In a shocking and possibly illegal act of public absurdity, eight members of the Board of Supervisors voted to stall the construction of 495 new housing units on the site of a parking lot in the South of Market neighborhood.
> They bemoaned the dreaded specter of gentrification, as if the site’s current use as a 176-space valet parking lot for Nordstrom’s shoppers provides any benefit for communities struggling with scarce housing options.
18 months doesn't sound all that bad by UK standards! Then again, this project has been in the pipeline since 2017. There's a right balance for housing policy somewhere between "approve everything" and "approve nothing", and hopefully California is finally starting to find it?
I didn't see anything about this being to house the homeless. It just said affordable housing, which I assume is for normal working folks even tech people?
It just said affordable housing, which I assume is for normal working folks even tech people?
Nope, not for tech people.
The term 'affordable housing' often refers to housing units that are offered at below-market rates. It's part of a government racket:
The government creates regulations and takes other actions that hinder developers from easily building new housing, thereby limiting supply and increasing prices for the units that are available.
At the same time governments enact policies to prevent landlords from raising rents to market rates. While this protects current tenants, it limits the availability of units for new residents, effectively pricing them out and meaning only a subset of the total rental stock is affected by supply and demand.
After these regulations create a landscape of high housing costs, governments then introduce 'affordable housing' quotas for new development projects. These are often aimed at appeasing certain voter demographics to win votes.
Here in the UK, affordable housing provision (10% nationally, higher in some areas) is a pretty standard policy. Generally speaking, it seems to work well, although sometimes developers can buy their way out of it by providing a contribution ("section 106") to the council towards building affordable housing elsewhere. And in a few cases there has been controversy around "poor doors", with the developer providing different entrances to affordable units so that well-heeled residents don't have to brush shoulders with the unwashed masses.
Your question has nothing to do with the proposed development in SOMA.
The government forces developers to reserve some % of units for 'affordable housing' but this development wasn't being built to house people who are currently homeless.
Would you want a slum - solely, solely for the sake of the argument - at the center integrated into the city and its culture, or far from the city where they'd start a new culture and own justice, distinct from that of the city...
