<story><title>54% of San Francisco homes are in buildings that would be illegal to build today</title><url>https://sfzoning.deapthoughts.com/illegal_homes.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Animats</author><text>Why? After the current bubble collapses, this will no longer be a problem.</text></item><item><author>pmiller2</author><text>Yeah, but let&amp;#x27;s be clear though: the problem is bad zoning, not zoning itself.  The fact that SF prohibits apartments in 76% of the city, according to the article (which, I&amp;#x27;m assuming, excludes places like Golden Gate Park) is an abomination in itself.  Literally just allow more apartment buildings, let buildings get built higher, and make a couple other tweaks for higher density housing, and zoning becomes a non-problem.&lt;p&gt;After that, all you have to deal with are the NIMBYs.  Le sigh.</text></item><item><author>jdavis703</author><text>This article specifically addresses buildings that are only illegal because of zoning. They aren’t including buildings that are unsafe due to building regulations like firecodes, ADA, etc.</text></item><item><author>payne92</author><text>This is true in many, many places: as zoning, safety, access, and environmental rules evolve most older buildings become not buildable under current rules.&lt;p&gt;Our national housing stock is FULL of places with narrow winding stairs, lead paint, full flow toilets and shower heads, untempered glass, single pane windows, uninsulated walls or ceilings, ungrounded outlets, undersized plumbing, sketchy chimneys, springy floors, etc.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m surprised the number isn&amp;#x27;t closer to 80-90%, especially with the recent energy efficiency rules.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sidlls</author><text>What collapse? In all but the most deplorable areas houses will have multiple offers within days of listing, starting even before any marketing effort. In many cases we&amp;#x27;re talking cash over the asking price. This isn&amp;#x27;t coming mainly&amp;#x2F;only from the tech sector. The number of people with FAANG salaries simply isn&amp;#x27;t sufficient to support the large number of multi-million dollar homes here. A lot of it is absentee (foreign) investors (for example, just under 20% of purchases in San Mateo as recently as 2019).&lt;p&gt;At best we might see a slight cooling in the rise in already absurd prices for property out here.</text></comment>
<story><title>54% of San Francisco homes are in buildings that would be illegal to build today</title><url>https://sfzoning.deapthoughts.com/illegal_homes.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Animats</author><text>Why? After the current bubble collapses, this will no longer be a problem.</text></item><item><author>pmiller2</author><text>Yeah, but let&amp;#x27;s be clear though: the problem is bad zoning, not zoning itself.  The fact that SF prohibits apartments in 76% of the city, according to the article (which, I&amp;#x27;m assuming, excludes places like Golden Gate Park) is an abomination in itself.  Literally just allow more apartment buildings, let buildings get built higher, and make a couple other tweaks for higher density housing, and zoning becomes a non-problem.&lt;p&gt;After that, all you have to deal with are the NIMBYs.  Le sigh.</text></item><item><author>jdavis703</author><text>This article specifically addresses buildings that are only illegal because of zoning. They aren’t including buildings that are unsafe due to building regulations like firecodes, ADA, etc.</text></item><item><author>payne92</author><text>This is true in many, many places: as zoning, safety, access, and environmental rules evolve most older buildings become not buildable under current rules.&lt;p&gt;Our national housing stock is FULL of places with narrow winding stairs, lead paint, full flow toilets and shower heads, untempered glass, single pane windows, uninsulated walls or ceilings, ungrounded outlets, undersized plumbing, sketchy chimneys, springy floors, etc.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m surprised the number isn&amp;#x27;t closer to 80-90%, especially with the recent energy efficiency rules.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Analemma_</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been reading about the &amp;quot;imminent&amp;quot; collapse of the SF housing bubble for essentially my entire adult life. Even the actual housing bubble implosion in &amp;#x27;07 barely put a dent in it.</text></comment>