[payne92]

This is true in many, many places: as zoning, safety, access, and environmental rules evolve most older buildings become not buildable under current rules.

Our national housing stock is FULL of places with narrow winding stairs, lead paint, full flow toilets and shower heads, untempered glass, single pane windows, uninsulated walls or ceilings, ungrounded outlets, undersized plumbing, sketchy chimneys, springy floors, etc.

I'm surprised the number isn't closer to 80-90%, especially with the recent energy efficiency rules.

[jdavis703]

This article specifically addresses buildings that are only illegal because of zoning. They aren’t including buildings that are unsafe due to building regulations like firecodes, ADA, etc.

[pmiller2]

Yeah, but let's be clear though: the problem is bad zoning, not zoning itself. The fact that SF prohibits apartments in 76% of the city, according to the article (which, I'm assuming, excludes places like Golden Gate Park) is an abomination in itself. Literally just allow more apartment buildings, let buildings get built higher, and make a couple other tweaks for higher density housing, and zoning becomes a non-problem.

After that, all you have to deal with are the NIMBYs. Le sigh.

[r00fus]

You do realize that the problem is NIMBYs all the way down tho, right?

How do you think zoning laws came into place?

[wahern]

Zoning originally was driven by legitimate fears of tuberculosis and other diseases, and it emerged as an extension of building and safety codes which had developed in response to innumerable deadly tragedies.

Though, some of the more famous court cases that later secured broad zoning powers evinced mixed motivations clearly implicating class tensions.

I once took a Land Use seminar in law school. My professor, as well as numerous authors on the subject, always seemed incredulous and even cynical about professed concerns w/ tuberculosis and similar health concerns. But over the years since I've lost count the number of times I've come across non-legal historical writing directly or indirectly reflecting fears about tuberculosis, the prevalence of miasma theory, etc, so I no longer second guess the earnestness of those early regulations and court cases.

The powerful will always coopt laws and institutions to their advantage. That's almost the definition of power--the capability to do that. It's unavoidable. That dynamic doesn't by itself negate, post hoc, the original legitimacy of those laws and institutions. Of course, earnestness alone doesn't justify them at inception, either.

[pmiller2]

I'm literally saying it doesn't matter how they came into place. Zoning per se is irrelevant. It's inflexible and out of date zoning that's the problem. You don't have to go full on Houston and eliminate all zoning to solve this particular aspect of the problem.

[whimsicalism]

But it becomes a problem if it's entirely up to local voters. Let the state have a say in the zoning process.

[xiphias2]

Why would the current house owners do that? The renters suffer, who don't have voting rights, so I don't see why this would change in the future.

[ahepp]

What do you mean "renters don't have voting rights"?

[dragonwriter]

The renters suffering aren’t actual current renters so much as the would-be renters who can’t actually become renters in the City because there are no units available for them to rent.

Those people have no voting rights in the City.

[ahepp]

I can't tell if you're serious or not...

How can someone say with a straight face that it's unjust people who don't live in a jurisdiction have no say in how it's run?

[jonny_eh]

How can the thousands of future renters of a new high rise vote before it's been built? The few current home owners have all the power.

[Animats]

Why? After the current bubble collapses, this will no longer be a problem.

[sidlls]

What collapse? In all but the most deplorable areas houses will have multiple offers within days of listing, starting even before any marketing effort. In many cases we're talking cash over the asking price. This isn't coming mainly/only from the tech sector. The number of people with FAANG salaries simply isn't sufficient to support the large number of multi-million dollar homes here. A lot of it is absentee (foreign) investors (for example, just under 20% of purchases in San Mateo as recently as 2019).

At best we might see a slight cooling in the rise in already absurd prices for property out here.

[Analemma_]

I've been reading about the "imminent" collapse of the SF housing bubble for essentially my entire adult life. Even the actual housing bubble implosion in '07 barely put a dent in it.

[trimbo]

People have been complaining about SF real estate prices since at least 1846. [1]

[1] - https://books.google.com/books?id=GiAa8pLrSTIC&lpg=PA45&lr&p...

[HPsquared]

I guess the prices could collapse a fair bit and still be overpriced.

[baybal2]

A more extreme example: 1/5 of all housing stock in China are vacant concrete boxes, and people are still complaining about apartment prices reaching to the sky.

Imagine cities both 20 times the size of SF, and being one fifth vacant.

[pmiller2]

Imagine there being 59 empty homes for each homeless person in the country. That's the US, not China, BTW: https://www.self.inc/info/empty-homes/

[BobbyJo]

To be fair, housing in China is used as a savings vehicle. They have few, if any, social safety nets available to them, and don't trust the stock market.

Housing in the US doesn't have nearly the same speculative force behind it.

[ladberg]

Vacant != on the market. I know a few people living in china, all of whom own more apartments than they can use (in the same neighborhoods no less, so it's not even vacation homes).

They do it because it's the best way to invest their savings, so new apartments are usually spoken for before they're even built and often unoccupied until they're sold again.

[refurb]

SF homes dropped 30% in 2008.

Edit: Actually 44% to be precise.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SFXRSA

[imtringued]

It won't collapse (over the long term [0]) because the underlying reason is a savings glut. There are dozens of factors that contribute to the savings glut and I don't see any signs of them going away for the next 15 years. Of those dozen factors at least one third would have to go away all at once for there to be a sustained housing crash.

[0] The 2008 recovery happened within 3 quarters...

[bananabreakfast]

What bubble? People will never leave San Francisco en masse. The "exodus" during the pandemic will be the greatest outflow of people from the city for the next decade.

San Francisco can build more housing to accommodate a higher population or let its poorest citizens get priced out. Either way people will not stop coming.

[refurb]

Never leave? SF lost 20%+ of its population in the 50-70’s.

[forgotmysn]

thats what they said when the dotcoms busted in 02 though

[shados]

You zone for what you want to build, not what is there already. The later wouldn't make any sense.

The arguments generally given are to show that we're preventing building for density, pointing out NIMBYism, etc, but even if we were doing the polar opposite, the same would be true:

If you have a town that's all single family, and zoning rules pass that any and all buildings MUST be 3+ stories, then all the existing houses wouldn't be allowed under current zoning laws. The fact that they're not allowed under current zoning rules is irrelevant. The question is only if the new zoning rules are good for what you want to see or not.

[zzapplezz]

Straw man - generally the idea of YIMBYism is to be more inclusionary, so that 3+ stories is allowed not required.

In contrast, SFH-only zoning is exclusionary.

[shados]

Even if you allowed skyscrapers, most existing houses and buildings would be illegal because of code. The map on this particular page mentions it only looks at zoning, so it's still very valid.

But my point is saying "X amount of homes would be illegal to build" is completely pointless and just meant to rile people up. OF COURSE most buildings are illegal to build today. We don't build like we use to for a variety of reasons. Even if you forget about building code, there's also rules around minimum amount of affordable units that older buildings didn't need to follow. Zoning is a specific one and yes, it's often problematic and regressive. Let's focus on that.

[zip1234]

The building code and fire code thing is not true. Building codes are actually very flexible. There are plenty of ways to build a building to look exactly like almost any old building and fully comply with all codes.

[shados]

Look like old buildings? Sure. But actually be the same? No. Hell, the building I live in is less than 12 years old and the electric panel is no longer to code, the HVAC condensate line is no longer to code, the damn stairs are no longer to code, the freagin dryer vent is no longer to code. They were all to code when they were built.

[sandworm101]

Same is true of used cars, aircraft, boats and any number of regulated products. Change any tiny reg and all the previous stock "could not be built today". It doesn't mean much. Buildings last decades, centuries, far longer than any zoning board decision.

[sokoloff]

Aircraft are a different case than the others above. Aircraft are built to a type certificate and once it's issued so long as that type certificate is not revoked, airplanes can (in fact, must) be built today in conformance with that type certificate. Modifications to that type certificate are permitted, but they do not require full conformance with current regulations.

My 1997 airplane was built on a type certificate first issued in 1956 (under CAR-3 regulations) and amended to include my model in 1969. Many regulations changed between 1969 and 1997. Beechcraft could build one today under that type certificate, even though they couldn't get that exact type certificate newly issued today (CAR-3 has been replaced by Part 23 requirements).

[sandworm101]

Yes but the new aircraft would have to have things like modern electronics, not the pure original spec. The wings could be unchanged but the radio set would be to current standards, incorporating things like adsb transponders that didn't exist in the 50s.

[p_l]

The only avionics change since 1930s that would be required is radio with modern channel spacing, unless you want to fly in controlled airspace, then a transponder would be added (which would incorporate ads-b functionality, whether by integrated or add-on GPS)

[zip1234]

Zoning has nothing to do with the safety of the constructed building. Isn't the article only talking about zoning?

[tjalfi]

> I'm surprised the number isn't closer to 80-90%, especially with the recent energy efficiency rules.

Sommerville, Ma is a city of 80,000; 22 buildings meet the zoning code[0].

[0] https://cityobservatory.org/the-illegal-city-of-somerville/

[jws]

Our national housing stock is FULL of places with narrow winding stairs, lead paint, full flow toilets and shower heads, untempered glass, single pane windows, uninsulated walls or ceilings, ungrounded outlets, undersized plumbing, sketchy chimneys, springy floors, etc.

My house from 1890 scored 10 for 10 on your list. I addressed about half of them over the decades, but the other half are just, "It's ok, we'd do it better if we did it over." The additions and any bits "touched" have to meet current code, but the old parts are allowed to be what they are.

I don't feel it detracts from my living experience at all. (I did take care of the "this can kill you" part of the list as well as most of the single pane windows and uninsulated areas.)

A couple of the code mandated changes are definitely negatives, as are a couple of "slightly off" construction problems which required space wasting and slightly dangerous constructs in the house instead of just accepting that the wall at the bottom of the stairs is 2 inches closer than code allows.

[Black101]

> I'm surprised the number isn't closer to 80-90%, especially with the recent energy efficiency rules.

It probably is with all the work that was done without permits.

[throwaway8581]

One of the first things I do when moving into a new place is remove all the flow restrictors on the faucets and shower heads. And I replace at least some of the LED bulbs with beautiful, soft, full-spectrum incandescent bulbs. Two quick fixes to improve your quality of life.

[russellendicott]

gasp /s

I can totally understand the flow thing--less flow means longer, more annoying shower.

I've found that the soft white LED bulbs are a tolerable replacement for full spectrum incandescent. I stick with LED because I'm lazy and I don't have to change them as frequently.

However, when the LED bulbs DO go out they do the flickering thing which is maddening. I'd prefer incandescent's total failure to produce light over the flickering fail mode any day of the week.

[toast0]

Some LED bulbs are pretty ok. But man do they have way more failure/annoyance modes. I've got can lights in most of my house, and it's much nicer if you match a room up for color temperature, but also start latency, and dimmer compatibility. With incandescent as long as the wattage was the same/close and the color type was the same, you could mix and match different manufacturers; now if one bulb goes out, I might have to replace the whole room if I don't have any like for like spares, the model may have been updated so I can't get a new bulb like the old one.

[dannyw]

Seriously. LED is great, but incandescent is absolutely beautiful.

I don't go around replacing all my lightbulbs, but my bedroom and living room? Absolutely.