4 Years Trying to Get Approval to Turn SF Laundromat into Apartment Building(reason.com)
reason.com
4 Years Trying to Get Approval to Turn SF Laundromat into Apartment Building
http://reason.com/blog/2018/02/21/san-francisco-man-has-spent-4-years-1-mi
8 comments
How can you evict owners? Are 600 people behind with their payments?
Does UK have an analogue to the "eminent domain"?
Stories like these are why I am led to believe that more and more regulations actually hurt the little guy. Big corporations do not fear more regulations. They can afford the lobbyists to influence politicians to write loopholes, the consultants to jump through the right hoops, and the lawyers to get them off the hook. What can little startups do? Hope that they can raise millions in series A, I suppose.
Big corps don't fear regulations, they fear competition. Big corps (I have read elsewhere) /want/ more regulations, because it raises the barrier of entry for the little guys to compete with them. They can afford a tightly-regulated world but little guys cannot.
Google this: Corporations love regulations. Lots of examples.
Big corps don't fear regulations, they fear competition. Big corps (I have read elsewhere) /want/ more regulations, because it raises the barrier of entry for the little guys to compete with them. They can afford a tightly-regulated world but little guys cannot.
Google this: Corporations love regulations. Lots of examples.
SF is notoriously anti-chain though, so even corporations can't seem to open or build new stores in SF. I'm sure many construction companies/apartment complex owners would love to build more in SF as well and can't do it either.
This reminds me of another struggle in SF to get an ice-cream parlor approved.
"The NYT's Scott James recounts the insane red-tape endured by Juliet Pries, an entrepreneur who decided to open an ice-cream parlour in San Francisco's Cole Valley. She had to pay rent on an empty storefront for over two years while the necessary permits were processed, and tens of thousands of dollars in fees (including the cost of producing a detailed map of nearby businesses, which the city itself seemed not to have)."
https://boingboing.net/2012/02/04/on-the-horrors-of-getting-...
"The NYT's Scott James recounts the insane red-tape endured by Juliet Pries, an entrepreneur who decided to open an ice-cream parlour in San Francisco's Cole Valley. She had to pay rent on an empty storefront for over two years while the necessary permits were processed, and tens of thousands of dollars in fees (including the cost of producing a detailed map of nearby businesses, which the city itself seemed not to have)."
https://boingboing.net/2012/02/04/on-the-horrors-of-getting-...
San Francisco certainly has its share of self-righteous, self-important, holier-than-thou types.
I grew up and live in Indianapolis. It's only happened a handful of times, but while visiting San Francisco someone would say, "I'm sorry," after hearing that I live in a "flyover state." Of course, these folks weren't from San Francisco either. (I think I've only met one or two actual natives of San Francisco.) This has also happened in New York City.
I don't mean to tarnish the people of San Francisco, though, because I love visiting SF and the people there are the nicest I've ever met, anywhere.
I also understand that people want to preserve what good they have going on there, though, but I often wonder if this is because they're thinking about the greater good; or, some other self-satisfying motive.
I grew up and live in Indianapolis. It's only happened a handful of times, but while visiting San Francisco someone would say, "I'm sorry," after hearing that I live in a "flyover state." Of course, these folks weren't from San Francisco either. (I think I've only met one or two actual natives of San Francisco.) This has also happened in New York City.
I don't mean to tarnish the people of San Francisco, though, because I love visiting SF and the people there are the nicest I've ever met, anywhere.
I also understand that people want to preserve what good they have going on there, though, but I often wonder if this is because they're thinking about the greater good; or, some other self-satisfying motive.
The coasts are like that. Growing up in D.C., if you had told high-school me that Chicago was far larger than D.C. I would've been floored. Illinois is just a "flyover state" right?
Chicago is the major interior city of the US, and has been for well over a hundred years. I also grew up in the DC area, and I was never under any illusion that Chicago wasn't a small city (visiting Chicago every Christmas may have helped).
Of course, if you go by CSA, DC's CSA will become larger than Chicago's in the next few years, if it hasn't already.
Of course, if you go by CSA, DC's CSA will become larger than Chicago's in the next few years, if it hasn't already.
Well, obviously people who already own apartments nearby don't want values of their own ones - mostly purchased on mortgage - to fall, because it could ruin their retirement.
Within the democratic society, there is no fix for this problem.
Within the democratic society, there is no fix for this problem.
The other democratic societies who have solved this problem seem to belie your claim. The issue here is that the unit of democracy for this problem is too local.
Simple fix: even MORE strict zoning and ban of private ownership on individual apartments. They all will be owner by the city itself and rented out.
Basically, back to Soviet Union.
Basically, back to Soviet Union.
That is a bad idea. The Soviet Union was a shitty place to live, and its economic policies were disastrous. As I pointed out in the comment you're replying to, this problem has already been well-solved by simply expanding the locus of control for zoning so that the interests served by it are more global.
That's what i meant. Sacking democracy and market economy to fix these things is an overkill and there is hardly a better way.
European cities try to fix it in a half-Commie way: try to keep as many apartment buildings in public property and lease them subsidized, with rental contracts dating from early post-WWII days and passed as inheritance. Same thing: keep the place to incumbents - only with no ability to cash out.
European cities try to fix it in a half-Commie way: try to keep as many apartment buildings in public property and lease them subsidized, with rental contracts dating from early post-WWII days and passed as inheritance. Same thing: keep the place to incumbents - only with no ability to cash out.
I'm not sure a few extra apartments in a city of thousands and thousands is going to reduce the value of anything nearby by any appreciable amount?
Got any data about it?
From my experience in London prices just keep on going up and up (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-house-price-index-hpi-...) despite adding more and more (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/house-prices/london-hous...) apart from more recently, but that is due to brexit - for years and years prior to brexit the prices just kept on going up despite new blocks of apartments being built everywhere they could find an old petrol station or pub or old school or house-with-unusually-large-garden they could knock down and replace with a block of 30-40 apartments.
There may obviously wider economic factors going in to this - i.e. construction because prices are going up, but I suspect SF will be very similar in this regard.
Got any data about it?
From my experience in London prices just keep on going up and up (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-house-price-index-hpi-...) despite adding more and more (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/house-prices/london-hous...) apart from more recently, but that is due to brexit - for years and years prior to brexit the prices just kept on going up despite new blocks of apartments being built everywhere they could find an old petrol station or pub or old school or house-with-unusually-large-garden they could knock down and replace with a block of 30-40 apartments.
There may obviously wider economic factors going in to this - i.e. construction because prices are going up, but I suspect SF will be very similar in this regard.
> I'm not sure a few extra apartments in a city of thousands and thousands is going to reduce the value of anything nearby by any appreciable amount?
No shit it won't. We need vastly more housing. But you're just being defeatist if your attitude is to give up if you are unable to construct enough to get prices to drop. You are letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
No shit it won't. We need vastly more housing. But you're just being defeatist if your attitude is to give up if you are unable to construct enough to get prices to drop. You are letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
My attitude is not to give up. Of course there needs to be more housing built.
The problem is, where do you build? Sounds like in this article there is a prime spot that is redeveloping a brownfield site - fine.
But eventually you start running out of space. Eventually you need to build elsewhere - you cant simply just keep on piling more and more and more and density into a city. There is already a trend in London of literally piling on more density by adding additional floors to existing apartment buildings (https://www.theguardian.com/money/2000/may/21/observercashse...). How many times can you build on-top of an existing building? Eventually the amount of land runs out, especially in a tiny little mini-city like SF.
I think it is when density gets "too high" that the NIMBY problems start to kick in - e.g. in my area in inner-outer-London on-street parking space is already super-competitive and local services like doctors and the tube are already super-busy, yet then we got a proposed development of adding 6000 (six thousand!) 2-and-3 bed apartments with zero parking spaces allocated, and absolutely zero money or effort going into improving the local infrastructure - no new schools, no new doctors, no new libraries, no new bus stops/routes, no new improvements to tube stations. You cant just add 12,000-18,000 new people into a local area and expect no one to own a car or need to go to the doctors etc etc. It is this kind of density-overload that understandably gets people pissed off.
In the UK, the effort needs to go beyond just building more and more and more AND MORE apartments in London, but to also include persuading employers to not be in London and investing in decent infrastructure elsewhere where there is space. I suspect it is the same for SF and a lot of employers in the valley. The employers say they are there because the talent is there, and the talent say they are there because the employees are there. Someone needs to make the first move.
The problem is, where do you build? Sounds like in this article there is a prime spot that is redeveloping a brownfield site - fine.
But eventually you start running out of space. Eventually you need to build elsewhere - you cant simply just keep on piling more and more and more and density into a city. There is already a trend in London of literally piling on more density by adding additional floors to existing apartment buildings (https://www.theguardian.com/money/2000/may/21/observercashse...). How many times can you build on-top of an existing building? Eventually the amount of land runs out, especially in a tiny little mini-city like SF.
I think it is when density gets "too high" that the NIMBY problems start to kick in - e.g. in my area in inner-outer-London on-street parking space is already super-competitive and local services like doctors and the tube are already super-busy, yet then we got a proposed development of adding 6000 (six thousand!) 2-and-3 bed apartments with zero parking spaces allocated, and absolutely zero money or effort going into improving the local infrastructure - no new schools, no new doctors, no new libraries, no new bus stops/routes, no new improvements to tube stations. You cant just add 12,000-18,000 new people into a local area and expect no one to own a car or need to go to the doctors etc etc. It is this kind of density-overload that understandably gets people pissed off.
In the UK, the effort needs to go beyond just building more and more and more AND MORE apartments in London, but to also include persuading employers to not be in London and investing in decent infrastructure elsewhere where there is space. I suspect it is the same for SF and a lot of employers in the valley. The employers say they are there because the talent is there, and the talent say they are there because the employees are there. Someone needs to make the first move.
I do expect no one in the area to own a car. Cars only work in rural and suburban settings.
Regarding your last paragraph, you basically just said this: https://i.redditmedia.com/ym0Xv9Jc_nVYFEsL6G5LPN07oziNzrU2ZF...
There is no doubt that as more people move to a city, services have to scale up with them. San Francisco does have ample room to build more buildings. The article at the top demonstrates this. Cities can never be 'full'. No one in San Francisco is complaining that they can't get an appointment at a doctor's office. You are pulling that out of your behind. Under that logic, no cities would exist at all because they never would have been able to develop from detached single-story buildings. The fact that we do have some cities with at least medium sized buildings clearly demonstrate that your concerns about change are unfounded.
Growing pains are inevitable and necessary.
Regarding your last paragraph, you basically just said this: https://i.redditmedia.com/ym0Xv9Jc_nVYFEsL6G5LPN07oziNzrU2ZF...
There is no doubt that as more people move to a city, services have to scale up with them. San Francisco does have ample room to build more buildings. The article at the top demonstrates this. Cities can never be 'full'. No one in San Francisco is complaining that they can't get an appointment at a doctor's office. You are pulling that out of your behind. Under that logic, no cities would exist at all because they never would have been able to develop from detached single-story buildings. The fact that we do have some cities with at least medium sized buildings clearly demonstrate that your concerns about change are unfounded.
Growing pains are inevitable and necessary.
A national land value tax would fix it. The tax could be phased in slowly so that property prices have time to adjust downward. When it costs NIMBYs money to NIMBY they'll eventually stop.
It's surprising that San Francisco isn't doing a laundry assessment evaluating whether anyone became dependent on the historic launderette.
This sounds so ridiculous I have a hard time believing the issue isn't being misrepresented. Does anyone have the other side on this?
It’s axiomatically true to a broad and well-organized segment of the San Francisco polity that multifamily residential development is an unqualified evil: accelerations gentrification, ruins the aesthetics, worsens traffic, tightens the parking situation, etc. The reasons they give are sometimes absurd because the particular reasons to oppose a project don’t matter. It’s development - in particular, residential development in the Mission - therefore it must be stopped by any means necessary.
If you google for robert tillman san francisco, there are lots of news stories. While the reason article is certainly written with a certain viewpoint in mind the facts appear to be basically correct.
Whether deliberate or not, it’s sick to the core - as an example, in Bath in the UK, I’ve had a several year battle to simply carry out like-for-like repairs on a subterranean vault on my property - it’s going to collapse soon, and it’s directly under a major road - but even using 200 year old techniques with no external disruption they keep denying it. At this point I’m just going to let the arterial road through the city disappear into a hole.
Meanwhile, a neighbouring property owned by a large multinational landlord got planning permission to build an external lift on a Georgian property, and the same landlord recently won an application to evict 600 people (owners) from perfectly serviceable housing to build fewer, more expensive houses.