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Silicon Valley's Latest Desperate Housing Idea: On A Landfill (siliconvalley.com)
An anonymous reader writes:
Silicon Valley real estate developers want to construct a $6.7 billion housing complex over a former landfill with 5.5 million tons of municipal waste from the last 25 years. "The regulators were pretty skeptical at the start, I have to say," one of the firm's partners told a local newspaper. Besides the 1,680 units of housing, there'd also be 700 hotel rooms, plus 5.7 million square feet of office space, and 1.1 million square feet for retail stores. The project "includes elaborate safety systems to block the escape of combustible methane gas and other dangerous vapors, and to prevent groundwater contamination," according to the Bay Area Newsgroup -- including one foot of solid concrete over 30 acres of landfill, with the housing built above the first-floor shops and parking structures "as a way of creating additional distance between residents and any escaped gases in the event of an emergency." In addition, there's alarms and sensors, "as well as another system to monitor, collect and dispose of gases underground."
Though the project has gained key approvals from the city of Santa Clara, it could still take two decades to complete. "Last year, the City of San Jose sued the City of Santa Clara, charging that the imbalance between the project's jobs and housing -- 23,000 jobs and 1,680 housing units -- will increase housing demand in San Jose and tax its overstretched services and infrastructure... but both sides said they hope for an out-of-court resolution."
Though the project has gained key approvals from the city of Santa Clara, it could still take two decades to complete. "Last year, the City of San Jose sued the City of Santa Clara, charging that the imbalance between the project's jobs and housing -- 23,000 jobs and 1,680 housing units -- will increase housing demand in San Jose and tax its overstretched services and infrastructure... but both sides said they hope for an out-of-court resolution."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal
I'm glad the idiots that live in Silicon Valley and spew garbage will now be living on it too
Start locating businesses in places where employees can have nicer homes and lead better lives.
I know of several housing developments that were built there over former landfills
love is just extroverted narcissism
As I scroll around Santa Clara I see lots and lots of single family detached housing and, probably, duplexes. A mobile home court. A BMX track.
How about zoning for some apartment buildings? The citizens will fight tooth and nail against it, but if you want affordable housing, that's what you build.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Many houses in the valley are built on 6" slabs. The replacement building for the McDonald's near my home has a one-foot concrete foundation with reinforced steel, conduits and drains. When they built the fire lanes for San Jose State University in the 1990's, the foundations were three-feet deep to handle the weight of multiple fire trucks.
they're remaking every other movie.
Will the roofs have diving boards?
I've read about this yesterday, and what came to mind is that building housing on a landfill is not the major issue there... it's the desperation part.
Of course people behind the project will try to dissuade skeptics with fancy tech buzzwords and whatnot saying they will take proper care and do it right, but the thing is that landfills are pretty much unpredictable. They are only accounting for stuff they can imagine will happen, and even so, I highly doubt they'll invest much into it.
And then, of course, when housing is desperatedly needed and these construction firms are expected to get huge profits from it, they will cut corners the first opportunity they get. This isn't charity with limitless funding, it's business.
It's cheaper for them to deal with liability later on than really spend all the money possible to make sure nothing bad will happen, because it's a game of probabilities.
Then again, people have been moving to big urban centers to live a crap live inside shoebox sized apartments all the time, closing all windows to avoid the smog, noise pollution and whatnot. Living on top of a landfill doesn't seem too far out. And I'm willing to bet that when these get available, they'll still sell for too much.
That's sort of a gamble, assuming that there will be the intense need for housing in the area in 20 years time. Sure, they'll be able to fill it with people, but will the market let them make the money back?
The reason you don't do this is because there's often dangerous chemicals all over landfills and the cleanup is too expensive. Odds are is this is allowed we'll be hearing about the cancer rates there in 20 years. But by then the investors will be long gone.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
This would be a waste of money not to mention a bit dangerous given the stability of landfill in an earthquake zone. What they need to be doing is rezoning their residential zones to build up. There is way too big a demand for housing for silicon valley to maintain its large regions of suburban housing. Really, this should have been done a decade ago but short sighted voters wanted to maintain their property values and now they have their entire service industry living three families per house.
For a region that styles itself as Left Wing it's really unconciousable to me that they so abandoned their working class.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
There are very few apartments outside of NYC which are investments. If you want vertical growth you need to give people other than the land owner reason to put up money. As is, pay 5K a month in SF for a couple years and what do you have to show for 120K? Nothing!
People don't want apartments for this reason. Apartments are seen as a necessary evil until you can afford something which is actually yours.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The best thing about living on a landfill: free methane gas. Burns just like propane!
The whole problem with Love Canal is not that it was built on a landfill, it's that people had been dumping toxic waste there...
There is no mention of that in this landfill. If there's no toxic waste then what's the problem? What many here seem not to understand is that building stuff atop old landfills is extremely common; what did you guys think happened to them anyway???
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you allow cardboard shelters for human habitation, and sell more refrigerators, there won't be any housing crisis in the bay area...
They really need to talk to the construction company that built the landfill islands around Tokyo, which also knows something about earthquakes. That is when the artificial land you make suddenly semi-liquefies, dropping buildings down into the ground or pushing pipes up through manholes. That, and the awful smell and sickness that sounds likely to come from the U.S. plan makes it sounds like a pretty bad idea...
I know of several housing developments that were built there over former landfills
I know of one housing development that was built on an old cemetery. They, too, thought it would work well.
lucm, indeed.
12" thick concrete. That's an incredible 2" thicker than most basements.
Never learn from history. Part of San Fran, wrecked in the Earthquake of 1906, was built on an old landfill. How did that work out for ya?
I still don't understand why these corps are so resistant to simply letting people live in places where there is room left for people to live. There must be so much untapped talent in this country. I'm in the process of moving my family for my own reasons, and it isn't a pleasant experience. Long time friends are angry at us and say they won't visit us in the new place. I have the distinction of being the one to split up my extended family after 40 years of being together in the same place. Even though my immediate family will have a vastly better deal where we are moving, it still doesn't feel like moving is the correct decision to make. Splitting families up only weakens society, and now Silicon Valley is moving people on top of a garbage dump? The inability of modern corporate America to be flexible in accommodating people to live their lives out of work is sickening.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
When I lived in LA/South Bay, Manhattan did a lux development on a landfill with a methane collection system.
Instead of "trapping" the methane, capture it and use it. Put the proposed development area someplace safe and connect it with high speed, oh say, "hyper" light rail.
Still cheaper than what they are planning.
Of course if we did post consumer sorting and recycling we'd have much less for the landfills and extract metals, paper pulp and compost with very little left over. It was profitable in Japan with a lot of human workers (the system was designed by an American who couldn't get buy in stateside). With a lot of automation possible now, it would only be more profitable.
The other possibility is one discussed quite some time ago. If we picked a region that was ecologically and geologically safe in that area we choose a 10 mile by 10 mile section as the US National Landfill. Make space for 4 of these to be used one by one. If we assume no serious changes in trash generation, over one hundred years the landfill would grow to be about 1 mile high. No other landfill needed in the US. And after that 100 years, start mining the landfill for precious materials, and start the landfill next door. After that one is full, mine it and start the next one. by the time the US is on number 4 the first one can be reused as the extraction of raw materials will be complete. The fun part of all this is that it assumes no more recycling effort other than a massive presort facility and assumes no advancement in technology in trash processing. Over 4 centuries. Then it starts again. In the same place.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
From the What-Could-Possibly-Go-Wrong department: Who the bloody HELL knows what's actually in that landfill? We've been here before, whether anyone remembers it or not, and I'll tell you this much: I wouldn't live there if you PAID me ON TOP OF free rent for life. Stupid idea.
"Make the poor people live on top of trash. If they complain, we'll give them cake."
Table-ized A.I.
This sums up how this happened. The industrialist who came up with the idea kept approaching the regulators until they gave in. Now let's talk about how this very likely happened. Background: back when I lived in san francisco (lower case on purpose) I had friends who founded a company that made software to help government efficiently. Needless to say they had a very comprehensive knowledge on how things ran in there and despite my natural cynicism I was shocked, government run far less efficiently than I thought and it was maintained that way by everyone working there. They also mentioned how bringing up money always sped things along - a lot. So to sum up if you bring to the table solutions to make things more efficient faster and easier for them you get resistance, when you bring up money you can bring to them all gets lubed up real nice and they become your friend. So back in our current case of building a city on a landfill, which is a well known health hazard. “The regulators were pretty skeptical at the start, I have to say,” said Stephen Eimer, an executive vice president with Related and co-managing partner of the 9.2 million-square-foot project, known as City Place. “But we kept at it, working and working, and they came around.” can be safely translated in "regulators said no until we gave them money". This is called a banana republic and until we wake the f*ck up it'll keep going.
50 years ago in Endicott NY, they built a shopping plaza on top of a small landfill. The site was so unstable that the buildings and parking lot were constantly settling. It became an extremely rough ride driving through the parking even at a crawl.
The plaza was finally closed about ten years ago, and was demolished. No new development is permitted on that site.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Let's break down TFA's headline:
"Latest": The project has been publicly discussed for at least 3 years and is well into the review process. This is not a new proposal and I'm not sure why this article is just now coming out.
"Silicon Valley... idea": The developer proposing this project, Related Companies, is based in New York. They are already using the same technique (concrete platform on many piers) on a smaller scale in New York City to build skyscrapers over an active, working 28-acre rail yard for a development called Hudson Yards (www.hudsonyardsnewyork.com).
"housing": The project is mostly office and retail with just a little housing thrown in. Many think it would have too little housing compared to the massive amount of office space proposed and will worsen the overall jobs/housing balance in the Silicon Valley area.
"On a landfill": The concrete platform would be built *above* a landfill but wouldn't sit directly *on* landfill, for the obvious settling reasons. Instead, the platform would rest on many piers sunk 150 feet, well below the landfill. The platform supports the buildings/streets/etc above while giving the landfill room to settle.
Clearly there's a lot of skepticism about how well they can pull this off, such as venting landfill gasses safely, getting regulatory approval, getting financed, finding tenants, etc. I believe it would be the largest project to date using this technique, at least for Related. That's what happens when land prices get as high as they are in New York or Silicon Valley: extreme, expensive engineering techniques start to make sense financially. Massive development projects are always complicated and can fail for many reasons. Engineering is just one of many challenges.
enjoy your sinkholes....
Shoreline Amphitheater was build over a landfill. You know that moment at the start of a concert when everybody holds their lighter up? They ignited the methane coming off the landfill! File this under, "What could possibly go wrong?"
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
That reminds me of reading that one of the problems in 1906 was buildings built on top of landfill. The ground almost acted like a liquid in some places - not good for structures on top.
Simon Winchester wrote an excellent book on it (although some would be annoyed that he diverges into a lot of other topics in that book).
Enjoy your multiple sclerosis disease cluster.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Yes there are different needs, but those who can afford a house, condo, duplex, or even a mobile home purchase because they want something of their own. You may have heard the phrase "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness". Part of "Happiness" is property, and the right to protect that property. (See Adams, Madison, Monroe, etc... and the Constitutions drafted for States).
In SF, homes are priced beyond single family median income. Costs are artificially driven up by property conglomerates who purchase everything possible. Apartment costs are similarly artificially high due to monopolization. Ask 10 of your neighbors if the could buy a house would they, and the _majority_ would say "yes".
Your personal anecdote does not change the problem with property in the SF Bay area, and in fact much of the Country. Your personal anecdote doesn't address the point I made either. Apartments are a money sink, not an investment. I don't care if your apartment has a gym or not, you don't have anything for your payments after your lease is up. If you are paying "economical" rates you suffer from poor neighborhood conditions (higher crime, less services including public transit). This makes it difficult to save for a house if you wanted to have those kids.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.