Couldn't the Gov. sign another law stopping that as well? Similar to the legislation around single family housing lots?
SF is considering allowing any property have a 4-plex (6 if at a corner), which may be used as a poison pill to continue to restrict development [1].
[0] https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2022-02-24/la...
[1] https://reason.com/2022/03/09/san-franciscos-efforts-to-bloc...
The duplexes would be like 30% stairs, right? This seems like a $5M+ investment to end up with 4 500 sqft 1-window studios (at best) that would be absurdly cashflow negative, and none of them would sell for $1M... SB 9 economically does not seem to work out for almost every lot in SF proper.
So if SF doesn't want anything to happen - wouldn't the best thing be to just keep things as they are?
The SF proposal similarly seems like garbage. The vast majority of homes cannot just magically become quadplexes. There's not enough stairs to pass fire code. And, importantly, it's impossible to build enough.
On another note - isn't part of SB 9 that lots cannot be joined? If you want to build a practical multifamily that actually adds density - in SF - isn't it basically necessary to join AT LEAST 3 lots?
LA has bigger lots - so there has been tons of 3-storey tri-plexes that are quite livable being built. The economics are there.
Unless building codes change - how does SF do anything like this?
The real solution seems like to massively incentivize 5 over 1 mixed use complexes. Then you end up with cities closer to Berlin & Paris & Madrid which are all substantially denser than almost all US cities AND more livable.
Yes
IIUC, you need 6 ft of space on each side of the lot for fire code. That takes away the majority of available floor space. You could build something 4-storeys, but after stairs, you'd be left with half as much leasable floor space...
It's still really hard to do in SF, but sometimes you see parking lots or old small buildings replaced with 4-6 story buildings [0].
As for the four-plex argument, it seems very far fetched to me. The status quo does a lot to restrict housing, but SB9 changes the rules and NIMBY's need to be more creative to continue to restrict housing.
Related, today the AG issued Pasadena on notice for their poor housing policies [1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5-over-1 [1] https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bont...