Evidence is mounting that Apple has picked a location for its new campus

[skyscraperpage17]

Originally Posted by mhays

Some US cities do a pretty good job of controlling growth...most of the West Coast for starters.

And it's reflected in the severe homelessness crisis crippling Seattle and San Francisco too.

And Canada, Europe, etc., often do a much better job. These are capitalist places.

Actually, they're social democratic places (welfare states). Systematically, they take much better care of their homeless / impoverished citizens than the US does.

[Reverberation]

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17

And it's reflected in the severe homelessness crisis crippling Seattle and San Francisco too.



Actually, they're social democratic places (welfare states). Systematically, they take much better care of their homeless / impoverished citizens than the US does.

I call BS on cities “controlling growth”. The west coast of the US is mountainous with few navigable harbors. Narrow that down to navigable harbors with adjacent land that is flat enough to develop and you have less than half a dozen. The widening of the Panama Canal took some of the pressure off by allowing many goods to be shipped through Texas or New Orleans instead, but nobody is “controlling any growth” in west coast metros. All that they have managed to do is to evict anyone who falls between the welfare line and high income to commute from surrounding regions or to leave the area entirely.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by mhays

In cities like mine, any land zoned commercial with decent freeway and transit access will cost too much to waste RTP-style. It's allowed but not economical. So even our suburban campuses tend to be the sort I'm suggestion in lieu of the RTP...like the Microsoft HQ campus, which has something like 40,000 workers on 500 acres. I believe they've gotten under 60% drive-alone by the way.

Unlike where you live, in the backward/impoverished San Francisco Bay Area, we put the skyscrapers downtown but in the burbs we put stuff like this:

Bishop Ranch Business Park

Bishop Ranch is home to over 600 companies with 30,000 employees across 30 industries. Existing tenants include AT&T, Chevron, IBM, Rodan + Fields, PG&E, GE Digital, Robert Half, SAP, BlackBerry, Bank of the West, Toyota and Berkshire Hathaway. Tenant spaces range from 150 SF to over 1M SF. Amenities include a transportation program, professional seminars and networking opportunities, health and wellness activities, lakeside dining, a coffee and wine bar, gourmet food trucks, cafés and a weekly farmers market. The Roundhouse Market and Conference Center offers 50K SF of flexible meeting and conference space, a fitness center, electric Duffy boat rides and bocce and volleyball courts. A K-8 school and a Bright Horizons early childhood education and child care center are on the campus. A nearby retail center, City Center Bishop Ranch, is expected to open in the fall and will be anchored by a luxury 10-screen theater, THE LOT.

Read more at: https://www.bisnow.com/san-francisco...medium=Browser

[mhays]

Originally Posted by Reverberation

I call BS on cities “controlling growth”. The west coast of the US is mountainous with few navigable harbors. Narrow that down to navigable harbors with adjacent land that is flat enough to develop and you have less than half a dozen. The widening of the Panama Canal took some of the pressure off by allowing many goods to be shipped through Texas or New Orleans instead, but nobody is “controlling any growth” in west coast metros. All that they have managed to do is to evict anyone who falls between the welfare line and high income to commute from surrounding regions or to leave the area entirely.

You REALLY aren't paying attention. This is flat incorrect, and easily provable. All three states put a lot of very easily-developable land off-limits or under heavy restriction. Why post about something you know zero about?

As for Bishops Ranch Pedestrian...fail. It seems to be 585 acres with 30,000 employees...kind of proves my point! Your photo shows what can happen at what, seven times the density of the RTP?

Skyscraperpage, you're totally misunderstanding the homelessness thing. Our capacity is limited because we restrict BOTH outward and upward growth. Ease upward growth, like townhouses, accessory units, apartments, etc., and we'd be dramatically more affordable. And part of our problem is being permissive with garbage piles, which has nothing to do with land prices.

[skyscraperpage17]

Originally Posted by mhays

Our capacity is limited because we restrict BOTH outward and upward growth. Ease upward growth, like townhouses, accessory units, apartments, etc., and we'd be dramatically more affordable.

That's my point exactly.

Instead of allowing the free market determine how much housing is built, what type of housing is built and where that type of housimg is built, cities such as Seattle instead want to play the nanny state and dictate what/where/how investors/builders can develop thus exacerbating the "homelessness thing."

[Sun Belt]

Mhays still trying to find reasons why RTP is not 'impressive'?

The unethical sprawl post was a good one.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by mhays

Ease upward growth, like townhouses, accessory units, apartments, etc., and we'd be dramatically more affordable.

I'm not seeing the logic here. How? Building taller would mean more pricier apartment units with added floors and more high-end townhowses with more s/f'age.

If it's a hot area and there's a strong market demand, it will never become more affordable. And no one (unless forced or strongly incentivized) builds affordable housing in desirable areas anymore.

[skyscraperpage17]

Originally Posted by JManc

I'm not seeing the logic here. How? Building taller would mean more pricier apartment units with added floors and more high-end townhowses with more s/f'age.

If it's a hot area and there's a strong market demand, it will never become more affordable. And no one (unless forced or strongly incentivized) builds affordable housing in desirable areas anymore.

It won't be the cure-all, end-all obviously, but the point is any solutions that will help to make the problem *LESS* severe should be considered, which includes relaxing building codes and less stringent zoning regulations.

For example, California now requires all new homes to include solar panels. That's going to make it even more expensive for developers to build homes at a profit, unless they pass along the cost to the renter/buyer via higher rents/home values. It's a completely unnnecessary (although well-meaning) requirement that's only going to add insult to injury for those who are already struggling to keep a roof over their heads

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17

For example, California now requires all new homes to include solar panels. That's going to make it even more expensive for developers to build homes at a profit, unless they pass along the cost to the renter/buyer via higher rents/home values. It's a completely unnnecessary (although well-meaning) requirement that's only going to add insult to injury for those who are already struggling to keep a roof over their heads

That was one of the best gifts to unions and public utility companies and sold to the public as some sort of benefit to the environment.

Requiring all new homes to have solar panels, where the utility company buys it back for pennies per kilowatt hour, only to sell it back to consumers for 10X the price they bought it at --

[mhays]

Originally Posted by JManc

I'm not seeing the logic here. How? Building taller would mean more pricier apartment units with added floors and more high-end townhowses with more s/f'age.

If it's a hot area and there's a strong market demand, it will never become more affordable. And no one (unless forced or strongly incentivized) builds affordable housing in desirable areas anymore.

That's not true. If we upzoned a wide area for growth, that capacity will go at a much lower price.

Townhouses (attached or not) have no cost premium vs. typical houses. They can have some additional costs (like fire walls) but they're basically like any house of the same height. Accessory units can be very cheap too.

Woodframe apartments will be more per square foot in construction costs, but by sharing resources means it's easy to shed square footage...exercise room, event space, restaurants nearby, etc.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by mhays

Woodframe apartments will be more per square foot in construction costs, but by sharing resources means it's easy to shed square footage...exercise room, event space, restaurants nearby, etc.

This doesn't always translates to cheaper rents. Just a bigger upfront investment for the developer and even bigger windfalls down the road in terms of more tenants. They are building huge multi-storey apartment buildings all over town here and are all upscale. My wife and I are looking at a second home in town (we own a house in the 'burbs) and are floored with the rents they're asking for these places. They are denser and house more people in a smaller footprint than older style complexes...which are now getting pretty cheap.

[10023]

I’m with JManc.

Replacing bungalows or small houses on narrow lots with vertical townhouses will increase the square footage of homes in a neighborhood, but it won’t reduce prices. It will increase prices, at least on an absolute basis (if not price per square foot).

The only way you could create cheaper supply is to have lower ground floor (half basement) apartments rented out to tenants by the owners, but it’s hard to see that happening where it’s not the norm today. Transitioning a neighborhood from single-family to multi-unit housing stock is a different thing from building what are basically just bigger houses (because they take up more of the lot and have more floors).

[mhays]

I'm shocked that a guy in business doesn't get this basic fundamental. If you decrease costs, developers will compete against each other to provide supply at a lower price point. The key is doing this on a large enough scale to truly move the needle.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by mhays

I'm shocked that a guy in business doesn't get this basic fundamental. If you decrease costs, developers will compete against each other to provide supply at a lower price point. The key is doing this on a large enough scale to truly move the needle.

Only if you think "savings" would be passed onto tenants and home-buyers. They're not. If anything, the needle is moving in the other direction. You'd have to inundate the market with townhouses and apartment buildings...more than the market demands to drive prices down. And who would do that?

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by JManc

Only if you think "savings" would be passed onto tenants and home-buyers. They're not. If anything, the needle is moving in the other direction.

I agree.

You'd have to inundate the market with townhouses and apartment buildings...more than the market demands to drive prices down. And who would do that?

The only place that immediately comes to mind is some inland city in China like Ordos Kangbashi. The difference is that this is some central planned city from scratch and not an existing city.

https://www.google.com/maps/search/O.../data=!3m1!1e3

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by mhays

Ease upward growth, like townhouses, accessory units, apartments, etc., and we'd be dramatically more affordable.

When are you going to understand that a lot of people do not want to, and do not like to, live in an attached housing unit?

[10023]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

When are you going to understand that a lot of people do not want to, and do not like to, live in an attached housing unit?

You’re correct, but they are fewer than you think.

When the country’s (and the world’s) most expensive residential neighborhoods by square footage are ALL full of attached housing, it seems to indicate that people quite like that housing style, no? The fact that people pay $25-30 million for Manhattan rowhouses quite clearly shows that people do like that style of housing.

I just don’t think that it’s going to make a neighborhood more affordable. And of course, to be really desirable, they would have to be very high quality design and construction. Not like those modern low-rise condos you see all over places like Dallas.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by 10023

The fact that people pay $25-30 million for Manhattan rowhouses quite clearly shows that people do like that style of housing.

Uhhhh, no...... The fact that people pay $25 million for Manhattan rowhouses quite clearly shows that people like living in Manhattan

[mhays]

Originally Posted by JManc

Only if you think "savings" would be passed onto tenants and home-buyers. They're not. If anything, the needle is moving in the other direction. You'd have to inundate the market with townhouses and apartment buildings...more than the market demands to drive prices down. And who would do that?

No, you'd have to inundate the market with sites that have development potential due to being upzoned. Market prices are loosely tied to development costs (competition keeps them close), and cutting base costs would set a new balance point (reduced by roughly those costs plus finance etc.).

[mhays]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

When are you going to understand that a lot of people do not want to, and do not like to, live in an attached housing unit?

So people shouldn't be ALLOWED to develop their property in denser formats? Eh komrade?