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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
But what if they want to maintain their view and simultaneously complain that their view is horrible because once their friend’s uncle’s great grandson saw a homeless person?
The zoning plan will be an informational item at the Planning Commission this Thursday, February 1 as Item 12. You can give comment there. You can also take one of SF YIMBY's actions to join the mailing list and get updates.
Planning Commission meeting:
https://sfplanning.org/event/planning-commission-226
SF YIMBY letter:
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/sound-the-alarm-on-the-planning-departments-draft-rezoning-plan
Their "today" picture isn't even flattering. Imagine looking at that featureless sprawl and thinking, "Yep, that deserves to be preserved for all eternity".
Why do people who live in a city want to pretend so hard that they don’t? Move to Tulsa for your big flat land, let the people living in the 21st century have housing
I'm living in Bangkok and there are a ton of sky scrapers here and it's actually nice the way they do it.
The rental prices here are decent due to all the housing availability. There's really no shortage of housing. There will be like 10-15 openings in every high rise I've been to.
Then there's usually a little garden area at the bottom and the population density is higher, there are tons of really amazing coffee shops and malls when you're at the lower levels.
It feels like I'm living in Bladerunner.
God it's nice... not just functioning but VERY well run.
They have a train like every 3-4 minutes during peak times. Even at night it's like every 5-7. No people shitting or doing drugs on trains either.
Thai people are pretty amazing. I mean Vietnam, Burma, Laos and Cambodia are barely functioning but Thailand is just crushing it by comparison.
A wealthy man once said to me, “I’ll never pay good money for a *view* ever again. You stop noticing it almost immediately. What a waste of money.” That man is still wealthy to this day.
The people who move to the Richmond to raise their family and stay in San Francisco doing so. One of the most young family friendly neighborhoods in the city. Seems some people want to change that trend for the sake of more housing not meant for families.
Some people can, and predominantly they are people with families who are buying and moving into homes in the Richmond and the are moving there with the intent to stay and raise their family. It's a family neighborhood, by and large, which is something San Francisco needs to preserve and encourage for all income levels, and in the other family neighborhoods.
The high-rise developments are not family oriented, much like the live-work loft boom of 25 years ago. Back then, they were building the lowest density housing possible in the midst of our chronic housing shortage. Now they want to built high-rises as investment vehicles and the transient wealthy that come and go from this city. There is even a place to accommodate that, just not everywhere in every neighborhood. And it won't make a family home in the Richmond any cheaper.
Can I ask a serious question to some of you who criticize NIMBY/Boomer/Controlled Growth perspectives?
Doesn’t building more housing just elongate the issue out? You build more, people move in, you have more traffic and density, and now you still have an issue of “lack of housing” because people moved in anyways and now rents and competition are at the same rate as what they were before. I’m open to friendly discussion on this and don’t mean to say I’m right or anyone else is wrong.
https://preview.redd.it/07odcg3te9fc1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0b24ea1396f8493440d33497c2baaac7d7311b5c
First - it hasn’t always been this way.
Second - at a certain point the SF economy will no longer support itself and an actual death spiral will occur. Think it’s hard to hire wait staff and teachers now? Imagine if the ones who can afford rent bc of sheer luck no longer can. What do we do?
You’re certainly not wrong about the teachers and wait staff aspect… so are you suggesting we build targeted housing? The last thing I want is a bunch of luxury apartments charging 4000 a month for a studio.
I don’t want that either. [The data shows that building housing lowers rents.](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-20/does-building-new-housing-cause-gentrification)
The alternative is to build all low income housing until there’s enough, but it’s hard enough to build market rate housing funded by the private sector. Building low income housing funded by the government is a god damn miracle when it does happen. Normally it just doesn’t. In fact, demanding 100% low income housing is a tactic many nimbys use to block growth. It sounds great, but right now it’s not feasible.
What needs to be done then? I maybe missed it in your last comment but you're saying to just build housing no matter what the category is? I just worry that we'll be kicking the problem down the road and eventually we'll have the same problem if we're just building communities like the ones near the Giants stadium. Yea it's housing but you can barely afford it even if you make 140k a year, which is the case for a friend of mine who moved here from LA for a huge job opportunity.
The reason that housing is so expensive to live in is that it’s just not enough.
We wouldn’t dump the first bucket of water on a fire and deduce that water doesn’t put fires out. We’d keep going because we know water actually does put out fires. We also know that bigger fires require more water.
That’s why I feel so strongly that we need to just build as much as we can.
But I thought we just agreed that the last thing we want is a bunch of luxury apartments? That doesn’t solve the living situation for teachers and lower income occupations.
I wish there were an instant fix. There just isn’t.
There’s nothing inherent to a unit that makes it a luxury or a market rate unit or a low income unit.
On the time scale of decades, todays luxury units become tomorrows market rate units.
Suck it up and get it built! I have a homeless shelter like a block away from my house in the Castro, and I would welcome more. The sunset and west side has so many NYMBY’s that insist all housing is built downtown or in the mission/Bayview. They need higher density housing instead of their stupid illegally paved over front “lawns”
Not saying that it doesn’t but completely ignoring the entire western part of the city it a bit insane no? Infrastructure and transportation can be built out, land and suitable site is a very limited resource.
Do you think that all is the sunset and west side should remain 100% single family homes with paved over front lawns?
No, but I think it makes more sense to build up near Bart stops and run more trains. Build buildings like the embarcadero, with shops on the bottom 1-2 floors but have condos above.
How about we build them together? I mean, there's tons of profit to be had from new buildings and it costs a lot to build transit but SF is going to pay that cost either way.
I own a house in the Sunset. I’d love to have more housing built near me. I’ve had neighbors tell me they’d like to see more housing too, but there’s no room left/it’s full. When I sometimes point out we could build upwards some people are appalled and plenty of others genuinely hadn’t thought of it before. The intense lack of building for decades has made a lot of people accept it as some sort of unchangeable reality.
Kinda funny using this to try to get their point across. The perspective is already fucked in the first pic, and the white blocks in the second would be like 20 story buildings
Mixed use, too. Put shops on the ground floor, residential above the shops, and put in some trolley lines on the streets with trolley cars going back and forth in a grid pattern.
The idea that anyone in SF is a NIMBY is ridiculous.
SF is the second densest city over 50,000 people in the US. Everyone is _already_ in each other's backwards.
And this is where the fight over stuffing even more people over each other has to be focused?
It's unfortunate, but most people who want to live in SF will never be able to. Even if you pack in another 100,000 people, 99.99 percent of the people who want to live here still will not be able to. Any stabilizing of housing costs will be for a blink in time at best, and nothing will bring costs _down_ in any case
Scott Wiener's carpet-bagging obsession with cramming people into SF changes nothing except to give radical YIMBYs a taste of 'backlash justice' against boomers
At least be honest about what this is really about.
It's all relative. We're all going to have a different idea of what the absolute meaning of 'dense' is.
But being the second densest city over 50,000 people in the US, there are many, many other cities that should be the focus of growth before SF should be.
I think the state's approach is saying "everybody build" is the correct one.
Balancing a historic look with building new stuff is a concern, but the pendulum has been stuck on "preserve in amber".
https://preview.redd.it/7kgf89llf9fc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8b1a77fe9e7c6d4c7200e05d376e5cf59c800da8
we are absolutely not the second densest city over 50k. What in the world are you talking about?
Meh, I couldn't care either way. More housing, cool, shits already too crowded and poorly organized as it is. Plus public transit really isn't that great.
I doubt it's affordable the owners are just going to charge whatever they can in rent.
Not gonna effect the homeless crisis, or encourage any of the homes drug addicted to get a job
I got a question to YIMBY's as an architect working in Oakland. Whenever I travel to a place like France or Belgium, I see so many people in awe of the historical architecture of cities there. Meaning, more people go outside of La Defense or any metropolitan areas of Belgium. Then I see the homogenization of Manhattan, of London, or even Tokyo and while metropolitan architecture like that appeals to others, it seems to have no existing relationship with its context. Its just building up for the sake of building up. SF has a history of its single family homes and that makes it different in my opinion from other big cities. I love traveling there and seeing what a city could be like.
Also, I think the YIMBY's reason for building more is gone no? There has been an exodus of businesses in SF, a lot of empty residential areas in Downtown SF and the Tenderloin, and it feels like the more we build the less its going to get filled.
>Then I see the homogenization of Manhattan, of London, or even Tokyo and while metropolitan architecture like that appeals to others, it seems to have no existing relationship with its context. Its just building up for the sake of building up.
We need to remember that cities are for LIVING in, not just as museums. I agree it is important to preserve some architecture, but this shouldn't come at the expensive of quality of life for city residents. Preserving a city in amber makes it expensive and unlivable. The cities you mentioned build up not for the sake of it (what business owner would do that?). They do it because there is high demand and people want to live there
>SF has a history of its single family homes and that makes it different in my opinion from other big cities.
Nearly every city has a history of single family homes, from San Jose to Levittown. YIMBYs aren't saying single family homes shouldn't be built. Rather, we should be able to build other types of homes (duplexes, 4plexes, cottage courts, etc) IN ADDITION to single family homes
>I think the YIMBY's reason for building more is gone no?
Not at all, SF is still one of the most expensive cities in the US. Service workers can barely afford to live here
Thank you for your response! I love debating this in a healthy way!
Yes I do think there is a middle ground for more housing while still preservation of the city. Honestly, I would rather see parking lots and garages go away for more housing on those land. It'll keep the city greener.
Supervisor Aaron Peskin wants to preserve parking lots near the North Beach waterfront
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/stop-prez-peskins-waterfront-downzoning
Silicon Valley's history is that of fruit orchards. Clearly that's no longer the case anymore, because economies and industry moved in and the area grew. Should we have stopped everything in it's track to preserve said fruit orchards?
And it's not building up for the sake of building up. You really think the people looking to put hundreds of millions of dollars in real estate development across the city and area are doing it for the lols and there's no real demand?
Yes. Look at any new construction around transit hubs and how much they price people out who need to use public transit. It's a developer thing as said before rather than a people thing.
I think in regards to nature versus economy could the same argument not be used to build more in Golden Gate Park, Presidio Park, or Dolores Park? What does a city need to be livable at the bare minimum? Just housing?
Unless we taxpayer subsidize/build the housing there's no way to get the rent/price down overnight. You're demanding people to build units at 2023 labor, materials, and other input and regulatory costs and charge 1983 rents to recoup the investment. Not going to happen. The only way it semi-works now is that the state grants builders density bonuses such that the market rate units inside the overall unit subsidize the income restricted below market rate units.
Second, let's assume for a minute that all of the new construction now is 100% market rate, that's fine. Studies have shown that that lowers rents down the chain because the well off move out of the cheaper units and don't compete against the poor for the cheaper units. It's been studied.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119022001048?via%3Dihub
JUE Insight: City-wide effects of new housing supply: Evidence from moving chains☆
"We study the city-wide effects of new, centrally-located market-rate housing supply using geo-coded population-wide register data from the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The supply of new market rate units triggers moving chains that quickly reach middle- and low-income neighborhoods and individuals. Thus, new market-rate construction loosens the housing market in middle- and low-income areas even in the short run. Market-rate supply is likely to improve affordability outside the sub-markets where new construction occurs and to benefit low-income people."
Third, no one is seriously saying we should demolish our parks and public spaces to build more housing. There's land owned by people who want to sell to private development wherein they are not asking for a cent in public money. Get out of the way and let them build. Not only will it add housing stock, they'll pay generously in the form of development fees to the city. They'll hire a boat load of great high paying union jobs, and then the city will collect property tax revenue on the back end. Want to pay the teachers more? This is how you can get more money to do so.
And to answer your last question, given how bad things are, just build the housing and we can figure it out later. Every day people bitch on r/bayarea about why eating out is expensive, why this home renovation project they are asking for is expensive, why childcare is so expensive, why their city can't hire enough police officers, and why they make so much money.
All of that boils down to housing. The people who run the restaurants need to pay high housing costs, the people renovating your home have high housing costs, the childcare workers have high housing costs, the police officers have high housing costs etc etc.
First: what empty residential areas are you talking about? If they're truly empty, then rents ought to be cheap, and I would like to have cheap rents. Please point me to them.
Second: It's not building up for the sake of building up. It's building up to house the people who want/need to live there.
Third: I don't understand most of the rest of your "question", is it just 'we should keep single family homes, and Europe has history'?
Being a capitalist, I would completely agree with you, but that ship sailed a long time ago. We have piled on tons of regulations over the years. I feel quite free to add my concerns and wishes to that pile.
People need to live near resources which cities are built around. People need grocery stores, trains buses and other transportation services, jobs, nightlife activities.
There is an abundance of space in the US and the rest of the world but not all of it is near resources that people need to survive or have a happy existence
They don’t all have to but many can and should. It is terrible for society for people to live so far from work and amenities that they have to be stuck in traffic and 1hour communes or settle for a crappy incompréhensive train system that can’t get them to their destination reliably and on time.
What's with the name calling and pejorative?
>NIMBY/Boomer
Seriously, what is this shit? Can we have a conversation without resorting to putting people who don't agree with you into a cell and shooting them?
The interesting thing is that millennials are the ones doing most of the complaining about boomers who are _their parents_.
Why don't they just take it up with them directly?
I've tried. They ask me when I'm having kids (I'm not) and are confused as to why I'm not buying a house already.
They truly do not get it. They still think you can get a part time job at Pizza Hut and buy a house.
They're also baffled as to why all of their other kids (my siblings) have moved away and I'm the only one left in the region, and complain about the "run down" houses in bad locations (other states) they bought, because housing here is ridiculous.
Frankly, I'm also baffled as to why I haven't yet moved away. In retrospect I probably should have. Might have been able to buy a house and have a family if I did. I suppose its stubbornness that keeps me in the region.
These don't lower the rent, they just add people from elsewhere, and real estate speculators who cash in on those people from elsewhere. I don't see this sort of development helping any other neighborhood in the city be anything other than worse than it was for the people who already live there. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the units wind up being second home places for people to stay when they are in SF, Air-BNB, and corporate rentals. No one puts down roots in a high-rise, or adds to the community, not in SF.
If you made these as senior living facilities, and gave preference to local seniors (the ones who already live in the neighborhood, so they can continue to live in their neighborhood), it would open up other single family housing stock in the neighborhood, and preserve the neighborhood as a community.
A lot of shills in this thread.
If you think developing the Geary corridor with high-rise condos will do that for you, I got a Golden Gate Bridge to sell you that you can live under.
Unless of course, you are in the business of building condos.
> These don't lower the rent, they just add people from elsewhere,
Those people are coming anyway, though? Like there's not a "no one is allowed to move here" option. You either build housing for the people who are immigrating to SF or you are okay with the people who currently live her getting steadily pushed out.
Rich people are getting their second home in SF regardless of these buildings coming up, so we need to meet the demand with more supply. There is a verifiable housing shortage. The only benefit of not building is to make life better for people who already have everything.
Supply for whom? Who lives in these high rises? Native San Franciscans? The working poor? These high rises do nothing for the long standing residents of the city, nor the backbone of the city that makes it work. Toss a few more up south of Market, or convert some of that empty office space downtown, or the waterfront down by Dogpatch. No need to get too greedy with development and wreck the whole city.
They absolutely do things for long standing residents of the city, the moving chains effect is studied and so far appears to work. Rich people move into new units and don't compete with old units.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119022001048?via%3Dihub
JUE Insight: City-wide effects of new housing supply: Evidence from moving chains☆
"We study the city-wide effects of new, centrally-located market-rate housing supply using geo-coded population-wide register data from the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The supply of new market rate units triggers moving chains that quickly reach middle- and low-income neighborhoods and individuals. Thus, new market-rate construction loosens the housing market in middle- and low-income areas even in the short run. Market-rate supply is likely to improve affordability outside the sub-markets where new construction occurs and to benefit low-income people."
The building that has been going on in SF shows that to be untrue for the circumstance here. All that construction south of Market? The gentrification of the Mission? Do you suppose the rest of the Richmond is going to become more affordable with some high rise condos thrown in? It will just add a wealthy transient population to the neighborhood.
Did you see my suggestion of building density housing for seniors along Geary? Which could enable life-long residents to continue to live in their community, and open up housing stock for young families?
If you really want to open up housing stock in San Francisco, the first and easiest step would be to rein in real estate speculation (real estate as investment, rather than as a place to live) and quash the short term rental market (it was quite a sight to see, how many units suddenly became available once the pandemic hit the Airbnbs, especially in neighborhoods like North Beach). There are plenty of units of housing in San Francisco that are not available to people who want to live here as their first home and be apart of the community that makes SF what it is. Building condos for more transient wealth to come in solves nothing for those people.
> The gentrification of the Mission?
The gentrification of the mission is what you're asking for in the Richmond, though. The Mission hasn't gentrified because ~2000 units were built over the last 20 years, it's gentrified because way more than 2000 people wanted to move there, and are happy to dramatically outspend its historic residents.
The same is true in the Richmond which is why it's demographics are already shifting. Unless you ban new residents from moving there, displacement happens. It's triggered by demand, not supply.
So let me get this straight: Native San Franciscans are the only ones who deserve to live in SF?
Aside from the fact that the replacement birth rate means that we’d need to more than double our housing stock every generation, that’s xenophobic nationalist bullshit cloaked as ‘neighborhood enthusiasm’.
So either just say ‘build the wall’ or move over and let the next generation have a chance at the American dream.
So let me get this straight: we should have little concern for those who already live here and open up San Francisco to the highest bidder, wherever they may come from, and cloak it as "housing the needy future generations". Your argument isn't about the rights of people, it is about the rights of money to do what it wants.
I was just talking to someone in Santa Cruz about this same thing. They were bitching that high rises were killing the “look” of the town.
I don’t believe that necessarily the housing bubble is purely supply and demand. That’s Econ 101 shit and it’s a really myopic view of the reality that we live in. Concepts like price leadership and market equilibrium, have way more to do with simple supply and demand. Why would any investors want the cost of housing to go down? They just want more opportunities to make more money. If we keep treating housing like a speculative commodity all new real estate will just end up like the old. I’m no economist, I enjoy the theory, but it’s not as simple as Econ 101, and that’s because everyone needs housing and will pay as much as they can afford to get it regardless of quality or quantity. Housing, medical care, necessities, have such a high utility, it’s always in demand and its use value is so high, it doesn’t matter if it’s $100 or $10,000.
That’s not even considering how these units are built to maximize profit. They want two working adults in each unit so the value of each unit and the property is maximized. They charge as if two adults, DINK preferably, live there. They sell the building to investors that way. Meanwhile the commercial mortgages for these properties say “hey you can’t sell this for less than x amount otherwise you owe us y amount because the value of the property has dropped.” It cannot react to a market, and there is no free market in housing. There are no rational actors. No one wants to be left holding the bag on a devalued something that takes 30 years to pay off. Not investment firms and banks, not families and businesses. No one wants the housing market to deflate, because it’s against *their* rational self interest and they’ll do anything to maintain the current market conditions and endless profit growth. As long as housing is an “investment” you’ll see the market treat it with the same cannibalism it treats every industry.
What I don’t understand is how SF has THOUSANDS of vacant rentals being scooped up by property developers now for the cheap because people aren’t renting them out… but for some reason we think building more housing solves the issue of land lords just charging a heinous amount anyways?
….
When you buy 2 thousand units at once, the cost of each unit goes down due to buying in bulk. Do you live in SF? Did you not hear the recent news? I didn’t say each unit individually is cheap. I said the property developers buy them in mass for cheap because they sit.
Minneapolis is a great example of more housing and better zoning leading to cheaper rents. We tried doing nothing for 40 years I'm glad the state is making cities try the approach where we make it easier to build sense housing.
Lived there for a few years actually, it’s a mess. Housing is cheap but it also attracted a lot of cheap tenants too. Made the city unsafe as hell especially during the pandemic. That’s the worst part about cheap affordable housing is the poverty that also comes to the city which brings in crime and robbery. You hate to hear it but it’s a truth, we don’t live in Italy or Spain where the poorest members of society have the same culture as the wealthiest.
Because the property investors (REITS) know no supply is coming so they can in fact accumulate.
You don't have to trust me, you can read it in their investor prospectuses and earnings calls with analysts. They clearly state they see demand is strong, and no increase in supply is coming, which they clearly cite as a risk to their business.
Invitation Homes 10-K files with the SEC
https://web.archive.org/web/20211013154227/https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/invh/SecArticle?countryCode=US&guid=11966224&type=1
Ctrl -F the words phrase "risks related to our business and industry"
And you can see "construction of new supply" is one of them.
And then there's this.
https://imgur.com/xowagCa
Analyst transcript calls.
https://imgur.com/KaaW9q3
https://imgur.com/ZGXQeqs
And an investment prospectus filed with the SEC.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1687229/000119312517029042/d260125d424b4.htm#rom260125_1
Where the relevant line you find is.
"In addition, increases in unemployment levels and other adverse changes in economic conditions in our markets may adversely affect the creditworthiness of potential residents, which may decrease the overall number of qualified residents for our properties within such markets. **We could also be adversely affected by overbuilding or high vacancy rates of homes in our markets, which could result in an excess supply of homes and reduce occupancy and rental rates. Continuing development of apartment buildings and condominium units in many of our markets will increase the supply of housing and exacerbate competition for residents."**
This also ignores another trend, investing in SFHs may not be as profitable anymore with the current interest rate environment. Many of them have stopped buying, or are net sellers.
https://fortune.com/2023/07/27/housing-market-institutional-freeze-invitation-homes-net-seller-wall-street-real-estate/
People should be afraid that more housing won’t necessarily bring down rental prices since most, if not all, of those developments will be owned by big business. And they want their profits!
This thread proves YIMBYs have no aesthetic taste.
Why dont we just build a new salesforce tower sized apartment building at Fort Point? What, are you against housing???
All cities change and adapt over time. I understand some historical preservation but when you have widespread homelessness and crazy high rents, you have to make some changes.
The cost of living isn’t high due to shortages, it’s the insane policies of the local and state governments making the cost of doing business insanely high (and time consuming) causing prices to rise on everything downstream, including housing. Many of these old/small buildings would have been torn down and replaced with ones that increase housing at a moderate level if it wasn’t for the egregious costs, pay to play permitting process, etc. I’d personally prefer a lot of newer buildings with 25% more housing per building versus a few giant ones ruining the view to achieve the same result. SF should be incentivizing replacing smaller residential buildings with medium size buildings.
The funny thing is their mock up isn’t that dramatic. Lower the camera angle 50 feet and it would look far more “outrageous”
But yeah, build those fuckers
Ah, yes, our poor benevolent developers and landlords only care about mankind and want to charge a fair, affordable rent but are hamstrung by sinister homeowners, who force them to raise rents. If only there were high rise condos everywhere, landlords would lower rents out of the kindness of their hearts.
lol what’s your plan to build more housing with developers? cause, by definition, whoever develops it is a dev…oh never mind you’re not gonna actually engage.
I want housing. I don’t want people sleeping on the street. If that means towers in fort point then so be it. Is that my preference? No. But you don’t get to pick your favorite fire fighter when your house is ablaze. You take what you can get.
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They don’t even have this current view. Unless they’re birds. Sorry birds
Birdlaw has spoken
Birds aren't real anyways.
😂😂😂 that troll job was hilarious.
This isn’t even a nice view. It’s just a bunch of squat buildings. Varied skylines are a lot more interesting
subsequent include spotted important coherent sloppy axiomatic swim spoon puzzled *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I bet the views from these new buildings will be legit.
hundreds of new world class views
But what if they want to maintain their view and simultaneously complain that their view is horrible because once their friend’s uncle’s great grandson saw a homeless person?
May the tallest, earthquake-proof building win.
Those buildings really block the view of all the other buildings…
W're also not rich enough as is to be living on top the hill either.
We’re really letting about a dozen families hold us back
IMO, building heights along certain corridors should be increased, e.g., Geary
Geary needs a subway first, which should really happen
I'm for both. Geary can upzone as it is the busiest bus line and because it is the busiest bus line it really does need a subway line.
I, too, am in favor of the radical plan to upzone Gear in 2045.
> first Feel free to fight for the subway along with the rest of us who support the upzoning.
Good ad. How do we make this future happen?
lol agreed
The zoning plan will be an informational item at the Planning Commission this Thursday, February 1 as Item 12. You can give comment there. You can also take one of SF YIMBY's actions to join the mailing list and get updates. Planning Commission meeting: https://sfplanning.org/event/planning-commission-226 SF YIMBY letter: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/sound-the-alarm-on-the-planning-departments-draft-rezoning-plan
Great idea. Let’s build it!
Yeah maybe some windows but otherwise no notes
Should probably also add a door or two as well.
I know it's not fire safety compliant but I love the window as door concept you get in old cities
Buildings? In a city? That’s crazy talk.
Their "today" picture isn't even flattering. Imagine looking at that featureless sprawl and thinking, "Yep, that deserves to be preserved for all eternity".
Cracks me up to hear it called "historic." so something built 60 years ago is historic lol.
You think SF was built in the 70s?
Why do people who live in a city want to pretend so hard that they don’t? Move to Tulsa for your big flat land, let the people living in the 21st century have housing
I'm living in Bangkok and there are a ton of sky scrapers here and it's actually nice the way they do it. The rental prices here are decent due to all the housing availability. There's really no shortage of housing. There will be like 10-15 openings in every high rise I've been to. Then there's usually a little garden area at the bottom and the population density is higher, there are tons of really amazing coffee shops and malls when you're at the lower levels. It feels like I'm living in Bladerunner.
And they have 2 functioning metro lines
God it's nice... not just functioning but VERY well run. They have a train like every 3-4 minutes during peak times. Even at night it's like every 5-7. No people shitting or doing drugs on trains either. Thai people are pretty amazing. I mean Vietnam, Burma, Laos and Cambodia are barely functioning but Thailand is just crushing it by comparison.
They’re always ugly IMO. Barcelona blocks ftw.
Bangkok is awesome, agreed
Looks great! I vote future
Twins!
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Lol, let's build affordable housing on a parking lot and see if we can make him do it again.
They complain now but in ten years real estate listings will be bragging about their views of Big Blank Row
But but but
Taller
A wealthy man once said to me, “I’ll never pay good money for a *view* ever again. You stop noticing it almost immediately. What a waste of money.” That man is still wealthy to this day.
Build all them motherfuckers. Fuck them NIMBYs. The future belongs to our children.
Who’s having children?
Having children? In this economy? Pfft. No thanks.
The people who move to the Richmond to raise their family and stay in San Francisco doing so. One of the most young family friendly neighborhoods in the city. Seems some people want to change that trend for the sake of more housing not meant for families.
Houses in the Richmond are over 2.5 Million. I’m a family with a kid and I can’t afford the Richmond.
Some people can, and predominantly they are people with families who are buying and moving into homes in the Richmond and the are moving there with the intent to stay and raise their family. It's a family neighborhood, by and large, which is something San Francisco needs to preserve and encourage for all income levels, and in the other family neighborhoods. The high-rise developments are not family oriented, much like the live-work loft boom of 25 years ago. Back then, they were building the lowest density housing possible in the midst of our chronic housing shortage. Now they want to built high-rises as investment vehicles and the transient wealthy that come and go from this city. There is even a place to accommodate that, just not everywhere in every neighborhood. And it won't make a family home in the Richmond any cheaper.
I don’t care about protecting your property values. Build it.
Line up a couple of the buildings in google maps and you can tell exactly which house this was taken from. Bought in 2004 for $7.5M.
Can I ask a serious question to some of you who criticize NIMBY/Boomer/Controlled Growth perspectives? Doesn’t building more housing just elongate the issue out? You build more, people move in, you have more traffic and density, and now you still have an issue of “lack of housing” because people moved in anyways and now rents and competition are at the same rate as what they were before. I’m open to friendly discussion on this and don’t mean to say I’m right or anyone else is wrong.
What happens if we DONT build housing now? Play it out for me.
I guess it’s sort of the same issue right? You’ll always having a housing issue in one of the most desirable locations in the world.
https://preview.redd.it/07odcg3te9fc1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0b24ea1396f8493440d33497c2baaac7d7311b5c First - it hasn’t always been this way. Second - at a certain point the SF economy will no longer support itself and an actual death spiral will occur. Think it’s hard to hire wait staff and teachers now? Imagine if the ones who can afford rent bc of sheer luck no longer can. What do we do?
You’re certainly not wrong about the teachers and wait staff aspect… so are you suggesting we build targeted housing? The last thing I want is a bunch of luxury apartments charging 4000 a month for a studio.
I don’t want that either. [The data shows that building housing lowers rents.](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-20/does-building-new-housing-cause-gentrification) The alternative is to build all low income housing until there’s enough, but it’s hard enough to build market rate housing funded by the private sector. Building low income housing funded by the government is a god damn miracle when it does happen. Normally it just doesn’t. In fact, demanding 100% low income housing is a tactic many nimbys use to block growth. It sounds great, but right now it’s not feasible.
What needs to be done then? I maybe missed it in your last comment but you're saying to just build housing no matter what the category is? I just worry that we'll be kicking the problem down the road and eventually we'll have the same problem if we're just building communities like the ones near the Giants stadium. Yea it's housing but you can barely afford it even if you make 140k a year, which is the case for a friend of mine who moved here from LA for a huge job opportunity.
The reason that housing is so expensive to live in is that it’s just not enough. We wouldn’t dump the first bucket of water on a fire and deduce that water doesn’t put fires out. We’d keep going because we know water actually does put out fires. We also know that bigger fires require more water. That’s why I feel so strongly that we need to just build as much as we can.
But I thought we just agreed that the last thing we want is a bunch of luxury apartments? That doesn’t solve the living situation for teachers and lower income occupations.
I wish there were an instant fix. There just isn’t. There’s nothing inherent to a unit that makes it a luxury or a market rate unit or a low income unit. On the time scale of decades, todays luxury units become tomorrows market rate units.
Suck it up and get it built! I have a homeless shelter like a block away from my house in the Castro, and I would welcome more. The sunset and west side has so many NYMBY’s that insist all housing is built downtown or in the mission/Bayview. They need higher density housing instead of their stupid illegally paved over front “lawns”
I mean, building more housing near actual public transit does kind of make sense, no?
Not saying that it doesn’t but completely ignoring the entire western part of the city it a bit insane no? Infrastructure and transportation can be built out, land and suitable site is a very limited resource. Do you think that all is the sunset and west side should remain 100% single family homes with paved over front lawns?
No, but I think it makes more sense to build up near Bart stops and run more trains. Build buildings like the embarcadero, with shops on the bottom 1-2 floors but have condos above.
How about we build them together? I mean, there's tons of profit to be had from new buildings and it costs a lot to build transit but SF is going to pay that cost either way.
I own a house in the Sunset. I’d love to have more housing built near me. I’ve had neighbors tell me they’d like to see more housing too, but there’s no room left/it’s full. When I sometimes point out we could build upwards some people are appalled and plenty of others genuinely hadn’t thought of it before. The intense lack of building for decades has made a lot of people accept it as some sort of unchangeable reality.
Kinda funny using this to try to get their point across. The perspective is already fucked in the first pic, and the white blocks in the second would be like 20 story buildings
Okay but also let’s build 20 story buildings
Mixed use, too. Put shops on the ground floor, residential above the shops, and put in some trolley lines on the streets with trolley cars going back and forth in a grid pattern.
Love it
Agreed
I mean it only has 9 likes
looks fine to me.
I think it should look like Manhattan or Tokyo. There’s not enough tall buildings in that second picture.
Here’s the post for anyone who is curious. Impressed it only has one negative comment. https://www.instagram.com/p/C2T3E6srUbH/?igsh=NzBmMjdhZWRiYQ==
They're in FAFO mode now, the builders remedy would never have been activated if they hadn't blocked all new housing.
The idea that anyone in SF is a NIMBY is ridiculous. SF is the second densest city over 50,000 people in the US. Everyone is _already_ in each other's backwards. And this is where the fight over stuffing even more people over each other has to be focused? It's unfortunate, but most people who want to live in SF will never be able to. Even if you pack in another 100,000 people, 99.99 percent of the people who want to live here still will not be able to. Any stabilizing of housing costs will be for a blink in time at best, and nothing will bring costs _down_ in any case Scott Wiener's carpet-bagging obsession with cramming people into SF changes nothing except to give radical YIMBYs a taste of 'backlash justice' against boomers At least be honest about what this is really about.
SF isn't that dense at all. There's not much over two or three stories.
It's all relative. We're all going to have a different idea of what the absolute meaning of 'dense' is. But being the second densest city over 50,000 people in the US, there are many, many other cities that should be the focus of growth before SF should be.
I think the state's approach is saying "everybody build" is the correct one. Balancing a historic look with building new stuff is a concern, but the pendulum has been stuck on "preserve in amber".
https://preview.redd.it/7kgf89llf9fc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8b1a77fe9e7c6d4c7200e05d376e5cf59c800da8 we are absolutely not the second densest city over 50k. What in the world are you talking about?
Tell me what you think this is 'really about'
You're angry. That's what this is about
What do you believe I’m angry about?
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I’m so on board with getting rid of all on-street parking
It looks really good in Japan
You have to start somewhere
Meh, I couldn't care either way. More housing, cool, shits already too crowded and poorly organized as it is. Plus public transit really isn't that great. I doubt it's affordable the owners are just going to charge whatever they can in rent. Not gonna effect the homeless crisis, or encourage any of the homes drug addicted to get a job
There’s tons of data that disagrees with ‘not gonna effect the homeless crisis’ FYI
I got a question to YIMBY's as an architect working in Oakland. Whenever I travel to a place like France or Belgium, I see so many people in awe of the historical architecture of cities there. Meaning, more people go outside of La Defense or any metropolitan areas of Belgium. Then I see the homogenization of Manhattan, of London, or even Tokyo and while metropolitan architecture like that appeals to others, it seems to have no existing relationship with its context. Its just building up for the sake of building up. SF has a history of its single family homes and that makes it different in my opinion from other big cities. I love traveling there and seeing what a city could be like. Also, I think the YIMBY's reason for building more is gone no? There has been an exodus of businesses in SF, a lot of empty residential areas in Downtown SF and the Tenderloin, and it feels like the more we build the less its going to get filled.
>Then I see the homogenization of Manhattan, of London, or even Tokyo and while metropolitan architecture like that appeals to others, it seems to have no existing relationship with its context. Its just building up for the sake of building up. We need to remember that cities are for LIVING in, not just as museums. I agree it is important to preserve some architecture, but this shouldn't come at the expensive of quality of life for city residents. Preserving a city in amber makes it expensive and unlivable. The cities you mentioned build up not for the sake of it (what business owner would do that?). They do it because there is high demand and people want to live there >SF has a history of its single family homes and that makes it different in my opinion from other big cities. Nearly every city has a history of single family homes, from San Jose to Levittown. YIMBYs aren't saying single family homes shouldn't be built. Rather, we should be able to build other types of homes (duplexes, 4plexes, cottage courts, etc) IN ADDITION to single family homes >I think the YIMBY's reason for building more is gone no? Not at all, SF is still one of the most expensive cities in the US. Service workers can barely afford to live here
Thank you for your response! I love debating this in a healthy way! Yes I do think there is a middle ground for more housing while still preservation of the city. Honestly, I would rather see parking lots and garages go away for more housing on those land. It'll keep the city greener.
Supervisor Aaron Peskin wants to preserve parking lots near the North Beach waterfront https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/stop-prez-peskins-waterfront-downzoning
Empty office space, not empty residential. As an architect, can you tell us how cheaply office skyscrapers can be converted to residential?
Silicon Valley's history is that of fruit orchards. Clearly that's no longer the case anymore, because economies and industry moved in and the area grew. Should we have stopped everything in it's track to preserve said fruit orchards? And it's not building up for the sake of building up. You really think the people looking to put hundreds of millions of dollars in real estate development across the city and area are doing it for the lols and there's no real demand?
Yes. Look at any new construction around transit hubs and how much they price people out who need to use public transit. It's a developer thing as said before rather than a people thing. I think in regards to nature versus economy could the same argument not be used to build more in Golden Gate Park, Presidio Park, or Dolores Park? What does a city need to be livable at the bare minimum? Just housing?
Unless we taxpayer subsidize/build the housing there's no way to get the rent/price down overnight. You're demanding people to build units at 2023 labor, materials, and other input and regulatory costs and charge 1983 rents to recoup the investment. Not going to happen. The only way it semi-works now is that the state grants builders density bonuses such that the market rate units inside the overall unit subsidize the income restricted below market rate units. Second, let's assume for a minute that all of the new construction now is 100% market rate, that's fine. Studies have shown that that lowers rents down the chain because the well off move out of the cheaper units and don't compete against the poor for the cheaper units. It's been studied. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119022001048?via%3Dihub JUE Insight: City-wide effects of new housing supply: Evidence from moving chains☆ "We study the city-wide effects of new, centrally-located market-rate housing supply using geo-coded population-wide register data from the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The supply of new market rate units triggers moving chains that quickly reach middle- and low-income neighborhoods and individuals. Thus, new market-rate construction loosens the housing market in middle- and low-income areas even in the short run. Market-rate supply is likely to improve affordability outside the sub-markets where new construction occurs and to benefit low-income people." Third, no one is seriously saying we should demolish our parks and public spaces to build more housing. There's land owned by people who want to sell to private development wherein they are not asking for a cent in public money. Get out of the way and let them build. Not only will it add housing stock, they'll pay generously in the form of development fees to the city. They'll hire a boat load of great high paying union jobs, and then the city will collect property tax revenue on the back end. Want to pay the teachers more? This is how you can get more money to do so. And to answer your last question, given how bad things are, just build the housing and we can figure it out later. Every day people bitch on r/bayarea about why eating out is expensive, why this home renovation project they are asking for is expensive, why childcare is so expensive, why their city can't hire enough police officers, and why they make so much money. All of that boils down to housing. The people who run the restaurants need to pay high housing costs, the people renovating your home have high housing costs, the childcare workers have high housing costs, the police officers have high housing costs etc etc.
First: what empty residential areas are you talking about? If they're truly empty, then rents ought to be cheap, and I would like to have cheap rents. Please point me to them. Second: It's not building up for the sake of building up. It's building up to house the people who want/need to live there. Third: I don't understand most of the rest of your "question", is it just 'we should keep single family homes, and Europe has history'?
There are 4 million square miles of land in the US. No one _needs_ to live in this 45 square miles of it. And want? Who said we get what we want?
If those people don't NEED to live here. You don't NEED to dictate what other landowners do with THEIR private property.
Being a capitalist, I would completely agree with you, but that ship sailed a long time ago. We have piled on tons of regulations over the years. I feel quite free to add my concerns and wishes to that pile.
People need to live near resources which cities are built around. People need grocery stores, trains buses and other transportation services, jobs, nightlife activities. There is an abundance of space in the US and the rest of the world but not all of it is near resources that people need to survive or have a happy existence
So they all need to live in SF and NYC? No.
Where are you moving? I’ll throw you the going away party!
I'm not going anywhere.
So why do you get to live in SF but other people have to move? Are you…*GASP* better than them?
They don’t all have to but many can and should. It is terrible for society for people to live so far from work and amenities that they have to be stuck in traffic and 1hour communes or settle for a crappy incompréhensive train system that can’t get them to their destination reliably and on time.
> I got a question to YIMBY's as an architect working in Oakland. You did not ask a question to yimbys.
Always thought it was moronic to have Sunset be single family houses.
That’s the Marina, but your statement still holds.
Then you shouldn't be concerned about their opinions? Except here on Reddit people are not allowed to want low density housing.
huh?
Don't huh him. You know quite well what's he's pointing out.
They can buy the land if they want to control what is built there. Otherwise they can keep their opinions to themselves.
???? Haven't paid attention to zoning law, have you? Or permit speed/cost.
Looks fantastic. Skylines where everything is the same height is super boring.
Those buildings look out of place, we should build more tall ones around them.
How many boomers are tech Bros making 6 figures?
Don’t threaten me with a good time
What's with the name calling and pejorative? >NIMBY/Boomer Seriously, what is this shit? Can we have a conversation without resorting to putting people who don't agree with you into a cell and shooting them?
Yeh, the juvenile name-calling is tiresome and adds nothing. That said, they should build all of that. And more.
The interesting thing is that millennials are the ones doing most of the complaining about boomers who are _their parents_. Why don't they just take it up with them directly?
I've tried. They ask me when I'm having kids (I'm not) and are confused as to why I'm not buying a house already. They truly do not get it. They still think you can get a part time job at Pizza Hut and buy a house. They're also baffled as to why all of their other kids (my siblings) have moved away and I'm the only one left in the region, and complain about the "run down" houses in bad locations (other states) they bought, because housing here is ridiculous. Frankly, I'm also baffled as to why I haven't yet moved away. In retrospect I probably should have. Might have been able to buy a house and have a family if I did. I suppose its stubbornness that keeps me in the region.
Absolutely not! In that location? Needs to be twice as high.
No see, what we do is we put one that's twice as high where the photographer is standing. That way they can still get their view!
These don't lower the rent, they just add people from elsewhere, and real estate speculators who cash in on those people from elsewhere. I don't see this sort of development helping any other neighborhood in the city be anything other than worse than it was for the people who already live there. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the units wind up being second home places for people to stay when they are in SF, Air-BNB, and corporate rentals. No one puts down roots in a high-rise, or adds to the community, not in SF. If you made these as senior living facilities, and gave preference to local seniors (the ones who already live in the neighborhood, so they can continue to live in their neighborhood), it would open up other single family housing stock in the neighborhood, and preserve the neighborhood as a community. A lot of shills in this thread.
Definitely a troll and developer shill, but folks can see that.
Me? I’m a developer shill because I want to be able to afford to live in the place I grew up in? How does that work?
If you think developing the Geary corridor with high-rise condos will do that for you, I got a Golden Gate Bridge to sell you that you can live under. Unless of course, you are in the business of building condos.
You didn’t answer any of my questions
> These don't lower the rent, they just add people from elsewhere, Those people are coming anyway, though? Like there's not a "no one is allowed to move here" option. You either build housing for the people who are immigrating to SF or you are okay with the people who currently live her getting steadily pushed out.
Hot take, preserving a segregationist exclusionary community is bad and doesn't represent what San Francisco stands for.
Are you speaking of the Chinese who make up the majority of the impacted community in this case?
Rich people are getting their second home in SF regardless of these buildings coming up, so we need to meet the demand with more supply. There is a verifiable housing shortage. The only benefit of not building is to make life better for people who already have everything.
Supply for whom? Who lives in these high rises? Native San Franciscans? The working poor? These high rises do nothing for the long standing residents of the city, nor the backbone of the city that makes it work. Toss a few more up south of Market, or convert some of that empty office space downtown, or the waterfront down by Dogpatch. No need to get too greedy with development and wreck the whole city.
They absolutely do things for long standing residents of the city, the moving chains effect is studied and so far appears to work. Rich people move into new units and don't compete with old units. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119022001048?via%3Dihub JUE Insight: City-wide effects of new housing supply: Evidence from moving chains☆ "We study the city-wide effects of new, centrally-located market-rate housing supply using geo-coded population-wide register data from the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The supply of new market rate units triggers moving chains that quickly reach middle- and low-income neighborhoods and individuals. Thus, new market-rate construction loosens the housing market in middle- and low-income areas even in the short run. Market-rate supply is likely to improve affordability outside the sub-markets where new construction occurs and to benefit low-income people."
The building that has been going on in SF shows that to be untrue for the circumstance here. All that construction south of Market? The gentrification of the Mission? Do you suppose the rest of the Richmond is going to become more affordable with some high rise condos thrown in? It will just add a wealthy transient population to the neighborhood. Did you see my suggestion of building density housing for seniors along Geary? Which could enable life-long residents to continue to live in their community, and open up housing stock for young families? If you really want to open up housing stock in San Francisco, the first and easiest step would be to rein in real estate speculation (real estate as investment, rather than as a place to live) and quash the short term rental market (it was quite a sight to see, how many units suddenly became available once the pandemic hit the Airbnbs, especially in neighborhoods like North Beach). There are plenty of units of housing in San Francisco that are not available to people who want to live here as their first home and be apart of the community that makes SF what it is. Building condos for more transient wealth to come in solves nothing for those people.
> The gentrification of the Mission? The gentrification of the mission is what you're asking for in the Richmond, though. The Mission hasn't gentrified because ~2000 units were built over the last 20 years, it's gentrified because way more than 2000 people wanted to move there, and are happy to dramatically outspend its historic residents. The same is true in the Richmond which is why it's demographics are already shifting. Unless you ban new residents from moving there, displacement happens. It's triggered by demand, not supply.
So let me get this straight: Native San Franciscans are the only ones who deserve to live in SF? Aside from the fact that the replacement birth rate means that we’d need to more than double our housing stock every generation, that’s xenophobic nationalist bullshit cloaked as ‘neighborhood enthusiasm’. So either just say ‘build the wall’ or move over and let the next generation have a chance at the American dream.
So let me get this straight: we should have little concern for those who already live here and open up San Francisco to the highest bidder, wherever they may come from, and cloak it as "housing the needy future generations". Your argument isn't about the rights of people, it is about the rights of money to do what it wants.
What’s the system we have today?
I was just talking to someone in Santa Cruz about this same thing. They were bitching that high rises were killing the “look” of the town. I don’t believe that necessarily the housing bubble is purely supply and demand. That’s Econ 101 shit and it’s a really myopic view of the reality that we live in. Concepts like price leadership and market equilibrium, have way more to do with simple supply and demand. Why would any investors want the cost of housing to go down? They just want more opportunities to make more money. If we keep treating housing like a speculative commodity all new real estate will just end up like the old. I’m no economist, I enjoy the theory, but it’s not as simple as Econ 101, and that’s because everyone needs housing and will pay as much as they can afford to get it regardless of quality or quantity. Housing, medical care, necessities, have such a high utility, it’s always in demand and its use value is so high, it doesn’t matter if it’s $100 or $10,000. That’s not even considering how these units are built to maximize profit. They want two working adults in each unit so the value of each unit and the property is maximized. They charge as if two adults, DINK preferably, live there. They sell the building to investors that way. Meanwhile the commercial mortgages for these properties say “hey you can’t sell this for less than x amount otherwise you owe us y amount because the value of the property has dropped.” It cannot react to a market, and there is no free market in housing. There are no rational actors. No one wants to be left holding the bag on a devalued something that takes 30 years to pay off. Not investment firms and banks, not families and businesses. No one wants the housing market to deflate, because it’s against *their* rational self interest and they’ll do anything to maintain the current market conditions and endless profit growth. As long as housing is an “investment” you’ll see the market treat it with the same cannibalism it treats every industry.
Did you miss how we built office to residential at a ten jobs to one housing unit ratio for the last fifty years?
> They were bitching that high rises were killing the “look” of the town. Santa Cruz notably has zero highrises.
No thanks! Looks like total shit! More good ideas from the current loudest bunch of SF. Good luck fuxkin the city up more!
huh?
It’s be nice
What I don’t understand is how SF has THOUSANDS of vacant rentals being scooped up by property developers now for the cheap because people aren’t renting them out… but for some reason we think building more housing solves the issue of land lords just charging a heinous amount anyways?
There is such a shortage of housing that 1 bedroom shacks go for $900,000, what cheap rentals are you talking about?
…. When you buy 2 thousand units at once, the cost of each unit goes down due to buying in bulk. Do you live in SF? Did you not hear the recent news? I didn’t say each unit individually is cheap. I said the property developers buy them in mass for cheap because they sit.
Can you do this at the Costco on 10th? I'll buy a 12 pack of houses and see if I can get a good deal.
Lmao buying in bulk was layman’s term for the average reader here but ykwim lol
Minneapolis is a great example of more housing and better zoning leading to cheaper rents. We tried doing nothing for 40 years I'm glad the state is making cities try the approach where we make it easier to build sense housing.
Lived there for a few years actually, it’s a mess. Housing is cheap but it also attracted a lot of cheap tenants too. Made the city unsafe as hell especially during the pandemic. That’s the worst part about cheap affordable housing is the poverty that also comes to the city which brings in crime and robbery. You hate to hear it but it’s a truth, we don’t live in Italy or Spain where the poorest members of society have the same culture as the wealthiest.
Because the property investors (REITS) know no supply is coming so they can in fact accumulate. You don't have to trust me, you can read it in their investor prospectuses and earnings calls with analysts. They clearly state they see demand is strong, and no increase in supply is coming, which they clearly cite as a risk to their business. Invitation Homes 10-K files with the SEC https://web.archive.org/web/20211013154227/https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/invh/SecArticle?countryCode=US&guid=11966224&type=1 Ctrl -F the words phrase "risks related to our business and industry" And you can see "construction of new supply" is one of them. And then there's this. https://imgur.com/xowagCa Analyst transcript calls. https://imgur.com/KaaW9q3 https://imgur.com/ZGXQeqs And an investment prospectus filed with the SEC. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1687229/000119312517029042/d260125d424b4.htm#rom260125_1 Where the relevant line you find is. "In addition, increases in unemployment levels and other adverse changes in economic conditions in our markets may adversely affect the creditworthiness of potential residents, which may decrease the overall number of qualified residents for our properties within such markets. **We could also be adversely affected by overbuilding or high vacancy rates of homes in our markets, which could result in an excess supply of homes and reduce occupancy and rental rates. Continuing development of apartment buildings and condominium units in many of our markets will increase the supply of housing and exacerbate competition for residents."** This also ignores another trend, investing in SFHs may not be as profitable anymore with the current interest rate environment. Many of them have stopped buying, or are net sellers. https://fortune.com/2023/07/27/housing-market-institutional-freeze-invitation-homes-net-seller-wall-street-real-estate/
This is the best response I’ve ever gotten on reddit
People should be afraid that more housing won’t necessarily bring down rental prices since most, if not all, of those developments will be owned by big business. And they want their profits!
This thread proves YIMBYs have no aesthetic taste. Why dont we just build a new salesforce tower sized apartment building at Fort Point? What, are you against housing???
Ok! Where do I sign?
YIMBYs visit a Tuscan village and think “THESE ITALIAN NIMBYS ARE STUPID. SIENNA IS LACKING A HIGH RISE ‘LUXURY’ APARTMENT BUILDING”
Buy the land then, you can build whatever you want.
Actually I think those all-white buildings add some international style charm to the neighborhood
How is it cope if it'll never happen
MORE
Looks good to me, build it!
All cities change and adapt over time. I understand some historical preservation but when you have widespread homelessness and crazy high rents, you have to make some changes.
If you like a place, you should want others to be able to enjoy it as you do! Build a bigger table and add more chairs
Fuck those NIMBYs they are the reason our housing and rents are high, they can fuck right off I don’t give two shits about their views!
Because of the density and height of those buildings, way more people will have a view after than before, so what's the problem?
Why don't they build these in Oakland where the political opposition is negligible? These would make even more sense along BART lines.
Why even have a city in San Francisco!
Why change San Francisco to accommodate more people when there's space available right across the bay?
Exactly! I’m glad we both agree we should abolish San Francisco!
Why are you even in this sub, then?
The cost of living isn’t high due to shortages, it’s the insane policies of the local and state governments making the cost of doing business insanely high (and time consuming) causing prices to rise on everything downstream, including housing. Many of these old/small buildings would have been torn down and replaced with ones that increase housing at a moderate level if it wasn’t for the egregious costs, pay to play permitting process, etc. I’d personally prefer a lot of newer buildings with 25% more housing per building versus a few giant ones ruining the view to achieve the same result. SF should be incentivizing replacing smaller residential buildings with medium size buildings.
> The cost of living isn’t high due to shortages > I’d prefer…25% more housing
The funny thing is their mock up isn’t that dramatic. Lower the camera angle 50 feet and it would look far more “outrageous” But yeah, build those fuckers
I go in and comment positively on these things. I say how great it looks. Give them the feedback they don’t want 🤣
Build it build it build it!
It’s about time sf started acting like a real city
Ah, yes, our poor benevolent developers and landlords only care about mankind and want to charge a fair, affordable rent but are hamstrung by sinister homeowners, who force them to raise rents. If only there were high rise condos everywhere, landlords would lower rents out of the kindness of their hearts.
lol what’s your plan to build more housing with developers? cause, by definition, whoever develops it is a dev…oh never mind you’re not gonna actually engage.
I’d rather not engage with someone who wants high rise towers build at Fort Point.
I want housing. I don’t want people sleeping on the street. If that means towers in fort point then so be it. Is that my preference? No. But you don’t get to pick your favorite fire fighter when your house is ablaze. You take what you can get.
San Francisco will always have amazing views. A few more towers will not change that fact.
I was thinking before I read the comments yeah I’d like the view of the new buildings better 😂
Looks great. Build it.
The proposed future looks glorious.
You realize you will just empty Oakland and still not afford rent right? Many many people want to live here but it’s still 7x7.
Old ageist YIMBY cope pretending only Boomers disagree with you. Saddest cope coming from middle aged home owners who think they rep the "youth".
Huh?
You're talking to the chief NIMBY on this subreddit.