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  #81  
Old Posted May 4, 2021, 1:54 AM
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Pedestrian Pedestrian is offline
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Originally Posted by edale View Post
Basically the entire Sunset/Outer Sunset District feels way under-scaled, to me. Most of the buildings are fairly plain, two story structures, and the whole area seems like it could handle quite a bit more density. Even if you primarily focused on the commercial corridors, you could add quite a bit of new housing. In a land constrained city like SF, you can't devote an entire quadrant to neighborhoods that look like this:

https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7546...7i16384!8i8192

It's structurally dense and looks impressive from an aerial, but on the ground it's underwhelming and almost suburban. SF should upzone this area and let it evolve into something modern and more substantial than what it is.

I know that area is famously foggy and cold, and not super desirable, but surely new housing there would be absorbed quickly nonetheless. Hell of a lot better to live in the foggy Sunset than out in Valejo or something.
They should do this because it "feels" under-scaled to you? The people who live and own the property there evidently like it the way it is and will not be catering to your tastes. Sorry about that. They will also quite rightly fight any effort to impose someone else's preferred lifestyle or goals on them. Politicians who oppose them do so at their peril and that's as it should be. People have a right to be left alone. One more time: San Francisco has no shortage of places to build mid- and high-rise multifamily housing and does not need to disrupt these peoples' way of life.
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  #82  
Old Posted May 4, 2021, 2:00 AM
iheartthed iheartthed is offline
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Originally Posted by badrunner View Post
Those property owners ARE doing exactly what they want with it.

Again, where is the evidence that all these California homeowners in places like Cupertino want to turn their neighborhoods into multifamily housing?
Voters and property owners are not synonymous. You can be a property owner and not a voter, and vice versa.
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  #83  
Old Posted May 4, 2021, 7:38 PM
JDRCRASH JDRCRASH is offline
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Originally Posted by badrunner View Post
That's beyond libertarian, that's anarcho-capitalist. Why can't I blare music in the middle of the night,
Well you can do that, just expect a visit from SF's finest at some point before midnight . Wanna take a guess who's gonna make the call?

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or build an observation tower that looms over the backyards of my neighbors? It's my property, right? I mean, if I want to subdivide my quarter acre suburban lot into 20 micro units for low income residents, who's to stop me? I don't care about how it affects my neighbors' property values or quality of life, because I won't be living there!
I mean you can do that, too. But you're probably gonna have to fight a bunch of lawsuits to do so over "quality of life" issues. Are you willing to spend significant sums of capital to do that?
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  #84  
Old Posted May 4, 2021, 7:42 PM
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Originally Posted by Pedestrian View Post
They should do this because it "feels" under-scaled to you? The people who live and own the property there evidently like it the way it is and will not be catering to your tastes. Sorry about that. They will also quite rightly fight any effort to impose someone else's preferred lifestyle or goals on them. Politicians who oppose them do so at their peril and that's as it should be. People have a right to be left alone. One more time: San Francisco has no shortage of places to build mid- and high-rise multifamily housing and does not need to disrupt these peoples' way of life.
Yeah stop flooding my mail, email and voicemail boxes with junk!
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  #85  
Old Posted May 4, 2021, 8:14 PM
edale edale is offline
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Originally Posted by Pedestrian View Post
They should do this because it "feels" under-scaled to you? The people who live and own the property there evidently like it the way it is and will not be catering to your tastes. Sorry about that. They will also quite rightly fight any effort to impose someone else's preferred lifestyle or goals on them. Politicians who oppose them do so at their peril and that's as it should be. People have a right to be left alone. One more time: San Francisco has no shortage of places to build mid- and high-rise multifamily housing and does not need to disrupt these peoples' way of life.
No, they should do this because San Francisco has a severe housing shortage, and the city has outgrown the low-density pattern that was once acceptable. When a city faces the space constraints that SF does, it has to find ways to grow and maximize its mileage. Areas comprised of of single family, or even low density multi, that are not protected by historic districts or other overlays, are the prime places to accomodate growth.

And just because you up-zone an area doesn't mean the neighborhood is torn down and rebuilt from scratch, you know. It removes an artificial barrier on density, and allows the market to determine if there really is appetite for denser housing in these outer neighborhoods. There might be some awkward transition period as the neighborhood evolves, but that's a sign of a healthy, living city. To say that places like the Sunset should remain as they are for perpetuity because the people who live there like it is simply foolish. What if the whole Sunset was developed like a rural coastal community like Mendocino: https://www.google.com/maps/@39.3058...7i16384!8i8192

Surely the privileged few who would get to live there would love it. It's beautiful and peaceful and tranquil...why should someone else get to say it shouldn't exist like that forever? Because it's in a major city with global aspirations, experiencing an infamous housing shortage.
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  #86  
Old Posted May 4, 2021, 8:23 PM
homebucket homebucket is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by edale View Post
Basically the entire Sunset/Outer Sunset District feels way under-scaled, to me. Most of the buildings are fairly plain, two story structures, and the whole area seems like it could handle quite a bit more density. Even if you primarily focused on the commercial corridors, you could add quite a bit of new housing. In a land constrained city like SF, you can't devote an entire quadrant to neighborhoods that look like this:

https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7546...7i16384!8i8192

It's structurally dense and looks impressive from an aerial, but on the ground it's underwhelming and almost suburban. SF should upzone this area and let it evolve into something modern and more substantial than what it is.

I know that area is famously foggy and cold, and not super desirable, but surely new housing there would be absorbed quickly nonetheless. Hell of a lot better to live in the foggy Sunset than out in Valejo or something.
I wouldn't upzone the street that you linked us to, but if you do a 180 back to Noriega, that street would be a prime candidate, as well as numerous others like Irving, Judah, Taraval.
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  #87  
Old Posted May 4, 2021, 9:15 PM
bossabreezes bossabreezes is offline
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There are many much better, closer options to densify close to downtown SF other than the Sunset. Don't get me wrong, I think it could use up zoning along commercial corridors, however I think the biggest missed opportunity in SF is SOMA.

Sure, its slowly densifying but its going from 2-3 story buildings to like 15 story buildings. It should be allowing for much higher density and a taller height limit. The Southern Boundary of SOMA should be upzoned to match the density of the ''Hub'' area around the corner of Van Ness, Market and Mission all the way to the elevated portion of I80. If done right they could easily fit 20,000 units without destroying anything but old warehouses of little or no historical value and surface parking lots.

For being such a liberal city, it shocks me how dang conservative it is in regards to building housing.
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  #88  
Old Posted May 4, 2021, 10:28 PM
edale edale is offline
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Originally Posted by bossabreezes View Post
There are many much better, closer options to densify close to downtown SF other than the Sunset. Don't get me wrong, I think it could use up zoning along commercial corridors, however I think the biggest missed opportunity in SF is SOMA.

Sure, its slowly densifying but its going from 2-3 story buildings to like 15 story buildings. It should be allowing for much higher density and a taller height limit. The Southern Boundary of SOMA should be upzoned to match the density of the ''Hub'' area around the corner of Van Ness, Market and Mission all the way to the elevated portion of I80. If done right they could easily fit 20,000 units without destroying anything but old warehouses of little or no historical value and surface parking lots.

For being such a liberal city, it shocks me how dang conservative it is in regards to building housing.
I don't disagree with this at all. I was using the Sunset as just one example, but there are surely others as well.
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  #89  
Old Posted May 4, 2021, 11:43 PM
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IMO the discussion of SF neighborhoods misses the larger challenge.

SF isn't the issue. SF population is less than 10% of the overall Bay Area population, and SF prices, while very high, aren't insane by global urban standards. You'll pay the same in NYC, London and other urban centers.

Places like Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Menlo Park, have the completely insane SFH prices. You aren't gonna fix this issue by rezoning SF, and I'm not sure you can fix the issue by rezoning Silicon Valley. Its suburban SFH's, in proximity to tech employment centers, that have gone completely bonkers.
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  #90  
Old Posted May 5, 2021, 12:05 AM
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To illustrate the SFH vs multifamily difference:

For new construction multifamily, in Silicon Valley, I'm looking at the biggest builder in the Bay Area. I see family-sized condos in San Jose starting at 700k and family-sized condos in Redwood City starting at 1 million.

Again, this is for new construction. Does anyone think you can get a new construction SFH home in San Jose for 700k or in Redwood City for $1 million? No freaking way. I see new construction homes in Tracy (aka the absolute boondocks) starting for more than 700k.

This suggests that the problem is too few SFHs, so the alleged remedy (more multifamily) sounds questionable. Of course adding housing, of any type, will help on the margins, but you aren't gonna significantly lower SFH prices by building a different typology.
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  #91  
Old Posted May 5, 2021, 12:15 AM
bossabreezes bossabreezes is offline
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^ I think they are two separate but related problems. SF has a housing problem, just like Cupertino.

Places like Sunnyvale are actually very dense for suburban American standards. I don't think we're going to solve the problem by destroying the current suburban fabric- but by densifying ''densifiable'' places.

Thats mainly through brownfield redevelopment. We're never going to see leafy Palo Alto full of 20 story towers, and I don't think anyone really thinks we should. We should see better urban development in places where it should be but is lacking. Like all of San Jose and a good portion of Oakland and other East Bay municipalities. The peninsula will be the last place to ever see wide scale development due to its NIMBYism which is at a higher level than anywhere else in the Bay Area and probably the world.

It seems that your argument is to build more SFH. Sure, but there's no space for it. Thats why everyone is suggesting multifamily. Unless you're fine with living in Tracy and working in San Jose.
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  #92  
Old Posted May 5, 2021, 12:37 AM
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Originally Posted by Crawford View Post

This suggests that the problem is too few SFHs, so the alleged remedy (more multifamily) sounds questionable. Of course adding housing, of any type, will help on the margins, but you aren't gonna significantly lower SFH prices by building a different typology.
in a metro area as wealthy and land scarce as the bay area, lowering SFH home prices is most likely a futile endeavor. that particular supply/demand curve is likely gonna be severely outta whack for the foreseeable future.



so what are the choices for the middle class who can't borrow equity from their parent's property to buy their first home?

a. hope that a lot more multi-family is built wherever it can and hope it starts to lower the price point to a more realistically attainable level.

b. move to the central valley if a SFH is non-negotiable.

c. leave the region altogether if a SFH is non-negotiable.

d. give up on home ownership and rent forever (SF does have rent control, i don't know how the rest of the bay area operates).

e. something i'm missing?



if a SFH is non-negotiable, then a great many people in that group are straight-up not ever going to be home owners in the bay area proper.
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  #93  
Old Posted May 5, 2021, 12:44 AM
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
if a SFH is non-negotiable, then a great many people in that group are straight-up not ever going to be home owners in the bay area proper.
Probably, yeah.

I'm not against Bay Area densification, I'm just skeptical that such public policies will meaningfully impact SFH affordability. It would be like if, in Chicagoland, entry-level SFHs in Schaumburg were $2 million and the solution were building more highrises in the South and West Loop. I mean, huh?
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  #94  
Old Posted May 5, 2021, 1:02 AM
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Originally Posted by Crawford View Post

I'm not against Bay Area densification, I'm just skeptical that such public policies will meaningfully impact SFH affordability.
yeah, it probably won't put much of a dent in that particular segment of the market.

my point is that more and more bay area first time home buyers (who aren't lucky enough to have access to mom and dad's real estate equity largesse) are going to have to adjust their housing expectations if they wish to stay in the area, because as we both know, there just ain't any room left to build anywhere near enough SFHs to come anywhere close to meeting the outsized demand, such that prices would go down considerably.

and that's the reason your chicago analogy is kind of goofy. unless all 300M americans decide to move to chicagoland over the next several decades, this town will never run out of corn fields to gobble up with even more unceasing sprawl. if chicagoland had exhausted all of its available buildable land (like the bay area), then more condos in the city (and everywhere) would have to be a part of the solution to $2M schaumburg houses.
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Last edited by Steely Dan; May 5, 2021 at 2:21 AM.
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  #95  
Old Posted May 5, 2021, 2:56 AM
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Originally Posted by bossabreezes View Post
^ I think they are two separate but related problems. SF has a housing problem, just like Cupertino.

Places like Sunnyvale are actually very dense for suburban American standards. I don't think we're going to solve the problem by destroying the current suburban fabric- but by densifying ''densifiable'' places.

Thats mainly through brownfield redevelopment. We're never going to see leafy Palo Alto full of 20 story towers, and I don't think anyone really thinks we should. We should see better urban development in places where it should be but is lacking. Like all of San Jose and a good portion of Oakland and other East Bay municipalities. The peninsula will be the last place to ever see wide scale development due to its NIMBYism which is at a higher level than anywhere else in the Bay Area and probably the world.

It seems that your argument is to build more SFH. Sure, but there's no space for it. Thats why everyone is suggesting multifamily. Unless you're fine with living in Tracy and working in San Jose.
Plenty of room for multifamily towers even on the Peninsula . . . EAST of US 101. That's "densifiable". Pretty much up and down the Peninsula.
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  #96  
Old Posted May 5, 2021, 3:02 AM
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
and that's the reason your chicago analogy is kind of goofy. unless all 300M americans decide to move to chicagoland over the next several decades, this town will never run out of corn fields to gobble up with even more unceasing sprawl. if chicagoland had exhausted all of its available buildable land (like the bay area), then more condos in the city (and everywhere) would have to be a part of the solution to $2M schaumburg houses.
Oddly, this might ultimately be the best argument for CA HSR of all. CA can match Illinois cornfield for cornfield (well, nut and grape orchard for cornfield) if you start including the Central Valley and HSR would make rapid commuting from much of the CV to Silicon Valley a practical (if, perhaps, expensive) possibility.

Right now there's "ACE" (Altamonte Corridor Express) serving a similar purpose much less well (it's hardly "high speed" but it does get people to SV jobs from CV homes). And if BART gets extended to Livermore as has long been under consideration, that almost gets CV dwellers to downtown SF (and soon enough downtown SJ) jobs.
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  #97  
Old Posted May 5, 2021, 2:50 PM
iheartthed iheartthed is offline
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
yeah, it probably won't put much of a dent in that particular segment of the market.

my point is that more and more bay area first time home buyers (who aren't lucky enough to have access to mom and dad's real estate equity largesse) are going to have to adjust their housing expectations if they wish to stay in the area, because as we both know, there just ain't any room left to build anywhere near enough SFHs to come anywhere close to meeting the outsized demand, such that prices would go down considerably.

and that's the reason your chicago analogy is kind of goofy. unless all 300M americans decide to move to chicagoland over the next several decades, this town will never run out of corn fields to gobble up with even more unceasing sprawl. if chicagoland had exhausted all of its available buildable land (like the bay area), then more condos in the city (and everywhere) would have to be a part of the solution to $2M schaumburg houses.
I think the Bay Area has room, but it's all protected. Flying into SFO from the east, it looks like someone literally drew a line on the ground and said "do not build anything past here" lol. L.A., on the other hand, has probably just run out of room.
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  #98  
Old Posted May 5, 2021, 3:00 PM
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I think the Bay Area has room, but it's all protected.
same difference.

protected land in the bay area has about as much chance of getting developed as chicagoland has of instituting a greenbelt.

which is to say, close to zero on both scores.
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  #99  
Old Posted May 5, 2021, 3:53 PM
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The Sunset district is about as high density as you can practically build a SFH neighborhood, and isn't SF already the densest city in the country? I don't get this desire to just keep stacking people on top of people, often against the desires of the current residents. I mean yeah, you could theoretically jam another half million people into SF. The demand certainly exists. But just because you can, doesn't mean you should, or that it would be a desirable outcome for anyone except the developers. People seem to mistakenly believe that the free market exists to meet every demand. But the free market doesn't guarantee that every demand will be met by supply. It only guarantees that there will be market equilibrium.
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  #100  
Old Posted May 5, 2021, 4:02 PM
iheartthed iheartthed is offline
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The Sunset district is about as high density as you can practically build a SFH neighborhood, and isn't SF already the densest city in the country?
Nah. San Francisco is the second densest major city, but it's still quite a bit behind NYC. If it were an NYC borough, it would be the second least dense borough, only beating out Staten Island.
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