Re:Blame Zoning, Not Tech, for San Francisco's Housing Crisis
by simoncion on Friday March 11, 2016 @09:18PM
(#11270997)
> ...one of the under-reported scandals of this boom is the number of market-rate apartments that are being used as offices.
The fix is easy: If the folks using that apartment as an office aren't also using that apartment as their living quarters, call City Planning.
If they are also living in that apartment, who cares? Tolerance of low-to-no foot traffic commercial activity (such as programming work) inside one's apartment has been a thing for a very, very long time.
Re:Blame Zoning, Not Tech, for San Francisco's Housing Crisis
by timr on Friday March 11, 2016 @10:15PM
(#11271206)
Your definition of "easy" is only actually easy if we ignore the little problems of detection, enforcement and proof. Anyone can call the city on illegal residential property uses today, but obviously, that approach isn't working I can flip through the listings of any newer residential building in SOMA, and see 50% of the units occupied by startups.
As for tolerance: what is acceptable in small doses becomes pathological when taken to extremes. Just like AirBnBs, it's not an issue when a handful of apartments are being used for commercial activity in a healthy market. When you have a huge percentage of renters doing it in a housing crunch, it's a concern.
It makes no sense to me, for example, that we should be giving tax incentives to developers to convert buildings on Market street into office space. Why not apartments? Or how about the fact that we're incentivizing large companies to hire more employees in the city? Or that we're looking the other way while startups colonize all of that shiny new residential construction? (Aside: one of the under-reported scandals of this boom is the number of market-rate apartments that are being used as offices. Who can afford a $6,000 one bedroom? A startup office.)
It's hard to argue that these are intelligent responses to the growth crisis.
I think this is a bubble and it will eventually pop. But we could be doing more to manage the explosion in the meantime.