cofounder of
@TheFrisc
, ex-
@Wired
,
@MarketWatch
/
@WSJ
Digital, once a certified forklift operator. my Twitter policy: "Hoy te dedico mis mejores pregones."
warning: spoilers
last night to take my mind off things, i put on "21 Bridges," Chadwick Boseman's last movie released in theaters. he plays a tough NYPD detective cracking a tough case, etc. 1/
Imagine an empty lot. NIMBYS say no. YIMBYS say yes to anything - could be empty investment condos. Sensible voters? We say yes to affordable housing, homeless shelters, housing designed with the community in mind, etc. Don't be a yimby or a nimby. Be sensible.
the e-bike is the game-changer. you don’t need to spend $50K or $25K or even $5K to get a great one, and the more people ride, the safer it is.
yeah they don’t work for megacommuters, but that’s a separate Twitter fight
Whatever you think about the merits of the policy, any American ought to be *embarrassed* that we have to keep Chinese EVs out with tariffs & regulations. They are kicking our asses because our automakers remain hooked on the high returns of bloated, subsidized mega-trucks.
there is, in fact, a growing body of serious academic research showing that building sizable numbers of housing units makes housing more affordable over a time period relevant for current residents
“There is no serious academic research showing that building sizable numbers of housing units, almost exclusively at the high end of the market, makes housing more affordable over a time period relevant for current residents.”
i realize we all have our habits, but can we please stop talking about new housing as "luxury"?
after years and years of underbuilding
#housing
, what does "luxury" even mean? 1/
"Palo Alto Council's Lydia Kou expressed an interest in more tunnelling, as found in Singapore. Board member Gillett remarked that in Singapore, urban rail infrastructure is paid for using revenues from very tall office and housing buildings built at station areas." 😄😄😄
San Francisco supervisors voted 10-1 in support of state Sen.
@Scott_Wiener
's bill, SB 532. Chan voted in dissent. Bill would increase bridge tolls on seven state-owned bridges to $1.50 for five years that would go towards funding public transit operations.
#sfbos
that the two leading progressives on the
#SF
Board of Supervisors are landed gentry with multimillion-dollar stock portfolios who rail against “the international elite” is just chef’s kiss
WTF is it with these fatal
#SF
hit and runs/crashes cutting down pedestrians this year? on New Year's Eve it was Hanako Abe and Elizabeth Platt, then Sheria Musyoka, and now Lovisa Svallingson.
@LondonBreed
@sfbos
this has to stop
New apartment buildings in U.S. all look really similar to each other.
One reason: U.S. regulations dictate an oddly-specific layout that's hostile to families and limits light/ventilation.
THREAD:
i'm all for people having their say, but here's a particular
#SF
thing: people like to start their comments with "I'm a XX-year resident of this city" and that they live on a certain street, and then will flat-out deny that there is a literal bus line along their street.
“the debate is a tacit (and not so tacit) acquiescence to the authoritarian dominance rituals of the party’s singular overlord, who squats upon the face of the GOP like a giant blood-sucking orange xenomorph.”
"The problem in
#SF
is not [its] rent control policy. The problem in SF is that there's like no tall buildings … there's so little multifamily housing. It's truly like just being in a suburban Maryland neighborhood in so much of the city. 1/
“Americans actually like urbanism quite a bit. The proof is in the astronomically inflating costs to live in high density American cities with good transit.”
Cashing in on the revolt against "ban cars" discourse from last week by debunking some common myths on how to make transit popular. Including a cautionary tale for urbanists about the racial ramifications of freeway removal amid diversifying suburbs.
no amount of “driver education” is going to address the core problem: our streets and spaces are designed for car traffic flow and to the detriment of everyone and everything else
some disordered asshole bought a company, gutted it, stopped paying rent, scoffed at his former employees' severance contracts, DGAF about the city's rules or values, and we're coming up with reasons to kiss his ass? i say let's kiss him off, sayonara 2/2
tl;dr people would rather schlep to the airport, check bags, deal with TSA and boarding instead of driving to Tahoe. this is a “cars are a failure” story
NEW:
#SanFrancisco
's top leaders have agreed to cut affordable housing requirements on developers by roughly half and roll back "impact" fees by a third in a bid to jump-start housing development after the pandemic.
look folks if Marc Benioff declared that "i'm sick of the problems and Salesforce HQ is leaving
#SF
" that would be a 5-alarm fire ❤️🔥 he's the city's largest private employer, and literally paid for a children's hospital. but that's not at all what's happening. 1/
@chrsdcook
um Christopher, could you please think things through?
people buy homes with mortgages. the monthly savings between a $1M house and an $800K house is going to be ~$1,000/month, based on a 6% interest rate and with a down payment of 10% to 20%. that's a substantial difference.
the bureaucrat who says “If you take the commission’s regulatory oversight away, you’re not going to get the kind of housing that California needs” has worked for nearly 25 years to guarantee that California doesn't get any of the housing it needs
This person claims that student housing sits “half empty.”
In reality, the UC system’s student housing was at 104% occupancy systemwide for the 2022-2023 academic year.
since the nativist cynic here cites Harvey Milk, let's be clear: the late supervisor's sign doesn't say "I've lived in
#SF
for 5 years," like so many people plumping their local cred do, tallying up their time as an entitlement to say no to newcomers
"We can't brag that a place like Seattle or Berkeley is a better place for queer people, poly people, different kinds of family structures … alternative families and traditional families [if they] can't move to these cities. Because there isn't enough housing. 1/
SF has no shortage of luxury condos but truly needs affordable housing for working people, women, seniors, low income people - real housing for real people. Prop A is a critical tool that can be transformational for SF. VOTE Tues!
@laura_waxee
@sfchronicle
we’re still living with the consequences of wrecking-ball redevelopment decades ago, and in the process perpetuating the affordability and displacement crisis
Aaron Peskin opposes housing in high-resource areas like North Beach and Pacific Heights, which is how you make a city more inclusive. so his choice of language is clever but nonsense
this is such an
#SF
thing: a private party buys property, and the people who didn't buy it — be they neighbors, politicians, even movie buffs — go apeshit when the owner wants to make changes to their property
State Sen. Scott Wiener is mourning the defeat of his most ambitious housing proposal of the year, Senate Bill 1227, which would have exempted many downtown San Francisco development projects from environmental review.
Wiener said the proposal — which was blocked by the Senate
look representation is important, but you also have to assess the candidates. Leland Yee got indicted and jailed. Jane Kim lobbied against 469 Stevenson. ex-Sup. Fewer is an anti-housing troll. Sup. Chan is all in on cars and parking. none of this helps the city or the community.
see guys when you don't allow any new housing, as the decades go by the housing that's there gets way more expensive, but you do get 6000-word pieces on vibes
Everyone should read this brilliant, razor-sharp piece from Rebecca Solnit. She truly captures and crystallizes what's going on here, what's driving
#SanFrancisco
's afflictions.
In the Shadow of Silicon Valley
Scott Wiener assumed state office in 2016. Tim Redmond has been a housing development foe (exacerbating the crisis) since the 1980s.
ergo his analysis is 100% correct, history will absolve him, this one’s easy
"Unrestricted driving, wide forgiving roads, little to no physical infrastructure to force speed reductions, and no real police enforcement—this is the predictable and inevitable result"
#SF
has to fix this
"An investor-led building boom has almost doubled the size of the Sydney apartment rental market in two years, forcing landlords to drop rents more than $100 a week in some areas" so suck it
#SF
NIMBYs
the tragedy of
#SF
is that everything bends toward the same groups and individuals that are, in part, responsible for the housing and affordability crisis in the first place
if the units are small and therefore cheaper, the project will be derided as not for families.
if the units are large and therefore pricey, the project will be derided as not for “real people.”
If a new building is fancy, left-NIMBYs will oppose it, complaining that it'll gentrify the n'hood & we need affordable, not luxury housing.
If a new building is too affordable, right-NIMBYs will oppose it, complaining that it'll ruin the neighborhood & wreck property values.
So, I know I went down in flames last time I suggested this... but how about raising that alcohol excise tax California? We have one of the lowest. A simple nickel per drink could bring in hundreds of millions of dollars. And alcohol sales are not hurting in these times.
it’s true! we’ve wasted decades of low interest rates and at least one megaboom in construction arguing over whether new housing should be built at all, aren’t we smart?
The real smart critique of YIMBY remains: even with zoning, permitting, and fee reform, it will be too hard to bend the cost curve for apartments to be built at the kind of scale we need to end the shortage. This necessitates public sector intervention.
#SF
has tried restrictive stuff like this before, like on 24th in Noe Valley. it’s how the street had a crappy taco place and a sad Chinese takeout place for years
"There are hundreds of intersections/areas in Melgar's district and thousands in the city that are also in desperate need of safety improvements. There simply isn't time to hold a special committee of merchants—who have zero expertise in street safety—on every intersection." 1/
@supermarke
i really see it differently. we didn’t get into this crisis overnight, and it will take time to pull out of it. housing shortages are addressed by building housing, and it’s disingenuous to claim that a few buildings so far haven’t fixed the issue
it is truly messed up how so many issues in
#SF
come down to zero-sum interest group BS leverage. People who advocate for housing get smeared with this "Who pays you!?" as if having more housing, given the crisis, is just something some folks want for funzies
New 33-story, 100-meter single-stair Swiss apartment tower just dropped, in Ostermundigen, a suburb east of Bern (which may actually be annexed by Bern in two years). No studios, and in fact mostly two- and three-bedroom units
shot: They argued that having more market-rate development would only lead to housing that is unaffordable.
chaser: “Your value of your house will fall precipitously if any of the zoning passed,” said Antonini
left-NIMBYs love to say there's "infinite demand" for housing around here, and that developers will never build enough to impact prices. tl;dr wrong about everything
Apartment rents are declining annually across California on
@zumper
right now
It's a *demand* factor - net emigration from major cities & sluggish employment
Many Sun Belt markets are also seeing rent declines, but there it's *supply* driven - record # of new units to market
an idiot: "We felt that since we were invited to this event as third-year law students, that we should go and start the conversation about divestment."
sure, come by for a dinner party and just ... take over with your righteous discourse. 1/
@AaronPeskin
says he’s against the “luxury towers that none of us can afford.” um yeah as the top property owning supervisor, HE CAN afford luxury in a new bullring
man
@sunrisebayarea
is here with no shits to give: “In 2019, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors declared a climate emergency,” said Phillip Dupree, an organizer with Sunrise Bay Area. “I would love for us to act like it.”
there should be no confusion about why it costs so much to build housing. rebar costs what rebar costs, same for a 2x4. then there are interest rates. but then there’s the other stuff. 1/
@DeanPreston
Supervisor, with respect, you're saying that outside forces are acting to keep
#SF
unaffordable, when in fact there are various reasons for this. What will you do? Will you introduce legislation for streamlining projects? Will you work toward the goals of our Housing Element?
what to do about the scourge of scooters? "The answer is bike lanes: big, wide, protected bike lanes. The way to make them is to take away parking. Make the sidewalks wider too." nice one here by
@adavies47
@wired
this is well reasoned, well thought out, well written, and it might not matter.
#SF
may not want the
@Castro_Theatre
to change, which means it might just sit and rot.
"The issue is that a lot of people want to live in
#SF
and SF is refusing to build enough
#housing
for them. … You have to make sure that the net effect of the housing policies you institute is still making it really profitable to build a ton of market-rate housing." 2/
in the late 1980s,
#SF
put limits on "any new full-scale restaurants, large fast-food [?] or small self-serve eating facilities" in 6 blocks of 24th Street from Chattanooga to Diamond. this included "any place with table and chair service" like coffee shops and juice joints. 1/
Sup. Hillary Ronen complains that she spends all her time dealing with "street conditions." Sup. Myrna Melgar recently said at the
@sfbos
Land Use committee that they cannot complete work on housing streamlining legislation. 1/
NEW: Two San Francisco supervisors will miss key meetings this week to attend a taxpayer-funded junket in Japan to learn how the country teaches math.
The details of that word salad of a sentence might seem a bit mystifying for several reasons.
after yesterday's
@SFMTA_Muni
meeting, of course i was glad reasoning prevailed and a faster Geary was approved. but i still felt glum about the whole thing: how the project has been beaten down, and how it's taken 20 years.
then there's the gaslighting and misinformation. 1/
anti-development advocates are so drunk on this idea that some housing has been “overproduced” that they’re willing to deny everyone housing to win their spurious argument
To add to the chaos: CCHO, the SF Anti-Displacement Coalition, and the REP-SF Coalition have put out a press release declaring that the goal of Peskin's and Chan's resolution is to rescind the Housing Policy and Practice Review so that HCD will start again.
well this is rich: the dude whose partner owns
@GardenCreamery
wanted the new ice-cream shop guy to cover the costs of mediation, because after all, he paid the fee to file the Discretionary Review.
what would be mediated, whether he could open in some other city than
#SF
?
it is pretty amazing how other
#SF
supervisors just had no clue how to step up. did Ronen ever do this for Valencia bike lanes, or Chan for Geary BRT, or Peskin for all the housing he supposedly supported?
Really a beautiful thing to see an elected official communicating so clearly to bring people along on the reality of a situation and the choices in front of us. Thank you
@JoelEngardio
.
#SF
relies too heavily on mega projects like Hunters Point and Treasure Island to meet its housing goals.
NIMBYs like Aaron Peskin and others are cool with this because it keeps development out of their neighborhoods
If your main criticism of DC is that it’s allowed too much market rate housing, you are clearly detached from reality 😵💫
The city’s housing strategy for the last decade has been production on metro accessible brownfields. Not exactly a lot more of those left.