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@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@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.


- marina

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