Yes and yes and 40 years of NIMBYism and selfish home owners wanting to preserve their “existing quality of life” on a 49 square mile peninsula sticking out into a Bay.
This paints an unfair picture.
The problem here isn’t the developers who actually want to build buildings. The problem is that a developer can spend, literally, years trying to get approval to build something including mandatory public meetings and low income housing being set aside, and still have it not be approved.
The city makes it very difficult to build any housing and a number of SF citizen groups also do their best to stop these “rich” developments, basically meaning that almost nothing gets built in response to demand. Basically, people will build units for 10,000 people than then 50,000 people will immigrate to the city. Repeat this in cycles for 30 years and you have the current situation.
The city could make it dramatically easier to build but chooses to not do so. As a result, Oakland, where I live, is now undergoing a housing boom (with associated low income displacement) as all the folks who want to buy or live in SF who can’t then move over here.
Lots of blame to go around, up to and including the Feds.
The Hunter’s Point Shipyard development was held up for years and years because the Naval base which had been situated there left behind lots of toxic contamination, and it took forever to get various parties to foot the $1.1 billion bill to clean the place up.
Providing natural light and ventilation to said box (which is really a room). In order to share light and vent with an adjacent room you would have to remove one of the walls.
Providing minimum required square footage. Each new room has a minimum habitable square footage of 70 Sq. Ft. by IBC
Providing minimum required ceiling height of 7’-0" for a habitable space.
Really it all comes down to if it is a room and if it is supposed to be a habitable space (which a bedroom or bedbox should be)
They didn’t hold up Treasure Island’s development and that worked out great.
You’ve heard all the stuff they’ve been finding out there since they started renting it out to people, right?
I still place most of the blame on the city of SF. They could change a few regulations and people would actually be able to build with half the work and some predictability about when they could break ground.
I don’t even care if the apartments are for rich people. Others have shown that even if you increase supply at the top end of the market, it will help the entire market in the long run. Let people build!
When you have a growing city, you can either have:
a) density (i.e., tear down the single-family homes and build the condos everyone hates)
b) sprawl, with all its charms
c) insanely high prices and gentrification
People seem to believe there’s some magic fourth solution where they get a thriving economy, quaint little houses at reasonable prices, and a diverse, inclusive city surrounded by natural green space. Sorry, nope. The people and their waste have to go somewhere.
Presumably because the enclosure makes it count as a “room,” which means additional building code regulations come into play. You’d be less likely to find yourself trapped in your cot in the event of a fire or earthquake if it was enclosed with a curtain or partition instead of a wooden box.
You’ve clearly never been to San Francisco and dealt with its regulations.
This is leaving aside that no one, not the county and not the state, is going to allow anyone to expand square footage into San Francisco Bay, which is protected.
The simpler solution (and the one people focus on) is increased density and going higher.
Devil’s advocate time, but what makes this thing not just a “bed”? What is the difference between this and, say, some of the alcove beds that I see on the interwebs? Is it the fact that it has a ceiling? 4 walls? This all seem like trivial distinctions that can be overcome with some design tweaks like foldable walls, curtains, “sunroof,” etc.
If the issue is that you can’t have a bed in the living room, then so be it, but then that should be the reason given by officials.
There’s sprawl out to the surrounding areas. That’s what I meant, the larger metropolitan areas, not within actual city boundaries. Same as Seattle, Houston, etc. etc. I’m sure it’s less in SF than other places due to the topography, but some people do live in the burbs and have a long commute, right? It’s not like SF is surrounded by nothing but wilderness.
Sure, I get that except the article and associated problems are in SF.
SF’s housing problems aren’t Oakland’s or Berkeley’s (or Redwood City’s) for example. SF is both a city and a county and has made itself into a hermetically sealed bubble in regards to housing.
Oakland’s main issue is the constant debate around gentrification and its implications as the old ghettos are bought out (and I live in a house in what was a Polish immigrant neighborhood, then a Black one, and is now gentrifying like crazy).
Also, about people commuting in, see all the stories about BART falling apart, having broken trains, and overcrowding.
Seattle actually has similar geographical constraints and no real mass transit up until recently.
A lot of the land in San Fransisco is made by dumping debris in to make land. Also earthquake country. We already have pretty lax regulations compared to shortly after the 1903 fire/earthquake.
