While I do generally support anything to insure proper affordable housing, I have two qualms: Tethering housing directly to employment is not a great idea. We've had it, and more often than not it...
While I do generally support anything to insure proper affordable housing, I have two qualms:
Tethering housing directly to employment is not a great idea. We've had it, and more often than not it ends up getting abused. I trust schools more than mines, but schools doing it sets precedence that it's OK to do.
This is government housing projects, but placing under the purvue of people who have a completely different mission. Like tasking doctors with firefighting.
The better answer would be empowering and funding existing housing departments to emminent domain some of that available land to repurpose appropriately.
I dislike it because teachers have morality clauses in their contracts. By tying housing to employment, housing thereby becomes tied to morality clauses, allowing schools-that-house to have a...
I dislike it because teachers have morality clauses in their contracts. By tying housing to employment, housing thereby becomes tied to morality clauses, allowing schools-that-house to have a disturbing amount of control over their teachers' lives.
This issue is recently touchy for me because my San Francisco landlord is eccentric and has always been slightly inappropriate about landlord-tenant boundaries, but I tolerated it because my rental rate is quite good and I don't have the emotional bandwidth for legal action — but recently I think he's been having manic episodes by showing up unannounced and intruding on my personal life, commenting on how I'm not keeping furniture arranged the way he likes it, whom I'm bringing over, and other wtf issues, and I'm only beginning to (reluctantly) seek legal help.
I feel for teachers whose whole lives will become wrapped around their employers.
Ah that's fair, it does 100% need to be a "this is your personal life and not your work life" situation. If they're serving in some on-call situation then the housing needs to be free.
Ah that's fair, it does 100% need to be a "this is your personal life and not your work life" situation. If they're serving in some on-call situation then the housing needs to be free.
I’m a bit wary of it too, but on the other hand, it seems like a practical solution. Compare with on-campus housing for college students. From a community-building standpoint, there could be some...
I’m a bit wary of it too, but on the other hand, it seems like a practical solution. Compare with on-campus housing for college students. From a community-building standpoint, there could be some good benefits. Apparently it works well sometimes?
Some housing staff live on site on college campuses too. It's free housing provided by the university due to on-call needs. It's mandatory as part of the job but free and not taxed for that...
Some housing staff live on site on college campuses too. It's free housing provided by the university due to on-call needs. It's mandatory as part of the job but free and not taxed for that reason.
The difference would be if this is optional and at an affordable but still vaguely market rate. I don't have a problem with the concept as long as it's just a choice.
So the teachers will have less work/life separation and the school administrators, students, and parents will know where they live, on top of having a weakened ability to change jobs due to...
So the teachers will have less work/life separation and the school administrators, students, and parents will know where they live, on top of having a weakened ability to change jobs due to needing to swap jobs and living arrangements simultaneously? This seems like an overwhelmingly bad deal for teachers. Why not just pay them more so that they can negotiate their own living arrangements?
One advantage I see is that building housing on school land directly creates more housing. Paying teachers more might just push up prices. (Depending on what other restrictions there are on...
One advantage I see is that building housing on school land directly creates more housing. Paying teachers more might just push up prices. (Depending on what other restrictions there are on developers. It would be better to fix that, but workarounds can still be beneficial.)
The article doesn't explain what happens if a teacher loses their job or quits. What sort of lease is it?
There does needs to be enough work/life separation, but a short commute has lots of advantages. A reason many people want to work from home these days is that commutes are long.
A few thoughts from someone embroiled with this at a local level. Largely the land is owned by the municipality or the county, and using public land for these sorts of projects is the only...
A few thoughts from someone embroiled with this at a local level.
Largely the land is owned by the municipality or the county, and using public land for these sorts of projects is the only feasible way to have non-market housing. It often ends up as a decision between land used by schools, parks, utilities, parking lots, or community buildings. Of all of these choices I'm a big advocate for developing parking lots, but unfortunately the lack of allocated water rights and huge community push back make it difficult in many areas of California.
Disparities in land ownership between wealthy communities and poor communities lead to additional losses for poor communities. The federal, state, or even county level funding for such projects, or even just having someone on staff to navigate the red tape or application process is hard if you are already resource strained. This leaves the majority of these projects to areas that are already wealthy, acting as a magnet from poorer areas. As the superintendent from Mendocino said:
Glentzer, the Mendocino County superintendent, said housing development would be a challenge for smaller, rural and lower-income districts. Those districts face teacher and housing shortages like their wealthier, urban counterparts, but lack the ability to raise the money and hire the staff to oversee projects.
As Vord pointed out, connecting housing to employment is problematic. It creates areas with low turn over and can act as golden handcuffs to folks in a profession that is chronically underpaid across the country.
The number of school aged children fluctuates with population booms. The baby boomers required a lot of space, as did their children (my generation). I saw first hand how schools dealt with exploding numbers of students with portables, larger class sizes, and in some cases new schools. This was largely a symptom of closing schools and selling property during the lul (read reduced population size) of Gen X. I worry removing school space for kids could create issues in 10-15 years.
All that said, I'm really excited about how much the state of California is pushing the envelope for removing the red tape around construction/development, and surprised about some of the creative solutions they are coming up with. Overall I'm definitely in for trying this out and pulling out the stops for development. We are in a crisis and California is actually acting like it. I'm really really excited to see where these project go, how well they get implemented, and if there is any other overflow into additional low income housing projects!!!
why are you an advocate for funding parking lots? Would it not be better to build more community-based mixed-use buildings that decrease the amount of cars needed?
why are you an advocate for funding parking lots? Would it not be better to build more community-based mixed-use buildings that decrease the amount of cars needed?
Sorry, I wrote that in a very confusing way. I meant developing OVER current parking lots. Like you're saying, remove parking and move towards mixed-use buildings that emphasize multi-modal transit.
Sorry, I wrote that in a very confusing way. I meant developing OVER current parking lots. Like you're saying, remove parking and move towards mixed-use buildings that emphasize multi-modal transit.
While I do generally support anything to insure proper affordable housing, I have two qualms:
Tethering housing directly to employment is not a great idea. We've had it, and more often than not it ends up getting abused. I trust schools more than mines, but schools doing it sets precedence that it's OK to do.
This is government housing projects, but placing under the purvue of people who have a completely different mission. Like tasking doctors with firefighting.
The better answer would be empowering and funding existing housing departments to emminent domain some of that available land to repurpose appropriately.
I dislike it because teachers have morality clauses in their contracts. By tying housing to employment, housing thereby becomes tied to morality clauses, allowing schools-that-house to have a disturbing amount of control over their teachers' lives.
This issue is recently touchy for me because my San Francisco landlord is eccentric and has always been slightly inappropriate about landlord-tenant boundaries, but I tolerated it because my rental rate is quite good and I don't have the emotional bandwidth for legal action — but recently I think he's been having manic episodes by showing up unannounced and intruding on my personal life, commenting on how I'm not keeping furniture arranged the way he likes it, whom I'm bringing over, and other wtf issues, and I'm only beginning to (reluctantly) seek legal help.
I feel for teachers whose whole lives will become wrapped around their employers.
Ah that's fair, it does 100% need to be a "this is your personal life and not your work life" situation. If they're serving in some on-call situation then the housing needs to be free.
I’m a bit wary of it too, but on the other hand, it seems like a practical solution. Compare with on-campus housing for college students. From a community-building standpoint, there could be some good benefits. Apparently it works well sometimes?
Some housing staff live on site on college campuses too. It's free housing provided by the university due to on-call needs. It's mandatory as part of the job but free and not taxed for that reason.
The difference would be if this is optional and at an affordable but still vaguely market rate. I don't have a problem with the concept as long as it's just a choice.
So the teachers will have less work/life separation and the school administrators, students, and parents will know where they live, on top of having a weakened ability to change jobs due to needing to swap jobs and living arrangements simultaneously? This seems like an overwhelmingly bad deal for teachers. Why not just pay them more so that they can negotiate their own living arrangements?
One advantage I see is that building housing on school land directly creates more housing. Paying teachers more might just push up prices. (Depending on what other restrictions there are on developers. It would be better to fix that, but workarounds can still be beneficial.)
The article doesn't explain what happens if a teacher loses their job or quits. What sort of lease is it?
There does needs to be enough work/life separation, but a short commute has lots of advantages. A reason many people want to work from home these days is that commutes are long.
A few thoughts from someone embroiled with this at a local level.
Largely the land is owned by the municipality or the county, and using public land for these sorts of projects is the only feasible way to have non-market housing. It often ends up as a decision between land used by schools, parks, utilities, parking lots, or community buildings. Of all of these choices I'm a big advocate for developing parking lots, but unfortunately the lack of allocated water rights and huge community push back make it difficult in many areas of California.
Disparities in land ownership between wealthy communities and poor communities lead to additional losses for poor communities. The federal, state, or even county level funding for such projects, or even just having someone on staff to navigate the red tape or application process is hard if you are already resource strained. This leaves the majority of these projects to areas that are already wealthy, acting as a magnet from poorer areas. As the superintendent from Mendocino said:
As Vord pointed out, connecting housing to employment is problematic. It creates areas with low turn over and can act as golden handcuffs to folks in a profession that is chronically underpaid across the country.
The number of school aged children fluctuates with population booms. The baby boomers required a lot of space, as did their children (my generation). I saw first hand how schools dealt with exploding numbers of students with portables, larger class sizes, and in some cases new schools. This was largely a symptom of closing schools and selling property during the lul (read reduced population size) of Gen X. I worry removing school space for kids could create issues in 10-15 years.
All that said, I'm really excited about how much the state of California is pushing the envelope for removing the red tape around construction/development, and surprised about some of the creative solutions they are coming up with. Overall I'm definitely in for trying this out and pulling out the stops for development. We are in a crisis and California is actually acting like it. I'm really really excited to see where these project go, how well they get implemented, and if there is any other overflow into additional low income housing projects!!!
why are you an advocate for funding parking lots? Would it not be better to build more community-based mixed-use buildings that decrease the amount of cars needed?
Sorry, I wrote that in a very confusing way. I meant developing OVER current parking lots. Like you're saying, remove parking and move towards mixed-use buildings that emphasize multi-modal transit.
Ah! ok. Hopefully your advocacy is working!