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NYT says don’t blame tech companies for CA housing shortage


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2019 Dec 1, 10:02am   599 views  8 comments

by tovarichpeter   ➕follow (6)   💰tip   ignore  

But don’t blame this economic crisis on the tech bros.

The spiraling housing costs in West Coast tech hubs are the result of 40 years of tax and land use policy — a period that mirrored the explosive growth of the tax-averse tech industry. This was also a time of continued activism by homeowners against higher-density zoning. Together, this has severely limited housing construction, particularly lower-cost houses and apartments. It is a chronic condition, inflamed by the current tech boom.

California’s saga began in the 1970s, when sprawling growth and spiking taxes seemed to threaten the quality of life so many came to the Golden State to find. Citizen activists created “urban growth boundaries” and land trusts to preserve open space and delicate coastal habitats. Yet these important moves also limited where developers could build new homes. Meanwhile, homebuilders chafed under what they saw as burdensome state rules about how many approvals they needed to build new housing.

Then came Proposition 13, a ballot initiative that passed in the summer of 1978 to slash property taxes. It has altered the way California has grown. By keeping property taxes low for longtime homeowners, Proposition 13 created clear winners and losers in the California housing market. “There has been a huge shift in the tax burden to young families from older homeowners and owners of businesses,” the Times noted in 1988. Cash-hungry cities opted to zone for commercial uses, which would generate sales taxes, instead of affordable housing. When houses got built, steep “impact fees” drove builders toward more expensive homes, whose buyers could absorb the costs.

Through all of this, California’s political leaders raised the alarm about housing affordability. In 1980, Gov. Jerry Brown formed an Affordable Housing Task Force, declaring that 60 percent of Californians were priced out of the market. By 1991, two-thirds of the 25 least affordable cities in the nation were in California.

There was some substantive action: In 1994, two of the state’s largest pension funds announced more than $340 million in construction loans for affordable development. But 25 years later, distressingly little has changed. California is America’s largest economy; but when its politicians have pushed to diversify its housing mix, they have been batted back by homeowners who resist new development in their neiGhborhood

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1   RWSGFY   2019 Dec 1, 10:05am  

There is no such thing as "housing crisis". Plenty of affordable housing is this country.
Can't afford to buy in Atherton? Buy in San Ramon. Can't afford San Ramon - move to Fremont. Or Stockton. Or Atlanta. Or Boise. Can't afford Boise - move to Detroit or Baltimore. Where is the fucking "crisis"? We used to be the country of highly mobile optimistic people. Are we turning into a nation of whiny bitches sitting on their asses and moaning about "crisis this" or "unaffordability that"?
2   Hircus   2019 Dec 1, 8:55pm  

Liberal_in_blackface says
There is no such thing as "housing crisis". Plenty of affordable housing is this country.
Can't afford to buy in Atherton? Buy in San Ramon. Can't afford San Ramon - move to Fremont. Or Stockton. Or Atlanta. Or Boise. Can't afford Boise - move to Detroit or Baltimore. Where is the fucking "crisis"? We used to be the country of highly mobile optimistic people. Are we turning into a nation of whiny bitches sitting on their asses and moaning about "crisis this" or "unaffordability that"?


I made this very same point to a coworker who seems to be under the socialist spell. He thinks we should enact a "living wage" so that in expensive places like the bay area, everyone can afford to live regardless of their job, because "housing is a human right".

When I countered and asked why he feels that it's a human right to live in specific locations, and specifically why they must live in the bay area - one of the worlds most expensive places - his lib circuits fried, and he couldn't support his argument. He ended up getting all angry after he made himself look really stupid by trying to justify it why its "right" to tax the hell out of the higher earning people who worked really hard and spent many years in college so that they can eventually earn a better wage, so that an uneducated burger flipper can afford a house in bay. libtard.
3   Blue   2019 Dec 2, 8:57am  

tovarichpeter says
Then came Proposition 13, a ballot initiative that passed in the summer of 1978 to slash property taxes. It has altered the way California has grown. By keeping property taxes low for longtime homeowners, Proposition 13 created clear winners and losers in the California housing market. “There has been a huge shift in the tax burden to young families from older homeowners and owners of businesses,” the Times noted in 1988. Cash-hungry cities opted to zone for commercial uses, which would generate sales taxes, instead of affordable housing. When houses got built, steep “impact fees” drove builders toward more expensive homes, whose buyers could absorb the costs.


Spot on, this is the real reason. Unless CA Proposition 13 mega entitlement Ponzi Scheme revoked, this issue keep continues.
4   Ceffer   2019 Dec 2, 10:56am  

'California Entitlement Disease': you can see it on people's faces. Sort of like the Black Friday fights for TV's. Duke it out for 'The Weather'.
5   just_passing_through   2019 Dec 2, 12:20pm  

Blue says
Spot on, this is the real reason. Unless CA Proposition 13 mega entitlement Ponzi Scheme revoked, this issue keep continues


Wrong moose breath. You burger flippers still won't be able to afford to live here.

You can thank your friendly neighborhood leftist and also yourself for your choices in life.
6   Ceffer   2019 Dec 2, 12:38pm  

Hircus says
his lib circuits fried


I love the smell of fried lib circuits in the morning.

When I foolishly commented to a guy on a local blog who complained that he lived in Santa Cruz all his life, but could not find rental at affordable cost after landlord decided to sell his home, I simply suggested he go somewhere more affordable. There are Santa Cruz natives who have spent their lives NIMBYing up the wazoo and practicing parochial lib politics combined with the customary exclusion clauses, and wonder why they can't afford to live there any more. Boy, did that suggestion bring the insane and the delusional out of the woodworks. It was a hurricane of entitled LibbyFuck diatribe.
7   just_passing_through   2019 Dec 2, 1:13pm  

I hope they stay there in their damn tents and never save the dough to move. We don't need this cancer to become malignant.

I'd like there to be something left for me to move to after I get done just_passing_through.
8   Blue   2019 Dec 3, 1:14am  

OccasionalCortex says
Prop 13 has nothing to do with the zoning and building code practices that restricts construction of affordable housing. It is just an excuse and a very crappy one, logically.


If Prop 13 mega entitlement Ponzi Scheme is out, prices will be controlled by 1% tax, that will make a lot more affordable to many people. No need of government "affordable housing" sugar coating programs. Without entitlements money flow of 10s of billions $ every year, who got the time, interest and incentives to work on zoning, NIMBY etc. that most of them are the derivatives of Prop 13. The only looser are the top of the Ponzi Scheme pyramid recipients who will end up paying 1% tax like most of us.

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