Freaking supes. They treat SF like their little political science experiment and nothing of note ever gets done. Just let them build.
Do something about the car break-ins and package thefts. You know, govern the damn city.
Do something about the car break-ins and package thefts. You know, govern the damn city.
It doesn’t matter what stripe, but yeah we need someone with determination to come in and clean house like after the Koch era.
People are so fed up neighbors in the west part of the city are wondering out loud if it’s possible to secede from the city while remaining in the county cuz they just want a government which takes care of the hoi polloi. The police don’t even want to bother with robberies unless it involved a weapon because the DA won’t take the cases and the perps are instead given citations...
Because if the answer isn’t 100% to both those questions, then “property owners” are not strictly the community’s constituents.
When a city is "hot" and the working population is very transient, which is the case with SF's new tech workforce, nobody is really being a watchdog. The existing property owners will drift along, yelling about anything that might concievably affect their property values, and they get thrown bones to stay complacent since they're the most consistent voters. But they don't pay rent, and the majority of the workers still expect to be here as a career stepping stone and then move on to somewhere that doesn't suck, and so they put up with the rent and don't put down roots. People staying long-term under rent control hang onto their position for as long as they can. There's a lot of kicking cans down roads going on, hence the system trundles on.
Speaking as a long-time renter who is now a property owner, I almost never think about things in terms of “limiting supply”, and as far as I can tell, my neighbors don’t either. They do care a lot about things that you’d expect a non-cartoon-villian to care about: neighborhood quality, schools, access to daylight, preservation of views, congestion, etc.
While I’m sure there are idiots out there who think like economist robots, generally, characterizing the other side of a debate as one-dimensional doesn’t do anyone any good.
HN’s average level of discourse on housing policy tends not to be particularly intelligent. Mostly folks who read the first chapter of their econ 101 textbook, then got bored.
Edited: clarification
Would you also advise a company to destroy its profit center?
Every few years a potential new business would file for permission. Nope, no, "not a good fit", "too many of your idea already here", and more endless excuses kept the building empty.
Finally, about 1.5 years ago, a business was finally granted permission to move in. About 6 months later, a second business [a refugee from San Jose] moved in upstairs.
Both businesses resemble other businesses already on "main street".
I'd like to know more about the previous 13 years of "we don't want your tax money, we'd rather a big gaping hole and an empty building but thanks".
The empty bank building was a real eyesore though, especially with its prominence on that end of Campbell Ave. And now that it’s filled, a couple more of the empty storefronts near it look like they won’t be for long either.