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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 4h

The bigger picture for me is we need to stop selling homeownership as a path to wealth. That's basically guaranteeing a housing shortage.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 4h

We give so many financial subsidies to owner occupiers. I'm skeptical the depreciation is enough to make owner occupiers non competitive.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 4h

Yes, and the hidden HOA on the single family home must be factored in. The cost of that roof depreciation, the cost of landscaping, etc. And I still don't see the justification for telling renters that single family detached homes are off limits to them

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 5h

At current mortgage rates, the initial payment is maybe 10% principal....

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 5h

I think a brute comparison of $2500 rent and $1800 mortgage, even assuming that's an all-in monthly including taxes and insurance (doubt), can be misleading. For example, the SFH owner is responsible for maintenance and risk of market declines.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 5h

Why should single family detached homes be reserved for owner occupiers? That harms access to people who prefer to, or can only afford to, rent such homes. It would increase segregation.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 5h

We cannot build a ton of housing because landlords and homeowners are economic enemies of developers and have passed zoning rules prohibiting it.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 7h

My phev minivan is only just below that, and an optioned Ioniq 5 is just two hundred pounds below.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 8h

We should push back whenever people just lazily blame the landlord in a housing shortage.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 8h

I think we, as housing advocates, should highlight how FCFS harms those with limited time.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 8h

But they don't.... The price and quality varies by location, by quantity purchased, etc. people who have time to shop around pay less.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 8h

So near 90% of all home sales. And I'd highlight that even "rationed" new home sales implicitly involve an auction. It's called price discounts for properties that sit unsold, price hikes when their interest list fills in a day.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 8h

It is the cultural norm in home purchases.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 9h

But that's my point, we should question what counts as fair here. People dislike lots of things for bad reasons. They dislike a single line for all checkouts at a store, because they think they'll pick the faster line (they won't).

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 10h

Local pedestrian bridge over a major stroad now closed for three months. Prediction: the median day will be like today, no active work.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 10h

In a housing shortage, you can have first come first served rentals, or auctions. Many think a landlord is evil if they go the auction route, few acknowledge the FCFS route hurts tenants that can't devote hours of time every day to searching listings and applying before even seeing the home.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 11h

Hotel shortages are worth fixing too. The problem isn't Airbnb, it's a lack of housing.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 11h

Please explain what "rental property that should be owner occupied" means. Bonus: define it without being segregationist (difficulty level impossible).

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 11h

Weird how your ignoring the biggest cartel in RE - landowners (homeowners) blocking housing growth. And when a landlord goes bankrupt from low rents, the bank sells to a new landlord at a lower cost basis that can support the rents. That's a win!

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Removing exclusionary zoning isn't just free, it increases revenue.

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Reposted by Upzone the coastal elites

rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

this literally is not true

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Our builder's remedy is imperfect. It comes with a big unfunded IZ requirement. It was recently watered down in terms of allowed density, in exchange for purportedly making it more reliable. Unclear if that was a good trade to me.

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Reposted by Upzone the coastal elites

David Roberts @volts.wtf · 05/10/2026

Holy shit.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Maybe a law that said no city can delay or deny housing unless their city attorney is willing to put their bar license on the line that there is at least a good faith basis for their actions.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

There's no personal repercussions for city councilors when they illegally deny even with their city council saying denial would be illegal in that same meeting. They fear local NIMBY voters more.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Cities are mostly losing, the AG is somewhat helpful. HCD is weak (should immediately revoke housing element certification for any illegal denial, opening builders remedy window again). Problem is cities don't care, will deny anyways and drag things out.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Not aware of any reason it would be too late, but definitely don't see urgency in getting bike infrastructure

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Apparently the county just paused the bike lanes for the Treat bridge over 680. Currently, the safe path is the nasty under highway canal trail, a multi block detour. Cowards.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Wealth of US billionaires: $9T Value of CA property: $9T (artificially low bc of prop. 13.) Yes to taxing billionaires, but taxing property owners is also necessary.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I don't know specifically. I will say SF is likely doing this in anticipation of tripping their "circuit breaker." Basically, the state only approved their housing plan on condition of further reform upon failure to build. They will trigger it thefrisc.com/how-sfs-hous...

thefrisc.com

How SF’s Housing Plan, Now Law, Might Be Forced Back to the Drawing Board

Big projects, like 25 stories proposed for the Marina Safeway site, could brew new political fights — including a trigger for more upzoning.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Permitting processes are improving, not enough. There has been some minor amount of upzoning. Overall, still a ton of reforms left to do

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Density bonus was there, but not enough.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

SF has one of the nation's slowest and most contentious entitlement process*, very high land costs (especially since much of the city is zoned low density), very high labor costs, etc. *particularly during ZIRP era

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Sadly there is a big overlap between the biggest proponents of rent control and NIMBYs who want to deny there is a housing shortage. It's easy to blame landlords than the homeowners blocking growth.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

That's what rent stabilization is useful for. Capping rents, but at a rate that exceeds baseline inflation.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Wouldn't you just go to PH? The gap at monument seems pretty annoying though

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

they're just about to close the IHT bridge over Treat for three months :( Iht is great, but yeah lots of room for improvement.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

We couldn't even pass a bill in California to require cars have an alarm when drivers speed.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

LA is an epicenter of unaffordability. It's not an example to follow.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

"let's ban dense housing so we can force developers into agreeing to give away some of the housing for less than market in order to get permission to build dense housing" Is the height of neo-liberal rube Goldberg nonsense, and it has routinely failed.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

And the key here is SF, with it's very hot jobs market, failing their market rate planning goals is absurd and demands reform. I would prefer removal of all zoning limits, but they went with IZ reduction. There is no defending the prior failure.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I'm familiar with the theory that restrictions on zoning can create willingness to pay IZ taxes. I don't think it's a good alternative to looser zoning in the first place, but as I've said if that's the only way to get upzoning passed then do it.

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Upzone the coastal elites @aboutdave.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I agree that it is unlikely a jurisdiction in CA, with prop. 13!, would tax itself sufficiently to fund the subsidized production minima, and thus those categories of RHNA are somewhat unrealistic. Cannot say the same of the market rate RHNA minima, which SF was massively behind, in part bc of IZ

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