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Comment by honkhonkpants | Hacker News Reader

When I look at this bill I have to wonder if it will really help. Outside of the city of San Francisco itself, almost nothing is being built, because the construction costs are too high. Not the permitting and planning costs, but the actual guys-with-hammers-and-saws costs. For example in Oakland there are number of properties that are fully entitled to build and have been sitting that way for years. So how does Brown's bill help?

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Have you really been looking outside of SF?

Redwood city, about 30-40 min south of SF, has been booming with building growth. Developers are building, but can't get approvals with local governments fast enough.

There are currently 18 residential projects in Redwood City, 7 of which are already entitled but not under construction, 1 which withdrew the application after being entitled, and three in planning, leaving 7 under construction. Given that half of the entitled projects are not proceeding, I don't see the evidence that the government is the one holding things back.

Source? Because there are many projects that have been stopped recently or moved to other locations.

Don't get me started on that. RWC resident here, and there have been major issues with the city rubber stamping development without enforcing minimum parking requirements, or giving any major thinking to how to solve the cities insane traffic/parking problems (particularly compared to neighboring cities).

Oh, except the thought they had to make Farmhill suddenly go from two lanes to one lane. Yeah, that's a great solution on a main connector to 280 in a city that already has major rush hour congestion issues.

Wouldn't requiring more parking just worsen the traffic problem you mention?

Planners are finally realizing the requiring parking spaces subsidizes car use, making transit less viable, worsening traffic. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/business/economy/15view...

I actually don't think it would in this case. Part of the issue is that people keep circling at really low speeds endlessly (seriously, try parking there on a weekend), which worsens congestion.

Beyond that, the issue is that it is required in these cases, but the buildings just don't build enough and then pay the slap on the wrist fine for it.

If construction costs explain the high price of bay area housing, how is it possible that houses in the midwest are produced at less than 1/5 the price? Are the Kansas guys with hammers really making 1/5 the wages of the California hammer swingers?

Maybe the California hammer swingers have to pay higher rent.

Construction costs do not explain housing prices, but construction costs do explain which developments are undertaken and which are not. Consider that construction costs are basically the same in Oakland and San Francisco, but prices are higher in San Francisco, it makes little sense to develop in Oakland. The profits are simply not there.

Its almost 1/3rd last I checked. But thats not everything you pay a difference on when you build something. The high cost of living and many other things in the bay area factor into everything.

I have seen hundreds of new apartment and condo units built within three miles of my LA neighborhood in the last four years. Dozens within a half mile.

What it has meant so far is additional traffic congestion, increased commute times for everyone, more demand for government education and emergency services and more air pollution.

I'm not quite seeing how the government can be taking enough money in to make up for the reduction in service levels and overburdened infrastructure. Based on the broken roads and sidewalks around my neighborhood and LA generally, it doesn't seem like it is doing that.

That is one reason why transit-oriented development makes more sense today. We don't want to build a lot of car-dependent neighborhoods because the freeways can't handle it. It is very important today that cities develop in ways that make sense, are sustainable, and contribute to the health (financial and otherwise) of their cities, instead of being maintenance burdens without accompanying tax revenue. In my city of Oakland unfortunately we have both. A successful example would be the Fruitvale transit village (https://critical-sustainabilities.ucsc.edu/fruitvale-transit...).

A list of private development projects in Mountain View, with a number of them (residential and commercial) currently under construction:

http://www.mountainview.gov/depts/comdev/planning/activeproj...

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