SB 827 creates density and height zoning minimums near transit.
Under SB 827, parcels within a half-mile of high-connectivity transit
hub — like BART, Muni, Caltrain, and LA Metro stations — will
be required to have no density maximums (such as single family
home mandates), no parking minimums, and a minimum height limit
of between 45 and 85 feet, depending on various factors, such
as whether the parcel is on a larger corridor and whether it is
immediately adjacent to the station. A local ordinance can increase
that height but not go below it. SB 827 allows for many more
smaller apartment buildings, described as the “missing middle”
between high-rise steel construction and single family homes.
There's hundreds and hundreds of 5,000sqft lots within a half mile of caltrain. Your house burns down in a fire, you cant build it back? A 45 foot house would be at least 3 stories. It's one thing to say we need more dense homes in this area. But if the area was designed and laid our for single family homes with small single family lots, how is putting a 3 story house on those small lots going to help? It's also saying there's no minimum parking requirements. Not that you could really get any underground parking on some of these lots but street parking is going to be trashed as well? It's the suburbs! You do need a car out there! Caltrain/Bart is not the only form of transportation you use!
This seems really shortsighted and ignores the problem that each city and community is a little different. Some cities along the Bart/Caltrain lines could handle this. Others could not. A top down approach saying everything is the same and must follow these rules is not going to work
Is it possible you have misparsed "minimum height limit" as a set of minimum requirements on height? I believe it refers to a minimum on height limits, saying that lots cannot be zoned to be one-story-only. Your hypothetical family will be able to rebuild under this.
> This seems really shortsighted and ignores the problem that each city and community is a little different. Some cities along the Bart/Caltrain lines could handle this. Others could not. A top down approach saying everything is the same and must follow these rules is not going to work
You're absolutely right right! This is, in a great many ways, very far from an ideal approach. It refuses to offer the kind of flexibility that individual cities and communities could use to best benefit their residents.
The problem is that these cities and communities have taken that liberty and spent decades abusing it. They have, by and large, used their rights to decide that the appropriate amount of development for them is little to none. This legislation has the feel of a response to those abuses.
SB 827: > parcels within a half-mile of high-connectivity transit hub
[Emphasis added]
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> This says all parcels within half mile of those station need to be higher density
SB 827: > will be required to have no density maximums [...] a minimum height limit of between 45 and 85 feet
[Emphasis added]
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> It's also saying there's no minimum parking requirements [...] street parking is going to be trashed as well?
These are minimums, and cities have often set minimums high to discourage growth. Also,
> parcels within a half-mile of high-connectivity transit hub
That probably doesn't cover suburban stations way out from cities.
Aren't all those people paying rent now? If not, in what sense are they "in" an area? If so, in what sense can they not "afford" it?
A large category of people not paying rent is homeowners. Retired homeowners might have small incomes that suggest they can't afford rent, but because they own their home they are fine. Are they part of X%?
What is "local rent"? Perhaps they mean an average of the area. If so, it's not surprising that a good fraction can't afford the average rent, so they live in below-average apartments. Any healthy housing market would have this.
What is "afford"? Is there some percentage of income they're assumed to be able to pay as rent? If some people decide to spend a higher percentage of their income on rent because they care about their neighborhood more than eating out or buying gadgets, do they belong in a statistic that seems designed to show how unaffordable housing is?
I imagine one could write definitions of the above terms to get X anywhere from 0% to 100%.
For more about the problem: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/10/23/portland-hous...
I really think that a policy of much denser housing in urban areas must be enacted, including liberal application of eminent domain to reduce the existing stock of low-density homes. Requiring minimum heights within a tiny area around transit hubs helps but just doesn't even come close to addressing the problem.
Applying additional taxes on individual owner dwellings (including single-family homes, condos and townhouses) that aren't primary residences would be a huge step also. It should be very expensive for someone to own these properties and not occupy them.
At the same time, significant tax discounts tied to passing on the savings to renters for multi-family, high-density dwellings ought to be considered.
2) Taxation, tax breaks and subsidies are seriously the wrong way to go. The problem is too much heavy handed manipulation of the market. There are always unintended consequences. These proposals try to chip away the ability of zoning boards to regulate who can build what where. That's the ultimate solution.