"Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday signed a robust package of housing legislation aimed at addressing California’s unprecedented affordability crisis."
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This article is from a few months ago, but I think these bills just went into effect. Across much if not most of California, housing is absurdly expensive. In major cities, San Francisco being the most dramatic example, middle class families can't afford to buy a home, and rents are absurdly high. The term "gentrification" doesn't even begin to describe it, because even people who would be considered gentrifiers in Chicago or Atlanta can't buy a home in San Francisco. Similar but somewhat less serious problems exist elsewhere. Median home prices in California are approaching $550,000. There are other problems that spin off from this, such as homelessness, traffic congestion and air pollution resulting from long commutes to work, and segregation by income and wealth. California is beginning to address their affordability crisis, but I think it will be a long and difficult process. Of course, condominium and HOA-run housing were intended to make housing more affordable by increasing density. But now CIDs are so ubiquitous that probably that solution has exhausted itself. Virtually all new housing in California is in CIDs already, and prices are still sky-high. Here's an article from last June, where they note that the average condo in San Francisco now sells for $1.2 million, and "For even more perspective, down in Los Angeles—hardly a cheap place to live in its own right—the California Association of Realtors estimates that the average home (house or condo) cost around $480,000 in April. In Orange County it was $775,000. In Santa Cruz, $815,000. But in San Francisco: $1.4 million for a house or condo, very close to Paragon’s own figure and nearly double some of the record highs everywhere else."
2 comments:
Given that CID housing did not in any way solve the problem and in fact has done nothing but show it is rife with problems of its own, why not get rid of the bad idea of CID housing...especially since it isn't even a proper acronym for HOA-burdened housing.
In my view, proliferation of density via CID, unregulated speculative investment of real estate (much of it from foreigners), and local zoning and planning codes all contribute to decreased housing affordability.
Homeowners in many communities, especially association-governed communities, are often contstrained from the following:
—dividing their large single family home into a duplex or triplex, to create separate apartments for extended family or as rental units
—construction of guest cottages or garage apartments in the back yard, to create additional housing
—sharing living costs by getting a room mate to rent out extra bedrooms
Why not change local zoning to allow for more flexibility to integrate options for modest and lower income renters?
And, by all means, allow homeowners or tenants to plant vegetable gardens and plant low-maitnenance landscapes, to reduce monthly living expenses. Stop allowing HOAs to use loopholes to prevent SF homeowners from installing energy efficient systems, including solar and wind power.
New construction detached homes have an average size of 2600+ square feet. If the industry would provide new detached homes or separately-owned semi-detached homes about half that size, it would greatly increase housing affordability. NO HOA required, therefore, no additional HOA fees to be wasted and mismanaged. (Or outright stolen.)
And if local governements offered financial incentives to home buyers for improvment of older bungalows, cottages, and ranch homes in lieu of offering tax incentives to private developers, more consumers would be able to own their own homes. AND, at the same time, older homes would be preserved/restored, thus ACTUALLY increasing property values.
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