I saw some campaign propaganda today.<p>One side of the flier has a guy named Aaron Peskin imploring me to vote yes on Prop F and Prop I. Prop F is the mess thoughtfully critiqued in this write-up, Prop I is a moratorium on building new market-rate housing. Oh, and he's on the "more affordable rent" campaign platform, because if you want to make rent more affordable, clearly the best way is by preventing construction of market-rate housing. It's like SF voters are brain-dead.<p>The flip side of the flier derided another candidate.
If the point of the flier was to make me aware of which candidate to not to vote for, mission accomplished.
I Have Read this Medium Post.<p>The author makes a great case against Prop F, prop F seems like a totally shitty law and isn't going to fix the housing problem. It sounds like that isn't what the law is about anyway, but there is a great way to fix the housing problem. The argument he seems to allude to in his notes, is that people seem to choose sides based on their sentiment surrounding the current resedential/housing market.<p>In economics there are 2 forces at the heart of most problems. These are called "supply" and "demand" and they govern price. SF has not been keeping up with it's infrastructure, is a decade behind in new construction, and building new resedential properties will take ~5-10 years to complete. They are not actively building properties that will sufficiently meet demand even now. So this won't go away.<p>Unfortunately, people who paid a lot for houses have a vested interest in not raising supply, and the amount of regulation surrounding new construction creates massive amounts of friction. It will be interesting to see how this problem get's solved. I agree with the author though:<p>It is not going to be Prop F.
Wow:<p><i>This is where it’s clear the authors overreached and created a toxic spill waiting to happen.<p>If the City finds you did indeed host someone or assisted someone else as such, even for one night, then the City can take action against you.<p>But then it gets absolutely bonkers. If you didn’t host anyone, or it was just your Aunt Rose visiting for the weekend, then your cranky neighbor can still sue you anyway, and the City has to help them do it. And we’re not just talking about filing suit so the City can collect its fines and fees, but filing for “special damages” that the neighbors get to keep for themselves.</i><p>This sounds incredibly bad.
This is a really laudable write-up, whether or not you agree with prop F. The problem of "sounds good in principle" propositions that are terribly or deceptively drafted is one that makes every California election a minefield.
AirBnB needs to step up and suggest what it thinks are some of the right ways to handle this. The fact is, many/most leases and HOAs forbid short term rentals, and for good reasons. As well, many areas are zoned non-commercial, again for good reasons.<p>But people certainly should have some degree of autonomy when it comes to their personal property. The question is, what is it?<p>What I never understood is why short term rental regulations aren't modeled more closely off BnB laws than hotel laws. Many jurisdictions have BnB laws and AirBnBs obviously compare much more closely to BnBs. BnBs typically have lighter regulation, different taxes, are frequently in residential areas, etc.
Serious question: has subterranean housing ever been considered for SF? If you can't build out or up, may as well build under.<p>Feasibility aside, the only problem I see is it'd create a literal underclass—as opposed to the proverbial one that exists now as a result of absurd rent prices.
>I have been a part-time homesharer<p>You have not. You are a rentier. You are running a business. Please stop this violence against the English language.<p>I use hospitality exchange websites to actually share my home, that is offer my home as a place to stay free of charge. What people do on AirBnB, VRBO, and others is not sharing, it's commerce, and we have different words for describing that.<p>Appropriating the language of mutual aid and generosity to describe a business transaction is insulting. Please stop it.
reading the proposition would help, but that's beside the point ain't it?<p>Someone really needed to let us know how fantastic things are when the gubmint gets out of the way. Got it.
Edit: Thread parent lost due to moderator detach: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10281311" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10281311</a><p>Houston also has <i>four freakin' beltways</i> (I610, TX 8, TX 6, and TX 99).<p>Comparing a city that is the poster child for "sprawl" with a chunk of real estate that is more than a little landfill and locked on 3 sides with water is more than a little disingenuous.<p>Houston's second beltway would encircle San Mateo, some of Oakland, and Sausalito if transplanted to San Fransico.<p>If transplanted to San Francisco, Houston's <i>fourth</i> beltway (TX 99--currently under construction) would encompass almost all of San Pablo bay, Walnut Creek (maybe even as far as Concord), easily all of Oakland, Hayward, and Redwood City. And be more than 50% underwater.<p>The differences are more than the "gubmint reg-you-lashion" my good man.
It's really quite remarkable that you can know so little about something, yet be so judgmental about it at the same time. Go 'mericuh!<p>Prop I is a <i>temporary</i> (18 month) moratorium in one neighborhood (the Mission), for only a limited subset of projects, coupled with the requirement that the city has to create a "neighborbood stabilization plan" by the end of that period [1].<p>It is <i>not</i> a <i>"moratorium on building new market-rate housing"</i>, as you say.<p>The idea is that the Mission is undergoing a land-grab by speculators, that poor people are losing (they are), and that the battle will be over by the time a coherent plan is formulated to do anything about it. Whether or not you believe this to be the correct approach, it does nobody any good to mischaracterize it as something that is <i>obviously and painfully stupid</i>.<p>I realize it's not at all fashionable on HN to point out that life is more complicated than chapter one, paragraph one of a high-school economics textbook...but prop I might actually be a good idea over here in the real world, where <i>actual poor people</i> are being evicted from the only places they can afford in the city, at alarming rates.<p>[1] <a href="http://ballotpedia.org/City_of_San_Francisco_Mission_District_Housing_Moratorium_Initiative,_Proposition_I_(November_2015)" rel="nofollow">http://ballotpedia.org/City_of_San_Francisco_Mission_Distric...</a>
The Sharebetter campaign website mentioned is totally biased, it's true, and it does seem likely that hotel interests are in no small part behind Yes on F. And I have no doubt F contains (perhaps really bad!) flaws.<p>But this Medium post is also rife with misleading statements and hyperbole, and therefore hypocritical in light of the author's "here's the facts" tone (not a huge surprise since the author earns income from Airbnb, but still annoying):<p>> (Imagine if we were living under the “MySpace Law” of 2006, eh?)<p>Hyperbole and strawman; <i>who</i> is calling it the "Airbnb Law"?<p>> to assist anyone to offer (emphasized twice)
> What does “assist” mean? Cleaning a house before guests arrive? Proofreading someone’s listing? Helping a family member find temporary housing? Nobody knows because it’s undefined in the text, even in the lengthy Definitions section. The judge will decide what it means.<p>Clearly this is referring to <i>the marketplaces</i> and holding them accountable. If I can figure that out, any judge can.<p>> But wait, there’s more! How do you feel about criminal penalties? ... Six months? (in jail)<p>The author is a "long-time SF resident" and pretending that an SF judge would want to jail somebody over renting out on Airbnb illegally?<p>> If you host someone in a room in your home for less than 30 days, you best not miss a quarterly report of dates and durations. You’ll be violating the new law.<p><i>If it's a paid rental</i>. That's the whole point of the law! In order to regulate the short-term rentals, the city needs you to report your rentals. And remember, up until this year it was completely illegal to rent for less than 30 days.<p>> Why are in-laws banned, even for one night per year? Nobody knows.<p>The reason Prop F bans in-laws that they are a hot-button issue, generally speaking, to do with the legality of the construction of the units and the connection thereof with new rent-controlled housing units (IE the city may be willing to bless your unpermitted in-law, <i>if you rent it out under rent control</i>).<p>ps. did anybody else get "Aw snap!" opening the post in Chrome?