[sudo-discuss] new occuption in SF: #gezigardens

Wed Jun 5 19:14:34 PDT 2013

The origin of the 30,000 number is unclear, and I can't tell what kind of
vacancy they're talking about - due to renovation? Fights over ownership?
Transition of ownership? Intermittent use because the owners live somewhere
else also? It also seems neither here nor there. SF is not a military base.
The city doesn't own most of the housing here, unless those are 30,000
public housing apartments, how can the city do anything about whether they
are rented or occupied? Supposing they could do something about those
vacant units, what does this private development have to do with the city
developing other places?

More housing at any price level will bring prices down at all levels (if
the number of people stays constant) and help keep prices from rising if
more people are constantly moving in.
Suppose you have 45 people in a little toy city that can spend $10,000/ mo
on an apt, and 40 apartments that are really super nice. 40 rich people
will get super duper nice apartments, and 5 rich people will overpay
(because the landlord knows he can charge it) for a merely very nice
apartment. Now suppose a developer builds 5 new $10,000/ mo apartments. Now
all of the people willing to pay $10,000/ mo have super duper nice apts,
and the owners of those merely very nice apartments will be forced to
charge $8,000. Notice, that 5 $10,000 apts were built, but what we have is
5 new $8,000/mo apts, because the highest end of the market was
oversubscribed. But it doesn't have to stop there. Maybe before the new
apts were built there were 35 people willing to spend $8,000, but only 28
very nice apts, so 7 people were paying $8,000/ mo for merely nice
apartments. Now that there are 5 new $8,000 apartments, only 2 people will
be overpaying, and there will be 5 newly available nice apartments that
those owners will have to rent for $6,000. Anyway, so on. That's now
building new housing at any price level can affect the price of housing at
lower levels.

Of course that won't happen if there are people that move to the city to
live in these luxury apartments who would not have moved in otherwise.
Like, if there are 185 people in mountain view who were not planning on
moving to SF, but then hear about this apt bdg and all move into it. In
that case, the new development is neutral, it does nothing.

Developers of all kinds are more or less all in the same community. If
people truly want affordable housing to be built, they should do everything
they can to make building very very cheap, that includes not being part of
making the political process expensive. If a mid-level developer sees that
even very rich developers are having a hard time getting their plans
through, then what hope does the less fancy developer have?

Now, if what you are interested in is seeing property values in the east
bay rise, than you should work very hard to keep supply down and prices up
in SF. I rent in west oakland, but we have some rent control. In a way, the
best thing for me would be for SF rents to keep rising in a crazy way! that
way people will be forced to move to my neighborhood, more yuppie coffee
shops can open up and more cute stores with stupid nicknacks, more bars
with drinks made with muddled ginger and sassifras, etc. :p Maybe that's
the agenda for these hippies. Maybe they all own houses in W Oakland or
Longfellow or Temescal. :D

On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, Anthony Di Franco wrote:

> The SFBG article states that the construction planned is for 185 units,
> with an unspecified number of low-income units to follow at an unspecified
> time in the future. Meanwhile, the Gezi Gardens press release quoted in the
> SFBG article states in part, "the San Francisco Tenants Union reports that
> over 30,000 housing units are vacant in San Francisco. We believe that the
> city should develop housing units in existing vacant buildings instead of
> places like this beautiful farm and green space."
> Is that claim accounted for in your views about what is likely to make
> living in the city more affordable? How if so? (I don't know much about
> housing economics and politics in San Francisco myself and I am looking to
> learn more from this controversy.)
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 4, 2013 at 5:38 PM, Jehan Tremback <jehan.tremback at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> I doubt that a farm will make SF rent any more affordable, while new
>> housing will. Building temporary structures is a great use of an
>> underutilized backyard, but there is no way that a plywood hexayurt will
>> last 200+ years like an actual building will (not that your hexayurts
>> aren't awesome, Morten).
>>
>> There seems to be a group of people who are intensely interested in
>> agriculture, but only if it will lead to a confrontation with the police.
>> There are also people who have strong opinions about the zoning of
>> neighborhoods they do not live in, despite never having attended a single
>> planning board meeting.
>>
>> OSF, to me, was less hypocritical because the stated aim was always
>> occupation as a means to protest greater societal ills. Squatting in empty
>> buildings also makes some sense because the space is not being utilized.
>> Blocking construction that will make the city more affordable, while
>> sustaining well-paying unionized construction jobs is handwavy posturing.
>>
>> -Jehan
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 4, 2013 at 4:57 PM, Marina Kukso <marina.kukso at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> hey friends,
>>>
>>> morten is building a yurt (
>>> https://twitter.com/OccupyOakland/status/342041218806599681) over at a
>>> new occupation site in sf: gezi gardens.
>>>
>>> folks there want to build an ecovillage, which i believe is relevant to
>>> the interests of at least some sudoers.
>>>
>>> more info at
>>> http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2013/06/04/former-hayes-valley-farm-site-occupied-renamed-gezi-gardensand on twitter at #gezigardens.
>>>
>>> - marina
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> sudo-discuss mailing list
>>> sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org
>>> http://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>>>
>>>
>>
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>
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