<story><title>Governor Brown&apos;s housing proposal could mean sweeping Bay Area changes</title><url>http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/2016/05/brown-affordable-housing-development-approval-ceqa.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jeffdavis</author><text>What would stop a municipality from making zoning laws that are impossible to meet, and then just issuing waivers to those that play the political game well enough?</text></item><item><author>pjlegato</author><text>This would address an important element of high Bay Area housing costs: the discretionary project veto by local authorities. This is the main reason why only super-high end luxury stuff gets built in San Francisco.&lt;p&gt;In most parts of the US, there are certain local zoning laws. You apply to the local government for review of your project. This is expensive, as you must prepare detailed professional studies for the proposal.&lt;p&gt;If the project conforms to all of the zoning laws, it must receive a permit. They can only deny you a permit if your project does not comply with some specific zoning law.&lt;p&gt;In San Francisco and several other nearby cities, the local government can arbitrarily withhold a permit even when a project conforms to all local zoning laws in every respect, usually under the vague and arbitrary guise of &amp;quot;not fitting in with the neighborhood&amp;#x27;s character.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Since applying for a permit is an expensive and time consuming process, most developers simply don&amp;#x27;t bother to even try in San Francisco. They just go elsewhere, where their project can&amp;#x27;t be arbitrarily vetoed by local authorities despite conforming to all applicable zoning laws.&lt;p&gt;The main exception is luxury developments: since the profit margin on luxury construction is so high, it&amp;#x27;s worth the extra cost and risk associated with navigating San Francisco&amp;#x27;s permit process.&lt;p&gt;If this law passes, then municipalities will not wield the power of arbitrary veto anymore. There will still be extensive zoning regulations, of course; the difference is that development restrictions will have to be spelled out in the law, in advance, rather than made up on an ad hoc, per-project basis by local officials. This greatly reduces the risk involved in starting a development project, and makes non-luxury developments much more likely to be profitable and thus undertaken by developers.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>floatrock</author><text>Hopefully the local interests who also know how to play the political game well enough but recognize the &amp;quot;indications that businesses and residents are fleeing the state in part because of high housing costs and the state&amp;#x27;s Legislative Analyst Office blaming excessive restrictions on development for the affordability crisis&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Profiting from pulling out the rug to newcomers only works if there are enough newcomers still willing to pay the exorbitant rents for the artificially suppressed supply.  If enough people start saying &amp;quot;eh, the bay area is nice and all but not worth it&amp;quot;, the NIMBYism starts to get less profitable.  Sort of a pendulum-swinging-the-other-way dynamic-equilibrium type of thing.</text></comment>
<story><title>Governor Brown&apos;s housing proposal could mean sweeping Bay Area changes</title><url>http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/2016/05/brown-affordable-housing-development-approval-ceqa.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jeffdavis</author><text>What would stop a municipality from making zoning laws that are impossible to meet, and then just issuing waivers to those that play the political game well enough?</text></item><item><author>pjlegato</author><text>This would address an important element of high Bay Area housing costs: the discretionary project veto by local authorities. This is the main reason why only super-high end luxury stuff gets built in San Francisco.&lt;p&gt;In most parts of the US, there are certain local zoning laws. You apply to the local government for review of your project. This is expensive, as you must prepare detailed professional studies for the proposal.&lt;p&gt;If the project conforms to all of the zoning laws, it must receive a permit. They can only deny you a permit if your project does not comply with some specific zoning law.&lt;p&gt;In San Francisco and several other nearby cities, the local government can arbitrarily withhold a permit even when a project conforms to all local zoning laws in every respect, usually under the vague and arbitrary guise of &amp;quot;not fitting in with the neighborhood&amp;#x27;s character.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Since applying for a permit is an expensive and time consuming process, most developers simply don&amp;#x27;t bother to even try in San Francisco. They just go elsewhere, where their project can&amp;#x27;t be arbitrarily vetoed by local authorities despite conforming to all applicable zoning laws.&lt;p&gt;The main exception is luxury developments: since the profit margin on luxury construction is so high, it&amp;#x27;s worth the extra cost and risk associated with navigating San Francisco&amp;#x27;s permit process.&lt;p&gt;If this law passes, then municipalities will not wield the power of arbitrary veto anymore. There will still be extensive zoning regulations, of course; the difference is that development restrictions will have to be spelled out in the law, in advance, rather than made up on an ad hoc, per-project basis by local officials. This greatly reduces the risk involved in starting a development project, and makes non-luxury developments much more likely to be profitable and thus undertaken by developers.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pjlegato</author><text>This is essentially what San Francisco does now: &amp;quot;fitting in with the neighborhood&amp;#x27;s character&amp;quot; is impossible to meet, unless you play the political game well enough.</text></comment>