zzapplezz (u/zzapplezz)

zzapplezz commented on 54% of San Francisco homes are in buildings that would be illegal to build today sfzoning.deapthoughts.com... · Posted by u/undefined1

antattack · 5 years ago

Moving to 1200sqft minimum lot size seems reasonable but 500sqft lot is tight, with little if any outdoor space. Plus 500sqft would not be friendly to older people or people with bad knees because of stairs.

zzapplezz · 5 years ago

Your argument boils down to righteous dignity. You presume that it's below another person's dignity to live in, gasp, 500sqft. This is obviously nonsense. I've lived in less. It is important to understand that scaling down square footage is the simplest path to creating market-rate, sustainable, affordable housing

zzapplezz commented on 54% of San Francisco homes are in buildings that would be illegal to build today sfzoning.deapthoughts.com... · Posted by u/undefined1

Robelius · 5 years ago

Reading *Golden Gates* by Conor Dougherty right now! If anyone is deciding on a book to read about the history of housing policies, then I recommend it to anyone in California over *The Color of Law* (which is also a great book).

Does a great job of painting how decades of decision making led to this point despite decades of warnings.

zzapplezz · 5 years ago

Seconded. Well researched goodie. He spoke with a wide variety of sources to get his data right. From essentially homeless to Eli Broad - the B in KB Homes.

zzapplezz commented on 54% of San Francisco homes are in buildings that would be illegal to build today sfzoning.deapthoughts.com... · Posted by u/undefined1

shados · 5 years ago

You zone for what you want to build, not what is there already. The later wouldn't make any sense.

The arguments generally given are to show that we're preventing building for density, pointing out NIMBYism, etc, but even if we were doing the polar opposite, the same would be true:

If you have a town that's all single family, and zoning rules pass that any and all buildings MUST be 3+ stories, then all the existing houses wouldn't be allowed under current zoning laws. The fact that they're not allowed under current zoning rules is irrelevant. The question is only if the new zoning rules are good for what you want to see or not.

zzapplezz · 5 years ago

Straw man - generally the idea of YIMBYism is to be more inclusionary, so that 3+ stories is allowed not required.

In contrast, SFH-only zoning is exclusionary.

zzapplezz commented on YouTube Down downdetector.com/status/y... · Posted by u/sslalready

zzapplezz · 5 years ago

IT'S BACK

zzapplezz · 5 years ago

Perhaps context will help: Pacific Northwest (PNW) here.

Seattle.

EDITs: More specific in location.

zzapplezz commented on YouTube Down downdetector.com/status/y... · Posted by u/sslalready

zzapplezz · 5 years ago

IT'S BACK

zzapplezz commented on A Little Money Laundering Can Have a Big Impact on Real Estate Prices (2019) betterdwelling.com/how-a-... · Posted by u/throw0101a

conanbatt · 5 years ago

housing is not finite

zzapplezz · 5 years ago

With enough zoning it absolutely is, not to mention the lead time required to permit and actually build it. Once built depreciation kicks in - housing isn't permanent. It's a consumable.

zzapplezz commented on A Little Money Laundering Can Have a Big Impact on Real Estate Prices (2019) betterdwelling.com/how-a-... · Posted by u/throw0101a

dcolkitt · 5 years ago

Question for people more knowledgeable than me? Why doesn't this result in dirt-cheap rents across Canada?

Sure a bunch of hot-money can easily bid up asset prices. But at the same time it should also drive down yields on those assets. Like you say, the vast majority of these houses aren't being lived in. Nor are the owners sensitive to returns. Why don't more of them put their dwellings up for rent, flooding the rental market and driving down prices?

zzapplezz · 5 years ago

The answer is because a resource is at play that is finite: land.

If all the productive land in an urban area is effectively owned by foreign investors and left to sit, then renters bid up the remaining dwellings until they're priced out of the area. It also becomes more expensive to build in that area so the housing stock can't keep up with demand. It's terrible to let a vital commodity lay to waste.

zzapplezz commented on Why American cities can’t keep up with infrastructure maintenance (2017) strongtowns.org/journal/2... · Posted by u/lifeisstillgood

mitch3x3 · 5 years ago

Rural/suburban folks tend to own homes, and property owners vote more than renters do.

zzapplezz · 5 years ago

They also tend to move less and stay in the same district for a large percentage of their lives. It's a lot easier to vote if you only need to sign up once and the same process applies. If you're young and mobile, you're changing cities/counties/states and therefore less likely to keep up with the different races.

zzapplezz commented on Los Angeles hid power plant methane leak for a year latimes.com/environment/s... · Posted by u/AndrewBissell

yboris · 5 years ago

Why can't we have a government-funded system that pays out to any whistle-blower some proportional amount of money (proportional to the damages they prevent)?

This would align the incentive system very quickly!

zzapplezz · 5 years ago

For good actors. Brings to mind the Cobra Effect:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect

zzapplezz commented on California to Require All New Vehicles Be Zero-Emission by 2035 bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/pseudolus

echelon · 5 years ago

Has the problem of having to recharge rapidly been solved?

What if I need to drive somewhere in a hurry but my car isn't charged?

What if there's a power outage or I forget to plug in my car overnight?

I'm not saying these are blockers, but they're not convenient.

zzapplezz · 5 years ago

> What if there's a power outage or I forget to plug in my car overnight?

Is making a trip to a gas station just to fill your car up a good use of time? Or is it better to accept responsibility and make sure you've plugged it in at home? Have you ever forgotten to fill up your gas tank and been stuck on the road? C'mon.

u/zzapplezz

KarmaCake day34April 22, 2020View Original