How Has San Francisco Run Out of Money for Affordable Housing?

Re:How Has San Francisco Run Out of Money for Affordable Hou... by segmondy on Monday November 12, 2018 @04:14PM (#18435892)

I was just in SF too last week and I hear you, but I also feel for them. I would be pretty pissed off if someone built an apartment next to me. I like my views. I like my neighborhoods without apartments. This sort of thing is easier to solve earlier on, it's a bit late now. There's no free land. To build an apartment will entail buying up houses, knocking them down then building them next to houses which are already tightly packed and blocking views.

Frankly, what's playing out in SF reminds me of what's playing out in US. Who has the right to determine how things stay? Outsiders or those who currently live there? Outsiders will like a slice of the pie and will cry and moan loudly about how insane and unfair it is, but hey, if you have a home, why should you watch your home value drop because of new apartments? If you just bought a home for $1mil just to be comfortable with no speculation and hope that it will grow faster than inflation. An influx of housing dropping your house to $800k will wipe out 100% of your down payment.

As an outsider, I feel for SF. I don't really care if they build an apartment or not. If I want to move there, I'll pay the price. What I care about is that they clean up, too many homeless, crazy, folks doing drugs in the public streets, poop, and all sorts of craziness. Clean that up.

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Re:How Has San Francisco Run Out of Money for Affordable Hou... by CPLX on Monday November 12, 2018 @04:33PM (#18436069)

> To build an apartment will entail buying up houses, knocking them down then building them next to houses which are already tightly packed and blocking views.

Yup, you got it, that's how it works. This concept is called "a city".

Any rights San Francisco might have once had to get upset about that dynamic evaporated when they happily let companies house several million jobs in the area.

> if you have a home, why should you watch your home value drop because of new apartments? If you just bought a home for $1mil just to be comfortable with no speculation and hope that it will grow faster than inflation. An influx of housing dropping your house to $800k will wipe out 100% of your down payment.

I'm not buying this argument at all. The more dense a city gets the more valuable single family homes get.

Take a look and see how much a two story single family home goes for in the West Village or brownstone Brooklyn. The logic you're trying to advance is dubious.

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Re:How Has San Francisco Run Out of Money for Affordable Hou... by RhysU on Monday November 12, 2018 @09:02PM (#18437816)

CPLX, shout when you run for office back east. You've my vote.

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Re:How Has San Francisco Run Out of Money for Affordable Hou... by lukasb on Monday November 12, 2018 @04:22PM (#18435969)

I live in a Victorian in the Castro. There's a four (?) story housing project down the block. It's 100% fine. I understand not everyone feels that way, but we have a housing crisis, and housing people is more important than views.

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Re:How Has San Francisco Run Out of Money for Affordable Hou... by segmondy on Monday November 12, 2018 @07:15PM (#18437202)

Down the block. If it was built next to your Victorian would you feel the same? We don't have a housing crisis. There's tons of land and cheap home in the US. We have a capital problem, folks are going to SF because that's were the owners and controllers of capital are not because they can't find a house in other parts of the country

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Re:How Has San Francisco Run Out of Money for Affordable Hou... by lukasb on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @03:38PM (#18444663)

I wouldn't care if it was 100 feet closer.

I think it's going to be easier to build housing than to make network effects in industries not matter. You can just smear the companies across the country like they're butter.

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