeless much. We've had so many threads on that subject I won't get into it here except to say that San Francisco is now spending something like ⅔ of a billion (with a B) dollars per year on the homeless population, inclduing services to try to keep those who are in danger of becoming homeless from doing so, and it all seems to make no difference. It's like in the other thread where it was said that no matter how much space you have, you'll fill it up. "Progressive" west coast cities with decent weather seem to have an endless supply of homeless people headed their way and wanting to camp on their sidewalks.

Hopefully in less than 3 weeks now at least we'll be able to toss out one of the worst Supervisors who represents my district (which includes the very left Hayes Valley, Haight-Ashbury and Western Addition), Dean Preston, and install al ally of the Mayor, Allie Brown.
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Old Posted Oct 16, 2020, 8:24 PM
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I've always said that if our cities simply flung open the regulatory doors to housing construction, basement/attic apartments, reducing strict building codes, allowed property owners to more easily partition their homes into multi-unit housing, etc we wouldn't need Rent control laws (which only increase housing costs further)
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Old Posted Oct 16, 2020, 8:40 PM
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Originally Posted by the urban politician View Post
I've always said that if our cities simply flung open the regulatory doors to housing construction, basement/attic apartments, reducing strict building codes, allowed property owners to more easily partition their homes into multi-unit housing, etc we wouldn't need Rent control laws (which only increase housing costs further)
Since this seems to be about Bay Area politics, there's another politician, State Senator Scott Wiener, who keeps introducing bills in the state legislature that would open things up about as much as possible--actually more than is possible because his bills keep getting watered down and bottled up in committee. I seem to recall an earlier thread on one of his bills:

Sen. Wiener takes another shot at upzoning state's single-family landscape

Scott Wiener back with another plan to build denser housing in California

Critique of Housing Legislation Under Consideration by California State Senate and Assembly
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Old Posted Oct 16, 2020, 9:08 PM
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This is happening everywhere, but in Chicago we continue to have city leaders who just don't understand the market and it's telling. There are some Aldermen who are opposed to gentrification, and they still think that the best way to stop gentrification is to stop ALL real estate development. It's asinine. It's absolutely the opposite of what needs to happen, everybody knows it, but they keep sticking to the same line over and over.
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Old Posted Oct 16, 2020, 10:07 PM
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Sure it would help the homeless.

Not the mentally ill and completely destitute in any direct way, but some percentage of homeless are workers who can't find anything. When supply grows relative to demand, the bottom rung gets cheaper.

Meanwhile the worst-off benefit when others vacate the services they no longer need.

New housing doesn't solve everything, but it's a big part of the solution for the homeless and the rest of the housing market, except the people who already own of course.
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Old Posted Oct 16, 2020, 10:39 PM
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Sure it would help the homeless.

Not the mentally ill and completely destitute in any direct way, but some percentage of homeless are workers who can't find anything. When supply grows relative to demand, the bottom rung gets cheaper.
In San Francisco the homeless who don't have mental illness and/or substance abuse almost always get some kind of housing within weeks. As I said, we are spending a horrendous amount of money on them and we passed a tax on our tech industry for that purpose that I believe Seattle failed to pass:

Quote:
SF wins legal battle over Prop. C tax for homeless services
JOSHUA SABATINI
Sep. 9, 2020 5:30 p.m.

Homeless advocates and city officials on Wednesday celebrated a legal victory that upholds the November 2018 passage of Proposition C, ensuring hundreds of millions of dollars from a tax on big businesses will fund homeless services annually . . . .

The measure, which increased the tax on businesses with more than $50 million in gross receipts annually, passed with 61 percent of the vote, but got caught up in a legal challenge along with two other tax measures that passed on the June 2018 ballot . . . .

The City was already collecting the tax revenue from the businesses, but holding it on reserve in case it lost the case and would need to return it. The decision allows The City to now spend the money . . ..
In fact, this is estimated to be worth another $300 million annually to the city, almost doubling the previous homeless budget.

But I repeat what I said; making it easier to build market rate housing and even what SF calls "affordable housing" does very little for the homeless. There may be a few with low-paying jobs who are on the brink of homelessness and who qualify for the affordable program's rental units, but what the long-term homeless need is multi-service heavily subsidized (if not free) housing with onsite medical care and counseling. Private for-profit developers don't build this sort of thing. Even the non-profits rarely do. This is something government has to do.

"The bottom rung" in San Francisco is never going to be cheap enough for someone with no employment prospects and an opiate habit which describes most of the people on our streets. The family with a low paying job who can't quite find rent they can afford in SF usually are helped to find something within weeks by one or another program paid for by that $600 million.
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Old Posted Oct 16, 2020, 10:47 PM
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FYI, here is a complete list of the 376 100% "affordable" rental projects in San Francisco: https://data.sfgov.org/Housing-and-B...pmen/9rdx-httc

And besides all the NIMBYs, SF has YIMBYs (of which I am one).
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Old Posted Oct 16, 2020, 11:03 PM
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I never thought I'd say this but...I kinda wish a republican was running SF. lol
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Old Posted Oct 16, 2020, 11:42 PM
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^^^ You might eventually have that become a reality. Once something gets too extreme, it can only swing to the opposite direction.
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Old Posted Oct 17, 2020, 12:12 AM
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Originally Posted by Pedestrian View Post
In San Francisco the homeless who don't have mental illness and/or substance abuse almost always get some kind of housing within weeks. As I said, we are spending a horrendous amount of money on them and we passed a tax on our tech industry for that purpose that I believe Seattle failed to pass:

In fact, this is estimated to be worth another $300 million annually to the city, almost doubling the previous homeless budget.

But I repeat what I said; making it easier to build market rate housing and even what SF calls "affordable housing" does very little for the homeless. There may be a few with low-paying jobs who are on the brink of homelessness and who qualify for the affordable program's rental units, but what the long-term homeless need is multi-service heavily subsidized (if not free) housing with onsite medical care and counseling. Private for-profit developers don't build this sort of thing. Even the non-profits rarely do. This is something government has to do.

"The bottom rung" in San Francisco is never going to be cheap enough for someone with no employment prospects and an opiate habit which describes most of the people on our streets. The family with a low paying job who can't quite find rent they can afford in SF usually are helped to find something within weeks by one or another program paid for by that $600 million.
A TON of people would benefit if SF's bottom-rung market-rate housing was even 10% cheaper. Countless people are in the gray area between the serious cases you're talking about and the self-sufficient poor. The gap to self-sufficiency can be narrowed by adding supply, and public caseloads can be reduced.

As for Seattle, we passed a tax on high wages, which becomes law on January 1 and is expected to raise over $200 million per year.
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/se...ate-and-42595/
https://www.geekwire.com/2020/seattl...ses-will-work/
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Old Posted Oct 17, 2020, 12:20 AM
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I never thought I'd say this but...I kinda wish a republican was running SF. lol
Of course you would, you're extremely conservative.
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Old Posted Oct 17, 2020, 12:34 AM
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The experts who were paid 30 million to study the problem basically concluded it was the high cost of housing that mostly contributed to the homeless issues in the city.

And also the vast majority of the homeless in San Francisco were people who were already living in the city. So the idea that everybody across the country is just pilling into the Bay Area to become homeless that many subscribe to is a lie.
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Old Posted Oct 17, 2020, 1:11 AM
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^ You’re joking, right?

They didn’t really spend $30MM for that advice, did they?
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Old Posted Oct 17, 2020, 2:15 AM
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Originally Posted by mhays View Post
Sure it would help the homeless.

Not the mentally ill and completely destitute in any direct way, but some percentage of homeless are workers who can't find anything. When supply grows relative to demand, the bottom rung gets cheaper.

Meanwhile the worst-off benefit when others vacate the services they no longer need.

New housing doesn't solve everything, but it's a big part of the solution for the homeless and the rest of the housing market, except the people who already own of course.
I think when San Franciscans see and hear "the homeless," we tend to think of the most glaring examples of the unhoused--the beggars and thieves, the drug addicts passed out on the sidewalks--which we see every day. But you are right to distinguish that group from those we do not see. People who have jobs but no place to live don't usually set up on the sidewalk in a busy area, they live in vans or garages or even in one case I know about, a sailboat. And they would indeed be helped if SF could build enough housing to lower costs significantly.

But I don't know if lowering costs 10% would be enough. Median rents in San Francisco are down some 25% from before the COVID exodus, but even now, prices are still far too expensive for entire classes of laborers.
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Old Posted Oct 17, 2020, 2:44 AM
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I think when San Franciscans see and hear "the homeless," we tend to think of the most glaring examples of the unhoused--the beggars and thieves, the drug addicts passed out on the sidewalks--which we see every day. But you are right to distinguish that group from those we do not see. People who have jobs but no place to live don't usually set up on the sidewalk in a busy area, they live in vans or garages or even in one case I know about, a sailboat. And they would indeed be helped if SF could build enough housing to lower costs significantly.

But I don't know if lowering costs 10% would be enough. Median rents in San Francisco are down some 25% from before the COVID exodus, but even now, prices are still far too expensive for entire classes of laborers.
The point is that it will never be possible to "build enough housing" to lower costs to the point where someone living in an old camper van can really afford rent. Among the reasons are the overall cost structure in SF. It costs a ridiculous amount to build anything here--materials, land wages--and so what gets built has to be expensive to rent or it won't get built at all.

Average construction costs of residential buildings in the United States in 2019, by select city

Blue=Multifamily, black=single family
https://www.statista.com/statistics/...-in-us-cities/

At almost $500/sq ft cost to build, a 500 sq ft efficiency apartment costs $250,000 to construct. If developed privately, it isn't likely to sell for less than $300,000 or rent for less than around $1500/month ( a 6% cap rate which is low). The current rental rate in SF is around $3.75/month/sq ft ( source: https://www.rentcafe.com/average-ren...san-francisco/ ) or just over $1850 for that 500 sq ft apartment. So it may be possible to lower rents a bit by allowing developers to build, build, build, but if rents get much lower they will stop because they won't be making any money. Many people argue that that's already the case.

San Francisco long ago crossed a Rubicon of sorts when it allowed the demolition of much of its stock of SRO hotels which were THE affordable housing for the lowest tier of those with some kind of income (minimum wage job, pension, Social Security). But it's gone. Even trying to recreate that would probably result in spaces that rent for at least $1000/month although I've long advocated doing it: Build buildings with small (250-300 square foot), minimalist rooms with private baths but maybe only 2-burner stoves or even just a microwave and an under-counter refrigerator. In other words, a room much like a camper van. THAT some people might be able to afford.
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Old Posted Oct 17, 2020, 3:13 AM
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Creating new housing doesn’t always entail new ground up construction. Subdividing homes into apartments, adding basement or attic units, etc are examples. Allowing small one story shacks with minimal amenities and lesser code requirements is another one. I know that sounds “Third World” but it’s better than sleeping on the sidewalk.

I don’t know about SF, but in Chicago subdividing your home or creating accessory apartments is basically illegal. Prior to 1952, this was commonplace, people had stronger property rights back then and were doing this without fear of getting in trouble with the city.

The other problem is the stringent credit requirements of getting an apartment these days. That is an unintended and ironic product of overly tenant-friendly laws pushed by progressives in cities. I actually think that creating a more neutral environment where landlords could quickly regain possession of their apartments at minimal cost when they had a trouble tenant would make the entire rental industry relax their standards and rent out to more people with a poor credit history.
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Old Posted Oct 17, 2020, 4:54 AM
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I think when San Franciscans see and hear "the homeless," we tend to think of the most glaring examples of the unhoused--the beggars and thieves, the drug addicts passed out on the sidewalks--which we see every day. But you are right to distinguish that group from those we do not see. People who have jobs but no place to live don't usually set up on the sidewalk in a busy area, they live in vans or garages or even in one case I know about, a sailboat. And they would indeed be helped if SF could build enough housing to lower costs significantly.

But I don't know if lowering costs 10% would be enough. Median rents in San Francisco are down some 25% from before the COVID exodus, but even now, prices are still far too expensive for entire classes of laborers.
I'm not suggesting 10% would be a panacea. Even 50% wouldn't. The point I'm making is that 10% would be enough for some people.
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Old Posted Oct 17, 2020, 5:02 PM
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^ You’re joking, right?

They didn’t really spend $30MM for that advice, did they?
It wasn't the city it was some filthy rich dude who gave out the cash so it's pennies to him. But yeah 30 million is a pretty absurd cost to study an issue with such an obvious answer.
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