I apologize in advance, it’s entirely likely that I’ve misunderstood this article.
Is the premise here that “market rate housing” makes housing more affordable but “affordable housing” does not? I thought affordable housing was cheaper?
Is the premise here that “market rate housing” makes housing more affordable but “affordable housing” does not? I thought affordable housing was cheaper?
First, in San Francisco, to qualify for "affordable housing", you have to make under the poverty line in San Francisco. That means under 110k for a family of 4. If a builder were to want to build affordable housing to help these populations, it is not financially feasible without the government paying for it b/c one would have to sell or rent this newly built housing at significantly below what they paid for it.
So then enter rich white elitists like Preston and Peskin (with ties to the real estate lobby / land owners themselves) who want to enrich themselves by increasing the value of their own land. What do they do? They block all new housing development in San Francisco so the supply is permanently depressed and gate it on building "affordable housing". They package that up as a news story in helping vulnerable communities by making a few affordable homes but in in reality, housing gets more expensive and unaffordable for everyone.
Just so a few richly compensated officials can enrich themselves even more, at the expense of the poorest residents.
But then I read about the issue actually being about housing supply. I somewhat understand that this article is framed in such a way as to seem like it’s about one individual politician, but the points made here seem to be very black and white about the very concept of affordable housing.
It kind of seems that pro- and anti- affordable housing folks are accusing each other of the same thing: valuing their own property value highest.
I’m but a humble country bumpkin that grew up in affordable housing and have very little expertise about “doublespeak” but generally speaking I’ve found that when somebody makes and sells something for less, that means that the price is lower (less money required = lower cost).
The truth is that there's no such thing as conjuring up affordable housing in expensive cities at-will. Expensive housing will be built and subsidized so that it is affordable for some, but not others.
- or -
Expensive (market rate) housing will be built unsubsidized and it will compete with all other housing stock. If there is little competition, the price will not be affordable, because why would it without competition. Once there's enough housing supply, then new housing stock will be competing with existing housing, and put downward pressure on prices.
A third element at play here is that wealthier residents are able to afford housing regardless of price, so the key question existing residents must ask is: Do you want them to compete with you on a likely rent-controlled unit, or do you want them to take a look at the fancy new apartment with all the expensive amenities, and isn't rent controlled. Remember that all housing stock was once new and more expensive before it became affordable to everyone else. This isn't a comment for or against rent control but it is a factor that must be considered.
Blocking new housing unless it's "affordable" is just NIMBYism with better optics.
Market rate housing: let developers build housing if it's profitable for them to do so.
The former results in some members of a favoured class getting cheap access to housing, whilst preserving/increasing the value of the remaining 'market rate' housing.
The latter seeks to allocate housing based on willingness to pay, whilst increasing the housing stock to stop/reverse the trend of price increases.
The way people use the word 'affordable' wrt to housing makes it sound like it's an intrinsic property of the houses. When it actually refers to a non-market allocation mechanism. 'Affordable housing' sounds better than 'price caps allocated to a lucky subset of the folks we deem deserving'.
To clarify, the favored class here are people at or near the poverty line? And their existence drives up prices for anybody else?
There's a lottery system which is 'fair' for some definition of fair, but doesn't solve the problem, which is limited housing supply, and doesn't help all who want to live here.
'Affordable' isn't an intrinsic property of a house. It's an outcome of the allocation system.
Again it’s awful that there is a housing shortage, but “market rate” seems to mean “charges more than what would be considered to be ‘affordable’”. I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure that “more than affordable” and “more affordable” aren’t the same thing.
Edit: I’m not really sure why I can’t respond to the child’s comment from this but I apologize. I thought we were talking about housing (eg a house one can afford vs a house that one cannot), not the minutiae of the English language. To clarify, I’m asking about housing that lower income people can move into vs other types of housing. I have zero interest in litigating “intrinsic vs extrinsic” on a topic as simple and self-obvious as “who gets to live in SF”
- intrinsic (vs. extrinsic)
- price (vs. cost)
And your wording (like the use of the word 'charges') may suggest that you consider that suppliers of housing unilaterally set prices. When, in fact, a transaction can take place only when a buyer and a seller can agree on a price.
So if you mandate only affordable housing, then you help a few people, but restrict the overall housing market, which makes rent prices go up for most people.
(To be clear, affordable housing isn’t bad; but restricting the supply of housing by building 100 affordable units instead 80,000 market rate ones is)
If they build a few “affordable” units, it’s a way to still seem like you’re pro-housing.
To be clear, I think most pro-affordable housing folks genuinely would like to build lots of affordable housing.
There is genuinely no scenario in which a person can actually want the construction of affordable units?
This honestly sounds like some wild mental gymnastics in order to justify… keeping property values higher. Just like many are accusing the other side of doing.
Not at all, I'm saying Preston in particular has historically ran on the construction of affordable units, and then worked to block them throughout his time in office.
Adding market rate housing is better than adding no housing at all.
In practice people crying for 100% affordable housing are in reality demanding that nothing gets built at all.