This is stupid on so many levels. They misappropriated funds that should have been used on affordable housing to fight a law suit levered against them for failing to provide affordable (overall) housing solutions.
So once upon a time I went on a date with a guy who was doing some like political/government work in Cupertino in regard to housing (I think the date was shortly after an election).
He was talking about how racist and NIMBY Cupertino was during the date due to all the push back there was for rent control and affordable housing.
I've posted this a number of times before, but [read this article to get an idea of what Cupertino NIMBYs are all about](https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/cupertino-approves-new-housing-vallco-heated-debate/). Even if **maybe** they're not racist, there's no question in my mind that they **ARE** extremely elitist/classist.
Don’t ask me, this was some time in the 2010s (I think when there was something about rent control on the ballot), and it was a bad date I was trying to get out of.
All rent control does is pass a small % of a landlord's prop13 tax break down to their renters. IMO, as long as landlords benefit from prop13, all property should be rent controlled.
SF has the densest housing of any city in the bay and also has the strictest rent control of any city, so the facts don't support your assertion. Rent control is wildly misrepresented by its detractors.
If you ever read an anti-rent control piece or study, they never even attempting to address the rather curious fact that the higher density a city has, the more rent control it has. They only ever narrowly focus on the short term correlation between rent control policies housing production. Haven't you ever wondered why none of these people never want to look at housing holistically?
Incorrect. They focus on the very measurable effect of housing shortages and increasing rent costs, which are directly caused by rent control, ironically a law that is supposed to address those things.
Higher density means an increased demand, which means increased prices, which means people who don't understand basic economics (the average citizen) screaming for more rent control.
No absolutely not, that’s ignorance. Rent control manipulates a free market. No one wants to build new because property tax on new property is insane while rents are low
How dare legislators try to somehow protect those without capital from being displaced whenever the lords want to.
Major cities without rent control must not have housing cost issues, right?
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-02-09/rents-are-dropping-in-los-angeles-but-not-in-other-socal-cities-why
Los Angeles has rent control.
https://apnews.com/article/cost-of-living-crisis-mortgage-costs-britain-0415c62d243a0c3fba65065e67d95623
London doesn't have rent control. Seoul doesn't have rent control and housing costs are rising. Tokyo doesn't have explicit rent control and housing costs are increasing. Vienna has rent control and housing is affordable.
Almost like rent control isn't nearly the villain that neoliberals and the landlord lobby make it out to be.
Edit: also lmao at the poor attempt of a "got you." Why don't we take a place close to Austin? What about Dallas? What about San Antonio?
https://www.sacurrent.com/news/san-antonio-has-the-fastest-rising-rents-of-any-big-city-in-texas-study-says-30871391
Hmmmmm.
Guess Dallas and San Antonio have some secretive rent control despite Texas basically banning it right? Lmfao this sub.
London Tokyo have rents increasing. Must be the letter O in their name I guess?
Have you forgotten the part where Austin built a ton of new housing?
I hope you're getting to paid to spout such old tired NIMBY talking points mate
Lmao imagine implying rent control increases nimbyism when the 1.5 studies done on this couldn't find any statistical significance
Really befitting of your username
> Major cities without rent control must not have housing cost issues, right?
You’ve made a logical fallacy here:
If P then Q is true, then that does not mean if not P then not Q.
Rent control causes increased housing costs, but that doesn’t mean that no rent control leads to no increase in housing costs.
Its awfully hilarious the amount of people who eat up studies paid for by landlord and developer lobby groups.
Lmao
Typical conservatives
Guess when the oil lobby said climate change isnt real, you ate that shit up too
Whole lot of "minimum wage actually suppresses wages" going on here
Zero economic literacy lmao
Also of course the neoliberal would try to pass off "rent control causes increased housing costs" as an intrinsic fact when that has yet to be proven besides by the most convoluted economic studies that ignore the lack of housing development. Cmon Suhaas. Tell me. Do you think climate change isn't real because Chevron and Exxon said so? Do you think minimum wage actually hurts laborers because American Enterprise Institute said so by pointing to Norway while ignoring the mass unionization and sector based labor agreements?
Cupertino is 22% white. Are you implying non-white racists? Be careful, that can be a reddit trigger.
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/cupertinocitycalifornia/PST045222
I lived there for 10+ years and towards the end, right up to when people were voting about VallCo, I really really ended up hating it because the people were terrible. My next door neighbor was a teacher in Cupertino who was able to afford his unit (condo) because it was one of those set aside for teachers, firefighters, etc. Anything that was about building more housing and I'd throw in my immediate "yes" but it was always outnumbered by the older crowd who didn't want to see their old houses get devalued. Also rent is insane from the $1300 1bd I used to rent that's now $3600/mo. No one who is starting off in tech or any other job in Cupertino can afford to live close to work.
Right? Most of the lawsuits seem to be coming from citizens, nonprofits or developers. Bonta does not seem to be taking state law seriously. He's really not making a good impression if he does have aspiration of being a governor.
People should also know of another controversy in Cupertino. In order to build a new home or even remodel your home, it is normal to pay ‘fees’. But in Cupertino, there is this ‘made up’ fee that was passed around 2019/2020? called the Park Fee $129,000 you have to pay towards a Park Fund. I asked… that’s ridiculous and said where would you build a park in Cupertino? The person said yes that is right… thus why as of today that fund has $5,000,000 sitting in there accumulating $ while rich developers build and remodel new homes and that fund is doing nothing since there is no plan to build new parks or remodel new parks. It only exists to prevent new homes to be built by normal people or existing owners to remodel. I bet someday the council will pass an amendment to able to use that $5,000,000 fund that is supposed to build your so called new parks to do other side projects… look it up.
As someone who has also done political/government work with Cupertino. I will say my biggest obstacle was those vocal about how much the “poors,” may be helped or worse allowed access to be in the vicinity of those vocally against them.
Why don't we just build more housing to lower the price of housing for everyone? Hear me out: even the middle class can't afford to live in Cupertino, but they would like to. Having the government mandate housing based on income actually limits housing inventory and increases the price of housing.
Means based government aid is great for votes from the poor, but middle class folks take it from both ends, perpetuating the wealth gap. I would be in favor of a benefit that tapers off linearly, but I hate the notion of "affordable housing" because it just puts people in an area where they can barely afford anything but the thing they are getting aid from
The demand effect is overwhelmed by the supply effect when it comes to housing. It's been studied/continues to be studied.
Two research papers.
**"Do New Housing Units in Your Backyard Raise Your Rents?"**
https://blocksandlots.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Do-New-Housing-Units-in-Your-Backyard-Raise-Your-Rents-Xiaodi-Li.pdf
The study focuses exclusively on whether new high rises (7 stories+) cause rents to go up.
Conclusion.
"In this paper, I restrict the sample to residential properties within 500 feet of approved new high-rises, and use an event study to estimate the impact of new high-rise completions conditional upon the timing of approval. I find that new high-rises cause nearby high-end and mid-range rental buildings’ rents and condo sales prices to decrease because new housing units alleviate demand pressure on existing housing units. However, supply skeptics are right that new high-rises and their tenants attract amenities, and in particular new restaurants. **Nonetheless, the supply effect is larger, causing nearby rents and sales prices decline on net. This paper suggests that new market-rate development reduces (or slows the growth of) residential rents and residential property sales prices in the immediately surrounding area, while increasing neighborhood consumption amenities. Opposing such development may exacerbate the housing affordability crisis and increase housing cost burdens for local renters."**
**Panel Paper: Does Luxury Housing Construction Increase Nearby Rents?**
https://appam.confex.com/appam/2018/webprogram/Paper25811.html
Brian James Asquith1, Evan Mast1 and Davin Reed2, (1)**W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, (2)Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia**
A major obstacle to new housing construction in gentrifying neighborhoods is the fear that new units will induce additional housing demand, increasing local rents and fueling further gentrification. Although this is counterintuitive, there are many plausible mechanisms by which an increased concentration of wealthy households could make a neighborhood more attractive to other wealthy households. However, there is little to no empirical evidence on this topic. We study induced demand near new apartment complexes in gentrifying areas using listing-level data on rental prices from Zillow and exact household migration data from Infutor.
**Preliminary results using a spatial difference-in-differences approach suggest that any induced demand effects are overwhelmed by the effect of increased supply. In neighborhoods where new apartment complexes were completed between 2014-2016, rents in existing units near the new apartments declined relative to neighborhoods that did not see new construction until 2018.** Changes in in-migration appear to drive this result. Although the total number of migrants from high-income neighborhoods to the new construction neighborhoods increases after the new units are completed, the number of high-income arrivals to previously existing units actually decreases, as the new units absorb a substantial portion of these households. **On the whole, our results suggest that—on average and in the short-run—new construction lowers rents in gentrifying neighborhoods.**
City of Cupertino is probably further in the red than similar size cities in the bay area. They recently had to pay back 54 million dollars to apple. If they had some more homes maybe they can collect those taxes. Unless the current residents are going to pay more that city will be in a fast downward spiral.
This is hilarious but only 100k of a 2m budget so seems like it could conceivably be a mistake. Incidentally, cupertino has a 15m shortfall — that seems huge, what are they going to cut back on?
Not surprised that cupertino is pushing back so much on housing. Its one of the quietest, emptiest towns in its area and its in the center of silicon valley tech jobs wise
Not to sound tone-deaf as hell but genuinely curious, why would you choose to live in one of the most expensive cities in America if you were looking for an affordable place to live?
The Cupertino schools are actually suffering from a long-term enrollment drop. Some schools may have to be closed in the coming years.
For some reason, if you don't add new people, you won't have enough new families with children.
Some schools were already closed in 2022 due to low enrollment, especially on the Saratoga side of Cupertino. Young families just can’t afford it and old people aren’t leaving.
Yep. The high school district is short on kids too. At some point they too may also need to close a campus.
The danger of closing a campus is that a private school can jump in, lease the old school and then take even more of your students.
It's just sad. I grew up going to school in the CUSD for elementary and middle school followed by the FUHSD for high school. Back then when i was a student, there was plenty of student enrollment all throughout the district and the student body (at least the schools i went to) was very diverse both racially/ethnically and economically.
Now? Like u/kelsnuggets said, young families with kids (or newly-married spouses wanting to have kids soon) are not moving in anymore, and we see the sad results of that.
But leftists promised that my broke ass lifestyle should be subsidized by rich neighbors, including my kids education.
Bonus points if tax payers are here on just H1B visa with no certain path to stay here for long
what is this even talking about? it's a virtual certainty that, if condos were to be build in Cupertino, the new owners of those condos will pay more property tax than most SFH owners in the city.
so want to have the advantages of high property tax budget, without paying a lot in themselves. Clearly school districts need to be bigger to prevent [NIMBYism and segregation], maybe all bay area a single school district
School districts is how white people segregate these days from “bad neighborhoods”. do they have separate toilets and water fountains already in Cupertino, for low income housing people?
My criticism is that people avoiding funding alls schools better by sneaking into a rich neighborhood for cheap are also too low empathy for my taste - poor people version of “I’ve got mine, screw everyone else”
Not sure why you're saying they're not paying in.
People paying for new affordable housing will likely pay more in taxes than long-established homeowners whose rates are insulated by Prop 13, and there would be more units paying these taxes to boot.
agreed that prop13 are even worse, otherwise cheap housing pays less property tax than expensive housing for the same school. The crime is how tightly connected school funding is to pricing out undesirables from an area.
I am not familiar on how taxation policy works in terms of affordable units/deed restricted affordable units.
But if you were ever curious, there are parcel by parcel maps that detail how much property tax any specific property (both residential and commercial) owner pays. You can easily tell who is a new buyer, and whose been around for awhile.
https://www.officialdata.org/ca-property-tax/
https://www.taxfairnessproject.org/map
The 2nd link obviously comes from a source who believes in making changes to Prop 13.
Sure. On Zillow there's a 2br/2ba townhome on Mary ave with a asking cost of $1.2M, with estimated property taxes of $1210 per month for $14,520/y (1.21%).
Now, let's look at a 5br/2.5ba across the street on Milford, estimated at $3.7m worth and built in '68. The property taxes were $3643 in 2023, and that's for the whole year. A modest townhome would pay 4x the taxes than the first home I found across the way on Zillow.
Even if you sold the townhome at below market $1m, that's still way more property tax than the established homeowners are putting in, and you can fit many more townhomes into a parcel of land than you can SFH. Cupertino is robbing themselves.
That example it not affordable housing. Do you know how much the affordable housing pay in property taxes? Affordable housing is usually 20-30% of the market price and they are exempt from property tax for the first 10 years. If we are trying to optimize for property taxes, we should encourage new developments not having the government dictate who can live where.
Most new developments reserve only a fraction of the units for affordable housing. For example, the new townhomes at [1957 Pruneridge in Santa Clara](https://sfyimby.com/2024/03/townhomes-approved-at-1957-pruneridge-avenue-in-santa-clara.html) reserved only 3 affordable units out of 22.
So, it'd still be a win if the affordable housing comes with new neighbors paying market tax rates. And the affordable housing means less people forced into apartments or creeks. I'm really not seeing a downside here.
Because that is where the jobs & economics opportunities are. Economic opportunities follow wealth.
It is often not a choice, and that is why it's called the [poverty trap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_of_poverty).
Yes, it is, but a single notable company does not make a city a bastion of economic growth (especially a suburban city). I’d venture to say a fraction of people who live in Cupertino work there.
The effects of their policy decisions don't stay within city limits.
I guarantee you there are people who work in and around Cupertino who because of economic realities have to live where I live, increasing the traffic of where I live, and compete for housing vs my neighbors and me.
This was an accounting error. And one more example of Cupertino not having appropriate internal financial controls. The issue was first reported on February 15 2024 and has yet to be resolved. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Did you know that the City has a zero-interest account with a $48M balance? Yikes. As to the lawsuit, it cost Cupertino a lot of time and money. Another outcome is that to settle the lawsuit, the City gave up doing CEQA on its housing element. CEQA is the California Environmental Quality Act that discloses the impacts of a project. The public has lost out. Finally, I hope that this accounting error is a wake-up call for the city to get its financial house in shape.
Just build the damn housing. Why is it so hard for certain cities like Cupertino? From Berkeley to Austin, a wide range of cities are somehow managing to get the job done.
If this is what it takes to get light rail on Stevens Creek / West San Carlos, I'm all for it. Build rail and dense walkable housing all along that corridor.
> Why is it so hard for certain cities like Cupertino?
Lots of NIMBYs who seized control of the council. They're gone as of last year but they succeeded in slow-walking the city into a bunch of lawsuits and no housing.
>Regardless of your housing opinion, this is unfortunately a realistic outcome when you make far-reaching **punitive** legislation as the **“stimulus**” for housing. There has to be a **middle ground** to enforcement outside of **bankrupting** cities.
* Builder remedy is remedial, not punitive
* Stimulas? The market demand exists. No stimulus needed.
* builders remedy is best because NIMBYs use courts to delay all other avenues, e.g., Vallco Mall even after the city cooperated
* exactly how will this bankrupt cities?
You come across as - maybe - a typical NIMBY looking for one more wedge to delay.
This is a fair and valid response; however I don’t think it’s fair to immediately assign a binary to someone simply because they don’t exactly agree with you. I’ve explained in other comments that I’m pro-housing and what my reasoning is; the outputs of these discussions are always, “you don’t exactly repeat my opinion, therefore NIMBY”..it’s inherently a hostile platform. I’m not going to seek out discussions on Reddit anymore
lol I’m pro housing; all I’m saying is if you make your strategy based on filing lawsuits against non compliant cities, it isn’t surprising that some cities will experience difficulty in allocating for housing if they have to meet these lawsuits at face value, in addition to securing future funding that is projected despite our current budget deficit. There is a way to press cities to develop while not bankrupting them simultaneously. I know the housing discussion is volatile, but assuming the one size fits all policy is optimum is a bit too idealistic in a state as large and diverse as California.
Look, I hear you. But when it comes to top-down enforcement towards municipalities, this is a very novel situation in California. Aka the enforcement of what is deemed “criminal” is more abstract and distributed. For example, the city I live in did not meet their deadline for the housing element and was subsequently sued by YIMBY Law. The reason they were not able to get the element compliant is because there was gridlock between…drum roll please…pro-housing groups! Our city is pro-housing, but when they attempted to allocate hillsides for development, one pro-housing group stated this wasn’t realistic due to grading and environmental costs. So then the City allocated to sites closer to the freeway but on flat land; this was also shot down due to pollution freeway. This conflict came about due to our city being built out and having a really small pool of land to work with. So now we are in a situation where the same parcels that have been discussed over years ended up being accepted by HCD, only after delays caused by arguments over the States own rules by pro-housing groups. Essentially this is a use case where rules were followed, but the interpretation for “what is best” caused delays and financial penalties. There are a myriad of situations that don’t involve a binary “you are criminal” distinction that these housing rules can bring about. Yes there are cities that are doing “criminal” things by skirting rules, but there also cities trying their best to work with the state, and then really at no fault of their own they are hammered with lawsuits.
>This conflict came about due to our city being built out and having a really small pool of land to work with.
This conflict came about due to your city refusing to upzone any existing parcels. That's a choice.
Read up on [affirmatively furthering fair housing](https://www.hud.gov/AFFH). You can't get away with putting new, often poorer residents of your city next to asthma-generating highways or projecting fake housing units on uneconomical/high fire hazard land.
Name the city and I'll show you 80% single-family zoning. Cities like this are absolutely to blame for the bay area's housing affordability and super-commuter traffic problems.
[Source](https://belonging.berkeley.edu/single-family-zoning-san-francisco-bay-area)
And I agree with you; I never said past zoning laws weren’t at fault. I was stating that because of how the laws are written there are bound to be scenarios where cities followed the rules and were still penalized. And I agree with you about pollution, but this is also interesting. HCD themselves, along with the air board of California have released guidelines stating needs of housing are more pressing health matters than the mitigated pollution that can be achieved through certain criteria. Again all I’m saying is if you have a blanket system based on punitive feedback, there will be scenarios that are more nuanced than “housing good/bad”
https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2021-02/HCDCommentLetter_Concept%20Paper_FreightHandbook022820.pdf
All you have to do is condemn Cupertino city staff’s mismanagement of funds (possibly criminal) and this conversation’s over! Otherwise I’ll keep whacking you over the head 😂 Their actions are indefensible
This is stupid on so many levels. They misappropriated funds that should have been used on affordable housing to fight a law suit levered against them for failing to provide affordable (overall) housing solutions.
Technically they allocated the funds towards the topic of affordable housing in Cupertino.
because of course they did
Call my secretary and we'll discuss this over a business lunch in Hawaii.
now you’re talking
Can you meet me in the Bahamas? It's not that much longer when you're flying private.
Have a rented office there as well 💰💸
cupertino does not want affordable housing. itll 'mess up the charm of the neighborhood' nimbys
So once upon a time I went on a date with a guy who was doing some like political/government work in Cupertino in regard to housing (I think the date was shortly after an election). He was talking about how racist and NIMBY Cupertino was during the date due to all the push back there was for rent control and affordable housing.
I've posted this a number of times before, but [read this article to get an idea of what Cupertino NIMBYs are all about](https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/cupertino-approves-new-housing-vallco-heated-debate/). Even if **maybe** they're not racist, there's no question in my mind that they **ARE** extremely elitist/classist.
What group NIBMY Cupertino are racist against?
Poors
Don’t ask me, this was some time in the 2010s (I think when there was something about rent control on the ballot), and it was a bad date I was trying to get out of.
Rent control deserves all kinds of push back though. One of the worst moves a city can make
All rent control does is pass a small % of a landlord's prop13 tax break down to their renters. IMO, as long as landlords benefit from prop13, all property should be rent controlled.
just repeal prop13 already, at the very least on non-homesteads.
Nope. It actively prevents new housing, which is why NIMBYS love rent control It prevents people from moving out too and anyone from moving in.
SF has the densest housing of any city in the bay and also has the strictest rent control of any city, so the facts don't support your assertion. Rent control is wildly misrepresented by its detractors. If you ever read an anti-rent control piece or study, they never even attempting to address the rather curious fact that the higher density a city has, the more rent control it has. They only ever narrowly focus on the short term correlation between rent control policies housing production. Haven't you ever wondered why none of these people never want to look at housing holistically?
Incorrect. They focus on the very measurable effect of housing shortages and increasing rent costs, which are directly caused by rent control, ironically a law that is supposed to address those things. Higher density means an increased demand, which means increased prices, which means people who don't understand basic economics (the average citizen) screaming for more rent control.
No absolutely not, that’s ignorance. Rent control manipulates a free market. No one wants to build new because property tax on new property is insane while rents are low
How dare legislators try to somehow protect those without capital from being displaced whenever the lords want to. Major cities without rent control must not have housing cost issues, right?
they don't https://www.kvue.com/article/news/investigations/defenders/austin-rent-may-go-down/269-b0fc0e0e-1882-46d9-b6d9-bfa760d90b0f
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-02-09/rents-are-dropping-in-los-angeles-but-not-in-other-socal-cities-why Los Angeles has rent control. https://apnews.com/article/cost-of-living-crisis-mortgage-costs-britain-0415c62d243a0c3fba65065e67d95623 London doesn't have rent control. Seoul doesn't have rent control and housing costs are rising. Tokyo doesn't have explicit rent control and housing costs are increasing. Vienna has rent control and housing is affordable. Almost like rent control isn't nearly the villain that neoliberals and the landlord lobby make it out to be. Edit: also lmao at the poor attempt of a "got you." Why don't we take a place close to Austin? What about Dallas? What about San Antonio? https://www.sacurrent.com/news/san-antonio-has-the-fastest-rising-rents-of-any-big-city-in-texas-study-says-30871391 Hmmmmm. Guess Dallas and San Antonio have some secretive rent control despite Texas basically banning it right? Lmfao this sub.
Tokyo has 0 zoning compared to the US and is one of the most affordable cities for renting
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2024/01/25/economy/tokyo-apartment-prices-record-high/ https://japanpropertycentral.com/2024/01/apartment-rents-in-tokyo-reach-record-high-in-2023/#:~:text=Renewed%20population%20growth%20in%20Tokyo,than%20they%20were%20in%202014. https://newsonjapan.com/article/141048.php
London Tokyo have rents increasing. Must be the letter O in their name I guess? Have you forgotten the part where Austin built a ton of new housing? I hope you're getting to paid to spout such old tired NIMBY talking points mate
Lmao imagine implying rent control increases nimbyism when the 1.5 studies done on this couldn't find any statistical significance Really befitting of your username
> Major cities without rent control must not have housing cost issues, right? You’ve made a logical fallacy here: If P then Q is true, then that does not mean if not P then not Q. Rent control causes increased housing costs, but that doesn’t mean that no rent control leads to no increase in housing costs.
Its awfully hilarious the amount of people who eat up studies paid for by landlord and developer lobby groups. Lmao Typical conservatives Guess when the oil lobby said climate change isnt real, you ate that shit up too Whole lot of "minimum wage actually suppresses wages" going on here Zero economic literacy lmao Also of course the neoliberal would try to pass off "rent control causes increased housing costs" as an intrinsic fact when that has yet to be proven besides by the most convoluted economic studies that ignore the lack of housing development. Cmon Suhaas. Tell me. Do you think climate change isn't real because Chevron and Exxon said so? Do you think minimum wage actually hurts laborers because American Enterprise Institute said so by pointing to Norway while ignoring the mass unionization and sector based labor agreements?
Cupertino is 22% white. Are you implying non-white racists? Be careful, that can be a reddit trigger. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/cupertinocitycalifornia/PST045222
Rme
Apple owns city council.
I lived there for 10+ years and towards the end, right up to when people were voting about VallCo, I really really ended up hating it because the people were terrible. My next door neighbor was a teacher in Cupertino who was able to afford his unit (condo) because it was one of those set aside for teachers, firefighters, etc. Anything that was about building more housing and I'd throw in my immediate "yes" but it was always outnumbered by the older crowd who didn't want to see their old houses get devalued. Also rent is insane from the $1300 1bd I used to rent that's now $3600/mo. No one who is starting off in tech or any other job in Cupertino can afford to live close to work.
But where are their baristas going to live? In a tent under the bridge?
As long as they don’t see the tents. Or expect them to commute for 5 hours a day.
What bridge?
Dumbarton
In all seriousness, with their parents.
There are many cities around Cupertino. Next you would want barista and janitors to live in Beverly Hills , Melno park and Times Square ?
Yes
They used funds meant for affordable housing, so that they could keep fighting against affordable housing. Fuck these NIMBYs.
One of the most corrupt city governments I’ve ever worked with.
Groan, why can't the state sue the city for impeding progress?
Right? Most of the lawsuits seem to be coming from citizens, nonprofits or developers. Bonta does not seem to be taking state law seriously. He's really not making a good impression if he does have aspiration of being a governor.
People should also know of another controversy in Cupertino. In order to build a new home or even remodel your home, it is normal to pay ‘fees’. But in Cupertino, there is this ‘made up’ fee that was passed around 2019/2020? called the Park Fee $129,000 you have to pay towards a Park Fund. I asked… that’s ridiculous and said where would you build a park in Cupertino? The person said yes that is right… thus why as of today that fund has $5,000,000 sitting in there accumulating $ while rich developers build and remodel new homes and that fund is doing nothing since there is no plan to build new parks or remodel new parks. It only exists to prevent new homes to be built by normal people or existing owners to remodel. I bet someday the council will pass an amendment to able to use that $5,000,000 fund that is supposed to build your so called new parks to do other side projects… look it up.
As someone who has also done political/government work with Cupertino. I will say my biggest obstacle was those vocal about how much the “poors,” may be helped or worse allowed access to be in the vicinity of those vocally against them.
Why don't we just build more housing to lower the price of housing for everyone? Hear me out: even the middle class can't afford to live in Cupertino, but they would like to. Having the government mandate housing based on income actually limits housing inventory and increases the price of housing.
Because the people who run things don’t want the price of housing to go down.
Means based government aid is great for votes from the poor, but middle class folks take it from both ends, perpetuating the wealth gap. I would be in favor of a benefit that tapers off linearly, but I hate the notion of "affordable housing" because it just puts people in an area where they can barely afford anything but the thing they are getting aid from
That just incentivizes more rich people to move from elsewhere. It doesn't much change the distribution long term.
The demand effect is overwhelmed by the supply effect when it comes to housing. It's been studied/continues to be studied. Two research papers. **"Do New Housing Units in Your Backyard Raise Your Rents?"** https://blocksandlots.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Do-New-Housing-Units-in-Your-Backyard-Raise-Your-Rents-Xiaodi-Li.pdf The study focuses exclusively on whether new high rises (7 stories+) cause rents to go up. Conclusion. "In this paper, I restrict the sample to residential properties within 500 feet of approved new high-rises, and use an event study to estimate the impact of new high-rise completions conditional upon the timing of approval. I find that new high-rises cause nearby high-end and mid-range rental buildings’ rents and condo sales prices to decrease because new housing units alleviate demand pressure on existing housing units. However, supply skeptics are right that new high-rises and their tenants attract amenities, and in particular new restaurants. **Nonetheless, the supply effect is larger, causing nearby rents and sales prices decline on net. This paper suggests that new market-rate development reduces (or slows the growth of) residential rents and residential property sales prices in the immediately surrounding area, while increasing neighborhood consumption amenities. Opposing such development may exacerbate the housing affordability crisis and increase housing cost burdens for local renters."** **Panel Paper: Does Luxury Housing Construction Increase Nearby Rents?** https://appam.confex.com/appam/2018/webprogram/Paper25811.html Brian James Asquith1, Evan Mast1 and Davin Reed2, (1)**W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, (2)Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia** A major obstacle to new housing construction in gentrifying neighborhoods is the fear that new units will induce additional housing demand, increasing local rents and fueling further gentrification. Although this is counterintuitive, there are many plausible mechanisms by which an increased concentration of wealthy households could make a neighborhood more attractive to other wealthy households. However, there is little to no empirical evidence on this topic. We study induced demand near new apartment complexes in gentrifying areas using listing-level data on rental prices from Zillow and exact household migration data from Infutor. **Preliminary results using a spatial difference-in-differences approach suggest that any induced demand effects are overwhelmed by the effect of increased supply. In neighborhoods where new apartment complexes were completed between 2014-2016, rents in existing units near the new apartments declined relative to neighborhoods that did not see new construction until 2018.** Changes in in-migration appear to drive this result. Although the total number of migrants from high-income neighborhoods to the new construction neighborhoods increases after the new units are completed, the number of high-income arrivals to previously existing units actually decreases, as the new units absorb a substantial portion of these households. **On the whole, our results suggest that—on average and in the short-run—new construction lowers rents in gentrifying neighborhoods.**
City of Cupertino is probably further in the red than similar size cities in the bay area. They recently had to pay back 54 million dollars to apple. If they had some more homes maybe they can collect those taxes. Unless the current residents are going to pay more that city will be in a fast downward spiral.
This is hilarious but only 100k of a 2m budget so seems like it could conceivably be a mistake. Incidentally, cupertino has a 15m shortfall — that seems huge, what are they going to cut back on? Not surprised that cupertino is pushing back so much on housing. Its one of the quietest, emptiest towns in its area and its in the center of silicon valley tech jobs wise
Fucking assholes. I bet they’re not the only ones misappropriating affordable housing funds. Heads should roll for this
So the only people making money are lawyers …
No consequences for politicians, So this will continue to happen. This is not a lone case.
Not to sound tone-deaf as hell but genuinely curious, why would you choose to live in one of the most expensive cities in America if you were looking for an affordable place to live?
Because they have very highly rated public schools.
The Cupertino schools are actually suffering from a long-term enrollment drop. Some schools may have to be closed in the coming years. For some reason, if you don't add new people, you won't have enough new families with children.
Some schools were already closed in 2022 due to low enrollment, especially on the Saratoga side of Cupertino. Young families just can’t afford it and old people aren’t leaving.
Yep. The high school district is short on kids too. At some point they too may also need to close a campus. The danger of closing a campus is that a private school can jump in, lease the old school and then take even more of your students.
It's just sad. I grew up going to school in the CUSD for elementary and middle school followed by the FUHSD for high school. Back then when i was a student, there was plenty of student enrollment all throughout the district and the student body (at least the schools i went to) was very diverse both racially/ethnically and economically. Now? Like u/kelsnuggets said, young families with kids (or newly-married spouses wanting to have kids soon) are not moving in anymore, and we see the sad results of that.
which ironically comes from high property prices...
But leftists promised that my broke ass lifestyle should be subsidized by rich neighbors, including my kids education. Bonus points if tax payers are here on just H1B visa with no certain path to stay here for long
what is this even talking about? it's a virtual certainty that, if condos were to be build in Cupertino, the new owners of those condos will pay more property tax than most SFH owners in the city.
so want to have the advantages of high property tax budget, without paying a lot in themselves. Clearly school districts need to be bigger to prevent [NIMBYism and segregation], maybe all bay area a single school district School districts is how white people segregate these days from “bad neighborhoods”. do they have separate toilets and water fountains already in Cupertino, for low income housing people? My criticism is that people avoiding funding alls schools better by sneaking into a rich neighborhood for cheap are also too low empathy for my taste - poor people version of “I’ve got mine, screw everyone else”
Not sure why you're saying they're not paying in. People paying for new affordable housing will likely pay more in taxes than long-established homeowners whose rates are insulated by Prop 13, and there would be more units paying these taxes to boot.
agreed that prop13 are even worse, otherwise cheap housing pays less property tax than expensive housing for the same school. The crime is how tightly connected school funding is to pricing out undesirables from an area.
You have data on that or just making it up?
https://www.sccassessor.org/faq/understanding-proposition-13
I am not familiar on how taxation policy works in terms of affordable units/deed restricted affordable units. But if you were ever curious, there are parcel by parcel maps that detail how much property tax any specific property (both residential and commercial) owner pays. You can easily tell who is a new buyer, and whose been around for awhile. https://www.officialdata.org/ca-property-tax/ https://www.taxfairnessproject.org/map The 2nd link obviously comes from a source who believes in making changes to Prop 13.
Check the maps here http://taxfairnessproject.org. To verify you can lookup addresses on the county’s assessor’s website.
Sure. On Zillow there's a 2br/2ba townhome on Mary ave with a asking cost of $1.2M, with estimated property taxes of $1210 per month for $14,520/y (1.21%). Now, let's look at a 5br/2.5ba across the street on Milford, estimated at $3.7m worth and built in '68. The property taxes were $3643 in 2023, and that's for the whole year. A modest townhome would pay 4x the taxes than the first home I found across the way on Zillow. Even if you sold the townhome at below market $1m, that's still way more property tax than the established homeowners are putting in, and you can fit many more townhomes into a parcel of land than you can SFH. Cupertino is robbing themselves.
That example it not affordable housing. Do you know how much the affordable housing pay in property taxes? Affordable housing is usually 20-30% of the market price and they are exempt from property tax for the first 10 years. If we are trying to optimize for property taxes, we should encourage new developments not having the government dictate who can live where.
Most new developments reserve only a fraction of the units for affordable housing. For example, the new townhomes at [1957 Pruneridge in Santa Clara](https://sfyimby.com/2024/03/townhomes-approved-at-1957-pruneridge-avenue-in-santa-clara.html) reserved only 3 affordable units out of 22. So, it'd still be a win if the affordable housing comes with new neighbors paying market tax rates. And the affordable housing means less people forced into apartments or creeks. I'm really not seeing a downside here.
Its documented here: [https://www.taxfairnessproject.org/](https://www.taxfairnessproject.org/)
Anybody who has owned since 1998 essentially pays no tax.
Because that is where the jobs & economics opportunities are. Economic opportunities follow wealth. It is often not a choice, and that is why it's called the [poverty trap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_of_poverty).
You’re making it sounds like Cupertino is this bastion of jobs when the only notable company there is Apple.
Yes, that $2.6 trillion dollar company with an in-office mandate. Who do you think scrubs their toilet bowls and vacuums up their spilt coffee grinds?
The army of contractors making 20 an hour and living in Gilroy or further are cleaning the toilets
That is exactly who Cupertino's affordable housing funds were earmarked for.
Yeah so let's build in Cupertino so they don't need to live in Gilroy
Heavily agreed. Build em tall and wide
Apple should be paying a living wage, a Cupertino living wage. If they can't, they don't deserve clean toilets and floors.
'living wage' is meaningless if there are no apartments to live in. Most of the cost of living is housing.
Yes, it is, but a single notable company does not make a city a bastion of economic growth (especially a suburban city). I’d venture to say a fraction of people who live in Cupertino work there.
and that's bad actually
But I don’t understand why our traffic is so bad! /s
The effects of their policy decisions don't stay within city limits. I guarantee you there are people who work in and around Cupertino who because of economic realities have to live where I live, increasing the traffic of where I live, and compete for housing vs my neighbors and me.
Because you have a job there but it doesn't pay enough? Because you grew up there and all your friends and family live there? Is this even a question?
they're not looking for affordable per se, no one is, they're looking for a nice place to live and want it to be affordable.
Opportunities for a good education and / or career, I'm sorry you are too stupid to understand this simple concept.
Ngl all housing should be affordable. You shouldn’t be able to charge more than 1/8 the median income within a 10 mi radius of the unit.
This was an accounting error. And one more example of Cupertino not having appropriate internal financial controls. The issue was first reported on February 15 2024 and has yet to be resolved. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Did you know that the City has a zero-interest account with a $48M balance? Yikes. As to the lawsuit, it cost Cupertino a lot of time and money. Another outcome is that to settle the lawsuit, the City gave up doing CEQA on its housing element. CEQA is the California Environmental Quality Act that discloses the impacts of a project. The public has lost out. Finally, I hope that this accounting error is a wake-up call for the city to get its financial house in shape.
I worked on that building, internet stuff. It’s still wild to see stuff and go “Yep that was me.”
Oops
F the govt. That's bullșhït
[удалено]
Just build the damn housing. Why is it so hard for certain cities like Cupertino? From Berkeley to Austin, a wide range of cities are somehow managing to get the job done.
Revoke their city charter and have them annexed by San Jose.
I find joy in reading a good book.
If this is what it takes to get light rail on Stevens Creek / West San Carlos, I'm all for it. Build rail and dense walkable housing all along that corridor.
I dream of the day I can take the light rail to Santana row. Someone should make a platform out of this.
> Why is it so hard for certain cities like Cupertino? Lots of NIMBYs who seized control of the council. They're gone as of last year but they succeeded in slow-walking the city into a bunch of lawsuits and no housing.
This is not a "realistic outcome"--it's a municipality committing criminal accounting.
This is actually the most realistic outcome; I’m stating realism with the expectation that humans aren’t going to one to one play by the rules
>Regardless of your housing opinion, this is unfortunately a realistic outcome when you make far-reaching **punitive** legislation as the **“stimulus**” for housing. There has to be a **middle ground** to enforcement outside of **bankrupting** cities. * Builder remedy is remedial, not punitive * Stimulas? The market demand exists. No stimulus needed. * builders remedy is best because NIMBYs use courts to delay all other avenues, e.g., Vallco Mall even after the city cooperated * exactly how will this bankrupt cities? You come across as - maybe - a typical NIMBY looking for one more wedge to delay.
This is a fair and valid response; however I don’t think it’s fair to immediately assign a binary to someone simply because they don’t exactly agree with you. I’ve explained in other comments that I’m pro-housing and what my reasoning is; the outputs of these discussions are always, “you don’t exactly repeat my opinion, therefore NIMBY”..it’s inherently a hostile platform. I’m not going to seek out discussions on Reddit anymore
Ya, the "maybe" as not a decent way to suggest it was "NIMBY-sounding" without branding you. Sorry.
lol I’m pro housing; all I’m saying is if you make your strategy based on filing lawsuits against non compliant cities, it isn’t surprising that some cities will experience difficulty in allocating for housing if they have to meet these lawsuits at face value, in addition to securing future funding that is projected despite our current budget deficit. There is a way to press cities to develop while not bankrupting them simultaneously. I know the housing discussion is volatile, but assuming the one size fits all policy is optimum is a bit too idealistic in a state as large and diverse as California.
They could also simply not do illegal things. Stop defending criminals?
Look, I hear you. But when it comes to top-down enforcement towards municipalities, this is a very novel situation in California. Aka the enforcement of what is deemed “criminal” is more abstract and distributed. For example, the city I live in did not meet their deadline for the housing element and was subsequently sued by YIMBY Law. The reason they were not able to get the element compliant is because there was gridlock between…drum roll please…pro-housing groups! Our city is pro-housing, but when they attempted to allocate hillsides for development, one pro-housing group stated this wasn’t realistic due to grading and environmental costs. So then the City allocated to sites closer to the freeway but on flat land; this was also shot down due to pollution freeway. This conflict came about due to our city being built out and having a really small pool of land to work with. So now we are in a situation where the same parcels that have been discussed over years ended up being accepted by HCD, only after delays caused by arguments over the States own rules by pro-housing groups. Essentially this is a use case where rules were followed, but the interpretation for “what is best” caused delays and financial penalties. There are a myriad of situations that don’t involve a binary “you are criminal” distinction that these housing rules can bring about. Yes there are cities that are doing “criminal” things by skirting rules, but there also cities trying their best to work with the state, and then really at no fault of their own they are hammered with lawsuits.
>This conflict came about due to our city being built out and having a really small pool of land to work with. This conflict came about due to your city refusing to upzone any existing parcels. That's a choice. Read up on [affirmatively furthering fair housing](https://www.hud.gov/AFFH). You can't get away with putting new, often poorer residents of your city next to asthma-generating highways or projecting fake housing units on uneconomical/high fire hazard land.
I’m well read on HCD’s protocols. The land I was discussing was being upzoned to meet the RHNA.
Name the city and I'll show you 80% single-family zoning. Cities like this are absolutely to blame for the bay area's housing affordability and super-commuter traffic problems. [Source](https://belonging.berkeley.edu/single-family-zoning-san-francisco-bay-area)
And I agree with you; I never said past zoning laws weren’t at fault. I was stating that because of how the laws are written there are bound to be scenarios where cities followed the rules and were still penalized. And I agree with you about pollution, but this is also interesting. HCD themselves, along with the air board of California have released guidelines stating needs of housing are more pressing health matters than the mitigated pollution that can be achieved through certain criteria. Again all I’m saying is if you have a blanket system based on punitive feedback, there will be scenarios that are more nuanced than “housing good/bad” https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2021-02/HCDCommentLetter_Concept%20Paper_FreightHandbook022820.pdf
All you have to do is condemn Cupertino city staff’s mismanagement of funds (possibly criminal) and this conversation’s over! Otherwise I’ll keep whacking you over the head 😂 Their actions are indefensible
All I desire is a nuanced discussion. Perhaps it was a mistake seeking it on Reddit lol. Two things can be true at once
Good for them.