[Rescue Muni] Housing, Land Use, and, yes, Muni

Daniel Murphy (daniel@well.com)
Mon, 22 Feb 1999 00:26:03 -0800

NKoris@aol.com wrote
> Just to clarify: the live-work projects actually benefit from substantial
> indirect city subsidies. They're entirely exempt from the usual developer
> fees for schools and low-income housing; they're also not subject to the
> requirements for design, bulk, and open space that apply to conventional
> residential construction. Now I suspect that the live-work boom would
> continue even without these exemptions: the increased costs would simply be
> passed on to buyers, who may not be particularly price-sensitive anyway. But
> as things stand now, it's not entirely a market-driven phenomenon.

All true. By market-driven I mean that limits on housing development in
San Francisco drove demand into the grey market of "live-work," which
allows housing to be developed in areas not zoned residential. The
demand for housing wasn't stopped; it was just diverted. And now we
have all the consequences one might expect from city planning gone
wrong: lots of people now live in industrial areas and are insisting
that industrial activity be curtailed because it's noisy and unpleasant.

All these housing units going up with little or no planning review means
that we have a much worse situation than we would have if the city had
planned for the same number of housing units. The city was unwilling to
allow that much housing development, so housing erupted all over the
place in a completely unplanned manner.

Live-work units going up near Muni yards will probably end up driving
those yards to Brisbane or San Bruno before too long, making Muni even
more difficult to operate efficiently. Muni yards are noisy 24/7
operations. Neighbors aren't gonna put up with it...

-- Daniel