Many places (especially in Silicon valley) restrict the height of buildings, and the number of apartments, etc. When you can't build up, you have to build out.
There are height limitations in most of Silicon Valley (except maybe downtown San Jose?) -- I think the limit here in Sunnyvale, for example, is eight stories -- but earthquakes are not the reason for them. People just want to preserve the suburban character of the area. How that can be done when a lot more people want to live here is not clear to me.
I don't understand why we can't build up? I wish building regulations for cities were the opposite from what they are right now and only permit buildings over a certain height (20+ stories as a starting point?) so that we aren't wasting space. In SF I often times hear earthquakes as the reason (not fully buying that because there are many tall buildings in earthquake areas including SF). It probably all comes down to NIMBYs.
Why can't tech companies out-muscle NIMBY's and get 30-50 story residential buildings approved? After spending time in different parts of China, it seems asinine that most buildings here don't exceed ~4 stories.
Yup - and everything is 2 stories or less. Nothing gets built, not because of demand, but because zoning laws. There’s no reason other than the city of Palo Alto won’t allow tall buildings to be built - the less that is built the more wealth homeowners and real estate investors get.
Don't feel silly -- many Valley cities have strict rules on building height too. Ideally, we'd like high-rise living next to mass transit, but I outside of downtown San Jose, I doubt any city would approve.
It's even worse in the suburbs. Everything is incredibly sprawled out. Every major city I've been to has apartment towers. It's just a more economical way to use land. Given how much demand for housing there is, there are obviously regulations in place keeping anything very tall from being built. The bay area doesn't want to grow.
I'm pretty sure that SF restricting building height is a major reason for high real-estate prices that people complain about pricing them out of their homes.
Similarly when I lived in Silicon Valley (San Jose/Santa Clara/Sunnyvale anyway) it was all 3-storey buildings and some open space. They razed the last orchard while I lived there; immediately taller buildings started going up. I foresee skyscraper clusters in their future.
The article is referring to the entire state which is geographically diverse. Cities like San Francisco, L.A., San Diego, and even Sacramento have some taller housing options. Also, CA has major earthquakes so high-rises are generally not as common. We've been building out vs up but can't match the demand. Part of it is also due to CA's strict building/environmental regulations that make any construction project a slow and tedious process.
Since you're an architect, I have a question. Considering the housing shortage everywhere and the land scarcity, wouldn't it be more logical to build higher apartments? My neighbourhood doesn't allow any apartment building taller than 5 floors for example. Why not grant 30 floors? I live in an earthquake zone sure. But there are residences that high allowed in the area, but for middle-class apartments maximum height is limited with 5 floors. I don't get this. Let's build higher, denser apartments and solve the housing shortage. Am I too optimistic?
Height limits and zoning are a good idea. If you don't have limits then you will have only high ugly 25-floor apartment buildings. Like the ones they build in China [1][2] or in Russia.
Look at any old European city like Paris or Amsterdam or Saint-Petersburg. A historical part of the city with 3-5-7 floor buildings looks so much better than modern cities with skyscrapers.
And I am not sure that building new houses will solve the problem. New houses and lower living cost might attract even more people to move to California.
This does not follow. Regulating what types of building can be built does not inherently limit the total volume of buildings that can be built. Barcelona and Paris are mostly under ten stories and house a very large population with considerable efficiency. Currently most buildings in San Francisco are one or two stories tall. The real problem with regulations is much more difficult to characterize. How much money and expertise does it take to negotiate building regulations? How much time does it take or might it take? The article calls out limits to how much residential or office space can be built over a specified time as particularly damaging. Many developers highlight the ability for NIMBYs to draw out environmental hearings until projects get stressed and fail.
Towers might be helpful in some cases, but are absolutely not needed. Indeed, research into the Bay Area suggests that the entire area functions as a unit. Because of the distribution of the population this means that the long hindered expansion of suburban downtowns is more relevant and critical to regional housing demand than what is going on in urban cores. Suburban cores do not need big towers, just the usual expansion. Large developments brought about by economic forces tend to be boxy and incrementally larger than existing buildings. Tall towers get built to house egos, not families or business operations.
I find it fascinating that despite not having the house+back yard that many Americans strive for
I too find it fascinating and I too live in a large apartment building, but a lot of other Americans would too if it were legal to build those apartment buildings. Matt Yglesias explains why in The Rent is Too Damn High (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0078XGJXO?tag=thstsst-20&linkCode=...), but the short version is that cities forbid taller buildings through height restrictions and parking minimums in order to protect the property values of existing owners by limiting housing supply.
Biggest question I had when I first arrived in bay area. Gov. Regulation are the reason why it is a bit harder to have taller buildings, tech companies have lot of money to go for more land grab is the main reason.
If you are building a building with X floor area the city government requires you to have f(x) area as open land. If you want to build a very tall building it will have to look like the Saruman's Tower. This regulation is part of the reason why Sunnyvale or Mountain View do not look like SF. It is also the reason why property prices are so expensive. The good part however is that it means less crime, better neighbourhoods and overall good quality of life.
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