It has actually happened before in San Francisco. 100 Van Ness was reskinned and renovated into a 400+ unit apartment building from its previous use as an office tower: https://socketsite.com/archives/tag/100-van-ness
This problem is entirely of the Bay Area’s own making. They have been pursuing exclusionary housing policies while cranking up taxes and spending for a long long time. Now the revenue base for those taxes are collapsing at the exact time they need the revenue to weather the storm.
SF literally created the first zoning laws in America. Nothing that's happened there in terms of zoning and real estate cost is an accident, it's a natural result of politicians and citizens valuing real estate value above pretty much anything else.
I think you would see this occur. As inflexible as local government tends to be, they get the idea pretty quick when rich people start losing money. Where I am, tbf I am in the UK and the rules are likely nowhere as inflexible, but property is being rezoned (and green zones are being built in, all the apparently immovable shibboleths of local govt are tumbling).
Many of them can't because they don't have sufficient plumbing everywhere (apartments would have far more bathrooms and kitchens) and most buildings can't be retrofitted.
Plus, land-use laws would have to change, which is also extremely difficult.
I guess they could make bigger apartments if they are bottlenecked on plumbing.
But I wonder what people could do with commercial office space so cheap? For startups that can't really go 100% remote (mostly hardware) that's a dream come true!
The UK authorised this, years ago, because it's obvious that our economy is transforming so that fewer shops and offices are needed but the population is still growing.
The homes built under these rules are generally poorer quality, they tend to be smaller and more expensive to run than an otherwise equivalent new build home. But they are homes, and it's not as though San Francisco has too many of those.
At the extreme of what can be done, Birmingham is a British industrial city, and once upon a time as it began to take off there was enormous pressure to build homes so they constructed what were called "Back to backs". These were groups of homes packed together "back to back" so that you only had windows facing out one way, the other three sides of your home were walled in by other housing. They were squalid and almost all of them were torn down, although the World Wars diverted resources so that the last of them ceased to be homes only in the mid-20th century.
But historical preservation means Birmingham still has one set of Back to Backs, most of which is a museum you can tour to see how they were lived in during different periods, but one home was instead converted into a fairly nice two person overnight apartment you can hire. They plumbed a modern bathroom with shower and toilet, kitchen and so on, and of course in the 21st century we can light interior spaces cheaply and easily so it doesn't feel permanently gloomy, also of course it's just one couple in a double bed for one or two nights, whereas these would have been homes for families of eight people for a lifetime...
So yes, if there's money you can add everything. A Back to Back as constructed has zero running water, let alone sewage, unlike an office building so they'll have had to use modern narrow bore sewage pumping and other expensive tricks to make it work, but if the building would otherwise sit empty...
Ive been told in a lot if cases this is virtually impossible due to cost and structural constraints of office construction vs residential... notably ceiling heights, plumbing and floor plans are poorly designed for residential conversion.
England's experience with it should probably serve as a warning too. We had a law change that meant office blocks could be converted to housing without planning permission. Having lived in 1 that was converted into studio flats at the higher end of the market I think they really become houses of last resort, some of the units in the UK ones ended up being smaller than a single car garage. Obviously there are chances for better conversions if the country has housing standards that are enforced but even the ceiling height, like you say, gets oppressive after a few months.
So, I know you were joking but this idea has more than a little validity. In my vision, it would be a small group of families that would meditate daily together, and collaborate on chores and child-raising, and (this part I haven't figured out yet) work on the same project, or perhaps WFH on software-like things. Ideally there would be daycare, gardening, and some sort of exercise (yoga) involved. I mean, yeah its easy to imagine how such a thing could go horribly wrong - bad actors taking advantage, cult-like groupthink, etc - but its also easy to imagine what it would be like with the right mix of people being good to each other. Maybe call it a "Sci Fi Kibbutz" or something.
What you describe is basically an intentional community with a revenue stream from a software product. Something I'm interested in, but unsure how to make it work.
There are intentional communities that support themselves with their own, often agriculture based, products sold on the open market. Plus the usual homesteading.
The skills needed for this kind of work are not highly specialized and in general not well paid, therefore levelling the playing field for everyone in the group.
I think the opportunity cost for IT professionals building a SaaS to support the community is a lot higher, and while I would love to see that work, the chances of key community members dropping out to make more money for themselves is fairly high. I'm not sure if a simple time based system for everyone involved is fair, given the high upfront investment to get the skills needed for IT work.
Right now it isn't -- if you look on Zillow, apartments are in places about 10 deep trying to be rented. There are also a bunch of new apartment buildings that came online, and are sitting basically empty.
But yes, your statement is true. What SF needs is a revamp of its zoning and "neighborhood preservation" policies that are not setting it up for resilience against things like this.
It's likely only partially temporary. Many companies were already decreasing hiring in the bay area pre-pandemic. That will only continue as other places are much cheaper.
Between the high tax corporate rates of SF & California along with increased salary due to cost of living, an SF-based engineer must produce 2x as much output as an engineer based elsewhere and 3x as one based on Canada.
They've certainly been dropping, but 30% off their highs is still not even remotely affordable. And it's unclear if these price drops will be permanent, or if prices will start to bounce back once COVID restrictions are gone.
Before covid rents in SF were among the highest in the world, which implies very high demand. I’m confident that many people still want to live in SF, e.g. single people like to cluster next to other single people. In other words working in tech is a draw but not the only draw for living in SF or any other urban area.
Money a lot of money,networking opportunities etc was THE draw.
There are dozens of cities that have everything else that SF has. If $$ goes away it will crash so hard it will make Detroit look like a model city.
My hope that after election hysteria is over and Vaccines get approved we will be back to something resembling normal by next summer. SF has a huge value as a place for tech with all its other faults it would suck to loose it
San Francisco was a popular city before the tech boom, and remains popular for much more than just software engineer networking. That doesn't mean losing the tech industry can't cause problems, of course, but saying that software is the only thing special about SF is like saying banking is the only thing special about Manhattan.
All the data I've read says they still are and landlords are still holding out for a covid fix (via vaccines I get) and overall rent has only fallen 5 or 6 %
Well, for starters, they're not. Even now the US's workforce is only around 30% remote. There are still plenty of jobs that don't work remotely.
And beyond that, people will continue to live in SF just because they want to, not because they have to for their job. Sure, some people will leave because they never really wanted to live here in the first place, but I promise you there are plenty of us who will stay, regardless.
