Richest Silicon Valley Suburb Says Build Anywhere but Here | Hacker News Reader

Richest Silicon Valley Suburb Says Build Anywhere but Here

bloomberg.com

25 pointsvirtualwhys22 comments

> Richest Silicon Valley Suburb

Not just richest in SV, but in the entire United States, for the fifth year in a row - https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/19/10-most-expensive-zip-codes-...

Also, recent prior story: Marc Andreessen says he’s for new housing, but records tell a different story https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32350657

The original article showing Marc Andreessen's comment dropped August 4th.

Since then, the only public statement he's made is this announcement on August 15th, investing in Flow:

https://a16z.com/2022/08/15/investing-in-flow/

"Our nation has a housing crisis.

The demographic trends driving America’s housing market are impossible to ignore: our country is creating households faster than we’re building houses..."

> we are excited to partner with Adam Neumann and his colleagues on Flow

enthusiasm deflated

What I don’t understand is why cities like Menlo Park, Palo Alto and Cupertino allowed to add office spaces for 100,000+ jobs but not required to add a similar number of residences for the people who work those jobs?

Atherton isn’t building a tech campus (or any office/retail for that matter), why should it be forced to build housing to accommodate people who work in nearby towns that choose to prioritize commercial space over residential?

The jobs/housing ratio is strange, but I imagine they wanted to add commuters rather than residents, thereby enjoying increased tax revenue without increasing residential density or building upward, both of which could potentially reduce the value for incumbent homeowners and/or change the character of existing neighborhoods. The main downsides for the cities themselves would be increased traffic, potential parking issues, and a completely unaffordable housing market, as well as long-term threats like state intervention.

I haven't done the math, but my intuition would be that people living there would give you more tax revenue per unit of area than office spaces and their parking lots. Parking lots are dead areas that will not generate tax directly and roads are huge sinks of tax money, even if the people using them are not working in your commune.

Your intuition is wrong because residential property taxes are frozen and only change when people move.

Prop 13 applies to both residential and commercial property. Also new home construction would be assessed at the currrent market value. So no difference from a tax perspective for the town/city.

Because property tax freezes means commercial propeties actually pay their taxes and homeowners don't vote against commercial construction.

If you think people actually want to be left alone in their community and want no further immigration you're falling for pretty obvious lies.

Commercial properties are also covered by Prop 13, and loophoos mean they can be sold without causing a property revaluation.

It is in California State government’s best interest to devise policies that encourage higher fluidity of housing market as a form of increasing the revenue generating flow into their general funds;

- stoke the housing market,

- encourage foreign ownerships and take over of precious homes

- make people move,

- push senior citizens out of their home

- reset valuation of residential for the primary purpose of higher taxes and thusly more flow into the state general fund.

Fixed tax rate (Prop 13) on residential taxation is that California politicians’ over-perceived limiting factor of increasing revenue flow into their state budget. They only can resort to higher income tax (13.3%) or higher sales tax (10.75%) or more of those other add-on taxes (like the misleading and diminishing triple (sales/excise/use) gasoline tax).

Given that California income tax and sales tax are already crazy high, the biggest political brass ring not-yet-grabbed remaining is this increasing more of the residential taxation; all her politicians are training their eyes on this residential tax as a form of potential increasing tax flow.

And cities/towns knows this too.

So the building of commercial/industrial properties shall and will continue on, unabated, at full-steam ahead; housing, not so much.

Is it a fault of the Golden State politicians? Ye-up! They just do not like governing with handcuffed but limited revenue flow so they go all myopic and actually govern without the long-range foresights of much needed housings, and instead flood their land with commercial/industrial zones.

Don’t blame the Prop 13. It’s no different than other states’ no or lower property tax on residential tracts.

Many senior citizens (and state workers) living on limited Social Security retirement/wage, who own their homes for the long haul are not likely to be evicted by higher residential taxation (protected by Prop. 13) on their home, will rest comfortably until pushed out by even more and inexorably higher and newer state sales/excise/use (sky’s the limit) taxation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_California#Sales...

Unfortunately, the Prop 13 in 1978 did not then foresee the current abuse by second and multiple (including foreign landlords) homeowners that has artificially created California’s severe housing [and housing ownership] shortage.

It will require yet another state proposition on the ballot to be able to revise Prop 13 into limiting this privilege of having the 1% valuation tax cap applied only to just those first homeowners.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_...

Also it is kinda myopic but immensely beneficial for local homeowners (with fix residential tax) to encourage more commercial zones thus enjoy increasing general revenues in turns into more general local government services.

I should caution that this general assumption of NIMBY plus more commercial zones by local homeowners is deeply flawed notion since it is ultimately Sacramento (capitol of California) that decides HOW the revenue flows from its general fund back into county/local/metro areas.

This Golden State state/local revenue flow is the exception when compared to most rest of the nation where most people naturally assume that county tax will flow back directly into the county general fund.

So it goes right back to Sacramento politicians who ultimately have to decide which county/metro/town gets richer and poorer. This is the result of Prop 13.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_California

Atherton, CA: "Fuck you, I got mine."

https://archive.ph/UV2nx

Is there anything that forces Atherton to allow dense buildings? Or is it just less funding from the state?

Yes, Atherton, Los Altos, and Portola Valley are just like every other rich neighborhood.

I'm not sure why people feel entitled to live in a certain area. Even to go as far as to tell the people who do live there that they should in their kind hearts do what we say, instead of what they want.

Why do the people who already live there feel so entitled to blow off a state law? It was debated, it was lobbied over, the 'build housing' constituency won the day. Now Andreesen is writing whiny letters with ALL CAPS in lieu of reasoned argument.

I couldn't care less about SF or its residents. So I didn't really invest into this story. If it's a legal state law and has the backing of the state, courts, and a federal court then go ahead.

Until it is, it's just words on paper from people who feel entitled to an area they have never owned land in.

I'm not going to be empathetic with people who want to displace others who have owned homes in an area for decades just so they can be closer to the most desired location on the west coast.

Atherton isn't in San Francisco. Nobody is being displaced. It's better to become familiar with your subject before forming an opinion.

Typical HN response where you pick specifics but really ignore the crux of the issue. Thanks for perpetuating the stereotype. The _bay area_ (silicon valley), also generally known as "San Francisco". Yes we all know there is really San Jose, Oakland, SF, Palo Alto, as actual cities.

The specific geographic location is irrelevant to the discussion. I can make the same exact argument for housing in NYC or some other city. People want cheap housing where people currently live.

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