Interestingly, California is one of the lower direct carbon footprint per capita states. With drastically less heating and cooling in the Bay, LA and SD than national averages, and denser areas, it's a net positive to build more housing here than Phoenix, Austin, Houston, Dallas, etc.
a couple buys a home in 6000 sq ft and takes on a 30 year mortgage. they expect to have two or three kids. property taxes go towards 24-36 years of public education, infrastructure and law and order/utilties management. and they expect to retire in a fully paid off home in their old age when they dont have any income.
maybe those who cant afford to move into a place, should work with the state to build infrastructure and well networked public transport instead. how many sardines can you keep stuffing into the same little tin can?
california is 1.7 times bigger than the UK. we have 40 million vs 68 million population of UK. we are not the united kingdom.
Perhaps the city needs more housing. My biggest problem ..amongst many others..is that the local zoning laws and cities have NO control over sb9 and sb10 build outs.
They entirely bypass local laws and voting processes and gives the power directly to developers.
California has slowly eroded local governance and increasingly passing the power to a few politicians in Sacramento leading to regional and state interference and governance..often railroading local government. It is absolutely appalling.
We saw this happen with the public school system and property taxes. When Jerry Brown brought in his super secret inscrutable tax redistribution formula, nobody could figure out what portion of our taxes is allocated where..this means that posh homes paying millions and millions of dollars in property taxes because immigrant parents who like suckers pick the best expensive school districts end up sending their kids to schools with no budget for swimming pools or infrastructure improvements or even new restrooms.
A home should not be treated as a speculative instrument. It is a recipe to destablise society. Everyone should have house secure and that’s not always about home ownership.
Home ownership is not a right. Affordable homes to live is a basic right. Having to keep splitting the pie into thinner and thinner slices will lead to more hungry people. Instead we should bake a bigger pie!
Whatever makes expensive zip codes desirable should be made available to all zip codes in California.
In California, we are slicing the pie into slivers until no one is going to be happy. It’s going to be disastrous! The only beneficiaries are developers and politicians. And now VCs and investors. Do.The.Math.
1. Increasing housing stock in already saturated markets stresses resources and creates a demand for more infrastructure.
2. When we have more land and more people, we can build where there is land with suitable infrastructure.
3. This means: don’t build if you don’t create infrastructure.
4. Example: a child climbs on a grown man’s shoulder. He is very strong. He runs around. Looks like fun. Another child jumps on the man. And another. And another. And another. Until he is flat on the ground with a pile of children on his back.
Solution: Find another shoulder to climb upon.
I hope this clarifies.
Affordable housing exists only because market rate housing developers pay affordable housing fees to subsidize them. This in turn makes market rate housing more expensive.
These split lot units are not affordable. New builds are market rates as the old home. They don’t pay affordable housing fees but they share the same resources that is becoming even more scarce per person.
It costs millions to build roads..one class room is about million dollars in CA. And there are more teachers and their pensions in the future.
It’s like what the Red Queen said..you have to keep running faster than stay in the same place. You have to keep taxing more $$ and taxing more people to maintain old infrastructure. Can you see what I mean?
These are not even high rises or multi family. It doesn’t cost less. I wrote a longer reply but didn’t post it. Their numbers and projections make no sense at all. I actually took the time look it to because I find this kind of number hunting relaxing.
3D printing multi family or high rise sustainable communities by expanding developed cities will solve housing affordability. It will also bring more equity to California by making every single county as desirable to live ..
It costs $800-1200 per sq ft in Bay Area and anywhere between $350-500 in cheaper parts of California. There should be small self contained village clusters and planned communities.
Basic utilities are water, sewage, power, electricity, trash, internet.
Services: post office, fire, police station, hospitals, city hall, library, down town, entertainment, public squares, open spaces, schools, law and order, office spaces, shopping, gas stations, places to congregate etc.
How many of these can be modernized? How many be remote or digital? How many can be electrified or made with renewable resources?
One reason 3D printed homes won’t take off in CA is because of construction unions. Imagine how much money can be saved if we adopted newer modern tech without tier 1 city prices.
Let me give a sample of some stuff I jotted down today. Large and dense cities are never affordable. Denser it gets, infrastructure will only get more expensive because the cost of doing business there also increases. Remember everything is trucked in..it’s expensive.
San Jose has a million population and 3 billion budget.
Oakland has 450k population and 1.7 billion budget
Fremont has 220k and has 340 million budget
Fresno has 545k people and 1.2 billion budget
Cupertino has 60k population and 90 million budget.
Palo Alto has 66k population and 210 million budget. (Palo alto and mtn view also serve populations of unincorporated cities like Los Altos hills, atherton, wood side etc and that adjustment is included in the budget. Also PA runs and manages its own infrastructure including schools, trash, power and water)
Los Angeles 4 million population and budget is 11.2 billion
I just want one example of housing becoming affordable after it became high density and population increased. One city in California. Just one.
I didn’t think so. Because I have looked.
That said 3000 square feet is still 20ft x 150ft, 280 square metres, bigger than the plot of the 3 bed detached house I grew up in, bigger than the plot of my 4 bed semi I lived in recently - both of which above average prices for the region.
Ok, are you leaving or are you staying?
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Schools are over crowded and Unions are becoming more and more demanding that state pension liabilities keep increasing without any improvement of quality of life. There are road diets and traffic jams on the highways to hell making multi hour commutes an economic drain. There are power cuts and wild fires.
We are 40 million. It’s time to consider drastically reducing population and housing. We need sustainable housing and better infrastructure for walkable high density cities. Perhaps when we have figured out infrastructure, they we can consider increasing housing stock.
We need public transport, a cut in wasteful spending, better schools and roads. Taxes must be diverted provide free utilities for all. And free internet. That should be a right. Instead of paying for pension liabilities of union employees of public sector , I would rather have our taxes go towards creating a better California and towards free utilities, healthcare and environmental protection/conservation and public transport.
I cannot support your startup and the sector is set up to fail and will be damaging to Californians in the long run.
My advice is for you to pivot. Self sustaining tech supported ‘villages’ within Dunbar numbers or anything that creates little townships away from the tyranny of Sacramento will be a better loftier goal, imo. Create homesteads with large farms that are businesses. Look into 3D printed structures and creating high density tech-eco cities.
Making housing better in California is useful. Increasing housing stock is like scratching a bleeding itch when there is no doctors or pharmacies around for miles. Please reconsider. I cannot wish you success…it sounds mean, but I am being honest..regretfully. But I wish success for you if you can make California better. Regards.