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Re:To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock mus... by ProfessorLayton on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @02:59PM (#16970244)
While there's no denying there's a strong bias towards property owners, it doesn't have to be this way. Renters can and should vote to change policies to favor them. SF is 63% renters!

It is unfortunate that the most disenfranchised demographics are the ones least likely to vote/organize.

Re:To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock mus... by ajross on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @03:07PM (#16970336)
That's true, but potentially not enough. The fraction of the population that is renting now is still (by definition in the case of a hot market!) much smaller than the fraction of the demographic that wants to move to the area and needs to be served by a just housing policy.
Re:To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock mus... by bluGill on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @05:59PM (#16972122)
The renters - if they would vote (they typically don't) however have it in there interest to have more development: more places to rent places downward pressure on rent prices and thus limits their costs. Unlike homeowners (who benefit form prop 13), a renter faces the potential of their costs increasing yearly. If the large group that wants to move in can find a a place without having to displace someone else that limits landlords ability to raise rent. Renters now have to take rent increases because if they don't someone else will, but if the renter can respond by moving elsewhere instead...

Of course this assumes renters actually vote. As noted before, most do not. Thus the tyranny of the minority situation.

Re:To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock mus... by rspeer on Wednesday May 02, 2018 @12:17AM (#16974020)
It sounds like you may have missed one of the GP's points when you're blaming renters for not voting. I'll reiterate it with a specific example, although I am on the east coast.

Lots of people want to live in Cambridge, MA. Cambridge is lovely, walkable, and bursting with jobs. But not everyone who wants to can live in Cambridge, because Cambridge has large areas of inappropriately low density that homeowners fight to preserve.

Many people who work in Cambridge live in Everett. Everett is kinda shitty. It doesn't even have good transit to and from Cambridge.

People who live in Everett and want to live in Cambridge can't vote on Cambridge housing policy. They can only vote in Everett.

Local control of zoning sounds so democratic, but it's a tool of rent-seeking, exclusion, and discrimination.

Re:To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock mus... by bluGill on Wednesday May 02, 2018 @10:01AM (#16976924)
GP made the claim that 63% of SF is renters. While you are correct that there are those who wish they had a vote who cannot, the power is actually in the hands of current renters if they would vote.

This assumes that the claim that 63% of SF is renters is correct. I don't know the truth of that.

Re:To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock mus... by kelnos on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @08:58PM (#16973214)
As a renter who has lived in the bay area for 14 years (last 8 in SF), my interests absolutely align with those of the newcomers who want to move into the area or city. I would love for more supply which would lower the rent I pay, and also make it more financially safe for me to purchase property.
Re:To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock mus... by nerfhammer on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @05:55PM (#16972089)
72% of renters have rent control and thereby have the primary reason to care removed
Re:To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock mus... by ojbyrne on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @08:03PM (#16972917)
That seems unlikely - would love to see a citation.
Re:To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock mus... by nerfhammer on Wednesday May 02, 2018 @01:45PM (#16979401)
Re:To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock mus... by cbhl on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @03:56PM (#16970855)
63% of SF is renters, but are 63% of those eligible to vote in SF renters?

If even a quarter of those people are immigrants, that tips the scales quite a bit.

Re:To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock mus... by sampo on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @04:09PM (#16970994)
Btw, European Union lets every resident vote in local (city and town) elections. Only for the parliamentary and presidential elections, you need to be a citizen to vote.
Re:To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock mus... by tonfa on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @05:29PM (#16971864)
Is that true for residents who are not EU citizens as well? (At least for France I don't think it is)
Re:To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock mus... by noir_lord on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @05:39PM (#16971951)
Yep, I'm English in England, partner is here Hungarian, she can and does vote in local elections.
Re:To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock mus... by acchow on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @09:03PM (#16973233)
Hungary is EU tho. What if you're not an EU citizen?
Re:To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock mus... by sjsjxhhc on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @04:27PM (#16971193)
A large portion of those renters have rent control, so they are insulated from the crisis.