S.F. dropped its housing failures on this California city's lap | Hacker News Reader

S.F. dropped its housing failures on this California city's lap

sfchronicle.com

26 pointskqr224 comments

Because "this California city" is shorter than "Sacramento"? Anyway, that's the answer to the question you were hoping the article would quickly answer, and didn't.

Yes. (kqr2, the newspaper uses clickbait titles but here on HN you don't have to.)

Well the headline is more bad because it doesn’t actually reflect the article very well - that’s why it only gets to that particular phrase about Sac so late in the article.

The article is actually how S.F. sups are still playing chicken with the state’s threats to decert SF’s housing plan, and contrasts SFs behavior of acting like housing is pulling teeth vs Sac wanting to make housing.

The headline here is ludicrous clickbait. The article is mostly about San Francisco dragging its feet (like many cities in CA) on housing obligations.

There's a couple sentences about Sacramento going beyond its obligations, and then the weak connection that this means San Francisco is dumping its problems on Sacramento, rather than just Sacramento being more aggressive about dealing with its own problems.

> “I don’t know that picking an unnecessary fight with San Francisco would be helpful to (the state’s) cause,” said Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who authored two of the amendments — including a particularly dubious one to make it harder to demolish thousands of homes built before 1923 with no clear historic significance.

All of the city's authority comes from state law, and I don't see why the state puts up with any of this. Maybe it would be politically fraught, but the state could remove the authority of cities to do things like this.

> All of the city's authority comes from state law, and I don't see why the state puts up with any of this.

It doesn't come all come from "state law" of the type the legislature is free to change, it comes from the State Constitution and/or initiative statute, either of which takes a statewide public vote on the specific measure to change.

Also, the same people that vote for the local officials that are resistant to housing measures vote for state officials, and they aren't much less overrepresented at the state level -- its not a uniquely SF issue.

That said, more to the point:

> Maybe it would be politically fraught, but the state could remove the authority of cities to do things like this.

The entire issue in the article is San Francisco pushing the limits of, and arguably exceeding, its authority under existing law; the State has already restricted the authority of local government in this area.

> the State has already restricted the authority of local government in this area.

What I mean is: instead of the state penalizing San Francisco for unreasonable restrictions on development, the state could invalidate those restrictions.

Yes, the builder’s remedy sort of does this, but it’s an odd, indirect solution.

The HCD plan for San Francisco is here.

https://www.hcd.ca.gov/sites/default/files/docs/policy-and-r...

If you’re curious what the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) is for your county or city you can find it here.

https://www.hcd.ca.gov/planning-and-community-development/ho...

11 paragraph in, the answer is, apparently, Sacramento.

If it’s more expensive to own than rent in SF, why not just rent? Why does everyone have crowd into SF to own a house?

Why does SF have a responsibility to become more crowded? Shouldn’t a city be focused on doing what’s best for current homeowners - the ones that actually have skin in the game. Why not move somewhere with a lower cost of living?

Tell that to the service staff who commute hours for their jobs in SF and have no shot at ever having a stable future because of the prohibitive cost. They should just move… and be unemployed, since that’s not a problem.

Yeah. I’ve moved for a job. My parents did too. So did my grandparents.

Misery truly loves company

They have a responsibility to the population as a whole, a majority of which rent their own housing

SF does not exist in a vacuum. How many people that work in SF don't live there? But they still contribute to the city's economy, to the companies that are based there and pay taxes to the city. Why shouldn't they get some say with what happens in SF, even if they don't live there?

One of the points this article tries to make (somewhat badly) is that SF's housing policy affects other cities too.

Wait, since my plumber pays taxes to the city, he should get a say in my neighborhood’s zoning? Or Amazon?

No thanks.

Wait, since you pay taxes to the city, you should get a say in my plot’s zoning?

No thanks.

Well, to some degree yes. Because in reality they already do have a say -- if your plumber is getting shafted in CoL and moves out of your area, you might need to find a new plumber. If most of the plumbers do that, the remaining ones will be able to charge higher prices to you. So eventually, you're either going to be paying your plumber a lot more, or not able to even hire one.

It might not directly affect the zoning of your neighborhood, but it's going to affect the makeup and composition of it. And eventually, that will also affect the zoning.

The city has a responsibility to those that exist.

SF tried its strategy of allowing almost no housing to be built. That policy has been a failuer. And the city is supposed to serve its residents? You mean all those residents that moved away because they couldn't afford it anymore? Failing to build housing actually ultimately hurts the existing residents in the long term

Two reasons: 1) it's bad long-term (the doom loop exists because no one can get skin in the game, and all of the houses are owned by people who see it as a physical 401k) 2) SF is damaging the region, by being a bad citizen and hoarding all of the investment that has been poured into it in the last 40 years. Think of it as a museum that suddenly jacks the price of admission up by 10000% because some billionaire bought it and wants it to be their private collection.

>“ Shouldn’t a city be focused on doing what’s best for current homeowners”

The landed gentry do have an outsized clout in city government don’t they. Anyway last I checked, The USA opening up voting beyond just landowners quite some time ago so the cities should have gotten the memo that’s residents not owning property need to be listened to too. SF basically ignores renters best interests when it comes to land use.

I’m not landed gentry but I live there and would like more housing built - more of the missing middle.

It’s in its best interest. Do San Fransisco homeowners enjoy homelessness and the violence and crime that comes with it?

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