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San Francisco at 1 million: Can city’s housing supply keep up with demand?

64K views 120 replies 20 participants last post by  swake 
#1 ·
There's a similar thread in the NYC Forum and not by coincindence: both cities are facing a long-term housing shortage that only seems to be worsening...

SF Eaminer



San Francisco at 1 million: Can city’s housing supply keep up with demand?

The signs have been there for a couple of years, and there’s no mistaking it now: We are living in Dot-Com Boom 2.0.

That’s given rise to a fully formed rent war that’s creating eye-popping rates for even small apartments while forcing many San Franciscans to skip town for good.

Among each of the skirmish’s regiments — developers, city planners, landlords and renters themselves — there is plenty of prognostication and blame, but few solutions. The City, no stranger to superlatives, is now the most expensive real estate and rental market in the U.S.

Earlier speculation that housing costs would have reached a plateau by now has not come true — not even close.

U.S. Census Bureau figures put the median of The City’s rental rates — the midpoint on the spectrum of rental prices — at $1,463 per month. Almost 40 percent of San Francisco rental properties demand at least 35 percent of tenants’ total income. The Trulia real estate listings website shows the median cost of buying a home is $850,000, which is nearly $200,000 more than five years ago and more than double what it was in 2000.

Traditional economics might hold that the high price would eventually curb growth over the long term. Not so, according to an upcoming report by the Association of Bay Area Governments, which projects that The City’s 2010 population of 805,263 will grow 35 percent by 2040 — the fastest 30-year rate of increase in nearly a century. By 2032, 1 million residents will make San Francisco their home, the report predicts.

Unsurprisingly, the first reaction to high rents in this supply-and-demand problem has been simply to create more supply — and fast. After a “reservoir” of stalled projects built up following the 2008 housing crisis, the proverbial dam has now opened, according to the Planning Department’s most recent development “pipeline report.”

As of the second quarter of 2013, more than 5,000 housing units were listed as under construction, with an additional 15,500 units in some stage of the planning process. Of the properties under construction, more than half included at least 250 units each, suggesting taller buildings are on the way for new workers flooding into the area to get a piece of the recent healthy job growth.

But here in the densest urban landscape west of the Mississippi, even small projects come with conflict from neighbors, leading some to question whether The City’s Byzantine development approval process is nimble enough to meet demand. Anti-growth movements have permeated city politics for decades, contributing to the low housing supply and high prices, says Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of the think tank SPUR.

“The desire to keep The City intact is leading to the hyper-gentrification of our neighborhoods,” Metcalf said. “If you’re going to be in the middle of a region that’s creating jobs, but you make it really difficult to add a supply of housing because you want it to look the same, then you are de facto choosing to make The City super-expensive.”

[...]
 
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#3 ·
Given the high density of SF, it seems to make sense to limit new housing and encourage development in other nodes (San Mateo, PA, Sunnyvale, SJ, Fremont, Walnut Creek, etc.) with strong transit connections between them. A metro area with each of these having a dense core surrounded by moderate density would seem to work well.

Fortunately, this seems to be occurring quite naturally around transit stops and old city centers all around the Bay.
 
#13 ·
I disagree. San Francisco's density might be good compared to most US cities, but its density is still a joke when compared to any city in Europe or in the developed countries of Asia.

Most of San Francisco is comprised of small, 1 or 2-floor buildings. At least some new developments on Market St are going up to 4-5 floors. The city should certainly be much more permissive and easily allow (or even better, promote) buildings up to 7-8 floors, particularly in areas where there is little or no architectural homogeneity.
 
#4 ·
One issue is the number of units in new buildings. Luxury developments in NYC often have just one or fewer units per floor. San Francisco does not have that same $100 million condo market but it could be coming. You could literally have a massive luxury condo boom that adds few if any actual residents since many units are sold to non-residents and are unoccupied most of the year. SF needs more units per floor and units that will absorb the demand from residents and not just some global elites. If a developer wants to build such luxury towers, they should be required A) to replace any existing housing that's lost to their schemes and B) build at least one affordable unit for each luxury unit proposed. I could even see a housing bank that assembles these obligations so they can be built in larger, denser developments that maximize the site.
 
#5 ·
^^i just left New York and something occurred to me this visit--the blocks between streets (as opposed to avenues) are really short. This may account for the slender towers and, in turn, some of the "one unit per floor" phenomenon. I saw one new project at the corner of 29th & 6th Ave that appeared to have afloor plate of about 50 ft square and will be 40 or 45 floors.

San Francisco has much larger blocks in the street grid and larger lots so I'm not so sure the one unit per floor thing is either as necessary or as likely.

FYI, we may not yet have $100 million units, but we've got some in the area of $50 million I think: mostly penthouses atop landmark towers ( and there ARE one or two of these per building floor).

San Francisco already has lots of foreign owner/buyers. When I was on my own condo board I encountered the phenomenon of trying to find and/or lien owners in Asia who were behind in assessments. Even smaller units are often bought by Asians for their kids to live in while attending school in the US. Also there is a huge pied-a-terre market for buyers from all over.

There is already a requirement for 15% (I belive that's the current percentage) "affordable" units per building which can be on or off site. Developers typically prefer off-site and I think that's wise. There can be real problems when the need to raise assessments occurrs or for special assessments and owners of "affordable" units on-site simply can't afford any increase. Also, the building of off-site "affordable" units has actually created some nice infill buildings.
 
#6 ·
Apparently it has to get worse before it can get better:

With the turnaround in the local economy that’s been sped up by a technology boom, real estate prices are soaring, leading to high rents and evictions. Board President David Chiu said that there are “too many real estate speculators who are purchasing properties evicting our San Franciscan residents and flipping those properties for profit.” He acknowledged a state law change would be a “difficult task.”

The resolution noted that while in the past decade developers produced 1,476 new below-market-rate units, there were 1,763 Ellis Act-related evictions at the same time, a net loss in affordable rental housing.

Supervisor David Campos said it was “unprecedented” to have local consensus on this issue, but also said that The City should “not be afraid to push the envelope” with local laws aimed at protecting tenants.

Ideas on how to do so are likely coming soon. The San Francisco Anti Displacement Coalition, a group of tenant advocate groups, is hosting so-called neighborhood tenant conventions this month. A citywide convention is scheduled for Feb. 8 where proposals will be made, including a possible November ballot measure, according to Supervisor Eric Mar.
Www.sfexaminer.com

Blaming "real estate speculators", i.e. Landlords and developers, will, of course, only discourage more rental housing supply as will tenant rabble rousing.
 
#7 ·
Glad to see that "speculators" are back as a victim to blame for the world's problems.

A better way of putting it is that people (such as myself and my niece, who leveraged to the hilt) bought multiple properties when the market was down on the theory that they were a good investment. Now they are cashing in. But you don't normally hold them empty; you rent for as much as you can get, which often means multiple families sharing.

As for the super-luxury units, they are nice but immaterial to any analysis. Just a scapegoat for the truly uneducated.
 
#12 · (Edited)
The state of California, whose law supercedes local laws of cities like San Francisco, has a law called the Ellis Act (after the legislator who proposed it). It says that regardless of local law, any rental property owner who wishes to get out of the business of renting property (such as if he wants to move into the property himself or to sell it as other than rental property) may evict any tenants and do so. Such an eviction is called an "Ellis eviction" . . . and the city hates them because being a landlord has become such an unpleasant experience in San Francisco that a lot of people are taking advantage of this loophole to the city laws which basically forbid most conversion of rental property to other uses.

As for upzoning the Richmond and Sunset, very unlikely. Perhaps someday it could happen in narrow areas like along Geary Blvd. And, of course, there is a proposal to greatly increase the number of units at the huge Parkmerced development (but mostly by building on vacant land, not increasing heights). I went ahead and created a thread for the latter: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=110456057#post110456057
 
#14 ·
By the way, I am ever increasingly convinced that BART and the lack of a monthly pass (the kind that virtually any other operator in the country offers) is partially responsible for property (including rental) prices. Last year I had a low-paid job in San Francisco and I would have been more than willing to move to a room in Berkeley with friends. However, because BART unfairly makes commuters pay per ride as much as a once-in-a-lifetime passenger does, the short 20-minute ride between Berkeley and SF would have cost me almost 200 bucks per month (assuming I'd traveled to SF 6 times a week, and also assuming I didn't have to take Muni afterwards). For middle-class individuals, this is A LOT of money.

Transportation in the Bay Area is a mess. The moment a fast, efficient, reliable and affordable transportation network is offered to Bay Area residents, property prices in the City will certainly drop, since the pay-offs of living in SF will be less obvious as opposed to living somewhere in the Peninsula or the East Bay.

Right now living outside of the City but working and/or studying in it is an expensive, uncomfortable pain in the ass (not to mention if you like nightlife and clubbing and drinking booze) that everyone wants to avoid. Hence, too many people want to live in the City and as such, property prices in SF are prohibitively expensive.

Improve the transportation network, make it possible (and financially interesting) to sleep outside of SF but spend most of your time in it, and the prices will level down as having a flat in SF will offer less obvious pay-offs than they do right now.
 
#17 · (Edited)
^^Darn it! Not sure why I keep hitting the wrong button--believe me, I'm working on not doing that--and I screwed up your post but I think I restored it as you had written it. I apologize and PLEASE fix it to say what you wanted to say if I didn't. It was a valid point but I don't agree.

I was trying to respond as follows:

I'm quite sure the Google/Oracle commuters live where they do because it's where they want to live. There's no more of a shortage of housing near Google and Oracle than in San Francisco.

Moving on, very few (if any) new San Francisco buildings are 2 stories. East of Twin Peaks, most are 6 - 12 stories. West of Twin Peaks and in some low rise areas like the Mission, some are 4 stories.
 
#18 · (Edited by Moderator)
^^Darn it! Not sure why I keep hitting the wrong button--believe me, I'm working on not doing that--and I screwed up your post. I apologize and PLEASE fix it to say what you wanted to say. It was a valid point but I don't agree.

I was trying to respond as follows:

I'm quite sure the Google/Oracle commuters live where they do because it's where they want to live. There's no more of a shortage of housing near Google and Oracle than in San Francisco.

Moving on, very few (if any) new San Francisco buildings are 2 stories. East of Twin Peaks, most are 6 - 12 stories. West of Twin Peaks and in some low rise areas like the Mission, some are 4 stories.
I will teach you how to do it when I come home. I'm away at the moment... and pesto, can you repost what you wanted to say, please?
 
#19 ·
I know HOW to do it. It's not that I don't know how--it's that I'm not used to that edit button on other peoples' post and somehow when I mean to click on reply, I click on that. It's not a lack of knowledge--it's misplaced muscle memory or something.

Anyway, I'm fairly certain I restored his post as it was. I just want him to feel free to take a look and if HE thinks anything isn't right, fix it because I wasn't trying to edit him at all.

______________________________________________

D*mn!It's been a looooooong day (I did it to your post too--didn't change anything, just clicked the wrong button out of habit). I'm going to go do something else before I throw the keyboard.
 
#20 ·
Well you restored it, so that's good. :eek:kay: If you have any issues on editing for any reason, let me know. And if you need time off, do so: I'll take care of this for you. I'll help you in every way I can to make your modship smooth and easy as possible. :yes:

Moving along on this issue, it makes me wonder if ever any of the large housing projects (e.g. Potrero Hill, Cesar Chavez, etc) can be renovated so that those structures will look much better and promote improved livelihood for the people who live in them... I mean, some of those blocks have become places where drugs and criminality are serious concerns for some time.
 
#23 ·
San Francisco Rushes to Ease Housing Pinch
City Leaders Push New Construction in a Place Where Red Tape Can Stand in the Way
By CONOR DOUGHERTY and ZUSHA ELINSON
Jan. 27, 2014 8:40 p.m. ET


SAN FRANCISCO—Faced with a chronic housing shortage that is getting worse and fueling social tensions, politicians here want to speed up the pace of new residential construction. But that's a tall order in a city where a daunting approval process and stiff local opposition can turn even a small project into a yearslong battle.

Workers are finding jobs by the bucketful in San Francisco, but housing supply hasn't kept pace. About 4,000 housing units have been added in the past three years, for roughly 10,000 new households, according to the city planning department. This imbalance has fueled what already was one of the nation's most expensive cities: Rents are up 17% over the past three years, and an index of San Francisco home prices from Black Knight Financial Services rose 14.5% in November from a year earlier.

This month, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee unveiled a plan to add 30,000 new housing units over the next six years—a majority of which would be set aside as affordable housing for families with incomes that are 80% to 150% of the city's median income. The plan would include building affordable housing on city-owned properties, hiring more staff to speed along permitting for new construction, and exploring affordable-housing incentives for developers . . . .

Housing supply will rise sharply in 2014—there are about 6,000 units under construction—but the messy reality behind Mr. Lee's plan is that any sustained boost in construction would require the city to overcome a slew of neighborhood and political forces that are aligned against building anything in a hurry, or in certain areas. While neighborhoods surrounding downtown are draped in new buildings and cranes, much of the city is a suburban-like expanse of single-family homes and neighbors who want to keep it that way.

At the same time, the city's powerful tenant-rights and affordable-housing advocates don't think building alone is the answer. Peter Cohen, co-director of Council of Community Housing Organizations, would prefer less market-rate housing and more protections for renters . . . .

San Francisco's enviable problem is that it is a desirable city with tons of new jobs. Over the past three years, the city saw its job tally grow 10%—a little more than double the national pace in that period. The nation hasn't passed its prerecession job peak, but San Francisco blew past that milestone in 2012—then added 2.7% more jobs in 2013, according to Moody's Analytics.

But by some measures, San Francisco is the worst U.S. city to be a middle-class home buyer. Just 14% of homes in the metro area are attainable to those making the area median income, the lowest percentage in the nation, according to research from Jed Kolko, chief economist at Trulia, a real-estate site.

Of course, it would be difficult for San Francisco to add housing at the same pace as younger cities, and it is a hilly peninsula on just 49 square miles. But data suggest the city is even lagging behind its peers.

Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of an urban-policy nonprofit called SPUR, notes the city added about 1,500 units each year over the past two decades. That compares with about 3,000 units annually in Seattle, which has similar topography and has also seen a technology boom. He derived his figures from building data from both cities.

Activists, meanwhile, are directing their furor toward the booming technology sector and what they see as symbols of a growing economic gap . . . .

San Francisco's plodding construction pace has added to the shortage. In most major cities, there are few legislative or permitting hurdles to developments that don't require major zoning changes. Here, even projects with a handful of units are subject to a legislative and appeals process that can take years—raising the cost of housing.

. . . it costs $650,000 to build an 800-square-foot unit in a midrise building, and as much as $100,000 of that can be chalked up to the elongated pace of construction. "Every single [building] permit is subject to discretionary review," Mr. Erickson said. Because of that process, he said, "anybody can fight" any development.

Supervisor Scott Wiener, whose district includes many transit-heavy neighborhoods that are popular with young technology workers, has pushed to cut down on delays tied to the appeals process. His proposal to curb the city's environmental-appeals process to 30 days after approval was signed into law last July . . . .

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304856504579338690241450858?mod=ITP_pageone_1
 
#25 ·
Too many odd suggestions to address (please recall that less than 10 percent of the Bay Area lives in SF). But one or two, at any rate.

Most cities in the Bay Area have "excess" demand, in the sense that prices of housing are being driven higher. But this does not bring down a call from the locals to tear down historic neighborhoods, Victorians and quiet areas with functioning communities so that more after-party crash pad towers can be built. Instead, new dense housing is built around transit nodes, close to places of work.

The high percentage of rentals in SF reflects that a high percentage of people are there temporarily, while they are young and single, before moving on to areas with larger homes, better schools, more open space and recreation, etc., to build their families. This has been going on for a century now.

Of course that you and your friends don't want to move to Palo Alto or such other dreadful place, brings a tear to my eye. God forbid that anyone stop you from doing what you want just to preserve historic neighborhoods, families and such. (Since the average house price in PA is about double the SF average this might be a problem in any event. But that's why people move to cheaper areas.)

The main point is still that SF is by far the most crowded node in the Bay Area; that the 10 or so other major nodes are expanding with available room; and with transit will be able to connect nicely without tearing up functioning neighborhoods.
 
#28 ·
Most cities in the Bay Area have "excess" demand, in the sense that prices of housing are being driven higher. But this does not bring down a call from the locals to tear down historic neighborhoods, Victorians and quiet areas with functioning communities so that more after-party crash pad towers can be built. Instead, new dense housing is built around transit nodes, close to places of work.

The high percentage of rentals in SF reflects that a high percentage of people are there temporarily, while they are young and single, before moving on to areas with larger homes, better schools, more open space and recreation, etc., to build their families. This has been going on for a century now.
At least some of the excess demand outside SF is from people who would prefer to live in SF but can't afford it (or think they can't)--read another article today from somebody whining about that. And since most such people work in the city, they all want to live near transit if they have to move out if it.

As for "transit nodes", compared to much of the Bay Area the city is one big transit node. Muni is designed such that one never need walk more than 2 blocks to catch a bus. However it would make sense to put the most dense new buildings on the streets with the best transit service. Certainly that would include Mission, Geary and Market--places that still have absurd 80 or 120 ft height limits in many places.

As for the renters, many renters have lived in San Francisco for decades, and could have anticipated that. To hear them tell it, they never purchased because they never could scrape together a down payment or for other reasons related to cost (like ability to get a loan). The fact remains that most of San Francisco's housing stock is rental. If more renters tried to buy, it would just drive up the cost of for-sale homes even more.

Finally, there is absolutely NO chance any Victorian is going to be legally demolished for a new tower so that's a straw man. Mostly it's post-war warehouses and other non-descript commercial buildings getting torn down (or surface parking lots that exist where such buildings were torn down years ago).
 
#26 ·
^^ And yet the reality seems not to agree with you. A bunch of new projects on Market Street on the short stretch from Valencia to Castro (I think I can count 8 in my head) all go over 2 stories (some of them well over that). And happily so. The same applies to many new developments in the Mission.

My only regret is that they are not even more ambitious and make all these buildings go up to 7-8-9 stories (I believe this is due to city regulations too), which is the norm in many European cities with outstanding quality of life. But hey, things like what they have just done on Market@Dolores are already going in the right direction, and they prove that higher buildings are not opposed to poor living conditions. Whenever we start seeing many of those, they might finally not be limited anymore to the super-rich only, but also available to the middle class.
 
#27 ·
That said, I think it's a terrific idea to build new, higher density neighborhoods around transit nodes (if there actually was a real transit network, this could even work well). But your obsession not to touch anything that's already there sounds like blatant nimbyism. There are dozens of areas in SF with little or no architectural homogeneity whatsoever and entire neighborhoods that are anything but certainly not "quiet areas with functioning communities"...at all.
 
#29 ·
You know Obama flies out to the SF Bay Area quite often, mostly for fund raising every month or two. He's been promoting more open immigration into the Bay Area. The truth is, the Bay Area doesn't need much in the way of new immigrants when there are already thousands of homeless denzians living on the streets of San Francisco & housing costs are staggering. In truth, their many Bay Area neighborhoods where you can't even walk the streets without tripping over the homeless.

In truth, Obama & other public leaders across the US should be promoting much more open immigration policies for long declining rustbelt cities like Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland & many others, where's there's plenty of space & dirt cheap housing just waiting & ready for new immigrants to fix up & occupy. And yet, many of these emptied out cities have most anti-immigrant attitudes & policies.
 
#30 ·
You know Obama flies out to the SF Bay Area quite often, mostly for fund raising every month or two. He's been promoting more open immigration into the Bay Area. The truth is, the Bay Area doesn't need much in the way of new immigrants when there are already thousands of homeless denzians living on the streets of San Francisco & housing costs are staggering. In truth, their many Bay Area neighborhoods where you can't even walk the streets without tripping over the homeless.
I think homelessness and housing affordability are almost separate issues. The percentage of homeless that are in that condition because of high housing costs is usually small. Most people would just pack and move away and put up with very long commutes instead of live in the streets.

Homeless in developed countries is often intertwined with other issues, especially mental health issues. Homeless people also congregate in spaces that are more favorable for their own erratic activities (not much of a point to live in the streets of a quiet suburban division with few people to panhandle to and no social services to use).

In truth, Obama & other public leaders across the US should be promoting much more open immigration policies for long declining rustbelt cities like Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland & many others, where's there's plenty of space & dirt cheap housing just waiting & ready for new immigrants to fix up & occupy. And yet, many of these emptied out cities have most anti-immigrant attitudes & policies.
You get it the other way around. The reason you can buy a brownstone house in sound structural shape for US$ 35,000 in Detroit is because there are just not many jobs around, altogether, at least high-paying jobs that would attract the creative/skilled-class of immigrants you'd want to. San Francisco housing prices are a byproduct of the success of Bay Area in becoming a global hub for technology. Take that industry away, prices would go down considerably (but so would most of the economic vitality of cities).

Detroit was not a dirt-cheap place to live at the heyday of the auto industry...
 
#31 ·
Tech workers squeezing out renters in San Francisco, Seattle
By Les Christie @CNNMoney
February 6, 2014: 12:43 AM ET



NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
Low- and middle-income residents of San Francisco, Oakland, Seattle and other metro areas, are getting pushed out of their homes as an influx of deep pocketed tech workers drive up rents.

Rental rates for the 10 metro areas most dominated by tech companies rose by an average of 5.7% year-over-year through January, nearly twice the average 3% increase seen in the nation's 90 other largest cities, according to Trulia. Certain cities have seen far bigger hikes: rents in San Francisco rose by 12.3%, to a median of $3,350 a month in January.

So high are rents in San Francisco and neighboring Oakland, in fact, that protestors have taken to blocking the shuttle buses that transport tech workers to the Silicon Valley offices of companies like Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) and Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500), blaming the companies and their highly paid workers for a spate of evictions.

"At locations along the Google, Apple or Genentech bus stops, most apartments are going to tech workers," said Craig Berendt, a property manager and apartment broker in the city. An apartment in San Francisco's Pacific Heights neighborhood that rented for $2,100 in 2010, for example, now rents for $3,200 a month, he said.

Many tech workers can afford it. The average paycheck in Silicon Valley has surged past $100,000, while the median wage for private sector workers nationwide is far smaller at $38,600.

Despite the fat paychecks, many young tech workers are choosing to rent over buy, in part because home prices in tech-saturated cities are even more prohibitively expensive than rents.

And prices keep rising. Year-over-year, asking prices in San Francisco and Oakland were up 16.2% and 24.4%, respectively, in January, according to Trulia. That's compared to a national average gain of 11.4%.

Making matters worse in places like San Francisco is that little is being done to meet the increase in demand. The city is hemmed in by the sea so there's very little land to build on and strict regulations have been put in place to preserve the low-rise charm of the city.

Instead, in once working class neighborhoods like San Francisco's Castro, South of Market, and the Mission, affordable multifamily rental housing is being converted into high-priced condos, said Victoria Stewart Davis, an agent with Pacific Union.

The pattern is similar in the Seattle area . . . .
http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/06/rea...campaign=Feed:+rss/money_latest+(Latest+News)
 
#33 ·
I see rich people
Debra J. Saunders
Updated 10:06 am, Sunday, April 20, 2014

In the Star Trek movies, San Francisco serves as headquarters of Starfleet Command. This cracks me up no end, as I cannot imagine the Board of Supervisors approving construction of Starfleet Academy or the oddly shaped high-rises you see in the background. And if City Hall somehow did approve the project, you know there'd be some ballot measure to kill the deal. The grounds could be endless: No photon torpedoes. Too many techies already. What about affordable housing?

In many ways, San Francisco is a museum. It's a city that continuously attracts new waves of people who are drawn to what the city has represented, and therefore they want to keep it a museum.

When Apple announced plans to build a Union Square store where Ruth Asawa's San Francisco Fountain is perched, the all-powerful tech giant had to back off. Last year, after the Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission approved condominiums at 8 Washington, voters passed a ballot measure that torpedoed the project. The same activists who killed 8 Washington are pushing a new ballot measure to establish a height limit on waterfront development. Despite his vow to oversee the construction of 30,000 new homes by 2020, Mayor Ed Lee dares not oppose Proposition B.

It's also a city in which I cannot afford to live. When my husband and I moved here in 1992, we rented a flat in Noe Valley. But when it came time to buy, we moved to Oakland. We've been in the East Bay ever since. And guess what, it's not Siberia. You still find good coffee, ample parklands, tony eateries and fun little stores, but with fewer panhandlers on the sidewalk and more parking spaces.

And that's OK, because while I love the city, there is no right to live in San Francisco. Advocates argue that the city benefits when nurses, teachers, police and, yes, journalists own homes in the Special City. I don't disagree. But San Francisco has been more accommodating to the affluent than the middle class since the Gold Rush, and I don't think any enlightened policies are going to change that for the majority of would-be San Franciscans.

Middle-class workers who want to live in the city can make certain trade-offs - sparse square footage, lots of noise, living in the fog belt. Otherwise, about the only thing that can make San Francisco more affordable for working stiffs is an economic downturn . . . .

Problem: There are two ways to bring more housing to San Francisco: Build up or build out.

If backers win passage of Proposition B, it will block high-rise development. That leaves the bay itself to provide new shelter for San Francisco newbies.

The answer to San Francisco's housing crunch: Offer affordable housing in Google barges, like the mystery barge Google constructed on Treasure Island last year. Google barges could be the perfect accessory for people who wear Google glasses - and they'd be harder to steal.
http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/saunders/article/I-see-rich-people-5413636.php
 
#34 ·
Makes a lot of sense. People also want to live in Laguna with sweeping views of the Pacific and ideal weather year-round; or in Carmel or Big Sur with stunning views of rocks and ocean. The demand causes the price to be too high, so they move to somewhere they can afford.

Would any of these cities have the duty to build a couple of hundred high rise towers to force prices down? I think not. Same for SF: divert more of your income to housing or choose to live somewhere else, like 90 percent plus of the Bay Area does. Pounding in more people until services and lifestyle collapse hurts everybody except for a few developers, who live out-of-town in any event.

But things aren't quite this grim. High rise will be subject to public vote mainly in the Embarcadero area, not in the city as a whole. And the Supes are still subject to the usual donations and bribery that have made them so charming and lovable. And even better: remember that the elected officials have a vested interest in keeping prices down with rent-control, subsidies and affordable housing. Those are the people who vote for them.
 
#35 ·
^^While the upcoming proposition about waterfront buildings is bad enough, it is pretty clear from several examples like 706 Mission that people in adjacent buildings who will lose views always have the option of putting something on the ballot (or going to court) anywhere in town and the odds are pretty good they'll win if they do.

706 Mission really will be the test case because it has had strong backing of the politicians, mostly because it will contain the Mexican Museum and, after decades of trying to raise money, it really looks like putting it on the lowest floors of a high rise--a tall high rise that can pay to give away several floors of space--is the only way that will get built.

Of course the city itself has no duty to build towers or much else in the way of non-governmental construction, but it sure would be helpful if they'd make it as easy as possible for private developers to do it. That mostly mean quick approvals from the Planning Dept. and it means the Supervisors having the courage to reject appeals of Planning decisions when necessary. It also means the politicians having the courage to tell people the truth--like more building (and building up in order not to have to build out) may not result in a rent cut for anybody, but it's the only way we really have to keep rates from reaching New York/London levels.

It isn't just Americans who want to live in all these cities any more. It may not even be primarily Americans. The demand is global in larger coastal cities, and drawing from that pool of buyers the capacity to drive up prices (and rents) is tremendous.
 
#36 ·
Hard to disagree with most of that.

Kind of appropriate to get a Mexican Museum as the percentage of Hispanic population of SF continues to decline (by far the lowest of any major California city). But you would think that an adobe building would make more sense than a high rise.

Of course, worse things can happen than NY or London. A central area filled with the well-to-do and a great transit system to bring those who want to work there into the city for the day and then back to less crowded, affordable suburbs with more space and better recreation is not a bad thought. Same for the central part of Paris and many other European cities that are becoming connected nodes.
 
#37 ·
Kind of appropriate to get a Mexican Museum as the percentage of Hispanic population of SF continues to decline (by far the lowest of any major California city). But you would think that an adobe building would make more sense than a high rise.
San Francisco has had a Mexican Museum for decades but it resides in a sort of out of the way spot at Ft. Mason and has been trying to raise funds for a new, grander location for a long time. Perhaps because the Hispanic population is declining, or for whatever reason, they have been unable to raise enough to build there own building. They actually have a design by Ricardo Legorreta that I rather liked and the foundations are already dug and being used as an underground garage for Yerba Buena and the Jewish Museum (which would have been across a square):

Legorreta's design


But the developers of 706 Mission came along and offered to donate space for the Museum on the lower 3 (or so) floors of a tower if they were allowed to incorporate the MM land as well as what they owned next door. The Museum of the African Diaspora is in a high rise across the street so there's precedent. The Jewish Museum is a converted Willis Polk power station redesigned by Liebeskind.
 
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