California slams San Francisco for 'egregious' barriers to housing construction
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Tax those extra houses harder to the point even corporates and landlords feel the heat of profiting off of homes. I don't know why it isn't done. Cali always want raise tax on the middle class but those landowners somehow aren't getting the book thrown at them.
For the vast majority of people, owning a home is superior to renting. So I think most home policy is in getting people able to purchase, own, and sustain their own home.
Certainly, some people’s situation makes rent better, but it’s much smaller than people who should buy. But it’s too expensive to buy for too many people.
I don’t think someone should be embarrassed, but it’s not like the goal here is to get more people renting and fewer owning.
yeah right - info welcome from those that read giant books on the 2008 credit events.. one thread in that is that it was a clumsy and heavy-handed, politics-origin set of decisions to make "sub-prime" mortgage rates available widely, in order to move the homeownership rates in the general population from sixty-something percent to the glory-lands of ninety-something percent.
Well, in fact lending policy at scale did not do that, and as a side-effect the entire US and possible dollar-based credit system cracked at the base. The strongest economy in the world, actually almost did choke on credit.
Meanwhile, a recent study echoed here on YNews said that "A million homes are being kept empty while housing costs soar" WSJ . How does one reconcile this?
A real land/property tax that forces productive use of land is also needed, but repealing prop 13 is probably never going to happen.
That's okay, because it is solving the problem
Either,
A) the family member had another primary residence that they're vacating to make this their primary residence, thus freeing up the old property for someone to buy, or
B) the family member didn't already have a home, and the number of people with a home increases by 1, which is what we're trying to do in the first place
Anyways, this is a well studied problem in China where they tried this, and almost everyone successfully gamed the system that it was a no-op.
> You don't say anything about residing in it.
of course I did, that is what primary residence means: the place in which you primarily reside. Obviously you cannot legally claim a place as your primary residence if it isn't.
whatever laws and regulations China has around that, they aren't the ones in effect here
There is no legal framework in the USA to determine a primary residence.
> whatever laws and regulations China has around that, they aren't the ones in effect here
China has a much stronger system in place for determining and enforcing residency than the USA, if they can't do it, then how will we?
This is false: you can almost never claim a place as your primary residence in the US if it is not.
The distinction carries tax implications, which is why there is indeed law around it in the US (and why you rarely see families doing it to take advantage of already-existing first time homeowner incentives, etc.). Here's another phrasing of this:
You must occupy your primary residence by a certain date after closing, often within 60 days. You must live within your primary residence for the majority of the year[0]
> China has a much stronger system in place for determining and enforcing residency than the USA, if they can't do it, then how will we?
Maybe they do, or can, or don't, or can't, it's totally irrelevant because China's laws don't apply in the example we're discussing.
[0]: https://www.bankrate.com/real-estate/primary-residence-defin...
The most generous interpretation is they think everyone wants to be a landowner and this policy would help them.
What they think is happening: investors are buying lots of houses, which is driving up prices, so getting them out of that business would lower prices.
What's really happening: supply shortages are driving up prices, which is making housing more attractive to investors.
They pass these costs directly to the renter
The occupants pay real estate taxes
If the property tax on your $4m SFH in Palo Alto is too high, you'll be very motivated to turn it into a 4-plex. You'll go to city council meetings, and vote against single-family zoning, and fight NIMBY lawsuits.
(Or you'll have to sell to someone who will do all of the above or pay the higher tax that you can't afford)
A LVT would automatically discourage owning multiple properties unless they are all net flow positive with respect to the LVT, which would decrease vacancy.
LVT can also be adjusted to prevent rent seeking.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3304-Gillenwater-Dr-Knoxv...
Sold in 2021 for $190K. Tax assessment in 2020 was $111K; in 2021 was $28K; in 2022 was $50K. The assessed value has no obvious tight relationship to the market value.
My insurance limits are distinct and negotiated between me and the insurance company, based on the cost to rebuild, which is at best loosely correlated to the current value of the improvements.
like so many public policy, and fiscal policy decisions.. there is not one single answer. Firebrand curses at "the rich" do nothing about the serious and long-lasting effects. The truth is that in the USA, many ordinary people own very valuable assets, their home. While in other developed countries this is not the case.
Prop. 13 was very successful at doing exactly what it says on paper - locking very valuable, increasingly valuable assets, on a path of low tax. This made winners and losers. Not all the winners were "the Rich" and therefore it is useful to look more carefully at the fabric of facts.
The California proposition system is one of the most democratic institutions in the US, as it is basically a form of direct democracy. The people of California voted for prop 13 by a sizable majority. If you believe democracy is a good thing, it's hard to fault this, the people voting to limit their own taxation is basically one of the founding principles of the United States.
At its current pace, SF would take 263 years to meet 2031 housing goal:
https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/housing/at-current-permit-pa...
https://preview.redd.it/cgbziy5nq6a91.jpg?width=3000&format=...
Nothing is going to change until San Francisco (et. al) are no longer allowed to prevent houses from being built.
> The City’s failure to implement the Required Actions will result in HCD initiating the process to revoke housing element compliance. Various consequences may apply if the City does not have a housing element in compliance with Housing Element Law, including ineligibility or delay in receiving certain state funds, referral to the California Office of the Attorney General, court-imposed financial penalties, the loss of local land use authority to a court-appointed agent, and the application of the “builder’s remedy.”
https://www.hcd.ca.gov/sites/default/files/docs/policy-and-r...
> The City’s failure to implement the Required Actions will result in HCD initiating the process to revoke housing element compliance. Various consequences may apply if the City does not have a housing element in compliance with Housing Element Law, including ineligibility or delay in receiving certain state funds, referral to the California Office of the Attorney General, court-imposed financial penalties, the loss of local land use authority to a court-appointed agent, and the application of the “builder’s remedy.”
https://www.hcd.ca.gov/sites/default/files/docs/policy-and-r...
What needs to happen is a federal government problem of assistance in finding a job and relocation. Those are 2 "artificial" blocks from preventing people who are barely scraping buy in those areas to move to a cheaper COL area.
1. You can't do an in person interview or even a phone interview for a job in that area if you are expected to be at work during the day, and cant miss days
2. Traveling is expensive. Moving even more so.
Reduce the cost of those things to zero and few things happen.
Companies get access to a wider pool of candidates for free, which they will take advantage of. This will improve the rate of economic growth in remote areas .
Areas like SF will quickly start declining due to "essential" workers leaving - nurses, restaurant workers, retail, construction e.t.c. Majority of those people dont care about where they live, and will optimize for salary/col ratio, considering they can find their respective job in a lot more places.
This will directly and effectively worsen the NIMBY's lives, which is the best way to get someone to change their mind. Government officials will be up for reelection, so they will absolutely have to cater to immediate demands.
Best part is, the people will start selling their houses and moving as well, which will drive down the cost of housing quite a bit.
Also, this necessarily will increase demand for automation, which is a good thing.
If SF property owners, who pay the high property taxes that fund the city don't want more housing built, why is it right for the government to come in and tell them to do it anyway? Why is it that the property owners must be the ones who have to deal with the area they fund being changed in ways they don't want, rather than people who can't afford to live there finding something within their means as my parents did?
You seem to be under the impression that owning land in a municipality gives you the right to make decisions that affect other owners. A developer can't build what they want because a few other people object to "shade"? You can't respect the wishes of everyone like that.
> The City’s failure to implement the Required Actions will result in HCD initiating the process to revoke housing element compliance. Various consequences may apply if the City does not have a housing element in compliance with Housing Element Law, including ineligibility or delay in receiving certain state funds, referral to the California Office of the Attorney General, court-imposed financial penalties, the loss of local land use authority to a court-appointed agent, and the application of the “builder’s remedy.”
https://www.hcd.ca.gov/sites/default/files/docs/policy-and-r...
What an appropriate typo.
Additionally, density is good for the environment because it lowers emissions and lowers utility overhead. People being more spread out means more emissions resulting from transit, because everything they need to get to is farther apart. I don't know why you'd think otherwise (and you don't say).
Finally, the decisions made by San Francisco affect people other than those who live in the city. Since the foundational principle of democracy is the ability to have a say in decisions that affect you, those people deserve (and have) power over land-use decisions in San Francisco.