mtcwby t1_j9r8xwv wrote on February 24, 2023 at 12:03 AM

Reply to comment by atreyal in 95% of Bay Area Cities Lost Zoning Authority: In 105 jurisdictions of the Bay Area, anyone can build any residential projected at any height or density so long as 20% of the units are for low income. by dolphins3

And they're not going to be built by developers due to cost and lack of margin for those groups. You can zone all you want but it the numbers don't work it won't be done privately without a subsidy.

atreyal t1_j9u7t4f wrote on February 24, 2023 at 4:25 PM

Maybe, nothing really ever happens quickly and this sounds like a step to actually getting stuff rolling. If nothing happens they may look to subsidies for builders or not. Could all be a pipe dream.

mtcwby t1_j9ughmf wrote on February 24, 2023 at 5:20 PM

The problem with subsidies is they encourage a lot of political wheeling and dealing and generally high build costs as people milk it.

I'd like to see them decouple the low income housing fees from new construction because I think ironically they drive prices up and create more of a need for low income housing. It's not that it's not funded but don't collect from new construction and do something out of the general fund instead. Local government's role in the increase in housing prices is not really mentioned but with hookups and the like it can easily top 200k. That gets marked up too by the developer because they're putting the initial cash out there. Ameliorate that some and we might get out of this vicious cycle we're currently in with high rates and high costs making it difficult to build. More so than zoning in many ways.