[HN Gopher] Builder's Remedy goes into effect in many California...
___________________________________________________________________
Builder's Remedy goes into effect in many California cities
tomorrow
Author : yboris
Score : 786 points
Date : 2023-01-31 16:46 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (darrellowens.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (darrellowens.substack.com)
| fwungy wrote:
| The only problem with "to each according to their need, to each
| according to their ability" is that need is infinite and ability
| is finite.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| Can't wait.
| silksowed wrote:
| ocean sky scrapers on the west side of the bay area? hard to even
| picture this
| epistasis wrote:
| The coastal zone is also subject to Coastal Commission
| oversight, which I believe could override the Builder's Remedy,
| though the legal specifics would probably have to be settled in
| court, IIRC. Chris Elmendorf has written on this, if you want
| details.
|
| But the prospect of a long lawsuit or a long decision will be
| enough to kill nearly all Builders Remedy projects in the
| coastal zone, as it would jack up the risk of success far too
| high to pay for the profits, most likely.
| silksowed wrote:
| ahh makes sense. not sure how far in the coastal commission
| would have control, but even a 10 story building far enough
| in would drastically change the landscape of say the sunset
| district in San Francisco
| deepakhj wrote:
| Dense housing on the coast would be more democratic than
| expensive single family homes.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| " And in the Bay Area, our time is almost up. HCD has made clear
| than any housing element that doesn't zone feasibly for new
| housing especially in affluent areas will have their housing
| elements rejected. If they're still in a rejected state by the
| deadline, their zoning disappears. If a city creates a good
| housing element and HCD approves, the builder's remedy turns off
| and their local zoning is restored -- but the projects approved
| under builder's remedy will remain.
|
| San Francisco frantically sought to avoid this, especially since
| HCD drew extra fire on the city and announced a special
| investigation into the slow housing approval process of San
| Francisco's political system. The first ever housing
| investigation of its kind. Supervisors in the city cried they
| were being targeted and bullied by the state -- but it worked.
| Fearing total loss of the highly sacred power to approve housing
| in San Francisco, the Board of Supervisors, the Planning
| Department & Commission, and the political activists of the city
| assembled quite a radical (but potentially lemon) housing
| element. One that proposes to upzone corridors in SF's wealthier
| and lower density westside, something that was long believed to
| be politically impossible a year or two ago.
|
| HCD reviewed SF's housing element and said it "largely compiled"
| with the state's rules, even though it was heavy on promises. As
| such, SF will not be subjected to the builder remedy on
| Wednesday. Shockingly, only a few other Bay Area jurisdictions
| can claim to keep their zoning as of writing this: Emeryville,
| Redwood City, and Alameda city. "
|
| It's difficult to tell who's backing what.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| Wow that's great news!
|
| The level of bureaucratic creep that has been imposed on property
| owners is actually unbelievable to me. I obviously understand
| _some_ regulations (you can 't built a chemical processing plant
| in a residential neighborhood, obviously), but cities have
| creeped themselves into all-powerful overseers.
|
| Most cities now have the power to tell you what kind of house you
| can build, how you can paint it, how you can landscape it, what
| kinds of cars you can keep _in your own driveway_ , what you can
| do in your leisure time on the property etc.
|
| It is insane.
|
| I honestly hope there is a property-rights case that abolishes
| all of this. If I _own_ the property, then it 's mine. If I want
| to collect old VW busses and park them in the front yard, I don't
| care what effect this has on my neighbors property value. This is
| my home. If you don't want to deal with living near other people,
| move to the country.
| mc32 wrote:
| Goodbye "high-rises can't be built in SF because they cast an
| unsightly shadow". But also hope it doesn't mean California
| gets to regulate San Jose's "green belt".
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| isn't building high-rises in SF precarious because the ground
| is soft, with inadequate bedrock? are there also concerns
| about aesthetics, if i understand?
| mc32 wrote:
| Here is someone who goes into detail about the Millennium
| Tower debacle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph9O9yJoeZY
|
| In short, shortcuts, or more charitably, miscalculations.
| They really thought they had enough margin to work with but
| obviously that wasn't the case.
| jedberg wrote:
| From what I understand it's about the same as building in
| Tokyo. With modern technology and proper materials you can
| build a safe building. But the residential tower currently
| sinking into the ground indicates that either that isn't
| actually true or the rules aren't being enforced.
| mc32 wrote:
| Yeah, that one was a case of taking shortcuts. The
| bedrock was 200"[1] down but the studies they used said
| that wasn't necessary. So NOW they are taking steps to
| introduce new pilons that go all the way down to bedrock
| and will be braced to the current, faultily installed
| ones.
|
| [1] Not sure the exact depth, but whatever, they went
| like half way down to save on money.
| mullingitover wrote:
| I think it's more likely that corners were cut with the
| Millennium Tower, or the engineers made an error of some
| kind.
|
| None of the other big buildings in SF are connected to
| the bedrock. None of the towers in LA have supports
| connected to the bedrock. Heck, the _Burj Khalifa_ isn 't
| connected to bedrock. They all use friction piles, and
| these can work fine if they're done properly.
| aranchelk wrote:
| > None of the other big buildings in SF are connected to
| the bedrock
|
| Absolutely not true.
|
| Salesforce Tower, Park Tower and 181 Fremont all being
| examples of tall buildings in the immediate vicinity that
| do go to bedrock.
|
| Whether or not friction piles are a good idea is another
| matter.
| mullingitover wrote:
| I stand corrected! I got my information from a soil
| scientist who was explaining that the bedrock wasn't
| anywhere close to the surface in SF and LA and
| misunderstood that to mean that none of the towers went
| all the way down. I stand by my claim that the Burj
| Khalifa isn't on bedrock, however.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| friction piles? (trying to look that up)
| CydeWeys wrote:
| The top page of Google search results for "friction pile"
| are all bang on.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| thank you
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| If that were true, there wouldn't be any building in the
| New Orleans area more than a couple stories high.
| Everything south of the lake is built on an alluvial delta.
| barbazoo wrote:
| I would expect there to be a viable range of building
| heights (and building techniques) on the spectrum of single
| storey house to highrise.
| lowdest wrote:
| In one notable case, it was decided to not bore all the way
| down to bedrock, resulting is a sinking building and many
| lawsuits. More commonly, someone complains that a planned
| building will cast a shadow, and after spending millions
| the builders are not allowed to proceed.
| grumple wrote:
| The Millenium tower:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/10/san-
| francisc...
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8105988/
| bwestergard wrote:
| "If I own the property, then it's mine."
|
| I'm assuming you are U.S. citizen and not super familiar with
| the common law; apologies up front if that isn't the case.
|
| Property law principles in the common law are vastly more
| complicated than this. There are all sorts of ways that your
| right to use real estate as you wish can be affected by past
| practices, hazy conventions, etc. Check out "easements",
| "mineral rights", "air rights", "adverse possession", and the
| sometimes elaborate processes of establishing title and
| specific property interests in particular jurisdictions.
|
| And many of those limitations are logically prior to U.S.
| specific legislation around zoning, restrictive covenants, etc.
| Finnucane wrote:
| >(you can't built a chemical processing plant in a residential
| neighborhood, obviously)
|
| You can get darn close in some places. I mean, in Texas,
| residential damage and evacuations from chemical plant
| explosions are practically routine. I live in a neighborhood
| surrounded by biotech labs, which tend not to blow up, though
| we do joke a bit about being zombie-apocalypse-ground-zero
| (also, every available developable lot gets sucked up by a new
| lab project). And of course, in some rural areas, the proximity
| of farms waste lagoons and low-income neighborhoods is a
| serious issue.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| >You can get darn close in some places. I mean, in Texas,
| residential damage and evacuations from chemical plant
| explosions are practically routine.
|
| Because the plants always got built on the outskirts and then
| the outskirts expanded.
|
| The same thing used to happen in the formerly industrial
| parts of CA before CA kicked out most of its heavy industry
| over the decades.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I mean, in Texas, residential damage and evacuations from
| chemical plant explosions are practically routine._
|
| See also: Charleston, West Virginia.
|
| Locals sometimes call the Kawawha Valley "Chemical Valley."
|
| Kids growing up learn different lyrics to The Mickey Mouse
| Club: M - I - C -- Methyl isocyanate! K
| - E - Y -- It's why we evacuate!
| jimbob45 wrote:
| _Most cities now have the power to tell you what kind of house
| you can build, how you can paint it, how you can landscape it,
| what kinds of cars you can keep in your own driveway, what you
| can do in your leisure time on the property etc._
|
| In my experience, the city regulations around what you've
| listed are always sensible. It's the HOA regulations that tend
| to be kooky and capricious.
| freedomben wrote:
| Your experience sounds outdated. It was like that 10 years
| ago, even 5 years ago in many cities, but in the last few
| years so many cities have gotten into HOA territory. Even
| small cities in places you wouldn't expect.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| Pretty much any city that was rich in at any point in the
| latter half of the 20th century has a ton of regulations that
| boil down to "if you couldn't get away with it in a gated
| community you can't get away with it here." No one regulation
| is onerous on its face but the sum total of them are damn
| near impossible to comply with unless being a high class
| homeowner is your hobby so this just results in discretionary
| enforcement which is complaint driven. And of course because
| the .gov doesn't want their snitches getting stitches they
| won't tell you who complained so you can't even go attempt to
| work things out with your neighbors. Karen complains about
| your shed and you're getting fined $50/day until you tear the
| thing down not knowing that she'd have been fine if you just
| painted it.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > If I want to collect old VW busses and park them in the front
| yard, I don't care what effect this has on my neighbors
| property value. This is my home. If you don't want to deal with
| living near other people, move to the country.
|
| Many (most?) of these types of rules are imposed by HOAs made
| up of property owners, not the city.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| You should read your city's code. Most cities have now
| adopted the same restrictions that used to be exclusive to
| HOAs.
| [deleted]
| singlow wrote:
| I think most larger cities have rules against parking
| vehicles in a yard visible to the street. In the driveway is
| usually ok. And converting more of your yard into driveway is
| usually restricted by zoning as well.
| ethanbond wrote:
| For what it's worth, most zoning is created _by_ property
| owners, too. Gotta preserve their investment at the expense of
| our nation 's growth.
| jeffwask wrote:
| 100%. It's NIMBYs who drive the creation of these laws,
| actively block multi-family housing, prevent development of
| new roads and resources, etc...
|
| Now with large corporate ownership in residential real estate
| the problem has gotten worse as houses are investments not
| places for people to live.
| gretch wrote:
| As a property owner, I've always found this to be remarkably
| short sighted.
|
| If the city booms, land value goes up. E.g. Manhattan. Trying
| to keep your small suburb a small suburb isn't maximizing
| investor value.
|
| edit: to responders, yes I'm aware houses have other value.
| My comment is in response the parent comment that
| specifically addresses investment value protection aspect.
| hemloc_io wrote:
| It can be when you can artificially induce a housing
| shortage.
|
| E.g. I have a friend whose area has become extremely
| popular for city people and prices have gone up a ton over
| the past couple years.
|
| Their father owns a bunch of property in the area and sits
| on a bunch of local board, and specifically lobbies to
| block housing development to protect their "future" that's
| locked up in these properties. (Mostly SFH in suburbs.)
| It's an explicit goal for some people.
|
| As long as demand is high, b/c of mostly immutable factors,
| schools/weather/job opportunities etc and people have the
| money to spend then prices will go up if you keep housing
| supply low.
| dahfizz wrote:
| Some people just want to live in a small suburb
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| I get some people want to live in a small suburb. Small
| suburbs are often quiet and peaceful. But small suburbs
| are also inefficient, environmentally unfriendly, and
| expensive to support so much road/electricity/water/etc
| infrastructure for so few people. Especially if the
| voting base of the suburb is effectively strangling their
| children by ensuring their kids will never be able to
| themselves afford a life there. It makes sense to me that
| the broader voting base is seeing they no longer benefit
| from a minority of suburban voters with a hold on city-
| level politics, and thereby vote in state-level
| politicians to force the issue.
|
| edited to add: I'm sympathetic to the suburban homeowners
| near/in cities who are under pressure for their lifestyle
| and environment to end up rapidly changing within their
| generation due to economic local growth. I just don't
| think it's reasonable that that sympathy should extend to
| supporting their wants over the clear consequences of
| refusing to capitulate to the majority's needs for more
| housing.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Funny, I live in a small suburbia style town in the
| mountains, our infrastructure prices are much cheaper
| than California's, we have no big city we parasite off
| of, and everything here is much cheaper/affordable
| including housing, with a much smaller property tax base.
| We had Gb fiber while the big city had horrible DSL (if
| you were close enough to the DSLAM or whatever it was).
| We now have multiple Gb fiber options in our
| neighborhoods. Housing prices are affordable.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| Could you speak more about why your suburbia-style town
| in the mountains maintains its infrastructure prices? How
| is food, medicine, or construction goods delivered to
| you, and how do you pay for that transportation? I'm not
| asking out of skepticism: my understanding is that more
| remote locations are expensive partially because of
| logistical deliveries and maintenance costs, and I'd love
| to know how this is managed in well-maintained suburbia-
| style towns!
| sofixa wrote:
| > we have no big city we parasite off of
|
| > We had Gb fiber while the big city had horrible DSL
|
| So do you or do you not have a big city nearby?
|
| > our infrastructure prices are much cheaper than
| California's
|
| As always, the big question - how old is that
| infrastructure, and when was it last renewed? What is the
| budget/reserves/debt like of the town? Because if
| infrastructure doesn't cost a lot to build, it doesn't
| mean it's sustainable to maintain/renew in the
| medium/long term.
| Retric wrote:
| Small suburbs can work fine around small cities.
| Hypothetically, a ring starting 5 miles from the city
| center extending out another 10 miles = Pi * (15^2 - 5^2)
| = 628 square miles. At even 1k people per square mile
| you're up to 600,000 people reasonably close to the urban
| core. People can easily commute into the core because the
| distance and traffic levels are reasonable.
|
| The problem is as cities grow a smaller percentage of the
| overall population can live in a small suburb. Build up
| that first ring, and the next 10 mile ring is Pi * (25^5
| -15^2) = less than double the area at 1,256 square miles
| and now needs a longer commute through the inner ring.
| Meanwhile that inner ring 15 mile radius can have easily
| ten or more times the population.
|
| PS: Geography adds it's own constraints. If the cities
| core in next to the ocean then much of the hypothetical
| low density ring is under water.
| TimPC wrote:
| Even a look at current population densities destroys this
| argument as cities like San Francisco need far more
| density from this sort of inner ring. Keep in mind the
| actual core in this model is only 25 square miles so even
| if the core of San Francisco has 20 times the density of
| the suburbs it fits only 500,000 people. Your 5-15 mile
| ring fits only 600,000 people so you've gone 15 miles out
| from the centre of San Francisco and you've only fit
| 1,100,000 or so people of the 1.8 million that live in SF
| proper to say nothing of any of the people living in
| nearby cities or suburbs you've also hit.
| Retric wrote:
| San Francisco is extremely space constrained due to the
| Ocean, Bay, and Parks.
|
| If you look at the actual population vs land available it
| needs a far higher density than I am talking about. 1k
| people per square mile is really low density. That's
| single family homes with 1/2 acre back yard territory.
| giantg2 wrote:
| The thing that you and many prior comments mention is
| proximity, city size, density, and living in a specific
| place.
|
| The problem isn't about land - there's plenty of that
| elsewhere. The problem is people all wanting to live in
| the same area and having high standards. You have a
| visous cycle where the denser places have the most jobs
| or the highest paying jobs, while the cost of living goes
| way up and the standard of living goes down.
|
| It would be nice to have smaller cities. The real problem
| is how to convince businesses to reinvigorate the dying
| cities, or for people to change their preferences (either
| for locality or property type/size). These are being
| largely ignored in these conversations.
| nightski wrote:
| I agree with you. Also to me it's the larger cities that
| are environmentally unfriendly and hostile places like
| the parent described, not these smaller cities with
| suburbs. Just look at the 405 on a weekday. I live in a
| city of about 300k and it is perfect. Under 15 minutes
| anywhere in the city and I work from home so personally I
| don't even commute.
| Retric wrote:
| It definitely feels that way, unfortunately high rises
| are extremely energy, materials, and space efficient.
| Public transportation similarly reduces the needs for
| roads and fossil fuels.
|
| NYC inner core may be toxic, but the average New Yorker's
| environmental impact is well below the national average.
| nightski wrote:
| High rises are, but not very many people desire to live
| in a high rise. Hence the inefficiency. I mean if
| everyone lived in a 5x5 box it would be super efficient.
| But yeah, I think people would rather die first.
|
| I'm also curious if you could actually back up that New
| York statement with some unbiased research.
| Retric wrote:
| I don't know what you consider unbiased but for stuff
| like energy use the numbers are very evident.
| https://financeguru.com/news/new-york-energy-rates-
| consumpti...
|
| "New York residents were using an average of 572 kWh a
| month in 2017." NYC is so efficient that: "New York ranks
| 50th out of the 51 states and the District of Columbia.
| The only state with a lower per capita consumption is
| Rohde Island at 176 million Btu (MMBtu) or 51.6 MWh. The
| total 2016 U.S. consumption per capita was 301 million
| Btu (88.2 MWh)."
|
| It's consistent across different countries, here's UK's
| data: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-
| environment-49639003
| nightski wrote:
| First you said environmental impact, not electricity
| usage which is very different.
|
| Second that article makes it really unclear what is being
| included in "energy expenditures". In the earlier
| paragraphs it talks about electricity which makes sense
| given a.) it's extremely expensive in NY and b.) I'd
| imagine more heating comes from natural gas as opposed to
| AC in southern climates which comes from electricity.
|
| It lacks a lot of critical information to measure
| environmental impact vs. other cities.
|
| Lastly who is being included? Inner city residents only?
| Or metro area?
| uoaei wrote:
| If we taxed suburbs by how much they actually drain city
| budgets, no one would want to live in suburbs. It is by
| now a well-studied fact that suburbs are effectively
| subsidized by metropolitan cores. Makers and takers,
| indeed...
|
| Here's a video about some of the studies done to come to
| this conclusion:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI
|
| The folks at Strong Towns also talk a lot about
| productive land use measured as property tax income per
| square foot. They say it is the gold standard way to make
| sure your budget remains solvent and you can provide the
| services people need to make your city thrive. Obviously
| this means building up.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I hear that a lot from the StrongTowns-types, but I also
| observe many of the (financially independent) cities and
| towns that surround Boston are all financially doing
| extremely well, in contrast to the prediction that their
| lower density, less intensely urban development patterns
| would fall apart once the town/small city is fully built
| out and goes into maintenance mode.
| bluGill wrote:
| Strong Towns are picking the outliers that are not doing
| well and trying to extrapolate to all suburbs. I quit
| reading them a few years ago when I realized the place
| they using as an example was a rural town an hour drive
| from anyplace that could be considered a city - yet
| somehow this was supposed to show why suburbs were
| insolvent.
|
| Suburbs have existed for more than 100 years, start with
| thee streetcar suburbs (which often feature lots larger
| than what the new suburbs around me are building). They
| have already added sewer, water, telephone, eclectic,
| cable TV, internet, and some of those have been replaced
| as well. They have already replaced their roads many
| times over the years.
|
| Sure there are some suburbs that have been badly managed
| and so haven't kept up. However that is a reflection on
| the short sighted voters, and not suburbs.
| ticviking wrote:
| How does that square with their place in the timeline
| Strong Towns documents?
|
| They suggest it takes almost 30 years for the maintenance
| burden to actually have a fiscal impact.
| sokoloff wrote:
| These are towns that were founded in the 1800s at the
| latest and some in the 1600s...
| ackfoobar wrote:
| Were they bulldozed and rebuilt into car-centric
| development?
|
| From my understanding Strong Towns think "lower density,
| less intensely urban development" towns are fine. E.g. at
| 0:57 of the video, it's anything but intensely urban
| development.
|
| "In this example, a 100-year-old commercial block, built
| in the traditional style of development, drastically
| outperformed a shiny new development, created in the
| modern car-centric style."
| sokoloff wrote:
| I would describe Arlington (1635), Belmont (1849),
| Waltham (1884), Watertown (1630), Lincoln (1754),
| Wellesley (1881), Newton (1688 town, 1874 city) as being
| substantially car-centric with respect to the majority of
| 21-65 year old residents of those towns/cities owning a
| car and using a car or car service more than 250 days out
| of the year. Arlington would be feasible to get by
| without a car in many of its areas. Others would be much
| more difficult in the majority of the land.
| ackfoobar wrote:
| Looking at satellite images I would guess they would not
| do well financially with the infrastructure costs.
|
| But then I look at the housing prices. TimPC's
| explanation seems legit.
| Steltek wrote:
| Speaking as an Arlington resident, I would not describe
| it as "car centric", although cars are accommodated far
| more than I would like. It's still a classical streetcar
| suburb. The majority of Arlington's housing stock is from
| multifamily buildings within a couple of minutes walk to
| high frequency bus service (~5 minute wait).
| TimPC wrote:
| Rich suburbs do fine. Many suburbs of Boston have high
| income earners and high property values resulting in sane
| levels of property tax that actually fund those regions
| adequately. Most of the suburbs Strong Towns criticizes
| have $250k homes with household incomes between 40-50k
| and it's impossible to tax those residents enough to pay
| for their infrastructure.
| thrwy_918 wrote:
| Can you name some of these communities?
| sokoloff wrote:
| Sure: Arlington, Belmont, Lincoln, Newton, Waltham,
| Watertown, Wellesley.
| Steltek wrote:
| Arlington and Watertown are higher density than Lowellor
| Quincy. Newton and Waltham are not far behind. You're
| relying on intuition rather than data and it's showing.
|
| I would really only categorize Lincoln and Wellesley "low
| density suburb". The rest certainly have car centric
| qualities but they're too built up to be called the
| exception to the rule.
|
| http://www.usa.com/rank/massachusetts-state--population-
| dens...
|
| https://www.towncharts.com/Massachusetts/Top-25-Cities-
| in-Ma...
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Would the suburbs be forced to pay city rates for their
| roads/water/etc departments? Plenty of low-middle income
| low density small towns with suburbia densities survive
| just fine, have great services, AND are affordable all on
| their own. My town had Gb fiber before the big cities
| rolled theirs out in scale, and we now have the choice of
| more than 2 providers. My water rates are cheap even
| though our waste water is held to much higher standards
| than big cities (last I knew coastal cities still got to
| pump a ton of sewage out to sea). My roads are plowed day
| of while the nearest big cities can take a week to get
| theirs under control. All with a much smaller tax base
| (but a much more accountable local government). The
| California everyone wants to go to survived this way with
| positive local budgets, and enough money that all of the
| roads were landscaped, back before hyper growth. I
| remember when highway 1 through Santa Cruz didn't look
| dystopian but was full of colorful flowers even into the
| 80s. And it was actually affordable to live there then
| too.
| criddell wrote:
| > If we taxed suburbs by how much they actually drain
| city budgets, no one would want to live in suburbs.
|
| If that's true, why do cities annex suburbs?
| bluGill wrote:
| Because suburbs, despite lower taxes - often generate
| more tax income. Where I live the city itself has a large
| part of the downtown owned by the county, state and
| federal government (it is the state capital, plus various
| federal offices that all cities have). Half of the
| valuable downtown pays zero tax to the city, yet the city
| is still maintaining infrastructure for those lots. That
| is in addition to a few churches that pay no tax in the
| US, and a bunch of parks. Thus the city has the high
| value core which isn't paying for itself, and then the
| lower value ring around the core that has lower property
| values to generate tax income from. If they can annex a
| suburb just outside that with higher values the city gets
| more money (with their higher taxes), and probably can
| reduce the tax rates for everyone (still a tax increase
| for the annexed suburb!)
| criddell wrote:
| Doesn't that go against the Strong Towns narrative that
| the 'burbs are a net drain on cities?
| uoaei wrote:
| Strong Towns is talking about tax income vs tax
| expenditure efficiency (dollars received vs benefits
| realized). It is easily possible that receiving more
| money does not necessarily correspond to improved quality
| of life, if those funds are spent on projects that don't
| enable local prosperity.
| giantg2 wrote:
| At least from what I've personally seen, suburbs are not
| a drain. Do they cost more per person - yes. However, you
| have to look at the income side as well.
|
| The people making money tend to leave cities because they
| want different property, fewer people, better services,
| less crime, etc. The people who can afford to do this are
| relatively well off. This ends up creating an area with
| fewer poor people and a higher tax income even if tax
| rates are lower. Cities have higher tax rates to have
| even similar (if that) per capita revenue because they
| have more poor people who cannot pay and must tax the
| ones who can at a higher rate. This is nothing against
| poorer people, just a reality of it works. You have a
| market force basically segregating people by income.
|
| A local example for me is how Philadelphia County is
| extremely poor - the poorest in the state and has one of
| the highest rates of extreme poverty for any big city in
| the US. Some of the richest counties in the state are the
| ones immediately surrounding it, like Bucks, Chester, and
| Delaware. Even within these counties you have poor
| cities/towns and rich townships. The main difference
| isn't the tax rate, it's that the concentration of
| wealthy people.
| gretch wrote:
| I'm not going to argue if this is generally true or not,
| but in my N=1, I don't see how this applies at all to
| something like sunnyvale or santa clara (where I live).
|
| Which 'metropolitan core' are we leeching from? It's not
| San Jose - it famously has a higher nighttime population
| implying people leave to work (and it's obvs to locals
| based on traffic patterns). It's probably not San
| Francisco, we're 1 hour away.
| qwerpy wrote:
| As a suburban homeowner/parent, house prices have little
| bearing for me. I hope to live in my house for decades,
| so the sell price in the distant future doesn't matter.
| It's the "quiet and peaceful" part that I care about.
| West coast cities have repeatedly demonstrated that they
| are unwilling or unable to prevent crime and keep things
| clean, so I will continue fighting to my last breath to
| prevent my suburb from becoming like that.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| I understand, and if this policy ends up affecting you,
| I'm sorry.
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| > unwilling or unable to prevent crime and keep things
| clean
|
| These things are typically solvable at a policy level but
| the policies are often fought against by the same people
| asking for the city to solve crime.
|
| You cant just out-violence poverty. If someone has
| nothing to lose, you can't convince them to not risk it
| all.
|
| How do you solve "people are too poor to survive to the
| homeowner's standards" without quoting mien kampf or
| socializing things and spending money on social projects?
| It typically feels like suburban communities lean towards
| the former. Very little empathy for people as long as
| they don't need to see them anymore.
|
| I'm hoping this zoning change would work for the better.
| I know "missing middle" is a bit of a meme at this point
| but a few house sized quadplexes on a block would scale
| and provide a lot more housing. Its typically the
| "property value" crowd that fights against them, but
| sometimes its simply a racist generalization of "the
| poors" that would live in a multifamily home.
| GalenErso wrote:
| You can't have your cake and eat it too.
| dahfizz wrote:
| Why? It works pretty much everywhere in America except
| CA.
|
| 61% of Americans live in a town of less than 50,000
| people.[1]
|
| https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/05/america-a-
| nat...
| yamtaddle wrote:
| How's that deal with attached suburb-cities and town-in-
| city-enclaves? Are parts of major metro areas excluded? I
| bet 300-400 thousand of the people in my metro area live
| in such sub-50k "towns" but _actually_ they live in the
| city--go a few blocks over and it looks exactly the same,
| but now you 're "in the city" instead of "in a town".
| Perhaps that many again live in places far-flung enough
| that you could _maybe_ count them as independent towns,
| but aside from local fast food workers they all commute
| to the city for work.
| Spivak wrote:
| If you include the burbs as part of the definition of
| city then what are we even talking about? If they're
| completely detached then they're not suburbs.
| pwinnski wrote:
| That's the point, I think. Most metro areas are made up
| of a collection of many incorporated areas which
| collectively make up what people think of as the city.
| Some of those incorporated areas are large, some are
| small, and you might not realize you're driving from one
| to another since nothing changes except which legal
| entity collects the property taxes.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Yeah, my city _totally surrounds_ several sub-50k
| "towns", plus has several others glommed on to the side
| of it that you'd be forgiven for not realizing are
| separate from the city, and it's not even an extreme case
| (see St. Louis for that)
| steveklabnik wrote:
| A sibling comment of yours mentions Leander; there's only
| one train in Austin, and it goes from downtown to
| Leander. So you could even get there without a car. Good
| luck once you get there, though.
|
| So uh, apparently the answer is "it doesn't.'
| pwinnski wrote:
| This is an incredibly misleading statistic. When you
| describe "a town of less than 50,000 people," what comes
| to mind most easily is some sort of rural town. But at
| your link, I recognize several of the places on that
| "fastest-growing" list. Leander is a suburb of Austin,
| Little Elm and Forney are both suburbs of Dallas, as are
| (scrolling down) Frisco and Farmers Branch, while Boerne
| is a suburb of San Antonio, and Georgetown is a suburb of
| Austin again.
|
| Most of these, you wouldn't know you were in a separate
| city if you didn't pay close attention to roadside signs,
| and I suspect the same is true of a large percentage of
| that 61% figure.
|
| That says _something_ , since those people didn't choose
| to live closer to the central of the metro area, but it
| doesn't say as much as you're implying it does, because
| they're all examples of places for which, if someone
| outside of Texas asks where they live, they're going to
| say "Austin" or "Dallas" or "San Antonio," and only if
| asked where in Dallas will they respond Little Elm, just
| as they might otherwise respond Lakewood or Hamilton
| Park, which are neighborhoods but not separate cities.
| [deleted]
| Ar-Curunir wrote:
| Except when that small suburb is in a not-small town (Eg:
| many parts of SF, Berkeley Sunnyvale, etc.)
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Everybody (for certain values of "everybody", I guess I
| should specify because this is HN) wants 0.5-5 acres on
| the edge of a nice, compact city. A little land, no close
| neighbors, but still very close to everything and the
| city itself is nice & pleasant to visit.
|
| But if too many people get it, you don't have a compact
| city anymore, you have a sprawl hellscape that's neither
| country nor city, but a habitat for cars.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| I live in what you would probably call a sprawl
| hellscape, and I love it.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Having to hop in a car to do _either_ human things _or_
| nature things makes it the worst of both worlds. Not
| enough land to do anything with, view is just a bunch of
| cookie-cutter houses with boring landscaping, lawn-mower
| noises all weekend long. Anything worth doing starts with
| a 15 minute drive, minimum, each way, and the view out
| the window the whole way is mostly parking lots and
| roads. And fast food signs.
|
| But I don't have enough money for private school for all
| the kids, and all the top 50% of school districts for
| like a 200 mile radius are in the burbs. So. I "love"
| them.
| eli wrote:
| And many more would like to be able to afford a place to
| live
| jaywalk wrote:
| Well some other people have decided that that's not
| allowed.
| singlow wrote:
| A little game theory may come to play though. If the whole
| city booms and just my neighborhood stays single-family
| large lot, my price/sqft may increase drastically, and I
| may get better return on any improvements I do to my
| property based on my investment profile.
|
| If instead my neighborhood is converted to apartments or
| high-density condos, I might not have the capital to take
| advantage of those opportunities but my single family house
| becomes undesirable in that zone. I am forced to sell to a
| developer in order to maximize return. I probably still
| make money, but it might be less then I could have made in
| the other scenario, and I am unable to use the house for my
| own residence up until the time I need to liquidate.
|
| So its not necessarily illogical.
| fragsworth wrote:
| No, it's almost entirely short-sighted, at least in terms
| of economics.
|
| First, I've never heard of anyone being _forced_ to sell,
| unless there 's some truly huge and necessary
| infrastructure development. You are generally offered
| some money by a developer and you personally decide
| whether or not to take it. Sometimes people can be
| stubborn and there are plenty of examples of large high-
| rises built around tiny structures that wouldn't sell.
|
| Also, your price per square foot goes up fastest directly
| adjacent to the largest developments. If your
| neighborhood can economically support larger buildings,
| that directly increases the amount of money developers
| will pay for your land. The less development you allow
| your neighborhood to have, the less your neighborhood
| will be able to support large developments. You want your
| neighborhood to support large developments.
|
| You may want to hold on to YOUR house as an investment,
| and to keep from a property tax re-assessment, but it
| makes no economic sense to prevent your neighbors from
| building higher if they want to.
| rcpt wrote:
| It's the variance.
|
| If you're already 5x leveraged into a single asset in a
| single location whose value is wholly outside of your
| control you don't need the extra risk of redevelopment
| kube-system wrote:
| Value can be non-monetary, particularly for owner-occupied
| non-investment property.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _zoning is created by property owners_
|
| Supported. Individual property owners rarely have external
| zoning power.
| ethanbond wrote:
| Um, sure. If you take away the property-owner lobby, the
| vast majority of truly bad zoning wouldn't exist. I'm
| comfortable ascribing causality directly to the force
| which, if removed, would eliminate the effect.
| amluto wrote:
| This is a great example of a financial misunderstanding. Land
| use restrictions _reduce_ land value. Seriously, compare
| property prices per unit lot area in fancy, restricted
| communities (e.g. Atherton) to neighboring lots in less
| restricted, less fancy areas (e.g. Menlo Park or Fair Oaks,
| hah). Land in Atherton is worth _less_. Which makes sense --
| you can't do as much with it.
|
| At best, single family zoning preserves the value of a
| (depreciating!) _house_ to a limited extent.
| grumple wrote:
| Zoning is also used to preserve the character of a
| neighborhood. Unfortunately, that typically includes racial
| character. The US has a long history of zoning as a proxy for
| redlining and racism [0].
|
| 0. https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-
| materials/2021/06/17/...
| eli wrote:
| You're underselling it. These single-family zoning rules
| were created explicitly by racists whose stated goal was to
| keep black people out of their communities.
|
| See e.g. The Racist History of Single-Family Home Zoning,
| https://www.kqed.org/news/11840548/the-racist-history-of-
| sin...
| bluGill wrote:
| Character is the worst part of any area. They are
| preserving old buildings that cannot be made energy
| efficient without a large investment, while making that
| investment illegal as well. All in name of preserving a
| building just because it is 'old'.
|
| Sure there are a few buildings that are historic and should
| be preserved, but the vast majority are only old, and have
| no other historic value.
| ethanbond wrote:
| This position would be a lot more popular if 99% of new
| development wasn't hideous beyond words and an affront to
| human dignity.
|
| People want to preserve old stuff because (and only when)
| it's beautiful, but there's no reason we couldn't and
| shouldn't be building beautiful stuff today!
| nlavezzo wrote:
| > If you don't want to deal with living near other people, move
| to the country.
|
| The reverse could also be said - if you don't want to deal with
| people deciding together that they want their community to have
| certain guidelines, move to the country. You can do pretty much
| whatever you want in rural areas without significantly
| impacting your neighbors.
|
| People living together in a small area do get to decide
| together what they want that area to be like within reason.
| Creating some guidelines to create a desirable, pleasant and
| safe environment for them and their families is totally
| reasonable and has been the historical norm for most of the
| history of civilization.
|
| Of course things can get out of hand and over-reaching. If the
| people decide together to change it though, they can. I don't
| think the solution is just nuking all zoning regulations from
| orbit.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >If the people decide together to change it though, they can.
|
| And they did. The decision by the people was to "nuke"
| current zoning regulations.
| curiousllama wrote:
| An important caveat here is that these small groups are only
| "nuked from orbit" for the time period that they're out of
| compliance with a law that has existed for 50 years.
|
| I totally agree that "people living together in a small area"
| can pretty much do what they want. The only issue is when
| that starts to screw over other folks, and when all the other
| small areas get together to do the same.
|
| Then it's pretty reasonable for the state to go "you can't
| just never build houses. That's a decision that screws the
| rest of the state" and enforce that decision
| nlavezzo wrote:
| > Then it's pretty reasonable for the state to go "you
| can't just never build houses. That's a decision that
| screws the rest of the state" and enforce that decision
|
| Totally agree. The state or larger city, etc. is also a
| community that should be able to make rules that promote
| the welfare of the great majority over the objections of a
| small minority, as long as they take care to not harm the
| small minority unnecessarily. I just think the solution is
| thoughtful modification of existing codes, possibly forced
| by larger jurisdictions, and not just a free for all where
| almost anything goes as was proposed by the parent
| commenter.
| scythe wrote:
| >People living together in a small area do get to decide
| together what they want that area to be like within reason.
|
| This argument ignores 100 years of research in game theory
| and development economics. No community is an island, okay
| except Alameda, but even they are a component of a wider
| metropolis. The way you set zoning laws and transportation
| infrastructure influences who comes into and passes through
| your community -- no municipality in the core of a
| metropolitan area can ever truly behave like a single
| community organizing its residents' lifestyles.
|
| So you see, for example, an attempt to increase the total
| property value per resident because it leads to a better
| school district. You see attempts to block new developments
| and transit stops because relative popularity may transiently
| increase the local cost of living, even if it benefits the
| affordability of the metro as a whole. You see militarized
| police departments who realize they can't outrun crime but
| they can certainly outrun Emeryville.
|
| None of these are the products of a community of people
| democratically deciding what kind of lifestyle fits their
| particular interests. They are the choices of a faction
| jockeying for status in the desperate power struggle that
| characterizes the great modern balkanized American Combined
| Statistical Area.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| Again this is where we are getting into what it means to
| _own_ something. Do I _own_ the property or not? If my
| neighbors want to get together and buy my house from me
| because they want to do something with it, then they are by
| all means allowed to do so.
| rjbwork wrote:
| Nobody in the US, and indeed most of the world, "owns"
| their property. Try not paying your property taxes, and see
| where that gets you. You lease the right to usus, mostly
| fructus, and to some extent abusus from the state.
| avereveard wrote:
| Even then that would mean that the state would have a
| voice, not the neighbors.
| notch898a wrote:
| False, much of Alaska has no property tax.
| rjbwork wrote:
| Fair enough. I have looked into this before and that
| exception has not come up before. Let's say roughly
| 99.7%+ of people, then.
| throwanem wrote:
| Where does title revert if you die intestate and with no
| next of kin?
| jonhohle wrote:
| It goes to probate like any other property.
| RealityVoid wrote:
| I feel that this is a misleading. Property taxes are not
| leases on property but simply a disincentive to hoarding
| unused land.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| LVT is a disincentive to hoarding land. Property taxes
| are incentive to tear buildings on used land down.
| notch898a wrote:
| This is a great example of how framing makes a big
| difference.
|
| If I used the same framing, I would say LVT are an
| incentive to tear down the land (introduce toxic waste,
| endangered species that can't legally be disturbed, etc).
|
| Or I could say Property taxes are a disincentive to
| hoarding buildings.
| rjbwork wrote:
| Maybe in theory, but functionally it is the same. You
| don't pay your property taxes, you get a lien, and can
| eventually, in extreme circumstances, be foreclosed on.
| RealityVoid wrote:
| I do not understand your point, really. Obviously, from a
| legal standpoint, ownership exists. But you say, no, no,
| no, that's not _reaaaal_ ownership, since I have to pay
| property taxes.
|
| When most people talk about ownership, when the law talks
| about ownership, it exists, and I think that is enough
| for it to exist.
| jonhohle wrote:
| Even if you consider property tax that is legally false.
| Supermancho wrote:
| I'm not sure if you even understood what you're replying
| to, since this is pointlessly contrarian.
|
| "legally" is an acknowledgement that the ownership is
| conditional on someone else who has authority about the
| ownership (ie the practical owner).
|
| This is a reasonable point of view, in theory.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >Do I own the property or not?
|
| Yes, for the duration that you (and your crew) can defend
| it.
| squokko wrote:
| No, you don't _own_ the property. Under what coherent
| system of thought could you possibly own something that was
| there before humans existed and will be there after humans
| are gone, and which you did nothing to create or maintain?
| Property ownership is a societal construct that we agree to
| use to improve our lives together. If it 's not serving our
| needs we can change it.
| c22 wrote:
| I don't know how it works where you live but I spend an
| insane amount of my time maintaining my property.
| squokko wrote:
| You maintain the property to make it suitable for your
| needs. But if you didn't "maintain" it, nothing would
| actually happen to it. It would still be completely
| usable in 1 million years.
| c22 wrote:
| Sure, I don't expect to still own it in one million
| years.
| jonhohle wrote:
| That is no different from ownership of anything else,
| including one's own body. The government has an interest
| in property and may tax it, but how is that different
| from auto registration, income tax, or any other tax
| liability? Someone can be imprisoned for daily to pay
| income tax, but the government doesn't own their job or
| work.
| RealityVoid wrote:
| Sure, the name of the social construct is ownership.
| Therefore, you own it. Because of the social construct.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| You will _own nothing_ and be happy /s
| nvrmnd wrote:
| Is this a question of jurisdiction? I mean the people living
| together in a slightly larger area get to decide together
| what they want the collective area to be like as well right?
| Surely local politics can be overruled when the policies
| start having a material effect on individuals outside of the
| local jurisdiction.
| grumple wrote:
| Which sounds well and good until you learn that the zoning
| laws we have are mostly a result of attempting to keep
| neighborhoods white.
| arcticbull wrote:
| This is America, land of the free, home of the property
| rights. It's a weird imposition to say that I can't build
| exactly what I want on my property (assuming it's safe). It's
| a totally fair thing to say that if you want full control
| over what can be built adjacent to your house _buy a ranch in
| Montana_.
|
| Don't want a skyscraper in downtown SF? Buy the plot. Can't
| afford it? Sorry, you're getting neighbors. You shouldn't try
| and bog them down with a nightmare bureaucratic process of
| shade measurement and bird counting.
|
| It's a good thing.
| oreoftw wrote:
| What's wrong with the alternative of sane zoning instead of
| "just buy the plot"?
|
| All people want is to live in a quiet and a nice place
| after all.
|
| Why someone who doesn't even live there but has a bigger
| buck should decide?
| arcticbull wrote:
| > What's wrong with the alternative of sane zoning
| instead of "just buy the plot"?
|
| Honestly, this is sane zoning. The Japanese model is very
| effective. They saw roughly 0% growth in housing prices
| from 1990 to present. Housing in downtown Tokyo is
| affordable. You'll be hard pressed to find someone who
| thinks Tokyo is an abomination, it's a top-10 world city
| is basically every ranking.
|
| > All people want is to live in a quiet and a nice place
| after all.
|
| Some of them! Not all of them. Some of them want a place
| to live within an hour of work, and for them that's more
| important.
|
| For those that want that they can (a) buy the land around
| them necessary to make that happen (b) lobby the city
| around them to buy the land necessary to make that happen
| (a 'park') or (c) move somewhere like-minded people live.
|
| > Why someone who doesn't even live there but has a
| bigger buck should decide?
|
| Why should the person who got there first decide what
| other people get to do? That's not even democracy, that's
| just gerontocracy.
| Xeronate wrote:
| I think many people would consider Tokyo an overbuilt
| hellscape and never want to live there. I much prefer
| Santa Monica.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Obviously not the 14M people who live in Tokyo. Those
| buildings aren't empty! Population of Santa Monica is
| 91,000, which is what the population of Tokyo would be if
| nobody wanted to live there :)
|
| If the density becomes problematic, buy the land, or
| mosey on.
|
| This to me is the least compelling counter-argument.
| "Nobody wants to live in a big dense city" is like saying
| "nobody drives in New York, there's too much traffic!"
| You personally don't, but obviously, we can tell by
| inspection that's simply not a true statement in general.
|
| Which brings us back to "but I got here first!" which is
| to me, the second-least compelling argument.
| zbrozek wrote:
| If you don't own stock in a company, you don't vote in
| its governance decisions.
|
| If you don't own a car, you don't determine when to wash
| it.
|
| If you don't own a property, you totally still get to
| determine what to do with it by being a whiny neighbor.
| Why is this OK?
|
| I'm very-much onboard with the "put up or shut up" model
| of zoning. If you want the place to be empty, you should
| own it and keep it empty.
| bootsmann wrote:
| > I don't think the solution is just nuking all zoning
| regulations from orbit.
|
| It has to be, because the in-group, i.e. the people already
| living there don't accrue the cost as that falls on the out-
| group, the people who need to live there (job etc) but
| cannot. Its the essence of a "f** you i got mine attitude"
| notch898a wrote:
| Same thing with building codes. Make them more onerous to
| increase construction costs. Then lol all the way to the
| bank when you grandfather your own house in, increasing
| your own property value as it is now impossible to build a
| house as economically as your own. Sprinkle in some "think
| of the safety of the children" for good measure, no matter
| the fact your own house is justified as safe enough to
| stand.
| golemotron wrote:
| In-group/out-group aren't great terms to use to make that
| point.
|
| I and many others who don't live in the Bay Area see
| ourselves as an in-group relative our out-group -- the
| people who have to live there.
| nostromo wrote:
| San Francisco is 2/3rds renters, all of whom can vote. You
| shouldn't pretend that they have no say in how their city
| is run.
|
| If they want more rentals and more density, they have the
| power to vote for people who can make it happen. Instead
| they vote for people who talk a lot about preserving the
| character of San Francisco.
| notch898a wrote:
| Everyone can vote? American Samoans, green card holders,
| various non-citizen immigrants? I thought SF was
| unusually immigrant rich.
|
| There are a ton of people in SF who are paying sizeable
| taxes and rents with no vote in these matters. It's quite
| likely they are disproportionately renters.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| These renters mostly live in rent-controlled apartments,
| so they don't have the same interests as people who might
| want to move there.
| nlavezzo wrote:
| To be clear, my comment was more a reaction to what I
| perceived as the idea that any zoning of residential areas
| by the community that lives there is unacceptable and that
| you should be able to do literally anything that's not
| actively endangering your neighbors. That would result in
| most neighborhoods being much less pleasant due to a few
| owners deciding to do things against the interests of the
| many.
|
| I think the "community" can also extend to something as
| large as California. If California as a community decides
| it's in the best interest of that community to loosen some
| zoning restrictions in particularly high demand areas,
| fine. Do it with thoughtfulness and as much respect for
| existing owners' interests as possible while still
| accomplishing the desired objective. That's similar to a
| smaller community deciding to change the rules to account
| for some new undesirable behavior of certain community
| members.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Where this breaks down is cities that do not even have space
| for their own offspring. Again sticking with my own city of
| Berkeley, demographic processes, birth rate combined with
| increasing longevity, means that Berkeley has been exporting
| young people for 50 years, causing housing crises in those
| places, too. In what way is that equitable to either the
| offspring in question or the people who already lived in the
| other places?
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| All developed countries have negative demographic growth,
| if people want to get into very few places this does not
| make it right. At the opposite end you find the example of
| hundreds of villages in Italy that are deserted (and many
| more in less famous countries), do you say they are also
| exporting population?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _don 't want to deal with people deciding together that
| they want their community to have certain guidelines, move to
| the country_
|
| Shouldn't this be the message to a suburban homeowner
| clinging to the past? Move to the country. Buy land around
| you. Don't tell others what they can and cannot do on
| property you don't own.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| I mean... there's a balance, right? People should be able
| to mostly do what they want with their own property. At the
| same time, they should be able to come together to make
| collective decisions about their
| towns/cities/neighborhoods. Each of those has a bad outcome
| if taken to the extreme.
| bluGill wrote:
| Sure, but we should apply 'strict scrutiny' to that.
| Strict scrutiny is a legal term meaning in general that
| isn't a right the community should have, but we will make
| exceptions for really bad things only. (you have free
| speech, but you can't just yell fire in a crowded area.
| There are things you cannot do on your land, but they
| should be very limited.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| > At the same time, they should be able to come together
| to make collective decisions about their
| towns/cities/neighborhoods.
|
| That's exactly what's happening here. Californians have
| collectively decided that zoning laws need to change. If
| the current actions by the state are somehow
| unreasonable, how could the original zoning provisions
| ever have been considered reasonable in the first place?
| lovecg wrote:
| Devil's advocate: they did. 50+ years ago they moved to a
| sleepy suburban town that through no fault of their own
| became a center of a worldwide tech revolution. Things
| change, sometimes dramatically. A place in the country you
| move to today can also transform 50 years in the future if
| you're unlucky.
| arcticbull wrote:
| There's no right to be free from change. You may need to
| keep moving around if you're after a specific ethos or
| aesthetic on the land you _don 't_ own. Your early
| arrival shouldn't have permanent supremacy over your
| neighbors plot of land. Don't want a building there? Buy
| the land. Can't afford it? Prepare some welcome gifts for
| your new neighbors.
| whymauri wrote:
| Not sure if I'd consider an unprecedented explosion in
| property-based generational wealth unlucky...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _they did_
|
| They didn't. If they bought the block, or easements on
| it, they would have. But they bought a plot. Others
| bought adjacent plots. Now they're arguing they get to
| tell the adjacent plots what they can and cannot do.
| whiddershins wrote:
| That was the deal at the time they bought it, and priced
| in.
| costigan wrote:
| That may have been the purchaser's expectation, but their
| deal was with the seller (and bank), not the community in
| general. In none of the legal papers I signed when
| purchasing my home was any arrangement with the city
| constraining future construction nearby. That's done with
| my vote (so without much effect) and any political action
| I can spur.
| snordgren wrote:
| And at the cost of the character of their neighborhood
| changing, their property valuation rose to the point that
| they can now live almost wherever they would like to.
| Countless people have to see their neighborhood change
| without the financial windfall they got.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Devil's devil's advocate: The world is not static. No one
| can reasonably expect nothing to change over the course
| of half a century. The only constant is change itself,
| and you have to deal with changing situations. Maybe it
| made sense as farmland 50 years ago, but if it makes
| sense as apartment blocks now, by God put apartment
| blocks on it then. The collective value to all those new
| tenants massively outweighs the downside to the single
| existing landowner (who stands to make a huge payday
| anyway!).
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > how you can landscape it, what kinds of cars you can keep in
| your own driveway
|
| These two at least make _some_ sense. The former, landscaping
| restrictions, can be used to prevent people from creating
| groundwater issues or flood risks, and the latter... no one
| wants a neighbor in a residential zone keeping broken-down
| trash cars out in the open.
|
| _Some_ things have to be regulated even in a relatively free
| society because otherwise the potential is too high for greedy
| or stupid people to ruin everyone else 's life.
| nine_k wrote:
| How would a broken-down car on a driveway ruin everyone
| else's life?
|
| Even so, today's trash car that does not look posh can be a
| tomorrow's restored historical car that does.
| lowdest wrote:
| There are some properties in a neighboring county where a
| guy has been running junk yards in residential
| neighborhoods. 50+ rusted junkers stacked in a suburban
| yard, against local law. When the law finally is about to
| seize the land, he's moved it all to other residential
| properties in the area. Lawsuits have been going on since
| the 90s. I believe he's lost at least one house and
| possibly spent some time in jail, but it keeps going.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| Today's broken down car sitting in my driveway is my son's
| future "hey dad what's that if I get it running can me and
| my buddies drive it around?" and 8 years later it's a
| mechanical engineering degree.
| II2II wrote:
| If that trash car is in the garage to be worked on, noone
| is going to care. If it is a trash car in the laneway that
| is being worked on and being kept in reasonable cosmetic
| condition, some are going to oppose it and some are going
| to accept it. Once you start collecting auto carcasses,
| leaving your property in disarray, and not doing much about
| it ... well, don't be surprised if people start viewing
| your property as an undesirable dump in the middle of a
| residential community.
|
| People have limits. While some people push those limits too
| far (in either direction), there are times when those
| limits are realistic.
| blockinator wrote:
| They can potentially become a blight. I'm not talking about
| a single classic car you're restoring, I'm talking about 3+
| vehicles, some parked on driveway, others on the grass.
| They're homes for vermin and other animals, they're a
| disaster aesthetically and probably dangerous to kids in
| the neighborhood (sometimes they're on jack stands).
| They're often accompanied by stacks of tires and other
| debris.
|
| I've lived off-grid in the desert, and I've seen certain
| people become 'garbage collectors' - a few cars turns into
| 20+, with all the associated junk. In the desert, nobody
| really cares - but you'd be crazy to move in next to one of
| those junk yards.
|
| It's not going to ruin anyone's life, but it's definitely
| not nice. It depends on the community and circumstances I
| suppose.
| danenania wrote:
| It makes perfect sense to me to regulate things that could
| potentially have an adverse effect on others that they can't
| easily opt out of. Loud noise in the middle of the night?
| Sure. Anything that creates pollution? Sure. Unleashed pit
| bulls that devour the neighborhood children? Depends on which
| children, but otherwise banning this makes sense.
|
| But rules based on "it doesn't look nice"? That seems both
| subjective and ridiculous. If someone has garbage on their
| property and it's blowing into yours, that gives you a right
| to complain. But if you just think their property is ugly for
| whatever reason, well, maybe don't look at it? What made
| people think they should have any say over the visual
| appearance of what someone else owns?
| masklinn wrote:
| > The former, landscaping restrictions, can be used to
| prevent people from creating groundwater issues or flood
| risks
|
| Hahaha the GP is misattributing the issue. These are usually
| HOA strictures, and HOA will require green lawns in the
| middle of a desert.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| I said elsewhere so sorry for repeating, but: you should
| find your city's code and read it. Almost all cities at
| this point have adopted things that used to be exclusive to
| HOAs.
|
| For instance, this is west des moines, Iowa:
| https://www.wdm.iowa.gov/government/public-
| services/communit...
|
| Terms like "Junk and debris in the yard." get tortured to
| mean almost literally _anything_. Also 10 " of weeds can
| grow in a matter of days after a rain.
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| > no one wants a neighbor in a residential zone keeping
| broken-down trash cars out in the open.
|
| So free.
|
| What justifiable reason is there for this?
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| No, they don't. These exact sorts of "well nobody likes"
| arguments are why the bureaucracy has the reach it does and
| CA has the problems it does.
|
| Yes, society probably won't crumble if we cave to your
| whining and regulate your pet issue of the minute but
| regulating in this manner is like littering in the park, if
| everyone does it the park is ruined.
|
| If people are poisoning the groundwater or creating other
| "off their property" problems then fine them accordingly. If
| they aren't then screw off. None of this "the thing you want
| to isn't already on the approved list so you have to go
| through an onerous and expensive process of proving it won't
| hurt anything" garbage.
| munchler wrote:
| > regulating in this manner is like littering in the park,
| if everyone does it the park is ruined
|
| That's a pretty ironic comparison, because laws against
| littering are exactly the sort of quality-of-life
| regulation that you seem to oppose.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| >Yes, society probably won't crumble if we cave to your
| whining and regulate your pet issue of the minute
|
| I disagree, and I think this sort of nonsense is a
| cornerstone of why society is crumbling. People don't look
| at their homes as _homes_ they look at them as temporary
| investments that they hope to sell to somebody else for
| more money in the future. People don 't end up investing
| (in the societal, emotional sense) into their communities
| and their homes because they recognize that they don't
| really own them.
|
| Give the rights back to the people to own their homes and
| they start to care again. Tell property investors that I'm
| sorry, but actually you might have to deal with a guy who
| doesn't give a shit about weeds and likes to work on his
| car in the driveway next to your investment and maybe
| houses stop being such a safe speculative vehicle.
| nine_k wrote:
| If housing ceases to be a relatively safe investment
| vehicle, what will become it?
|
| I dislike the idea of home-as-investment as much as the
| next guy, but I'd like to think about some consequences
| of houses stopping to be an investment, Japan-style.
| olifante wrote:
| If houses were no longer an investment but rather just
| poaces to live, the result might be that more and better
| housing would be constantly being built. This is one of
| the points of this article that was posted here the other
| day: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/actually-japan-
| has-changed...
| nine_k wrote:
| That's fair and understandable.
|
| I wonder where the investment of the "nest egg"
| investments would go.
| [deleted]
| thepasswordis wrote:
| >no one wants a neighbor in a residential zone keeping
| broken-down trash cars out in the open.
|
| Do those neighbors care what I want?
| dylan604 wrote:
| so let me ask from a point of trying to see it the other
| way, why do you want broken-down trash cars out in the open
| of your house? if you're just playing devil's advocate,
| then whatever, but if you truly want trash cars, I truly
| want to hear why
| thepasswordis wrote:
| Because don't feel like I have to justify what i want to
| do on my own property to anybody except my wife.
| dylan604 wrote:
| but see, you're not being fair to the question. i'm not
| asking for justification. i'm asking why you want trash
| cars. it's no different than asking why your favorite
| food is what it might ever be. there's no judgement in my
| asking. i'm just trying to understand, you know, to get
| to know you. maybe you'll have a strong reason for it
| that convinces me to want trash cars in my yard too. but
| you'll never know because you take this immediate
| position of justification and non-answers
| gorbypark wrote:
| Not OP, but given enough time/money/land I'd probably
| have a dozen or so old trash cars on my property. It's
| fun to fix things, including buying a couple wrecked
| donor cars in order to (attempt to) build up one working
| one. It's one of my hobbies, although I don't have the
| time/money or room to go all out.
| dylan604 wrote:
| there's a difference between a parts car and a trash car.
| parts car implies what you are saying that there's a
| project car somewhere. trash car implies something else
| entirely.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| actually I don't care about what car my neighbor drives and
| would not like your views to increase my rent.
| whakim wrote:
| The idea that property rights are totally inviolable doesn't
| really hold water when you think about it a little more. Stuff
| like electricity, running water, trash and recycling, roads,
| parks, schools, public safety, the technology behind your
| fridge/oven/heating/AC etc. only exist because of decades or
| even hundreds of years of robust public investment. Without any
| of that, you wouldn't even have a house!
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| What is the relation between property rights and services?
| Paying for consumption versus having property rights is
| orthogonal.
| whakim wrote:
| The relationship is that private property only exists
| because of a system that enforces it and provides many of
| the services that lend it value. Whatever you think of this
| system, the two are deeply intertwined.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| And, crucially, the relevant services all have easements
| that supercede your desires to do whatever you want on
| your property. You don't have the right to NOT have a
| powerline going down the street on your property, or a
| city sewer line, or a sidewalk, etc.
| jdmtheNth wrote:
| And when your street starts looking like San Francisco? You
| just abandon ship after encouraging this nonsense?
| kevinburke wrote:
| San Francisco is a good case study in what happens when you
| don't build enough housing - people who were previously able
| to afford cheap apartments now can't and do all of their
| business out in the street.
|
| Other cities and states have worse problems with drug use but
| don't have problems with homelessness because housing is more
| affordable there.
| jdmtheNth wrote:
| That's one way of looking at it, assuming you want to
| encourage needy people to take over your city. Or you could
| look at it the same way New York and Colorado are looking
| at it: https://www.voanews.com/a/new-york-mayor-says-no-
| room-in-his...
| rcpt wrote:
| > you can't built a chemical processing plant in a residential
| neighborhood, obviously
|
| Actually we have oil derricks in the middle of residential
| neighborhoods in Los Angeles.
| munificent wrote:
| As far as I know, pumping crude doesn't produce the same
| pollution and nearby collateral damage that _processing_
| chemicals does.
|
| Source: Grew up in Texas surrounded by mostly harmless pump
| jacks and then moved to Louisiana in Cancer Alley.
| rcpt wrote:
| We have some refineries right up against homes in
| Wilmington and the bad parts of Long Beach.
|
| In either case, the fact that zoning laws aren't stopping
| this but are taken as seriously as laws of physics when it
| comes to apartments shows that they're mostly a scam
| tinglymintyfrsh wrote:
| Until there's an oil spill, fracking discharge, earthquake
| (from fracking), or refinery explosion like in Houston.
|
| Houston has both petrochem refining and chemical plants
| with people living in "sacrifice zones".
| epistasis wrote:
| Just the wells themselves are prone to leaking lots of
| toxic gases, and a lot of the modern extraction procedures
| have additional risks too.
|
| https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2020-03-05/desert
| e...
|
| Modern epidemiology also enables really accurate tracking
| of the increase in asthma and other health problems near
| wells:
|
| https://www.usnews.com/news/cities/articles/2021-06-02/urba
| n...
| tinglymintyfrsh wrote:
| Yeap. "Gasland" is a good documentary
| [deleted]
| strawhatguy wrote:
| Yeah, no kidding, no residential zoning at all? Hard to believe
| it's CA, but good for them! This will vastly improve the
| housing situation, if CA has sense enough to keep it this way.
| tigen wrote:
| Isn't this misleading? It's not "no zoning" it's specifically
| required to be low-income or whatever housing. Right?
| nemo44x wrote:
| Actually it strips power away from the people making us less
| democratic. What will happen is developers with political
| connection/money to get their people elected, will have fewer
| barriers to their profits now.
|
| This is a transfer of power from the people, that is democracy,
| to the oligarchy.
|
| > I don't care what effect this has on my neighbors property
| value.
|
| That is such an awful attitude and a big problem of what is
| wrong in the country today. We live in communities and
| communities agree to certain values. It's about well more than
| just you and what you want to do.
| gorbypark wrote:
| I'm always of the mind that it's harder for developers to
| have connections at a state level compared to a local level.
| It's more believable that a local developer has connections
| to city council in a single city and the amount of palms to
| grease is much less. Moving up to state level (especially in
| CA) the amount of money / influence would greatly increase to
| be able to influence the new zoning regulators. Not saying it
| can't happen, but it would be more of an undertaking (imo).
| TedShiller wrote:
| Wow that's actually terrible news. Who wants more pollution
| crowding traffic and crime?
| runnerup wrote:
| > you can't built a chemical processing plant in a residential
| neighborhood, obviously
|
| Lots of people disagree with this! There are tons of chemical
| processing facilities that pop up near my neighborhood,
| particularly rail car cleaning.
|
| Can smell a different chemical every day depending on what
| they're spraying out of the rail cars.
|
| La Porte, TX
|
| Pasadena, TX
|
| Lake Jackson, TX
|
| There are both new subdivisions and new processing facilities
| going up all the time. ProPublica ran some big articles on it,
| absolutely skyrocketing cancer rates around here.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Yeah man I was shocked here in Texas on how much crap I had to
| go through with the city to build a small workshop in my
| backyard. It was absolutely ridiculous since it was a permanent
| structure (stone and wood with concrete foundation). Good for
| California and I hope other states follow suit. Austin has two
| failed attempts to set up rezoning in the past 15 years or so,
| millions of dollars spent on the plans that ultimately failed.
| scruple wrote:
| > If I want to collect old VW busses and park them in the front
| yard, I don't care what effect this has on my neighbors
| property value. This is my home. If you don't want to deal with
| living near other people, move to the country.
|
| I don't like that we have to have laws like this in society
| anymore than you do. But you're kind of ignoring Chesterton's
| fence here.
|
| I've lived next to places like you're describing, and I don't
| mean trash heaps like you see in rural parts of America, though
| I've lived next to them, too. I mean collectors who simply fall
| behind on preventative maintenance for mundane reasons. So I
| don't care until I'm forced to... Which is typically when the
| rats show up.
| lovecg wrote:
| This argument is a strawman though. Reasonable restrictions
| are fine, but in practice you get neighbors arguing about
| what kind of tile you're allowed to put on your porch roof.
| If you ever listen in on local city planning/design meetings
| it's pretty illuminating.
| Julesman wrote:
| I grew up in Santa Monica and live here now. Except for getting
| around the height restriction, this really is good news. Here's
| one big reason why.
|
| Maybe half the houses and apartments in the city were built to
| last 30 years. They are literal tear-downs and should be
| replaced. It's that simple. There are lots of valid points to
| debate here but crap houses made of rotting sticks just need to
| go.
| madamelic wrote:
| Good for them.
|
| CA doing something good for once and walking-the-walk.
| flerchin wrote:
| Build baby, build.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| In principle, I hate this. Cities should be able to plan their
| own growth.
|
| In practice, coming from CA, I am 100% onboard. It's a mess of
| red tape and bullshit lawsuits.
| andys627 wrote:
| I intuitively agree but have learned that "Cities should be
| able to plan their own growth." is just too simplistic.
| sonar_un wrote:
| City planning is much too simplistic for the metropolises of
| California. Region planning is more apt.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| The other lesson might be that 'city' is too broad a term.
| Some cities are standalone, some are just arbitrary
| boundaries within a metropolis. Maybe the latter should be
| eliminated and replaced with a metropolis-wide city.
| epistasis wrote:
| Agreed, there should be a strict framework within such
| planning happens, to avoid the housing crisis that CA cities
| have created for those that don't own land. Japan is a great
| inspiration for planning like this. US planning, the entire
| field, is absolutely abhorrent, and should really be scrapped
| and rebuilt from scratch.
| closeparen wrote:
| Cities were given the opportunity to plan their own growth.
| They chose not to grow, which is a choice California cannot
| afford.
| aclatuts wrote:
| This isn't some unknown town that put in a lot of planning,
| money, and effort to create demand. The only thing of "value"
| that happened was that a state full of good weather and jobs
| was monopolized early with low density housing. I don't know of
| any small towns that don't want more growth. Asking for more
| planning is only used in areas of rampant speculation.
|
| Also the whole idea behind the suburban experiment was the idea
| that it was a finished state. That there was absolutely no need
| to densify or plan for growth, because more suburban land could
| just be annexed.
| toast0 wrote:
| > Cities should be able to plan their own growth.
|
| They are able to plan their own growth, but they aren't able to
| refuse to grow. Or at least, not through zoning; being located
| where potable water or sewer/septic are at capacity is probably
| still valid to restrict new building.
| creeble wrote:
| It isn't. Afaik, there isn't a single water restriction plan
| in any CA jurisdiction (I've been looking).
|
| Also, the "builder's remedy" specifically avoids EIRs of
| almost all types, including traffic and parking.
| toast0 wrote:
| If I understand correctly, the Monterey Peninsula Water
| Management District is subject to an order from the
| (California) State Water Resources Control Board which
| prevents it from allowing new water meters[1]. New house
| construction in most communities with municipal water
| service will not be issued final approval without being
| connected to the water service; so this effectively
| prevents new construction. I strongly suspect (but have no
| evidence) that an onsite private well would be prohibited
| as well.
|
| The City of Monterey has a page[2] describing this as well
| as a published wait list [3], with the first project having
| submitted in 2003.
|
| I don't know if they deny construction permits, but you'd
| have to be pretty foolish to actually construct residences
| that can't be legally occupied because they lack potable
| water.
|
| [1] https://www.mpwmd.net/regulations/water-permits/water-
| meters... [2] https://www.monterey.org/city_hall/community_
| development/pla... [3] https://files.monterey.org/Document%
| 20Center/CommDev/Plannin...
| thegrimmest wrote:
| Why not? if a low density community wants to plan to _remain_
| low density, who are the rest of us to stop them?
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| If you want low density, you're going to pay for it by not
| being in the center of a major hub of civilization.
|
| Places like Gilroy and Morgan Hill will probably be mostly
| left alone in this, and this will probably apply downward
| pressure on their housing prices, making it more affordable
| for people to live in low density neighborhoods, while not
| having a 3 hour commute from the central valley.
|
| Obviously developers could target those cities, but they
| would probably start with more desirable ones first.
| km3r wrote:
| Because it's regulatory capture. We hate it when big
| corporations do it, small towns shouldn't be able to
| either. If they were to fairly pay for it, maybe we could
| talk, but when things like Prop 13 exist, it's clear they
| are not paying for it.
|
| Housing near job centers is a scarce resource, we shouldn't
| put up with people hoarding housings anymore they we would
| put up with someone hoarding water during a drought.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Counterquestion:
|
| If a landowner in a low density community wants to build
| high density housing on their property, why should the city
| be allowed to stop that?
| opportune wrote:
| I see a lot of validity in this line of thought and agree
| with it in principle, but in practice it has led to a lot
| of problems in California.
|
| For one, California is split up into many smaller
| towns/cities in large metro areas, so each having their own
| policies leads to locally-optimal but regionally-suboptimal
| policies of trying to get as much commercial development as
| possible with as little residential development as
| possible. This is a direct contributor to gentrification
| (if you are "lucky" and able to soak up the commercial
| demand without increasing residential supply, you've
| created a mismatch between jobs and people in your area),
| ghettoisation (the people priced out of where they were
| before have to go somewhere), traffic (people have to
| commute into their jobs), and affordability (even the bad
| communities can't increase housing much because they have
| the weakest tax base, plus all the restricted supply where
| jobs and taxes actually are).
|
| The right solution to this problem is to recognize the
| whole local-optimization problem and make it so every
| municipality has to solve the problem at once, to prevent
| the adverse selection of solving the problem in only one
| municipality. Which is what the state of CA is doing.
|
| This could also be addressed from the other side, which is
| a complete political non-starter, of trying to limit job
| growth. Obviously nobody wants to do that. But the problem
| by and large is not just that CA has a lot of low density
| communities that want to remain that way, but also that
| those low density communities are creating more jobs than
| they can house.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| I agree with your premise. I just disagree that the use
| of authority is the solution here. I don't see any reason
| why the state needs to intervene. Just let the locally-
| optimal solutions (peacefully) compete and sort
| themselves out. Let there be winners and losers, and
| don't get in the way. Using authority to force
| cooperation is tyranny. We're not all on the same team.
| We're self-interested, in-group focused, animals and
| there's nothing _wrong_ with that.
| opportune wrote:
| The locally-optimal solution is always to try to get as
| much commercial tax base as possible (since it increases
| the tax base without much increase in spending) and as
| little resident tax base as possible (since it increases
| spending). So I don't really see how it will sort itself
| out.
|
| When you are a bunch of small, close by municipalities
| all operating in essentially the same economic context
| (job market, etc.) the regional issues always become
| someone else's problem.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| From what perspective is that optimal at all? Certainly
| humans care about more in life than the tax revenue of
| their municipal government. I can't speak for you but
| that's not my goal in life
| opportune wrote:
| People generally don't try to block offices or retail the
| way they try to block housing. Many of the NIMBY concerns
| like having to build more schools don't apply.
| triceratops wrote:
| > I just disagree that the use of authority is the
| solution here.
|
| Agreed. So why even allow the city to use its authority?
| Leave it to the property owner to decide.
| janosett wrote:
| > Using authority to force cooperation is tyranny.
|
| Wow, this is an odd definition of tyranny. The elected
| representatives of the people of our state wrote these
| laws. I personally think it's fair for us to make laws
| that apply across our state rather than having full
| autonomy at the city level.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Should it not be the federal government, then, that makes
| all the laws? Instead of autonomy at the state level?
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Well they don't have any rights over property they don't
| own. Why should a narrow majority or as is often the case a
| small but highly motivated minority have a veto over any
| conceivable use of your property just because it happens to
| be near them.
|
| I'm not proposing allowing a chicken processing plant in a
| residential area, but it's no one else's business if you
| want to build a duplex on a lot you own.
| throwaway5959 wrote:
| See also: sea water desalination blocked by the CA
| coastal commission over the will of literally everyone
| else.
| ketzo wrote:
| I don't think you should be blindly downvoted for this -- I
| think it is a totally valid question, and one that the
| YIMBY movement needs to find a way to answer consistently.
|
| Personally, I would say that lots of low-density
| communities _do_ remain low-density. And generally, that 's
| because people don't want to move to them.
|
| But if you're a small town in Northern California, one of
| the most desirable places in the world, saying "we want to
| remain low density" is basically saying "we got here first,
| so it's ours -- nobody else gets to have this!"
|
| And I think that's a fundamentally wrong way for us to
| organize our places. Desirable communities shouldn't be
| able to keep out people who want to come in, just because
| they want to stay exclusive.
|
| But I don't think that's a settled point, and there is a
| lot of nuance to basically every adjective I just used.
| foobarian wrote:
| It seems pretty clear cut given the focus on property
| rights in the States that whoever got there first does
| get to call the shots. There are maybe some overrides
| like eminent domain but it seems the only non-coercive
| way to change this is to get your own land and make your
| own rules (e.g. HOAs, incorporate towns with better
| rules, etc).
|
| Besides, who's to say that these desirable places are not
| desirable _because_ they are low-density? It 's a chicken
| and egg problem.
| ketzo wrote:
| I am super-duper not a lawyer, so I don't have a sense of
| what _is_ true and legal. I 'm mostly talking about what
| _I think_ should be true and legal.
| closeparen wrote:
| Property rights absolutism would mean landowners can
| build what they want. Zoning has already moved the
| question of allowed building types into the realm of
| public policy; now we're talking about what the policy
| should be.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| > It seems pretty clear cut given the focus on property
| rights in the States that whoever got there first does
| get to call the shots.
|
| If we're concerned about property rights, why can't the
| property owners build at a higher density? Or sell to a
| developer that will build at a higher density? The fact
| is the zoning at play _restricts_ property rights it
| doesn't protect them.
|
| Anyway zoning was never static (it wasn't ordained by God
| after all), so changing it isn't really a big deal.
| People are angry and surprised of course, but the writing
| has been on the wall for a long time.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| > Besides, who's to say that these desirable places are
| not desirable because they are low-density? It's a
| chicken and egg problem.
|
| If this were true, you wouldn't need zoning, and people
| would just build low density because that's what everyone
| wants anyways.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| davidw wrote:
| At a certain point, it starts to be like "two wolves and
| a sheep voting on what's for dinner" when you get some of
| these communities that don't want anyone else there. And
| that's fundamentally unfair.
|
| I like the Strong Towns notion of "no massive changes
| anywhere, but lots of smaller changes everywhere",
| although in practice it's not always quite so smooth.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| My answer comes from more of a Libertarian perspective it
| is quite simple. The community does not own the privately
| held land. If every landowner in the community opposed
| development, zoning would be unnecessary. If some
| individuals want to sell to Developers, zoning is just
| oppression of the minority by Democratic means.
|
| Being part of a democracy does not mean you get to
| control every single action that could impact you.
| mannerheim wrote:
| The majority can also buy out someone who wants to sell
| to a developer. I know a neighborhood where everyone
| pitched in to buy land that would have been developed and
| ruined their view, depreciating property prices. But they
| put their money where their mouths were by buying the
| land themselves.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| I think this is only applicable if said community is
| isolated enough. But most communities in the Bay Area (for
| example) are not isolated. People live in one city, work in
| another, on the weekends they drive out to some other
| cities for R&R.
| tobyjsullivan wrote:
| What is the legal standing of a "community" in American or
| state law?
|
| Looking at this abstractly, buying a plot of land grants
| you ownership over that plot, nothing more. So on what
| basis should an owner of one plot be able to dictate what
| others can do with their own plot?
|
| Scaling up to a community, what % of plot owners need to
| share an opinion for that opinion to outweigh the property
| rights of disagreeing plot owners?
|
| To my knowledge, the relevant collective management levels
| recognized under law are municipal, state, and federal.
|
| Where does "community" mean anything beyond being a
| manufactured scope of convenience for NIMBYs? They can't
| get the entire city to agree with them, so they draw an
| artificial boundary where the majority agree with them and
| call it a neighbourhood.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Housing is most people's largest purchase in life. Zoning
| is put in place to make sure that that purchase is
| suitable for the purpose intended so people feel
| comfortable making that large investment. They tried to
| get a variance to my local zoning to put in an asphalt
| plant, that would spew crap into the air my kids breath.
| That makes my house unsuitable to the use I purchased it
| for, and that the county promised it would be for via
| zoning, as my entire purpose was to raise kids in a
| healthy environment.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| "Don't build an asphalt plant near residential zones" is
| an _extremely reasonable_ zoning restriction. That 's
| what zoning _should_ be doing.
|
| "Don't build any apartments anywhere in this city" isn't.
|
| There should be a range of options available for people,
| ranging from a house with a yard and no shared walls with
| anyone, to mid-rise apartment buildings, and many things
| in between.
| NumberWangMan wrote:
| I think it's entirely possible for a rule that seems
| plausible and fair to create bad outcomes, making it a bad
| rule. Saying that the people of a community may vote to
| decide to to allow anyone else in seems fair... until too
| many communities do it, leading to people not having
| anywhere affordable to live that is reasonably close to
| employment opportunities.
|
| And it's a sort of collective coordination problem, too.
| People can move from city to city, and if a city decides to
| allow lots of new housing, they'll get lots of new people,
| which not only increases density, but also lowers rents _in
| other cities_ by a little bit, while not lowering the rents
| /property prices in their own city by as much as they would
| if inter-city migration weren't a thing.
|
| So when a city allows more housing, it benefits _other_
| cities. It 's best if _every_ city does this -- but because
| the incentives are a bit messed up, most cities in
| California have decided to "defect" and block
| construction. (There are other reasons -- people with the
| most free time to attend city council meetings and run for
| positions in local government are much more likely to be
| landowners or landlords, so they are over-represented,
| while renters are under-represented).
|
| If every city and town builds a _some_ more housing, you
| can get a much more drastic increase in affordability than
| if only some are shouldering all the burden, without
| massive changes to any one place. Which is why I think it
| makes sense to handle this at the state level.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| American citizens with the freedom of movement? If you want
| to remain low-density go settle where California City is, I
| guarantee you will stay small. Santa Monica, however, is
| going to have to build housing.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| freedom of movement != freedom over the personal property
| of others, or freedom from binding agreements. You can
| walk the streets of any neighbourhood you please. Using
| state authority to overrule local decisions about local
| matters is what I'm objecting to here.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| No one is taking their personal property? The state is
| removing the restriction around what a developer can
| build on their own property.
|
| Further, the state is doing their job. If the town next
| to mine enacts restrictive housing measures, then my town
| is likely to become more burdened by the issue. If we
| then enact restrictive housing, the next town over now
| has to deal with the effects of 2 freeriders. Why should
| the rest of California allow Beverly Hills and Santa
| Monica to saddle us with the burden of housing everyone?
| So the wealthy can have their enclaves?
| thegrimmest wrote:
| > _the rest of California_
|
| Because I don't see "California" as one entity like a
| sports team. I see it as various groups each competing
| with each other, like an ecosystem. Beverly Hills and
| Santa Monica just happen to be "winning" (rather
| arbitrarily). Using authority to punish them for
| (peacefully) winning is tyranny. Just let them win.
|
| > _The state is removing the restriction_
|
| That was enforced by a _local democracy_ , for what is
| fundamentally _local concern_. The state should not be
| able to supersede local authority for local concerns, it
| 's authoritarian.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| It's really convenient for you to not see California as
| one entity. Unfortunately for you, that's not reality and
| we are, in fact, part of a single entity.
|
| > Beverly Hills and Santa Monica just happen to be
| "winning" (rather arbitrarily). Using authority to punish
| them for (peacefully) winning is tyranny. Just let them
| win.
|
| The residents of those areas have been using authority to
| make their "wins" a fait accompli for nearly 100 years,
| but yeah, it's tyranny if we remove their priviliges.
|
| > The state should not be able to supersede local
| authority for local concerns, it's authoritarian.
|
| California voters elected the legislature and executive
| who signed off on it. If Santa Monica restricts housing,
| it affects neighboring cities. Please explain how it is
| authoritarian for the state to balance these concerns?
| triceratops wrote:
| You genuinely don't see how a city controlling what a
| property owner can build on their land isn't
| authoritarian?
| jrockway wrote:
| This is a tragedy of the commons type thing. If every
| local democracy votes in favor of local concerns (no new
| housing), then the problem doesn't solve itself;
| California has a bunch of angry residents that can't find
| anywhere to live. Whatever you think is right or wrong,
| there is still an elected government at the state level,
| and it's not only homeowners that vote in those
| elections. So their hand is forced to do something given
| the gridlock at the local level. (If it was only Santa
| Monica that refused to build new housing, then this
| wouldn't have become a state-level issue. But every
| locale is making the exact same decision, because it's in
| their current residents' best interests. The state has to
| take into account the views of everyone.)
| thenewwazoo wrote:
| _All_ politics is local. Every citizen of a city is
| _also_ a citizen of the state. "Local" is a demarcation
| drawn where ever it's convenient for the speaker. A
| smaller group should not be able to supersede the
| superior authority at the larger polity's expense.
|
| In this case, the locally-optimal choices cities are
| making is having deleterious effects on the quality of
| life of the citizens of the state as a whole. It is
| perfectly reasonable for the state to therefore act.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| My house is worthless to me if they put a batch asphalt
| plant next door, as my whole purpose for my house was to
| raise my children in. They tried to get a variance.
| Luckily I come from California, so I am not adverse to
| raising friction and gathering a coalition and was able
| to get enough people to the planning meeting to keep
| zoning rules enforced and not allow that exception.
| triceratops wrote:
| If 100% of the property owners in a low-density community
| wants to remain low-density then yeah, no one can do
| anything about it.
|
| Otherwise it's a tyranny of the majority over the minority
| (of property owners) that want something not low-density.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| If you're going down the slippery slope of libertarianism
| (on a strange collective/communist level), then who are the
| rest of us to stop an individual property owner from
| selling his lot to someone that wants to build 5+1
| multiunit housing?
|
| So either you go right wing and you have no right to
| restrict developers on land they legitimately procure
|
| Or you go left wing and you have no right to impose
| (?accidentally...ish?) racist, classist, and
| generationalist zoning results on people.
|
| Or you go centrist and point out that population growth,
| livability, and cost for practically everyone is raging out
| of control because of zoning laws.
|
| Now, that's all policy reasoning on idealistic grounds,
| which of course matters not at all! The real political
| calculus is rich (landed) vs the young / middle class /
| poor (priced out).
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Of course it's all a scale and there are infinite points
| along that scale. Wanting democracy at the lowest
| possible level doesn't preclude wanting to avoid going
| all the way to the "every man for himself" option. I
| guarantee some folks want it to be dictated at the
| federal level, even.
| toast0 wrote:
| In California, all city authority is granted to the cities
| by the state. The state sees overall growth and wants to
| provide for it. It's reasonably fair to allocate for growth
| in residential units in a region among all the communities
| in the region. The status quo of most communities in areas
| where people want to live refusing residential growth is
| clearly not working for the state, and they've been
| gradually increasing the pressure on local government to
| resolve the issue, so this is just the next step in
| escalation.
|
| I personally love low density living, and I live on a 9
| acre lot as a result. But, I can't keep my neighbors from
| subdividing their lots. Locally, my city (in WA) has places
| that would be better suited to higher density living and
| places that are not so well suited; but city council drags
| their feet on all new construction, so we're not meeting
| state growth targets here, and I suspect we'll eventually
| end up with something like described in this article. That
| would be unfortunate, IMHO, because increasing density in a
| desirable place to live is inevitable and I think it's
| better to have (expanding) pockets of high density rather
| than greatly mixed densities. It's easier to add 30
| residences where there's municipal water and sewer than to
| extend municipal water and sewer 2 miles to a new project
| site where neighbors are on private wells and septic, which
| doesn't tend to work well for a 4 story condo building.
| vkou wrote:
| Because the community's governance is granted to it by the
| state. Nowhere in the constitution are the rights of city
| councils enumerated, and states are sovereign entities.
|
| As such, any power your local community has to govern
| itself is just largess from its state. When it stops
| governing in a way that the state approves of, there is
| nothing preventing the state from stepping in.
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| then they should enforce 1 child per family while they're
| at it. their kids have to live somewhere right? I live in a
| rural city in Utah that doesn't like building new homes yet
| it's a Mormon town where families are about 5 kids on
| average. if you want grandkids nearby then more homes need
| built. period.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| Or people whom the community has no room for can leave. I
| think this comes from an axiomatic disagreement about
| what being born/alive entitles a person to. My view is
| that we are all born owning nothing, and that everything
| we acquire we must acquire via consensual exchange.
| smolder wrote:
| This comes about from job openings in places that don't
| have housing, so, basically a disagreement about where
| people should work and live, acted out on the housing and
| job markets.
| snordgren wrote:
| According to that line of thinking, older generations
| should also stop receiving support from welfare and
| social security. Let them sell their houses and leave
| their communities if they can't afford to acquire the
| goods and services they need through consensual exchange.
|
| And yet very few will accept elderly starving in the
| streets en masse because their pensions were gutted or
| went bankrupt. And so some measure of intergenerational
| agreement is necessary, where each generation provides
| for the next.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Given that people are paying into Social Security their
| entire life, I imagine they'd take some offense if you
| took it away and said it was because the young'uns were
| tired of paying for them. They might be of the opinion
| that they did in fact fund the investment for their
| retirement.
| ketzo wrote:
| Yeah, it's a hamfisted solution, but only because it has to be.
|
| And as the state government has said -- cities _can_ still plan
| their own growth! They just have to plan _some_ growth rather
| than none, which, obviously, is the sticking point.
| trilobyte wrote:
| Exactly right. The cities had a long time to implement less
| clumsy plans but kept caving to local political groups funded
| by wealthy people. I'm not against those people having their
| opinions be part of a solution, but up until now it's been
| almost entirely driven by that group, and they were unwilling
| to give up enough to find workable middle ground. It was
| always token concessions. Maybe this will be a wake-up call.
| Palpatineli wrote:
| Sounds like the correct solution would be to sunset all
| existing zoning in a year or two and force cities to make new
| baggage free zoning rules.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > Cities should be able to plan their own growth.
|
| They should, but they have very few incentives to do a great
| job, as they're funded either way.
| JasserInicide wrote:
| >Cities should be able to plan their own growth.
|
| What US city has actually done this though? More often than
| not, their councils are stacked with NIMBY types that let
| growing pains fester forever.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| In theory cities planning their own growth sounds good. In
| practice it fails miserably.
|
| I think it should really be decided at the metro area level.
| Since job markets exist at that level, having housing decisions
| there avoids the problem where a city benefits from a booming
| economy but refuses to provide housing to anyone participating
| in that economy, shoving that responsibility onto the other
| nearby cities.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Maybe if they actually planned growth. In practice they just
| prevent growth. I'd rather err on the side of property rights--
| if you buy some land you can build stuff on it (within reason).
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| > In principle, I hate this. Cities should be able to plan
| their own growth.
|
| I reject this principle. Cities are not sovereign.
| kevinburke wrote:
| This is actually the compromise position - California proposed
| SB 50, which would have unilaterally set density standards near
| transit and permitted fourplexes in single family zones. Cities
| fiercely opposed this.
|
| So instead we have this dumb system where every city gets a
| target number from the state and can choose where the housing
| goes, as long as they can show they meet the target. "Local
| control!"
|
| Most of them are choosing really dumb spots - Orinda is trying
| to put 200 low income homes on a freeway shoulder near the
| Caldecott Tunnel, Palo Alto has two Caltrain stations but is
| trying to put all the new apartments near the 101 freeway.
| egberts1 wrote:
| caldecott and hi-rise near freeways sounds like viable
| options.
|
| you make it sound like it is a bad thing.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| Housing right next to highways is pretty bad. There's a
| huge amount of pollution, both particulate and noise, and
| depending on the layout, also light. Constant exposure to
| all of those will quickly lead to a variety of chronic
| conditions and generally make one miserable.
| frankthedog wrote:
| You're right, better have none at all than something
| below your standards. /s
| matt_heimer wrote:
| It isn't horrible but I don't think you can argue that it'd
| be better to put the high-rises near the Caltrain stations.
| If you don't then you are just requiring people to have
| cars which also makes it harder to afford the housing.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| It's not dumb, it's cynical. Pushing less well off people
| into the most polluted areas rather than sharing space is a
| pattern that keeps reappearing in US society.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| No, it's dumb because the state rejected all these plans.
| Now they have zero say over what gets built because they
| tried to play games.
| dcow wrote:
| Before you get too excited:
|
| > HCD reviewed SF's housing element and said it "largely
| compiled" with the state's rules, even though it was heavy on
| promises. As such, SF will not be subjected to the builder remedy
| on Wednesday. Shockingly, only a few other Bay Area jurisdictions
| can claim to keep their zoning as of writing this: Emeryville,
| Redwood City, and Alameda city.
|
| SF zoned a bunch of the Richmond and Sunset (which aren't really
| "IMBY") for high density, sounds like. So no, this isn't going to
| radically change anything for SF.
| outworlder wrote:
| Great.
|
| Apparently there's nothing _preventing_ mixed-use buildings. But
| are there incentives?
|
| Having residential buildings on top of commercial ones is the
| secret for walkability in many European cities. Grocery shops and
| other small businesses are usually very close to where you live.
| crooked-v wrote:
| I think (without evidence) that most developers of mid-size
| apartment/condo buildings would inherently gravitate towards
| ground-floor retail when it's not banned by zoning (as it often
| is), because the comparative rarity of that kind of thing in
| the US would make it perceived as 'fancier' and thereby more
| valuable.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Prepare for the 5+1 invasion!
|
| This will be an interesting experiment. Nothing makes progressive
| people conservatives more quickly than threatening their housing
| values.
| zetazzed wrote:
| I strongly recommend Darrell Owens' substack (and Twitter). He's
| a young guy who got involved in housing politics in Berkeley back
| in high school and is studying data analytics. The blog has real
| data analysis of housing issues, not just polemics or the latest
| gossip (though there is a bit of that).
| la64710 wrote:
| Soon the peaceful suburbs of California will look like congested
| cities like Seoul or Mumbai with a whole bunch of slums thrown in
| between.
| 40acres wrote:
| I can't wait.
| nluken wrote:
| I mean, California already has both a massive homelessness
| problem and a major housing shortage. The prices from the
| latter have driven a ton of migration out of the state. Is your
| solution to just do nothing?
| la64710 wrote:
| Yes migration is good.
| thebradbain wrote:
| This is reactionary. Not even Los Angeles, the biggest city in
| California, is anywhere near being a dense metropolis.
| gretch wrote:
| When I visited, I found Seoul to be an amazing city. While
| there was higher density there, I would not describe it as
| 'congested' because they had planning for how to manage
| (mostly) foot traffic.
|
| I would be very happy if Sunnyvale/Santa Clara started to look
| a bit more like seoul.
| recursive wrote:
| Better a slum than literally camping on the sidewalk.
| GalenErso wrote:
| Have you ever traveled to Seoul?
|
| If you want your own undisturbed 10,000 sqft domain, like a
| British lord of old, you can move to Idaho. Or pay a huge
| premium to compete for a limited pool of available low density
| land.
| yazaddaruvala wrote:
| Have you ever been to Mumbai? Have you been inside their newer
| luxury buildings?
|
| It has many issues, but the modern tall buildings in Mumbai are
| amazing and are the solution to many of their issues.
|
| If the US would start to build new buildings like Mumbai or
| Singapore more Americans would realize just what luxury and
| space a condo could have!
|
| Mumbai needs more walkability (through super blocks and such),
| better trash etiquette (more trash cans - especially for the
| middle classes new fascination with dogs), and it needs 1000x
| more livable square feet.
| notch898a wrote:
| I would probably create a bridge or something over the slums.
| Cheap enough toll to not be much for the people living in the
| condos, but expensive enough those living in squalor below
| find it unaffordable. Then you could pretty much live your
| life going from middle class+ establishment to the next
| without having to think about the slums below. The bridge
| would also double as a shelter over any leaking tarp roofs
| below.
| agentwiggles wrote:
| What a wildly dystopian idea
| flave wrote:
| May you see the light my son
| maherbeg wrote:
| It's sad that people assume density must mean mega cities
| instead of gentle density like Paris suburbs. You could double
| the Bay Area's density by approving duplexes, fourplexes, and
| sixplexes + a few more more apartment buildings.
|
| All of these can look like they fit in the neighborhood too
| quite easily.
| Gene5ive wrote:
| Finally
| tdiggity wrote:
| Sounds too good to be true. I'm skeptical that cities won't just
| add more rules and reviews that end up extending the process 2x
| or more (plus more review fees!)
| hardtke wrote:
| Exactly -- have any of the houses in Santa Monica actually been
| built?
| kevinburke wrote:
| It takes about a year to get permits in most cities in the
| best of cases, and we're in uncharted waters here, legally,
| so I would not expect anything to break ground for years.
| undert0wn wrote:
| The article doesn't specify that it will open to commercial
| zoning. Just that there is no limit to residential. So if someone
| has the capital there is no height limit to build in a
| residential area... I don't see much changing here. Most people
| won't add on a second, third, or fourth floor. New builds
| however... -\\_(tsu)_/-
| tsuru wrote:
| I don't live in the area but I like the idea that the codes are
| updated to match the population. I hope there are some provisions
| for "access to sunlight" as the buildings grow -- something like
| Japan's Nisshoken policies... or I'd like to hear how that isn't
| a good idea for city planning.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I think New York has sky elevation plane rules for this reason.
| kevinburke wrote:
| The provision for "access to sunlight" is a code requirement
| that every bedroom needs to have a window.
|
| If you are concerned about access on your property, you can
| purchase a height easement from your neighbors.
| varelse wrote:
| [dead]
| gradascent wrote:
| I think this line from the article serves as a good summary: >
| We've never seen anything like this in California housing history
| where a residential building of any height, with any amount of
| parking, can be placed in the wealthiest communities in the world
| provided its just 20% affordable and is safe.
| wakannai wrote:
| Because California with its infinite water supply can definitely
| support an infinite increase in population, right?
|
| Higher density areas don't solve a single problem. They make
| areas less desirable. They displace wildlife (less green areas,
| because WE NEED MORE HOUSING). Pandemics love density.
|
| Higher density means more people, more local spending power, more
| local businesses, more demand for workers that translates into
| more demand for people and thus again yet again and so on and so
| forth. There's no end to this cycle.
|
| The answer is less population, not more.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| If the new construction is near the coast, more desalination
| plants is a solution. Most California water usage is
| agricultural anyways.
|
| Regarding wildfires, what we really need are more goats. Armies
| and armies of goats.
| https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/goats-may...
| ck2 wrote:
| That photo is just freaking me out.
|
| https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/d...
|
| Reminds me of this movie quote
|
| > _I 'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time
| here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I
| realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this
| planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the
| surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an
| area, and you... multiply and multiply until every natural
| resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread
| to another area. There is another organism on this planet that
| follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus._
| causi wrote:
| I get not wanting to suddenly put an extra five hundred families
| onto a road that was only designed for a hundred single-family
| dwellings. What I don't get is being _so nimby_ that you 'd
| rather have your streets utterly full of homeless people and
| human waste.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| I don't think that it's a preference either/or for nimby
| people. It's important to steelman arguments to better
| understand the incentives of people. My understanding is that
| there is a personal desire not to have one's personal life
| rapidly disrupted by increased demand of communal resources
| such as road space. There's a desire to consistently put off
| this rapid change. The second-order effects like an increased
| presence of homelessness doesn't intuitively have to do with
| not building an apartment: you can reason to yourself as a
| homeowner that these are people not even from your suburb
| community, but strangers invading it and ruining it, adding to
| the notion that more people decreases your quality of life
| personally.
| rr888 wrote:
| I dont see why new million dollar condos will help homeless at
| all.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| the status quo of barely building any new housing at all also
| doesn't help the homeless at all
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| 20% of them are for low income only.
| creeble wrote:
| Below-average income, not low income.
|
| Homeless people typically have zero income. They will
| qualify for exactly zero of the new housing these
| "unzoning" laws permit.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| > Homeless people typically have zero income
|
| This is not my understanding. 70% of the homeless in SF
| had an apartment before they became homeless. They had
| income, but weren't able to continue to afford the
| apartment. There's certainly a portion of people who have
| no desire to be productive, but it's far from all of the
| homeless or even a majority.
| rr888 wrote:
| Says who? There are no zoning powers right.
| alexb_ wrote:
| Says the state. It's the cities that are losing power.
| rr888 wrote:
| I could only find local rules eg
| https://sfplanning.org/home-sf. Or a tax break for
| financing https://www.calpfa.org/private-activity-
| programs/affordable-...
| kevinburke wrote:
| Imagine if there was a law that only permitted the
| construction of cars that cost over $100,000 per year, and
| then think about the effects of that on used car prices
| nxm wrote:
| I see tons of homeless surrounded by tall residential apartment
| buildings.
| Slighted wrote:
| Alternatives/"solutions" aren't always better than that which
| they seek to replace or fix and may very well be noticeably
| worse.
|
| Homeless people are an annoyance but so is extremely dense
| housing to the point that local resources and infrastructure
| are overloaded. In addition, I'm skeptical that the new housing
| developments will even resolve the homeless problem, as its not
| really targeting the root cause of the issue. Most of the
| homeless aren't keen on helping themselves, either. You'd have
| more luck shipping them off to coal mines to work than this, I
| reckon.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| > The "builder's remedy" is a very old law from the 1990s
|
| I know the old jokes of 'in the UK 100 miles is a long way, in
| the states 100 years is a long time' et al.... but this is
| stretching even that understanding of 'very old'. It goes on to
| mention laws of the 1970's, I guess that is time immemorial.
| 'Before the war' said a commentator, what is that, Classical
| Civilisation?
| hnburnsy wrote:
| > deed-restricted for low income households
|
| How does this work for resales? Do them limit what the owner can
| sell for or to who the owner can sell to?
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| FWIW this has been a pretty epic journey and is a great way to
| illustrate how government can work, even when people with money
| are united against it doing so.
|
| Still, the accusation that California should "do what they
| purport to believe in" still has quite the bite. As the 5th
| largest economy in the world it should be possible for California
| to demonstrate a reformed health care policy that is more in line
| with other developed countries but has not been able to. Just my
| $0.02.
| myko wrote:
| Great to see. NIMBYs need to go away IMO. So much space and no
| reason not to use it.
| 1MachineElf wrote:
| >Developers will be allowed to propose housing at any height and
| any density anywhere in a city, so long as at least 20% of the
| homes in the proposed building are deed-restricted to low income
| residents who make at or less than 80% the area median income.
|
| With neither of these percentages being 50, it sounds to me like
| this policy ensures gentrification.
| Camillo wrote:
| IMHO the insistence on below-market-rate quotas is
| counterproductive in terms of the actual housing market (though
| it's probably necessary in terms of political feasibility). The
| BMR housing is _already built_: there is plenty of old, un-
| renovated housing in cities like San Francisco that ought to rent
| for far less than it does, were it not for the fact that quality
| housing is in such short supply that high-level demand spills
| over.
|
| Concrete example: does your SF apartment have poor insulation?
| Single-pane windows? Creaking floors which are not level? In
| continental Europe, _that_ would be your low/medium income
| housing. Instead it's full of tech people because they have
| nowhere else to go.
| fragmede wrote:
| And ridiculously bad sound isolation. So many neighbor problems
| go away if you can't hear your neighbor coughing in their
| bedroom from your bedroom in the dead of night.
|
| And no in-unit washer dryer.
|
| And no dish washing machine.
|
| And no living room because it's been converted into a bedroom
| to be able to make rent.
|
| And slow Internet that's from a provider with notoriously bad
| customer service.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| If this is allowed to pan out, it's the best thing to happen to
| California in decades.
|
| But I'll only believe it when I see it.
|
| I assume it's stopped in some way before any substantial amount
| of housing is built. I hope I'm wrong, but I just can't believe
| California will allow it.
| nilsbunger wrote:
| We're hosting a Zoning Holiday party tomorrow in SF at SPUR
| center to celebrate!
|
| 25+ architects for all kinds of firms submitted 5-unit designs to
| us, and we'll showcase them at the event!
|
| It'll be a fun opportunity to meet likeminded property owners,
| architects, YIMBY advocates and developers. The event is open to
| all, just buy a $10 ticket. There will even be kebabs. Check out
| https://zoningholiday.com
| alexgolive wrote:
| It's suspicious that I can't find any news articles talking about
| this. Seems like a super interesting, controversial, and timely
| topic to cover. Makes me wonder if this blog is misleading or
| inflating the facts.
| richwater wrote:
| The gaslighting to convince people that living in sardine cans in
| 25 story buildings is healthy is palpable.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > If they're still in a rejected state by the deadline, their
| zoning disappears
|
| Does that mean they can build in parks and open space?
| [deleted]
| dakial1 wrote:
| Won't this generate a free fall in house prices in the bay area?
| Good opportunity for a "big short" move?
| flaque wrote:
| Possibly the opposite. If you own a home on a lot that
| previously you could only build one or two units on, but now
| you can build N+ units, that lot is worth a lot more.
|
| You should expect rent to fall though, multiple studies (https:
| //www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/224569/1/vfs-2020-pi... | htt
| ps://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/7fc2bf_ee1737c3c9d4468881bf14...)
| have shown that increasing rental units lowers rents.
|
| The math of this: a lot with 1 unit, worth $1m today, becomes a
| lot worth $3m and 10 units on it. So the cost per unit is
| $300k; unit price goes down, but value for the original land
| owner goes up.
| yellowapple wrote:
| Stop. I can only get so erect.
|
| I'd still prefer to tackle the _motivations_ for NIMBYism
| (namely: by using land value taxation to discourage or outright
| eliminate the treatment of land as a speculative asset) rather
| than the symptoms, but tackling the symptoms is infinitely better
| than doing nothing at all.
| pvarangot wrote:
| It's really hard (maybe impossible) to completely stop
| speculation on land while at the same time being sure you can
| estimate your living expenses very long term when you buy a
| house (or rent, if there's rent control). If you think housing
| is a human right then you have to lock down taxes, otherwise
| it's like yeah it's a human right until it becomes "too
| expensive for you" and the government kicks you out of your
| house because you can't pay taxes. The human right is to
| establish a home, not to have to be a nomad constantly moving
| around to the places where you can pay taxes/rent.
|
| The problem is the current zoning laws are too individualistic.
| If let's say 20% of a block is ok to sell and allow high rises,
| if the building fits and meets neighborhood regulations they
| should be allowed to build it. In cities where you can do that,
| that usually convinces 60% more of the block into selling and
| moving out, since higher density housing zoning raises land
| prices. If you don't want to because you are in your last
| years, yeah that sucks. But you know what also sucks? Having to
| rent from slumlords or have 15 roommates in your prime while
| trying to contribute to society as a professional because your
| city decided to be a retirement community funded by commercial
| lease taxes from greedy tech companies.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| Maybe there's room to make a safe harbor for your primary
| residence?
| EarlKing wrote:
| California is still in the middle of a drought, and politicians
| want to railroad the production of additional housing supply for
| more people when the state can barely afford to provide for the
| water needs of the population it has?
|
| Yeah, sounds like California.
| captainzidgel wrote:
| yeah let the homeless die off some more so i can keep watering
| my lawn
| EarlKing wrote:
| This has nothing to do with creating housing for the
| homeless. Homeless shelters already exist. This is about
| creating affordable housing for people moving into an area
| that can't support the population it already has. Until all
| the appropriations that were made for creating additional
| reservoirs start actually seeing results there shouldn't be
| ANY new construction.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| > Old law proposes to turn the Bay Area's zoning system into
| something like Japan's in just two days.
|
| Would be exciting to see this flip switched because it would help
| resolve some debates at the very least.
|
| Clearly the housing market in Japan is dramatically different
| than that of North America and it would be very interesting to
| see if it is indeed the zoning that is the dominant reason for
| this difference.
|
| Many have pointed to the zoning as being the core thing that
| induces more affordable housing in Japan, and hand in hand with
| that is the notion that if we adopted a more Japanese style
| zoning that we'd see some of our housing problems solved, but
| there are many other differences between the housing economy of
| Japan and NA than just zoning.
|
| If we more closely mirror Japanese style zoning and we don't see
| the same results, it means there's more to it than just the
| zoning.
| stephenitis wrote:
| I feel slightly hopeful.
|
| Feb 1st is the deadline and court challenges need to see their
| way through.
| this15testing wrote:
| nice
| Slighted wrote:
| Hilariously, this thread has reached hundreds of comments in
| under an hour. Indicative of the kinds of people who use HN
| perhaps?
| jread wrote:
| As someone who spent 5 years attempting to get through zoning
| including a purely subjective "design review committee" in one of
| these affluent cities, I applaud this. While I agree with the
| desire to preserve the character and uniqueness one's town, that
| pendulum has swung so far over driven by older, established
| nimbies who got theirs decades ago, or their offspring who
| inherited both homes and excessively low prop 13 tax rates locked
| in decades ago. The wealth disparity this whole system has
| created is staggering.
| [deleted]
| Udo wrote:
| So in theory californians could now build walkable/cyclable
| european-style cities?
| epistasis wrote:
| If they could gather enough capital to buy enough land and
| build enough in a neighborhood to allow this, they get part way
| there. Commercial buildings, such as small corner stores,
| daycare, etc. would still be banned in purely residential
| neighborhoods.
|
| US planning is really abysmal and detrimental to quality of
| life, and it's nearly impossible to get people to even realize
| it because of car brain.
|
| I'm hopeful that we can adopt eco-districts in some area and
| start to turn this around, but it will be a 50-100 year project
| to correct US planning.
| parasense wrote:
| Ah good ol' California!
|
| The home of ironies like "Let's build affordable housing" and
| simultaneously "not in my back yard". You can replace "affordable
| housing" with other things, like improved electrical grid power
| lines, or water storage reservoirs, and so on... and so forth...
| alexb_ wrote:
| If you ever go to a local planning meeting, when the topic of
| building new houses comes up, the reaction of those living near
| is always blatant and horrific. Lots of talk about "low-quality"
| tenants "ruining the character". It doesn't take a genius to know
| what these people mean.
| patientplatypus wrote:
| This makes me happy.
|
| If you want to end homelessness in California build affordable
| housing everywhere and hire the homeless to be go-fors on
| construction projects.
|
| There is absolutely no reason that there should be sub five story
| buildings in downtown San Francisco when there are people living
| on the street.
|
| Imagine if people could start building these cool buildings from
| AI:
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-01-31/architect...
| but for large scale residential housing. You could have a whole
| new generation of architectural firms building the future of
| urban living.
|
| Oh and we just figured out how to make Roman concrete
| https://www.popsci.com/science/roman-concrete/.
|
| You have no idea how exciting this is.
| jmyeet wrote:
| It's easy to despondent at the political norms and the status quo
| in the United States at present but honestly what you're seeing
| with what CA is doing here gives me hopes that good things can
| still happen.
|
| For a bit of background, a big problem with housing in the US is
| that people became property owners and the whole system became
| financialized so the voters became incentivized to oppose housing
| to increase the value of their own homes. They also voted
| themselves massive generational tax breaks (eg Prop 13).
|
| The net effect is that almost all the polices you see around this
| are demand side, making it easier to buy a home. Why? Because
| this increases values. It's ineffective and everyone knows it.
| They just don't care.
|
| But what CA is doing here is one of the first large scale supply
| side policies with actual teeth and it's great to see. These
| cities have really fucked around and are now finding out. You see
| the same tactics too. Complaints about "maintaining character"
| and focusing new housing on poorer areas, which are both
| exclusionary and discriminatory policies.
|
| Well-intentioned laws in CA have been effectively weaponized to
| fight more and new housing (eg CEQA). Approvals processes can
| take years and really add to the cost. Even things like parking
| minimums are intentionally used to kill higher density housing
| (eg in LA).
|
| The builder's remedy mentioned here bypasses all local zoning and
| allows a court to approve plans. When Santa Monica fell out of
| compliance it saw approvals for thousands of new units. I really
| hope this happens in much of the Bay Area.
|
| What I find particularly disheartening is many self-identified
| "progressives" are the biggest NIMBYs. Denying people affordable
| housing is state violence.
| gfodor wrote:
| Weiner is DSA so this isn't too surprising given the long winding
| march they've been taking (and succeeding) to destroy everything
| here. Most likely the net effect will be more people leaving
| behind California as it plunges into the abyss. The comments here
| embracing what is actually a play for anarchy when it comes to
| building is a good sign of what's to come for the state as a
| whole. I don't think there's really any path to correcting it at
| this point, since it's basically just smarter to leave.
|
| edit: I'll happily take any downvoters on a 10 year long bet that
| California will continue to see a net outflow of the wealthy and
| continual growth in crime absent a flip back, however
| temporarily, to Republican rule at the state level. Easy bet.
| [deleted]
| ericmay wrote:
| I _loathe_ the suburbs and car-only infrastructure. It 's
| backwards, bone-headed, and downright treacherously stupid. In
| addition to zoning reform we should nationally remove mandatory
| parking minimums. Hell, if anything we should de-zone strip malls
| and any new development that practically requires a car to get to
| (implementation details fuzzy).
|
| _But_ I do have sympathy for people who move to a location or
| community for the aspects of that location or community and want
| to preserve that. It 's immature to not consider that. We're also
| essentially just setting goal posts for what development is ok or
| not ok and I do think this will give further rise to private
| developments and incorporations that can't legally be challenged
| here - i.e. more gated communities.
|
| There is real harm done, and it _is_ anti-democratic in some ways
| to take state or national laws and have those supercede
| (micromanage in this case) local building rules or regulations.
| For example, where I live you have to go through local
| neighborhood zoning review to do things like change your door or
| even tear down or modify your home. We live in a historic
| neighborhood. Previously the government in the 60s or so wanted
| to tear it down and build a highway through it. In this case, the
| local community stopped the government from imposing a
| monumentally stupid new construction which would have "increased
| GDP" and whatever other simplistic bullshit economic metrics
| people use.
|
| Certainly with that being said this doesn't also blanket excuse
| local entities from being "anti-development", but we probably
| shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. If a community
| neighborhood is walkable and charming with cute little shops and
| maybe mountains nearby or a university, guess what? It's just
| expensive. Develop somewhere else. Otherwise when a big
| corporation or the governments wants to come through and
| "increase land value" you will just have to do what they say with
| no recourse.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| I don't see how a small minority of wealthy people voting to
| keep everyone else out of their community by making it
| prohibitively expensive is democratic.
| ericmay wrote:
| You're looking at the specific case and not the general case,
| like in the 1950s when black communities in cities like
| Columbus were bulldozed for highways and had no recourse.
| Same line of argument.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| > There is real harm done, and it is anti-democratic in some
| ways to take state or national laws and have those supercede
| (micromanage in this case) local building rules or regulations.
|
| No, it's really not.
|
| There's nothing fundamentally anti-democratic about higher
| government overriding lower government. Often, deciding rules
| at a lower level doesn't work well, and this is a good example
| of that.
|
| Deciding housing density at the neighborhood or city level has
| been an abject failure, because every city is incentivized to
| benefit from the metro area booming job market while not
| shouldering responsibility for housing all the new people
| coming in. Pushing that burden onto the other cities is
| irresponsible, but that's what they all try to do, with the
| result being that hardly any cities build sufficient housing.
|
| It'd probably be better to decide this with a metro-level
| authority rather than the state, but the state is still better
| than the city.
| ericmay wrote:
| > There's nothing fundamentally anti-democratic about higher
| government overriding lower government.
|
| > It'd probably be better to decide this with a metro-level
| authority rather than the state, but the state is still
| better than the city.
|
| What about if the state of Ohio overrides Columbus' gun
| restrictions? (ex)
|
| What if the state of Nevada mandates cities provide 2 parking
| spaces per dwelling?
|
| You're just picking and choosing when the "higher" government
| overrides the "local" government. When you agree with it,
| it's good. When you disagree it's presumably still good
| right?
|
| > Deciding housing density at the neighborhood or city level
| has been an abject failure
|
| It's been a failure for one simple reason, which is what we
| build car-only infrastructure. You can't build density _and_
| car-only infrastructure. It won 't work.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| > What about if the state of Ohio overrides Columbus' gun
| restrictions? (ex)
|
| > What if the state of Nevada mandates cities provide 2
| parking spaces per dwelling?
|
| Those are bad because the ideas are bad, not because
| they're "anti-democratic".
|
| > You're just picking and choosing when the "higher"
| government overrides the "local" government. When you agree
| with it, it's good. When you disagree it's presumably still
| good right?
|
| You're shifting the argument. I was talking about anti-
| democratic or not, not good or bad. Just because a law was
| passed democratically doesn't mean it's a good idea. Please
| try to stay on your own topic.
| ericmay wrote:
| > It'd probably be better to decide this with a metro-
| level authority rather than the state, but the state is
| still better than the city.
|
| It seems to me you do imply that a state level authority
| or higher is inherently better. But anyway, why not just
| clarify your position? It's not a big deal.
|
| > Those are bad because the ideas are bad, not because
| they're "anti-democratic".
|
| Ok let's start simple, what level of authority should
| decide those things [1]? State? City? Muni? Federal?
|
| > Please try to stay on your own topic.
|
| If I changed topics that's fine we can talk about the new
| topic or not. I don't even know what the exact topic was.
| Do you recall?
|
| [1] A state declares that all dwellings should have a
| minimum of two parking spaces, and the state law
| overrides the city's gun laws.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| > Ok let's start simple, what level of authority should
| decide those things [1]? State? City? Muni? Federal?
|
| Straight up just admitting you didn't actually read what
| I wrote before responding, because I already specified.
| C'mon man.
|
| "It'd probably be better to decide this with a metro-
| level authority rather than the state, but the state is
| still better than the city."
|
| > Do you recall?
|
| Yes, and I made it extremely clear that I was objecting
| to calling this "anti-democratic". You then switched
| arguments for some reason, while acting like it was the
| same topic.
| ericmay wrote:
| > Yes, and I made it extremely clear that I was objecting
| to calling this "anti-democratic". You then switched
| arguments for some reason, while acting like it was the
| same topic.
|
| Ok so it's democratic for the state of Ohio to override
| the city of Columbus gun laws?
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| It's not _anti_ -democratic for a higher level government
| to override a lower level government, no. That doesn't
| make it necessarily a good idea. Some issues make more
| sense to manage at a higher or lower level, and beyond
| that of course I have opinions on specific laws being
| good or bad.
|
| What level of government you decide certain policies at
| is orthogonal to how democratic a thing is*.
|
| As a relevant example of higher level authority on
| zoning, IIRC Japan just has twelve levels of zoning for
| the whole country; cities can choose which one to use for
| different areas, but they can't make up a new level.
| Whereas in the US, every city seems to have a dozen or
| more variants they made up themselves. Neither of these
| is fundamentally more democratic than the other.
|
| * assuming we're talking about democracies at each level,
| of course.
| ericmay wrote:
| I'm trying to avoid getting into a discussion about exact
| definitions of democracy, but what I see here is that
| you're arguing that the bigger a government is the more
| democratic it is and thus it is justified in imposing its
| will on other democratically elected governments by
| virtue of its size and I don't think that those things
| follow one another.
|
| If you want to say that of course a higher (which is
| typically defined by size, but I guess also potentially
| authority or ability to enforce rules or some other
| concern) level government overriding a lower level
| government could be anti-democratic then we're just
| arbitrarily picking and choosing what we believe is
| democratic or anti-democratic which ties back to
| effectively expressing moral statements of good and bad.
|
| Leaving aside natural rights, and the complexities of
| state sovereignty in the United States specifically.
| LargeWu wrote:
| Cities can in fact maintain zoning powers if they can prove
| that their zoning regulations are equitable. Protection of a
| historic neighborhood could theoretically be allowed, but must
| be balanced with other interests.
| ericmay wrote:
| Yea but that's just "who knows" which is no more right or
| wrong than local residents deciding that something should or
| should not be.
|
| Easy example: we are going to put a highway through this
| historically black neighborhood because the interests of the
| residents must be balanced with the economic interests of the
| state and the jobs created by new highway construction.
|
| And now we have lost those neighborhoods and we're dependent
| on cars.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| > There is real harm done, and it is anti-democratic in some
| ways to take state or national laws and have those supercede
| (micromanage in this case) local building rules or regulations.
|
| You could just as easily argue it's pro-democratic because it
| lets the State break the power of the local, petty gentry to
| keep people from moving in.
| ericmay wrote:
| I'm not concerned about "petty gentry" or whatever silly
| class warfare terms people use. It's not only boring but
| harms progress by pitting people against each other.
|
| You can of course argue that things are or are not
| democratic. That's part of my point. Overriding local, more
| direct democracy (in theory) could be anti-democratic in my
| view. But doing something like having highly restrictive
| zoning laws such that you keep certain people out seems
| _probably_ anti-democratic at best and prejudice almost
| certainly.
|
| But you can make cases for both. For every "We don't like the
| zoning because it keeps the place expensive" there's "we
| don't care what the residents want this toxic waste dump has
| to go _somewhere_.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| > Overriding local, more direct democracy (in theory) could
| be anti-democratic in my view.
|
| Your theory is bunk, that's _my_ point. What pits people
| against each other are exclusionary housing laws that the
| wealthy use to keep poor people separate from them, not the
| words we use to describe that choice.
|
| > But you can make cases for both. For every "We don't like
| the zoning because it keeps the place expensive" there's
| "we don't care what the residents want this toxic waste
| dump has to go somewhere.
|
| No you can't, because the people who promote exclusionary
| housing laws always want to solve the issue by putting the
| toxic waste dump where the poor live. Never mind that the
| wealth in their community is directly correlated to
| generating the toxic waste in the first place. When a
| wealthy elite foist all of their externalities on the
| masses, that's oligarchy baby.
|
| It's fine to hold that as your ideal, I'm not a purist, but
| don't claim that's democracy by any modern definition.
| ericmay wrote:
| > Your theory is bunk, that's my point.
|
| What part of the theory is "bunk"? Are you suggesting
| that the less local a government is the more democratic
| it is? Please also note that I said _could_ because I 'm
| not making a strong claim for this to always be true.
|
| > What pits people against each other are exclusionary
| housing laws that the wealthy use to keep poor people
| separate from them, not the words we use to describe that
| choice.
|
| Generic suburbs (with their exclusionary housing laws)
| would have to be included in this statement for it to be
| true. "The wealthy" whoever that convenient scapegoat is
| are not the only ones who do this.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| I'm explicitly stating that the fact its more local
| doesn't make it more democratic per se. A small group of
| people who can effectively vote down the majority are not
| being democratic.
|
| > The state should not be able to supersede local
| authority for local concerns, it's authoritarian.
|
| Absolutely I include the suburbs I grew up in. The rich
| keep the middle out, and the middle keep the poor out.
| Not that hard to fathom.
| ericmay wrote:
| > I'm explicitly stating that the fact its more local
| doesn't make it more democratic per se.
|
| Ok why are you explicitly stating that? Was what I wrote
| unclear?
|
| > A small group of people who can effectively vote down
| the majority are not being democratic.
|
| This occurs at "higher" levels of government as well.
|
| > Absolutely I include the suburbs I grew up in. The rich
| keep the middle out, and the middle keep the poor out.
| Not that hard to fathom.
|
| I just wanted to make it was very explicit that we're
| talking about the "rich" and middle class and that
| together they are oppressing the poor because you only
| mentioned "the wealthy".
| arrosenberg wrote:
| What you wrote was wrong, so I refuted it. It's not anti-
| democratic or wrong for a state or national government to
| supersede laws and authority that are being used
| undemocratically.
|
| > This occurs at "higher" levels of government as well.
|
| Duh, that's why we try to achieve balances of power. The
| state overriding exclusionary housing laws during a
| housing crisis a good example of this being used
| correctly.
|
| > I just wanted to make it was very explicit that we're
| talking about the "rich" and middle class and that
| together they are oppressing the poor because you only
| mentioned "the wealthy".
|
| I didn't say they were working together, I said everyone
| is punching down.
| ericmay wrote:
| > What you wrote was wrong, so I refuted it.
|
| What specifically did I write that was _wrong_? Because I
| did _not_ claim that in all cases a state or national
| government subsperceding local authority is always un-
| democratic. I explained that it could be democratic. The
| key word is could here.
|
| > What pits people against each other are exclusionary
| housing laws that the wealthy use to keep poor people
| separate from them, not the words we use to describe that
| choice.
|
| Just to be clear, when you wrote this instead of "the
| wealthy use to keep poor people separate from them" what
| you meant was "what each progressively wealthier group
| uses to keep the poorer groups separate from them" then?
|
| > Duh, that's why we try to achieve balances of power.
| The state overriding exclusionary housing laws during a
| housing crisis a good example of this being used
| correctly.
|
| "When state power is being used in the way I agree with
| to supersede other democratically elected governments
| it's good".
|
| The State used that same justification to wield this same
| power to override the wishes of the historically black
| communities of my home town and forced them out for
| highway construction.
|
| I didn't claim that it's always good or always bad or
| always democratic or always un-democratic for the state
| to override the wishes of a group of citizens and their
| democratically elected government. I claimed that
| sometimes it could be. History also shows, and I've given
| a very good and clear example, that this power tends to
| be abused. Usually by corporate interests in cahoots with
| the biggest government entity they can get to wield
| power.
| cvalka wrote:
| This is fucking awesome. As cool as it gets.
| TedShiller wrote:
| You like crime?
| sshconnection wrote:
| It's worth noting the overlap of the people mocking San Francisco
| for having a homelessness crisis and those decrying upzoning for
| density and providing affordable housing.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Has there been some kind of study showing overlap, or is this
| just an impression that you have?
| rcme wrote:
| This has the real possibility to destroy wealth and land value. I
| understand the desire for more housing, but you absolutely _need_
| people in the community to be making these decisions. State-level
| officials don 't have the ability to make informed decisions on
| important local issues like this.
|
| Unfortunately, I have first-hand experience with this. The state
| decided to build a (very) small bridge over a creek in my
| neighborhood. The purpose of the bridge was to make it easier to
| get to the highway. None of the residents wanted this bridge, but
| it was built any way. After the bridge was built, Google Maps
| started routing people off the highway during rush hour, creating
| gridlock and heavy traffic. As a result, you can't leave your
| house between 7-10 and 4-6. Walking on the streets is dangerous
| as drivers stuck in gridlock become increasingly aggressive
| towards pedestrians. And don't even think about trying to drive
| somewhere. It takes 30-45 minutes just to drive a few blocks.
|
| The irony is that this "shortcut" doesn't save any time. Google
| Maps routes people from the highway into town up until traffic is
| so bad in town that it... takes just as much time as the highway.
| So the beauty of this small town was destroyed for literally no
| reason. Property values have begun to decline as it is no longer
| a desirable place to live.
|
| Of course, prior to building the bridge, the state ran "traffic
| studies" that indicated there would be no impact to traffic in
| town. They had no incentive to really study the problem, however,
| as there are no consequences for them if they do a bad job.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| > This has the real possibility to destroy wealth and land
| value.
|
| Good.
|
| Treating increasing unaffordability as a good thing is an
| insane part of American culture. We didn't celebrate car prices
| going through the roof during the pandemic, and neither does it
| make sense to celebrate skyrocketing housing prices.
|
| The ideal price of housing would be zero, same as other
| products.
| Slighted wrote:
| I mean hey, sucks for the people that live there already, but
| it ain't happening to me so its not my problem!
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| This was exactly the attitude causing the problem in the
| first place.
|
| The long term solution of housing being cheap is obviously
| superior to the long term solution of housing prices
| doubling every generation until nobody but the very wealthy
| can afford to buy a home.
|
| My parents own a home in the bay area, so it does actually
| indirectly affect me. But so did leaving the bay area
| because it was insanely expensive (and similarly, almost
| everyone from my graduating class left too).
| rcme wrote:
| No, not good. It doesn't make sense to destroy wealth. If you
| want to transfer wealth from one party (land owners) to
| another (renters) that's fine. The land itself has intrinsic
| value. It's fine to transfer that value from one party to
| another. But it's absolutely not fine to destroy it. Everyone
| is worse off.
|
| Your argument is basically that we should start salting farm
| land to decrease its value.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Nah, that's ridiculous and you know it.
|
| Destroying wealth because you've lowered the price of goods
| and make them more accessible, is not the same thing as
| destroying wealth by actually destroying the utility of
| something.
|
| If I made a super food replicator that halved the price of
| food permanently, that would destroy much wealth in the
| agricultural sector, and it would still be a good thing for
| humanity as a whole.
|
| Truth be told, the value of the land itself in these
| cities, I don't think will change very much. The value of
| the property on top of that land though, that'll probably
| change, as the total housing supply increases.
| rcme wrote:
| > If I made a super food replicator that halved the price
| of food permanently, that would destroy much wealth in
| the agricultural sector, and it would still be a good
| thing for humanity as a whole.
|
| No, no wealth would be destroyed. Some of the old
| agricultural sector's wealth would be transferred to you.
| The rest would stay with the purchasers of food. Again,
| no wealth is destroyed when you make something more
| productive. In fact, your food replicator creates wealth
| because people get the same amount of food and have more
| money.
|
| Again, I think you're getting confused by the concepts of
| destroying wealth and transferring wealth. In your
| scenario, you're transferring and creating wealth through
| innovation. In my anecdote, wealth was destroyed. It
| didn't go anywhere. It just ceased to exist.
| 93po wrote:
| > This has the real possibility to destroy wealth and land
| value
|
| Good. Housing is way too expensive, and people who have the
| luxury of owning housing, especially in California, could stand
| to lose some small percentage of their wealth if it means we
| can better provide a necessary part of life to someone less
| wealthy.
| raldi wrote:
| Another way to say "this will destroy land value" is "this will
| lower housing prices". That's the point.
|
| But reality is more nuanced than that; the cost/value of
| apartments will go down, but the cost/value of single-family
| houses will go up, as there will be interest in buying the
| latter and turning it into the former. Land values will go up;
| rent and condo prices will go down.
| rcme wrote:
| No, that's not what I'm saying at all. "Destroy land value"
| doesn't mean lower housing prices, or at least lower in a
| productive way. Imagine you have some land and then the city
| builds a dump next to the land. That destroys the value of
| the land because no one wants to live there anymore. Housing
| prices are a second-order effect based off of the land value
| and the availability of housing units. The new policy in
| California's purpose is to increase housing units, but has
| the potential to destroy the value of the land.
| raldi wrote:
| Multifamily housing is not analogous to a garbage dump.
|
| "The study finds that the upzoning increased property
| values by 15-23%"
|
| http://theadvocatecornell.com/2022/02/03/does-upzoning-
| work/
| rcme wrote:
| Again, I'm not saying that multi-family housing is akin
| to a garbage dump. I fully support more housing. But, the
| state officials making these decisions have no incentive
| to ensure that they're preserving the land's value. Any
| system that doesn't provide incentives for the decision
| makers to make good decisions ends terribly.
| Ztynovovk wrote:
| [dead]
| CalRobert wrote:
| Bummer, but people aren't cars and builder's remedy shouldn't
| apply to bridges on public roads? You just named a good reason
| to ban cars nearby though.
| rcme wrote:
| The point is that the state made a decision for the state's
| benefit without considering the impact on the town itself.
| And this is natural: those in the state government have
| little incentive to care about the impact on the town.
|
| Also, ironically, the town has excellent train and bus
| coverage. Most don't own cars. And if they do, they use them
| seldomly. We all moved here because we don't like cars and
| wanted a place with good mass transit. Now all those benefits
| are gone.
|
| When people want housing change, I think they really want to
| transfer some of the wealth from landowners to other people.
| But in my case, no wealth was transferred. It was literally
| destroyed. Everyone is worse off.
| CalRobert wrote:
| I think we agree, actually. In your case the state is
| imposing a negative externality (more cars). I am
| investigating moving to bloommerwede.nl/ and I will be
| FURIOUS if the Dutch government forces them to start
| letting cars through.
|
| Just out of curiosity, may I ask roughly where you are?
|
| I hope we can agree that the common enemy here is cars. The
| cities have spent most of a century fighting homes for,
| among other reasons, the belief that more homes means more
| cars (which isn't true if your city isn't horrible, but
| almost all American cities are car-choked hellscapes).
|
| So far as I'm aware Builder's Remedy should not mean more
| roads being built. Hopefully, it eventually leads to car
| infrastructure like parking garages being removed in favour
| of housing.
| gumby wrote:
| This is a great article about great news (except for the first
| sentence calling it "A little known law" -- it's been quite
| contentious).
|
| Palo Alto has fought these rules and I'm glad they will be
| enforced. When I first moved to Palo Alto in the early 80s it had
| a very progressive climate: a couple of SRO buildings, lower
| average income than some of the neighboring towns, a lot of
| social support programs, and decidedly un-fancy retail. But the
| flood of gold-seeking people who showed up for the dotcom boom
| allowed the real estate interests to seize control of the city
| council and in general made the town much snootier. The SRO
| hotels turned into boutique hotels and a lot of long term
| residents were ejected. Well those assholes are reaping what they
| have sown, thank goodness. Perhaps we'll recover some of the
| chill experimental vibe thanks to an influx of new people.
|
| I hadn't realised the housing shortage issue stretched back
| decades. It sets an interesting context for Prop 13 (basing the
| tax base on the purchase price, not generally on assessed value)
| since the zoning rules were so exclusionary. Basically, shows
| that the State's tax difficulties are themselves the consequence
| of exclusion.
|
| I wonder how this will work outside the dense areas. For example,
| Calaveras county has a shrinking population, but the main sources
| of jobs and taxes is construction. With no constraints on
| construction will there be a small boom in new development,
| tearing down virgin forest in order to make empty developments?
| raldi wrote:
| If you were to stop 100 people on the street and ask if they'd
| heard of the law, how many do you think it would be?
| spacedcowboy wrote:
| If I were to stop 100 people on the street and ask them if
| they'd heard of hedgehogs, the positive answer percentage
| would be depressingly low, I feel...
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Sonic was a hedgehog in a video game. Older people might
| get that reference.
| olddustytrail wrote:
| Indeed.
|
| From TFA: "The "builder's remedy" is a very old law from
| the 1990s"
|
| Ah, the ancient times!
| eddsh1994 wrote:
| I hear it brought up by someone almost every time I go to a
| bar in Palo Alto/Mountain View.
| cinericius wrote:
| You could refer to Java as a "little known programming
| language" and use this as a defence.
| raldi wrote:
| I would wager money that members of the general public are
| at least five times as likely to have heard of the Java
| programming language as the Housing Accountability Act.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Which street?
| pj_mukh wrote:
| Santa Monica building 4000 homes seems like such a dream.
| However, I wonder how many of these will get CEQA blocked [1]
| :(
|
| [1]:
| https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/signature-...
| mistrial9 wrote:
| but just two comments above, there is a no-zoning State
| person decrying rampant destruction of pristine areas.. so
| CEQA serves that purpose..
| RangerScience wrote:
| The article doesn't mention it, but it's my understanding that
| this auto-approval only happens within a certain distance of
| public transit as well. I know that's been a part of prior laws
| by Wiener, but I could totes be wrong that it's a part of this
| one as well.
|
| The developers still have to abide by construction laws -
| safety, and I think environmental impact. All that's released
| (AFAIK?) is the zoning-based "no" from cities (and when within
| a certain distance from public transit hubs, maybe).
| CydeWeys wrote:
| > The article doesn't mention it, but it's my understanding
| that this auto-approval only happens within a certain
| distance of public transit as well.
|
| That article doesn't mention it because that's not correct.
| It's not tied to transit.
| RangerScience wrote:
| Right - that's the prior bill that didn't pas SB50?
| epistasis wrote:
| I think you are referring to AB 2097, which allows more
| housing near transit hubs. It was passed in the latest
| legislative session, but is distinct from the Builder's
| Remedy and has height restrictions unlike the topic of this
| article. The same author wrote about it here:
|
| https://darrellowens.substack.com/p/yimby-triumph-in-
| califor...
| RangerScience wrote:
| Thank you! This was a super cool article. There's some neat
| and _very_ spicy things happening in the CA legislature :D
| cody_coconuts wrote:
| Maybe "little know outside of California" is more accurate. I
| certainly haven't heard anything about this, and it seems like
| the article is aiming for the broader audience
| tinglymintyfrsh wrote:
| PA has random pockets of new development, like on Alma St &
| Page Mill across from where AOL was.
|
| Mountain View has much more around the San Antonio Shopping
| Center where it's starting to look like SF.
|
| I'm wondering if there will be random developments that will
| sink property values because big city blight comes with :
| homeless camping, property crime, and so forth.
|
| Palo Alto is unique in California in that it is/was legal to
| dwell in a vehicle because it wasn't criminalized since the law
| had to be rolled back due to a Ninth Circuit ruling about
| another law in LA.
| telotortium wrote:
| The south side of El Camino Real belongs to Stanford, not
| Palo Alto, so RV camping has always been allowed on that side
| of the street.
| omegaworks wrote:
| >With no constraints on construction will there be a small boom
| in new development, tearing down virgin forest in order to make
| empty developments?
|
| Prior to these changes, so much new housing was forced into the
| urban-wildland interface that entire neighborhoods regularly
| burned in our seasonal wildfires. The hope is these rule
| changes will force cities that use land inefficiently to
| densify rather than encourage more sprawl.
| maxsilver wrote:
| > With no constraints on construction will there be a small
| boom in new development, tearing down virgin forest in order to
| make empty developments?
|
| Probably? I live in Michigan, which (with the exception of two
| spots) has no meaningful limits on construction. Even the
| cities that technically have-and-enforce zoning, waive all the
| rules constantly anytime a developer asks.
|
| And yes -- it means developers can build almost anything they
| want, almost anywhere they want. (Truly anything, I live next
| to a 15-story concrete castle apartment building that a
| developer built on what was once a trailer park).
|
| Unfortunately, it does _not_ mean you get lower cost of housing
| (prices here are still astronomical, and while they look
| cheaper in comparison to California, is only because of the
| severely reduced income locals make -- prices are still at
| record-all-time highs)
|
| But it does mean, developers routinely cut down entire forests
| or farmland for new suburbs anytime they'd like. If you want a
| house made of sticks and cardboard, we have loads and loads of
| them for 'just' $450k. Years worth of 'inventory' here.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > (prices here are still astronomical, and while they look
| cheaper in comparison to California, is only because of the
| severely reduced income locals make -- prices are still at
| record-all-time highs)
|
| You are confusing cause & effect here.
| OnlineGladiator wrote:
| > Unfortunately, it does not mean you get lower cost of
| housing
|
| You don't believe in supply and demand? I'm not saying you
| have cheap housing. I'm saying you would have more expensive
| housing if there were fewer of them, the same way GPUs are
| more valuable when there are fewer of them.
| nemo44x wrote:
| What you're not factoring in is the cost of labor and
| materials. They are both already quite expensive and when
| you have a building boom the costs of both will skyrocket.
| What will happen is you'll end up with cheaply constructed
| housing made from the worst materials. And that's the good
| outcome.
|
| The bad outcome is the rich who are looking for alternate
| investments will buy up all the labor and materials and
| build construction for themselves and will build rentals.
| That's the bad outcome.
|
| The awful outcome, and likely outcome is that the labor and
| materials will be bought by newly formed real estate
| companies that will build rental property that is ugly and
| expensive - because they control the market more and more
| as they merge into 2 super landlord companys.
| OnlineGladiator wrote:
| The cost of the house itself is nothing compared to the
| cost of the land. Houses don't appreciate in value
| because of the houses (which deteriorate over time) -
| they appreciate because of the scarcity of land.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Sure, but houses don't depreciate as quickly as you might
| think. There's a few reasons for this:
|
| - Constructing a new building isn't as cheap as when the
| existing structure was built. For instance, my home cost
| about $15,000 to build 100 years ago. Today the structure
| itself is worth more than that. Inflation matters here.
|
| - People maintain and improve their homes. New kitchens,
| roofs, flooring, furnaces, siding, etc. In essence you
| are rebuilding a home 1 piece at a time from the day it
| is made. If you don't then the house gets to a point it
| can't be lived in.
|
| People who haven't looked at new build prices for 10
| years are shocked at what it costs today.
| OnlineGladiator wrote:
| Nothing you're saying is wrong, but it doesn't change the
| fact that the land is an order of magnitude more valuable
| than the building (I'm speaking broadly and for
| residential real estate).
|
| We still have more lumber than land. In a very hand-wavy
| way we have more labor than land. The limiting factor is
| always what drives the price.
| rdw wrote:
| I used to believe this and then I got into the area. It
| depends on the area of course but it turns out that the
| cost of the house is quite significant. House
| construction costs are $200-500 per square foot, putting
| even a medium-sized house at around a quarter of a
| million dollars. When you look at the costs of empty
| plots of land versus similar plots of land with houses on
| them, you'll see that the housed plots of land cost the
| same as the empty plots plus the construction costs of a
| similar-sized house. In the areas where I looked, the
| costs of the house dominated, such that the land value is
| about 20% of the total value of the plot. Even the
| variance that occurs at that level can be further
| explained by the value of potential future plots of land
| on the space -- a plot of land that has one house but
| could hold a second (for whatever reason) is more
| valuable than an otherwise-identical plot that can only
| support one house.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| There's a certain cost to build a house. It's not like the
| _houses_ themselves are more in CA (well, maybe a little), it
| 's the _land_. For example, my house is appraised around
| $300k but the land is appraised at $1.2 million.
| njarboe wrote:
| My 4 bedroom house in Oakland had a replacement cost/value
| of about $400k. That seemed high but not unreasonable. Then
| the Santa Rosa fire burned down 1000 homes and insurers
| realized that construction costs in California are insane
| (especially when you are trying to build a thousand in a
| year). Replacement cost jumped to $750k in one year. The
| land used to be worth quite a good fraction of the
| property, and then it wasn't.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| My home's replacement cost is way higher than what the
| insurer appraised it as, but asking for a higher
| appraisal counts as warning bells in their eyes (are they
| planning on burning down their home?).
| nemo44x wrote:
| That may be what your used house is worth in an appraisal
| but if you wanted to build it new, it would cost
| significantly more I imagine. It depends a lot on finishes
| and framing complexity of course (number of windows, roof,
| etc).
|
| A lot of people I know in Colorado found this out when
| their homes burned down. They had the structure insured for
| like $500,000 and found out that rebuilding their home that
| was built 20 years ago would cost around $1,000,000.
|
| A friend recently had a multi story addition put on his
| house, and of course additions always cost more because
| there's some amount of demolition and working on an
| existing site, so the new footings have to be underpinned,
| etc. It's also a large kitchen and the existing kitchen
| space had to be demo'd and rebuilt into a new, basic room.
| The upstairs connected to a hallways but there was some
| work. Anyways, the cost, all in was over $500k. Even if he
| didn't use Marvin windows, Wold appliances, nice cabinetry,
| etc it would have been like $400k. And yes you can go
| lower. But don't be fooled. A lot of the cheaper
| construction you see is not only made with awful materials
| and lazy/inexperienced tradesmen, but is also track housing
| or similar no modifications allowed type things.
| godtoldmetodoit wrote:
| > (Truly anything, I live next to a 15-story concrete castle
| apartment building that a developer built on what was once a
| trailer park).
|
| Ah, the good ol' Grandville castle.
|
| It boggles my mind every time I drive past that someone
| decided to spend tens of millions to build... whatever the
| hell this is. https://cdngeneral.rentcafe.com/dmslivecafe/3/6
| 10177/DJI_018...
| crooked-v wrote:
| My very first thought there was 'here's an example of what
| could have been ambitious, interesting architecture, except
| all the public space is devoted to cars instead of people'.
| veec_cas_tant wrote:
| > Unfortunately, it does not mean you get lower cost of
| housing
|
| I think that I'm missing something here unless there happens
| to be an infinite supply of people looking to move to your
| city.
| akiselev wrote:
| _> Unfortunately, it does not mean you get lower cost of
| housing (prices here are still astronomical, and while they
| look cheaper in comparison to California, is only because of
| the severely reduced income locals make -- prices are still
| at record-all-time highs)_
|
| Are you taking into account the inflation we've experienced?
| If the mental anchor against which you compare this "all time
| high" is 2015, for example, then we've seen over 20%
| inflation. Over 33% inflation since 2008.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MISTHPI
|
| By these numbers, up 78% since 2008 _and_ 2015, which
| almost matched.
|
| Up 50% since the previous peak in 2005, so yeah all-time
| high.
| tinglymintyfrsh wrote:
| I'm in Austin. I believe there to be inconsistency in zoning
| here because I'm on the top floor of a 10+ floor residential
| building looking down on a neighborhood park, single family
| homes, a motel, and smaller apartment buildings.
|
| The building occurring downtown is insane. I haven't seen
| anything like it since the booms in Shanghai and Dubai.
| kevinburke wrote:
| It won't make economic sense to try a builder's remedy project
| in lower land value jurisdictions, especially when you consider
| the legal headache. This is why we saw so many in Santa Monica
| and few in, say, the Inland Empire.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Right, and I mean the Inland Empire doesn't have anywhere
| near the housing shortage of the coast anyway, right?
| yellowapple wrote:
| That, and what housing shortage it does have is largely a
| downstream effect of the housing shortage of the coast.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| SROs went out of style throughout the USA because they provided
| poor returns for the property used and were a huge hassle for
| whoever was running them, not to mention being magnates for
| crime. It's sad, since an SRO is better than a tent. The
| socialization of lower tier housing (via HUD) also played a
| role as SROs didn't really fit what was expected once the
| government got involved.
|
| China has a lot of options for cheap housing, none at all
| legal, but rule of law isn't really a thing there so just keep
| things quiet. In Beijing, you can rent a windowless sub-
| basement room for a few hundred kuai a month, mold is an issue,
| but it's better than other options. Waitresses also often crash
| on the floors of the restaurants they are working in, so the
| windows are all blinded over in cardboard after closing time.
| This is all working poor, it is really hard to be a vagabond in
| China because the social safety net just isn't there for it
| (and you can't just crash under an overpass because the police
| are already in to that).
| mateo411 wrote:
| >Basically, shows that the State's tax difficulties are
| themselves the consequence of exclusion.
|
| I'm not sure what you mean by tax difficulties, if you mean the
| state has trouble raising revenue, that's certainly not the
| case. CA is running a large budget surplus right now. If they
| only relied on property tax it could be an issue, but they also
| have an income tax, so the revenue outlook in CA is pretty good
| right now.
| gumby wrote:
| Fari enough: let me clarify. Because California gets so
| little tax from property, it must get more from income taxes.
| That has a couple of negative consequences.
|
| The nice thing about property taxes is that housing prices
| change slowly, even in boom/bust cycles -- essentially they
| are coupled to a dashpot. While income, especially in
| California with a progressive system coupled with most of the
| high earners paying cap gains, leading to large swings
| (further influenced by the Fed).
|
| Also property taxes are the main source of municipal and
| school funding; with property taxes artificially pulled low,
| the state needs to step in instead. In addition, the
| structure of Prop 13 discourages people from moving which
| reduces the availability of housing stock.
|
| Prop 13 wouldn't be so bad if it excluded commercial
| buildings (including rental properties) and didn't have the
| huge inheritance loophole. But neither of those is likely to
| change.
|
| The reason I mentioned the coupling between prop 13 and
| exclusion: Californians voided all restrictive covenants in
| the 60s, which lead to more selective zoning restrictions;
| Prop 13 came from conservative southern californians and (due
| to the stickiness mentioned above, including a retroactive
| valuation reduction and the inheritance loophole) locked a
| lot of "those" buyers out of the existing neghborhoods.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| Funny enough, Texas is basically the opposite: there's no
| income tax, and so it has to get taxes from property. That
| also has a couple of negative consequences:
|
| There's a "homesteading exemption" for taxes on a primary
| residence. This means your property taxes can't shoot up
| massively if your property suddenly gets more expensive.
|
| This pushes even more of the property tax burden onto
| investment properties, which sounds good to some in theory,
| but one affect it has is that rental properties are
| investment properties. So rents go up a lot. This means
| renters end up paying a lot of property taxes, which is,
| uh... a surprising outcome.
| acdha wrote:
| Your point about moving is really important: there are a
| ton of boomers sitting in houses which are much larger than
| they need without children living at home but in many cases
| they're doing exactly what the system incentivizes.
| Accessory dwelling units (ADUs) can help somewhat if they
| have enough space and want to get in the landlord business
| (or have family who need it) but really we need to make it
| easy for people to downsize without financial precarity.
| telotortium wrote:
| I think now seniors can keep their Prop 13 tax exemption
| if they move anywhere in the state. However, that is a
| law that only passed a few years ago. Before then, I
| believe you were restricted to moving only within the
| same county.
| jeffbee wrote:
| For a slightly less breathless take on the ambiguities of the
| law, see https://www.lewis.ucla.edu/research/a-primer-on-
| californias-...
| fmajid wrote:
| San Francisco's housing element is a sham, but their NIMBY-
| pandering supervisors have successfully kicked the can down 4
| years. By then, the city will have gone sufficiently down
| Detroit's path of urban decay that there won't be any developers
| left willing to build there.
| david2ndaccount wrote:
| From my observation, these new housing developments are built
| without adequate parking and without improvements to the streets,
| leading to congested messes and worsening already bad traffic.
| How people can see this as a positive is unknown to me.
| duped wrote:
| One of the problems with new construction in some places (eg LA
| county) is that new construction has a requirement of too
| _many_ parking spaces, not too few.
| pjdemers wrote:
| On my street, a parcel with one home was just rezoned for 24
| homes - with zero on site parking. 24 homes without parking
| will add ~ 50 cars to on street parking. There is room for
| maybe 30 cars on the local streets without having to cross a 6
| lane highway. Interesting to see how this will play out.
| r00fus wrote:
| Any public transport worth speaking of? If not, then maybe
| prices will be impacted for the new development unless they
| all taxi/uber everywhere...
| forthwall wrote:
| Building neighborhoods with parking can lead to worse traffic,
| the further out you build things, the more likely people need
| to drive. Roads cannot become infinitely wide, so if there's a
| shopping center in the middle of a city, but houses spread out
| for tens of miles, all those people in the radius will drive,
| causing more traffic. If everyone is in a denser location where
| more trips don't need to be done with driving, people will opt
| out of a car, or use a car way less, thus less congestion.
|
| San Jose is mostly zoned single family homes with lots of
| parking, yet there's plenty of traffic. Maybe it's the ample
| space devoted to parking and driving that's the real problem,
| as it forces you to drive.
|
| I think the next step is providing more services closer to
| people in these upzoned areas, as well as good transit to
| commercial centers so they can opt out of driving entirely.
| r00fus wrote:
| This is an important element - if developers don't have to take
| into account the infrastructure needs of their buildings, then
| won't it just lead to the tragedy of the commons?
| mikebenfield wrote:
| You weren't worried about traffic when people built who knows
| how many thousands of single family homes many miles from
| anything people might actually want to go to, making traffic in
| many US cities a complete disaster. And now that people are
| considering a mode of development that's just slightly more
| sane - a little less car centric and a little more dense...
| suddenly this is what's going to somehow push the traffic over
| the edge. It's so precisely backwards it's honestly funny.
| GalenErso wrote:
| Denser cities lead to less traffic on a per capita basis, not
| more.
| withzombies wrote:
| For these cities that lose their local authorities, does that
| include building code requirements for things like parking
| minimums and mixed commercial/residential buildings?
| jxramos wrote:
| > The city councils and zoning boards had zero authority to deny
| the projects. Zero.
|
| How did this authority come to be in the first place? How did
| cities magically get this authority to dictate how people should
| build. I imagine such laws didn't always exist, how far back does
| this stuff go? Likewise how did states get authority over the
| cities on local matters that have to be obeyed?
| arrosenberg wrote:
| In the US states are the ultimate unit of law (at least pre
| civil war). States can supersede the authority of their cities
| and counties with near impunity since there is no Bill of
| Rights between each state and its constituent parts.
| jxramos wrote:
| That's interesting that we have county and city governing
| bodies at all. It's natural things like those bodies would
| unfold but to go this long with the state staying out of
| these affairs and stepping in when needed is pretty
| fascinating to see in real time like this.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Up until 10-15 years ago the California legislature was far
| more conservative and pretty much on board with restrictive
| housing practices.
| rbetts wrote:
| In one case, because 2.3M gallons of warm molasses flooded a
| neighborhood and horribly killed people:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| It goes back to the late 1800's and Early 1900's and like many
| legal overreaches in the US, zoning laws were primarily spawned
| from a desire to discriminate on the basis of race or class.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoning_in_the_United_States#Or...
| wrycoder wrote:
| WP may not be entirely evenhanded on this subject.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| I generally avoid citing Wikipedia directly but in this
| case I feel it gives a pretty digestible overview while
| being fairly well sourced throughout. Even if it's not
| perfectly Fair & Balanced^tm I don't think people in the
| early 1900s using the law to suppress minorities/the poor
| is a such contested viewpoint that we need to hunt for the
| perfectly centrist perspective to get a rough idea.
| Ztynovovk wrote:
| [dead]
| dgoodell wrote:
| I think it started in Euclid Ohio and went to the Supreme
| Court.
| jxramos wrote:
| Spot on, look at that. Good memory there https://en.wikipedia
| .org/wiki/Village_of_Euclid_v._Ambler_Re....
| londons_explore wrote:
| The logical move would seem to be to submit lots of proposals for
| super tall massive ugly developments on Wednesday. No need to
| actually have the cash arranged to build them. Propose 100 floor
| tiny apartments everywhere.
|
| Then, they get approved.
|
| Then the city gets it's zoning laws in place and regrets the
| approval of your massive ugly development.
|
| But then you go to the city with an offer... Send in a new, more
| reasonable plan. If they approve the new plan, great. If they
| don't, you're gonna build what they originally approved, and they
| hate.
| andys627 wrote:
| This isn't far off from how it works. You can get prelim
| approval. But I believe you need to have final submittal 6
| months later.
| ecf wrote:
| It's this type of poor-faith discourse that has led to some of
| the, "California-bad", sentiment you see in the news.
|
| Same energy as states who pay for their homeless to come to
| California and then blast hit pieces about how terrible
| California is to live in.
| DoneWithAllThat wrote:
| So when and if this takes effect, what do self proclaimed YIMBYs
| think is going to happen to everything in these cities that
| aren't housing? Schools, roads, grocery stores, public transit,
| parks, etc. Is the thinking that they're just going to magically
| be expanded to meet the massively higher density than these areas
| were ever planned to built for?
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| Eventually, yes. More housing will certainly create a reason
| for other services to expand where there was no reason to
| change before.
| jeffbee wrote:
| I live in Berkeley. Berkeley was originally zoned, when zoning
| was invented, for about a quarter million people. Berkeley has
| the water and sewer supply for this population. Berkeley has
| three subway stations that were planned to serve this
| population. But, in a reactionary spasm by White people
| suddenly faced with a rapidly growing Black population between
| 1950 and 1970, the city down-zoned itself in 1975, cutting the
| ultimate resident population capacity in half. We have an
| abundance of infrastructure and not enough people to exploit it
| or, crucially, to fund its maintenance.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Yeah we have these things called markets and pricing mechanisms
| that incentivizes people to scale up to meet demand.
| Ar-Curunir wrote:
| Prop 13, the favourite legislation of NIMBYs, is the main
| reason why the infrastructure in California is lagging.
| Presumably more construction = more apartments = more tax =
| more infrastructure
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > So when and if this takes effect, what do self proclaimed
| YIMBYs think is going to happen to everything in these cities
| that aren't housing?
|
| They think that, as Santa Monica did, cities will quickly file
| compliant housing plans and get their zoning power back, with
| very few (compared to need or current size, not past pace of
| new development) builders remedy units, and after this initial
| round, cities won't play chicken with the law anymore.
|
| No magic, just incentives driving city planning priorities.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Santa Monica had half its required units filed via builder's
| remedy, and my understanding is that it still has not got its
| zoning approved.
| villagevanguard wrote:
| Yes.
| ssabev wrote:
| King. Gigachad level response
| ketzo wrote:
| I mean, I don't think the YIMBY movement always speaks with a
| single voice, but I do think there's an understanding that
| infrastructure will have to keep up.
|
| The thing is that in order to expand infrastructure, you need
|
| - public pressure and demonstrated need for that expansion
|
| - tax dollars to fund the expansion
|
| and the quickest way to get both of those is... to build more
| homes and put people in them. I don't think there's any magic
| involved, just time and necessity.
| soperj wrote:
| Because suddenly overnight all the single family housing will
| be replaced with townhouses?
| opportune wrote:
| The new larger tax base can have their taxes spent on schools,
| roads, and public transit. Also public transit benefits a lot
| from density so it should get more efficient per taxpayer, not
| less.
|
| If a city still refuses to comply, they will just be shooting
| themselves in the foot.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| The cities will have increased property taxes (at full rate,
| not 1978 rates) which they can use to expand services. It'll
| take a few years of pain, but that's the price cities like
| Santa Monica get to pay for trying to avoid doing their fair
| share.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The cities will have increased property taxes (at full
| rate, not 1978 rates) which they can use to expand services.
|
| No, the maximum property tax _rate_ is much less than the
| 1978 rates under Prop 13 rate caps, which is the reason Prop
| 13 led to local government being dependent on state funding
| transfers.
|
| You mean taxed based in full _value_ for the first year, then
| decaying (as a share of full value) thereafter, because of
| the Prop 13 assessment increase limit to the lower of 2% or
| the rate of inflation. But maintenance cost increases over
| time aren 't capped the way prooertt taxes are, even if
| property taxes were adequate to initially maintain
| infrastructure.
| vondur wrote:
| Has this been challenged in court? I can see many areas in the
| state would not be happy with this. And those people tend to be
| wealthy.
| kevinburke wrote:
| There's no case law around it but there will be soon.
| notyourwork wrote:
| Am I reading this right?
|
| > Alternatively, 100% affordable to moderate income residents
| where rents don't exceed 120% area median income.
|
| If the median income is $50k, using arbitrary number for example.
| 120% is $60k, so rent can be $5000/monthly. Is that right?
| raldi wrote:
| That's a poorly-written sentence. The law requires a certain
| percentage of units to be set aside for households making below
| 120% of the AMI, with rents restricted to be affordable to such
| families.
| notyourwork wrote:
| Got it - so it's sort of the same thing as the prior
| sentence. I'm semi familiar with the setup having lived in
| Mission Bay for a few years. Thanks for clarifying!
| SethTro wrote:
| No, they choose a percentage of income for housing, I think 30%
| or 35%, and calculate from that so 50K * 1.2 * 0.3 = 18K/year =
| $1500/month
| kris_wayton wrote:
| The headline makes it sound broader than it is. Rather than "CA
| Cities", it's actually _" will eliminate the zoning ordinances of
| the vast majority of cities throughout the Bay Area"_. Still
| pretty broad, of course.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Yes, a common misconception. The RHNA process is conducted on a
| rolling calendar. SANDAG had to close their housing elements in
| April 2021. SCAG cities had a deadline in October 2021. ABAG
| cities are due today. AMBAG is not due until December 2023.
|
| Edit: RHNA: regional housing needs allocation
| SANDAG: San Diego Association of Governments SCAG:
| Southern California Association of Governments ABAG:
| Association of Bay Area Governments AMBAG: Association of
| Monterey Bay Area Governments
| sparky_ wrote:
| Can you expand these acronyms for those of us not familiar
| with the ins and outs of California real estate?
| dang wrote:
| Can anyone suggest an accurate, neutral title, preferably using
| representative language from the article, which fits within
| HN's 80 char limit? If so, I'll be happy to change it above.
|
| (We usually do this ourselves, but I find the details here a
| bit disorienting and don't have time to concentrate on it)
| rsaz wrote:
| I think just changing "California" to "Bay Area" would be
| reasonable for now. If the article is correct, zoning is
| being completely eradicated, but I'm not sure why the poster
| decided to say it was for all of California.
| dang wrote:
| I've consed "Some" onto the headline in the hope that this
| makes it more accurate.
|
| This is a confusing situation! confusing to me at least.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| You could go with something that's more technically
| correct, if not immediately more clear. This would at
| least give people the opportunity to google the terms and
| learn about them themselves.
|
| "Builder's Remedy goes into effect in many California
| cities tomorrow"
| dang wrote:
| Ok, let's try it. Thanks!
| steveklabnik wrote:
| Glad to be able to help in my own tiny way.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Because it's a statewide law. It is all of California, soon
| enough.
| squokko wrote:
| I don't really see what's wrong with the residents of a town
| saying "town's full, go away." The properties in CA are expensive
| because it's a highly desirable place to live. There are other
| states with open arms welcoming new growth. I don't have a
| problem with either.
| kevinburke wrote:
| This attitude has led to pretty much everyone I grew up with
| not being able to afford to live anywhere near where they grew
| up (or their parents), as well as rising homelessness,
| declining school population, and an inability to hire teachers,
| bus drivers or city staff. Also a strong case it is choking
| innovation in one of the most creative areas in human history.
|
| If you don't build then as people get richer they buy second
| homes, put homes on Zillow, merge lots into one and your
| population gradually thins out.
| rcpt wrote:
| If 100% of owners don't want to sell or build then nothing
| changes with this law.
|
| But trying to control what your neighbors do? Sorry but
| property rights end at the property line.
| MagicMoonlight wrote:
| That is a fucking incredible law. They allow zero houses to be
| built for decades and then some meme law activates and suddenly
| 5000 houses are being built next week.
|
| Everywhere needs this.
| sgt wrote:
| "San Francisco's Sunset District will be upzoned for new, high
| density housing to help add 80,000 new homes via the housing
| element approved by SF city gov't and the state."
|
| I don't understand that statement along with the photo. That is a
| high density neighborhood. The houses are very close to each
| other, many are double story, and I don't see many green areas in
| between.
|
| Did I miss something?
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| If you think two-story houses are high-density, You Too Might
| Be Part of The Problem(tm).
| sgt wrote:
| Fair enough. But honestly I wouldn't be happy if my area
| (which has big properties, lots of space between each house)
| was de-zoned into an anarchy where developers could build 10
| story "luxury housing", increasing traffic and noise. I guess
| the intention is good, but it won't work everywhere.
| JacesArchivist wrote:
| > I wouldn't be happy if my area (which has big properties,
| lots of space between each house) was de-zoned into an
| anarchy...
|
| It would work, you just wouldn't be happy with it happening
| In Your BackYard.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| It is nearly universal that people are a lot more
| accepting of doing things in other people's back yard
| than they are their own.
| rockinghigh wrote:
| The new zoning would allow buildings up to 85 feet, or ~10
| stories.
|
| > Areas within a short walk of a rapid bus or light rail line
| -- including stretches of Ocean Avenue, Geary Boulevard and
| Taraval, Judah and Lombard streets -- could see developments 55
| to 85 feet high. In other areas close to major bus lines,
| developers would be allowed to build unlimited density within
| existing height limits. Virtually everywhere else on the west
| side, up to four units would be allowed on every lot.
|
| https://www.sfexaminer.com/archives/how-will-san-francisco-s...
| sgt wrote:
| Ok, so the key is that it must be close to public transport.
| I guess that could work, if the implementation is sensible.
| noobermin wrote:
| Tbf, why are yimbys celebrating all over twitter? You do NOT want
| your enemies to know that they are about to fall, they might just
| fight back. At least wait until after Feb 1?
| malcolmgreaves wrote:
| Thank goodness!
| omgomgomgomg wrote:
| Can someone say if this is good or bad and for whom? Curious
| European wants to understand.
| famahar wrote:
| Will this allow people to turn their homes into a business. I can
| see this radically transforming communities and making cities
| more lively and walkable.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| No. This purely allows construction of residential properties.
| refuse wrote:
| I doubt many will see this comment now but...
|
| In my local community (rural area) the county changed zoning laws
| on people's residential properties. It's a damned nightmare. You
| can't rebuild a home or get approval for anything. According to
| the wording of the law, the county can sell the trees on your
| property (and you have to allow any heavy equipment on premise to
| allow this to happen) and they can supercede any water rights you
| have (water is not scarce here like in the SW). To be clear those
| last two points haven't been used...yet.
|
| The funny thing is that this happened along class lines in a
| 'progressive' county. Richer people have MUCH more forgiving
| zoning and many live right down the street from poor people who
| essentially don't own the land they live on anymore. The equity
| they used to have was wiped out almost entirely because nobody
| wants to buy their property due to zoning (!). Think they can get
| a loan now? What do you think happened to property values for the
| rich people?
|
| I'm honestly surprised somebody at the end of their rope hasn't
| gotten violent about this, it's outrageous.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Given you are a brand new account with exactly one post,
| perhaps you'd feel comfortable sharing the location.
| danans wrote:
| For all of California's huge dysfunctions (which are frequently
| the side-effects of its huge successes), this is a good example
| of what the state gets right.
|
| To people who are freaked out that this is going to turn into the
| opening scenes from Pixar's "Up", more often than not, in
| suburban areas, this will just result in a few dwellings per lot,
| imagine 2-3 town homes on what is now a .25 acre single family
| lot.
| kevinburke wrote:
| The 20% affordable component of Builder's Remedy means you need
| to propose at least 5 homes so one of them can be affordable.
|
| That said, a "missing middle" program is a really helpful thing
| to help cities get their Housing Element into compliance so if
| you think there is a place where this density would be helpful,
| send a comment to your city council and cc
| HousingElements@hcd.ca.gov.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| It can also be 100% affordable to moderate income although
| that's almost assuredly less lucrative.
| danans wrote:
| Perhaps it's less lucrative, but it would still allow for
| increasing the housing stock without putting a 50 unit
| building in the midst of an existing SFH neighborhood.
| Developers will also need to weigh the desirability of what
| they build into the equation. There's quite possibly a
| sweet spot of desirability and affordability at 3 dwellings
| per lot.
|
| As an example, I live on a multi-dwelling lot (effectively
| town-homes without shared walls) in a predominately SFH
| neighborhood. It's very high density by California
| standards, but it's quite desirable and not apartment-block
| style living.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Unfortunately, many California cities are so incredibly
| far behind what's actually needed for equitable housing
| costs that the only practical way for them to catch up is
| a lot of 50-unit buildings built yesterday.
| jahewson wrote:
| It's not less lucrative, it's non-lucrative. Labor,
| materials and land in California all cost a small fortune.
| kqr2 wrote:
| How would the builder's remedy work in a place like Atherton if
| the homeowners form a pact and refuse to sell to any developers?
| E.g. if Marc Andreessen
| (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/marc-andre...)
| and Steph Curry (https://therealdeal.com/2023/01/29/steph-curry-
| shoots-his-ni...) form a coalition with other residents then they
| can effectively keep the city down zoned even if builder's remedy
| is applied?
| fasthands9 wrote:
| I think that's fine. I dont think the point of this is to
| confiscate land that people own and build condos on it. But
| realistically real estate ownership is pretty disperse, even in
| small town called Atherton there are going to be thousands of
| individuals that own 1 acre plots and maybe a hundred that own
| larger plots. It just takes a couple people to choose to sell
| their land or to die.
| civilian wrote:
| And the average home in America is owned for what, like 5-7
| years? If someone is moving out of the community, are they
| really going to ignore a windfall payment from a developer?
|
| And how about estate sales? Are the out-of-state heirs going
| to care to who their parent's property is sold? Or are they
| just going to go for the top dollar?
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Put me on team top dollar. Hell, I'd even consider
| accepting a lower offer from a developer if I knew they
| were gonna build more properties in it (though of course
| this is extremely unlikely to happen as the developer
| planning on building more units stands to make more profit
| and the land is thus worth more to them).
| klyrs wrote:
| When it's a mall, factory or highway, eminent domain is never
| off the table. Curious to see if the pols would be so itchy for
| housing.
| jefftk wrote:
| You only need one property owner to defect from the coalition,
| and this seems hard to avoid.
| j_heffe wrote:
| I'd imagine Atherton would remain more or less the same with
| the exception of some homes being converted to duplexes and
| triplexes. At least in Minneapolis with the 2040 plan, more
| affluent neighborhoods tend to stay that way.
| michael1999 wrote:
| They can try. It only takes one defector to cash a cheque. Or
| bankruptcy, divorce, general orneriness ...
| kqr2 wrote:
| Putting on the red team NIMBY hat, could they try and use
| private deed restrictions
| (https://www.carealtytraining.com/blogs/deed-restrictions-
| wha...) ? E.g. reuse the same mechanism that the city plans
| to use: "proposed building are deed-restricted to low income
| residents who make at or less than 80% the area median
| income."
|
| This "hack" is apparently used in famous "no zoning" Houston
| to keep exclusive neighborhoods exclusive
| (https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/houston-doesnt-have-
| zoning... )
|
| _Virtually every affluent residential neighborhood in
| Houston has strict private deed restrictions -- and,
| remarkably many of those deed restrictions can be enforced by
| the city. That's why River Oaks, Houston's wealthiest
| neighborhood, doesn't have apartment buildings or office
| buildings in the middle of the neighborhood._
| michael1999 wrote:
| Those deed covenants go back to the KKK and whites-only
| policies imposed by the builder during lot subdivision. The
| game-theory doesn't work for retroactively imposing them on
| your neighbours. Why would someone selling promise to give
| up upside when they are moving away anyway? Like, are
| Anderson and Curry gonna show up on your lawn at midnight
| in hoods?
| LargeWu wrote:
| That would only work if the state allowed those deed
| restrictions to stand, which it likely wouldn't. Just
| because Houston allows such a clause doesn't mean
| California would.
| MarkSweep wrote:
| An example of such orneriness:
|
| https://www.cnet.com/culture/george-lucas-to-build-
| affordabl...
| epistasis wrote:
| Eventually, people die, and sometimes the children were not
| part of the monopoly...
|
| I do wonder if anti-trust could be applied against such a
| "don't sell" pact, especially if it was successful enough to
| capture an entire town. Probably not, but that sort of anti-
| competitive behavior should most definitely be illegal, with
| stiff penalties for those who participate.
| [deleted]
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| The point of upzoning is to _allow_ for more housing to be
| built, not to literally force it upon unsuspecting property
| owners.
|
| If nobody wants to sell, nobody wants to sell.
|
| But eventually...
| gibolt wrote:
| Houses in Atherton are already the size of apartment
| buildings. You could house 10-20 units in them without any
| change to the exterior.
|
| Change will happen, people would gladly pay a normal Bay Area
| house cost to get 1/10 of an Atherton house and live in that
| school district
| jahewson wrote:
| * * *
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Yeah, that'd be great.
|
| School districts/boundaries being so unequal is at least
| partially the result of zoning policy that makes it harder
| for people of less financial means to move into affluent
| areas.
|
| I saw a counterexample living in Munich, just in the sense
| that the differences between neighborhoods in apparent
| wealth were much less stark than in the US. Almost
| everywhere looked vaguely middling, very few places looked
| obviously rich or poor. And so it's no surprise that the
| differences between public schools was lesser too.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| Schools are funded by the state government in germany,
| not by districts. The concept of a school district
| doesn't exist.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| I'm talking about the area boundaries that determine
| where people go to school. Many terrible school districts
| or schools in the US actually have plenty of money (the
| DC school district is a famous example).
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| Yes, these area boundaries don't exist in germany, people
| can go to whatever school (within the state) they want.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| Yep. Eventually the rich die and their kids have zero
| interest in living in the town and sell the property on an
| open market and huzzah now there is the potential start to
| open up the opportunities for more people to live in the
| gated community.
| beambot wrote:
| Just imagine one acreage selling out, and building a Manhattan-
| style pencil skyscraper on the plot. Hilarity would ensue.
| CalRobert wrote:
| I'd happily sign and then sell to someone offering to give me
| multiple centuries of fuck-you money.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| We aren't going to force anyone to sell their property. But
| realistically, Atherton has many property owners (including
| many that are far less rich than the ones you mentioned). The
| chance that none of them ever agree to sell is zero.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| The writer does indirectly allude to this:
|
| " There's a lot of questions still unanswered, though. This
| will all be legally challenged since we're in new territory
| with the HAA. Many developers still can't believe it and aren't
| sure to propose nor have readied capital to propose projects.
| Other builders since the Santa Monica news appear quite excited
| to build apartments in exclusive, expensive enclaves they've
| always wanted to. There's a political question too about
| whether HCD will let substandard housing elements through just
| to not anger cities and incite backlash. "
|
| Very likely the 'political question' will not be limited to
| 'whether HCD will let substandard housing elements through'.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| How would a coalition work here? They have no power to stop
| anyone from defecting. Unless Marc and Steph offer to buy any
| property in Atherton at absurd values they're powerless to stop
| a developer from buying someones house.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I am excited to see how well a coalition of rich people
| performs once they start getting massive bids.
| fragmede wrote:
| Especially when they fight with each other, as neighbors do.
| The wealthy aren't always a monolithic block of
| undifferentiated piles of money so, not that I know what the
| future holds, but imagine you've been squabbling with your
| neighbor for decades; you've always wanted to move back east.
| What better giant finger to that neighbor than selling your
| multi-acre estate to be replaced by a 30 or 100-unit
| apartment complex?
| 988747 wrote:
| > What better giant finger to that neighbor than selling
| your multi-acre estate to be replaced by a 30 or 100-unit
| apartment complex?
|
| You really do not realize how big (or small, rather)
| apartment complexes are. 100-unit building is the size of
| 6-7 single family homes (or maybe 3 McMansions), and maybe
| twice as high. It would barely be noticeable in such
| neighborhood.
|
| See this for example:
| https://ctexaminer.com/2021/10/23/100-unit-apartment-
| complex...
| mperham wrote:
| It's not really the size of the building, it's the size
| of the parking lot and the resulting traffic. That's what
| *everyone* hates.
|
| With parking minimums of 2 spots per unit, your standard
| 800 sq ft apartment requires another 600 sq ft of
| parking. And units can be stacked relatively cheaply,
| parking can't.
| saltcured wrote:
| Right, a "spite" transaction.
|
| But on the other hand, the coalition of rich neighbors
| could organize a counter-offer to buy out neighbors who
| want to leave. A bit like lands are bought up by
| conservation groups to prevent development. Put a price on
| how much you want to preserve your neighborhood.
|
| They could even buy out the developer who purchased a spite
| sale, unless there are deed restrictions in that sale. Most
| developers are also doing it as a business, not for
| idealism, so it there ought to be a price point where they
| see it is more lucrative to fold than to go forward with
| the building project.
|
| I'm not sure I understand the economic effect of something
| like this. At first blush it almost seems like the same
| feedback loop as land value taxes. But, it also creates a
| game-theoretic scenario where the coalition is pumping up
| the price of their own neighborhood and increasing the
| potential gains for the next defector, at which point the
| values could rapidly unwind if the coalition loses its way.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Seems like there would be massive, easy arbitrage in
| buying the home and saying you are moving in then
| changing your mind and building multi-family, then taking
| the buyout from the coalition of rich neighbors.
|
| Free money for defection and could easily exhaust the
| resources of this coalition.
| neycoda wrote:
| How about some zoning laws to build adequate soundproofing?
|
| With efficiency being in homes being stacked, more stress and
| disruption and crime come from low quality and control in
| walls/floors especially in regard to soundproofing.
| fishtoaster wrote:
| The part that I'm sure many here are skimming for:
|
| > HCD reviewed SF's housing element and said it "largely
| compiled" with the state's rules, even though it was heavy on
| promises. As such, SF will not be subjected to the builder remedy
| on Wednesday.
|
| (But it's an interesting piece in general and you should read the
| whole thing for important context!)
| ketzo wrote:
| The whole "heavy on promises" thing makes me nervous. But the
| HCD has been _super_ intensely focused on San Francisco in
| particular -- the article mentions the special investigation
| they opened into the city 's Board of Supervisors -- and so I'm
| hoping that if they think it's good, then it's actually good.
| xp84 wrote:
| This is GREAT news. American zoning laws, that have led to vast
| swaths of single-family-home-only zones, are an absolute
| disaster. There are plenty of car-dependent SFH-only suburban
| neighborhoods in existence where fans of SFHs will always be able
| to find them, and they're not going anywhere. I live in a SFH
| myself. But in congested cities, *no more of that crap needs to
| be built!* It's as inappropriate of a land use in a place like SF
| or Oakland as a 20-acre cornfield.
|
| A real city is better when you can walk to things near where you
| live, like offices, doctors, restaurants, etc. You get that so
| easily with housing on top, businesses below. And businesses
| interspersed with the housing. It just works.
| irrational wrote:
| > a very old law from the 1990s
|
| LOL. It's things like this that let me know how old I am.
| berniedurfee wrote:
| Yeah, I resemble that comment. The 90s feel like last week.
| gregschlom wrote:
| Haha I had the same reaction. I was expecting some law from the
| 19th century.
| skyyler wrote:
| It is from the 1900s, which sounds worse than "20th century".
| lttlrck wrote:
| I wasn't sure what to make of that either. I guess??? LOL.
| Aloha wrote:
| When they said 'very old law' I expected something before the
| 30's, lol
| ketzo wrote:
| I think the author of this newsletter is actually younger than
| the law -- so maybe his perspective showing a little :D
| jedberg wrote:
| There is a developer in Cupertino who has been fighting with the
| city for years, who got awfully quiet lately. Now I know why.
|
| I suspect they have a plan for an absolutely massive high rise
| behind my house that they will be submitting at 8am tomorrow
| morning.
|
| My neighbors are going to be _pissed_.
| Dowwie wrote:
| would be great if you let HN know the outcome!
| xwdv wrote:
| Good. Fuck your neighbors. The region is long overdue for more
| housing to fix the ridiculous situation that has formed down
| there. Hopefully the region will become more affordable as new
| housing floods the area and brings down prices and makes things
| generally more affordable.
| nostromo123 wrote:
| Yeah, f*k other people, let's cram as many souls as we can in
| affordable dystopian high rises... that's the spirit!
| terr-dav wrote:
| Souls? you mean other people? Or, f- them in favor of the
| existing residents...
|
| And 'affordable dystopian' housing? Only 20% of the units
| are required to be affordable. Who knows what private
| developers will come up with to maximize their profits. So,
| dystopian? Probably. Affordable? Just a little.
| bluGill wrote:
| Affordable is about supply and demand. Build enough and
| all houses are affordable. Don't build enough and people
| will find ways to cheat to get what you make as
| 'affordable' so they get in.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| I live in a high rise and it's quite nice compared to a lot
| of the available alternatives at the same price. And the
| one I live in was built 7 decades ago, so imagine how nice
| a new one would be!
| satvikpendem wrote:
| High rises are one of the most efficient ways to house
| people at scale. There's a reason the majority of the human
| population lived in cities, historically.
|
| It's also more efficient greenhouse-gas wise, as suburban
| sprawl means more driving to transport goods.
| bluGill wrote:
| Actually it is mid rises that are most efficient. High
| rises are very expensive to build. The cheapest
| construction is good to use for up to about 5 floors
| (check with a structural engineer for details). As such
| building 5 floors everywhere should be the goal: it is
| the cheapest mix of low costs and high density. There is
| no real advantage to making your city any denser than
| this.
| mannerheim wrote:
| Five floors may be the best for the parts of a city where
| the land is relatively cheap, but I doubt it's the most
| cost-efficient for, say, Manhattan, or the city centre of
| Hong Kong. At a certain point, the construction costs are
| dwarfed by the cost of land, and constructing a slightly
| larger building becomes a rounding error, unless somehow
| the marginal cost of the sixth floor increases
| astronomically.
| [deleted]
| lezojeda wrote:
| Fuck you, got mine much huh
| xwdv wrote:
| Ah dystopian high rises, I never thought about it that way.
| Maybe you're right. At least the dystopian homeless
| encampments we currently have are always out of your line
| of sight.
| opportune wrote:
| As opposed to now where we cram those people into SFH with
| many roommates?
| praxulus wrote:
| Which alternative is less dystopian?
|
| * Clearcut wilderness to build more suburban homes
|
| * Don't build more homes, just stuff more people into
| existing homes
|
| * Let the excess population live in cars or on the sidewalk
|
| * Cull the excess population
| hcurtiss wrote:
| Maybe excess population live somewhere else that costs
| less? That is, quite literally, the choice I made.
| knowaveragejoe wrote:
| Sprawl is a significant factor in climate change.
| Spreading out is what we've _been_ doing
| sneak wrote:
| That's item 1 on the menu he offered.
| telotortium wrote:
| I suppose maybe some people in California want their
| budget to balance in the upcoming decades, and have
| finally realized that restricting housing until the point
| that you start losing representatives in Congress is a
| long-term losing strategy.
| webkike wrote:
| High rises are not dystopian. What is dystopian is people
| living in fucking tents
| hcurtiss wrote:
| Any bets on whether eliminating zoning has any effect on
| the number of "people living in fucking tents?" In my
| experience, the people in tents aren't waiting with a
| down payment that's a few tens of thousands short of
| market. I think you're right that the solution here is
| being driven by homelessness. I also think it's more
| progressive wishful thinking.
| knowaveragejoe wrote:
| Zoning is the root of a _lot_ of issues in the US:
|
| https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/7/13/housing-
| scarci...
| bluGill wrote:
| That depends on how long this goes on. It takes months to
| build a new unit, so it will make no difference in 3
| months. In many areas there is a lot of pent up demand
| from people with more means who are living elsewhere, and
| they are now living in houses in areas far enough away
| that those living in tents won't find moving there
| useful.
|
| In short it will take a decade or two of building to make
| a difference to those living in tents.
|
| Also living in tents often implies other issues. More
| housing will not solve anything if your real issue is
| serious mental illness. There will also be a few people
| living in tents/on the street because their reason for
| living in tents is not related to the cost of housing.
| Building more housing will make a difference to those
| who's problem is housing is too expensive, but it can't
| help those who's problems are not high cost of housing.
| xwdv wrote:
| The best time to have built housing was 10 years ago. The
| second best time is now.
| webkike wrote:
| And what is your experience?
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| I'd rather live in a tent in a rural area with access to
| nature than an inner city high rise.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| You can go ahead and do that
| knowaveragejoe wrote:
| They aren't mutually exclusive.
| anotheracctfo wrote:
| Sure, you can go homestead in Alaska. That should reduce
| demand in your city :)
| telotortium wrote:
| All tent cities in California cities should be relocated
| to state parks and open space land in unoccupied areas of
| the state, with homeless services exclusively provided
| there. They can be housed there while we build housing
| for the homeless in the more urban areas.
| gretch wrote:
| Okay fantastic. California and the USA has extremely huge
| amounts of 'rural area with access to nature'. Enough for
| everyone with those desires to set up shop. I really
| don't think anyone would complain at all as many people
| are already camped on city sidewalks and we tolerate it,
| so hey, it's a somewhat improvement.
|
| For everyone else, we are in desperate demand of 'inner
| city high rise'
| jimnotgym wrote:
| ...or indeed urban sprawl itself...
| threeseed wrote:
| The world isn't black and white.
|
| You can have increased density with mandated affordable
| housing without needing high rise developments.
| burntwater wrote:
| I understand the point of these laws to be that cities
| were given the opportunity to have "increased density
| without high rise developments," the cities failed to use
| those opportunities, and so now that control is being
| taken away and the cities are being forced to accept
| whatever is sent their way.
| mancerayder wrote:
| High rises are for people who aren't light sleepers, don't
| mind hearing music and noise in adjacent walls or above or
| below, are tolerant of parties and generally sociable.
|
| Guess who fits that demographic? Young single people and
| young couples who go out. The average middle age crank needs
| a house without shared walls and space.
|
| There are individual preferences at play here. No one chooses
| a high rise, it's just more affordable. The exception is
| amenities, doormen, other services.
| epistasis wrote:
| This is absolutely incorrect, and sound dampening is easy
| to solve, and to write into code if cities actually cared
| about it.
| option wrote:
| it is easy to solve but never is solved somehow (judging
| this based on living in several European cities)
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Nobody forces a builder to put in sound deadening, and
| they won't experience the suffering of hearing their
| neighbors, and they won't lose profit because pretty much
| by definition they are only building in places with
| excess demand so they can still charge pretty pennies for
| junk.
|
| So of course it's one of the first things to go. Everyone
| always chooses to pinch pennies instead of do the right
| thing.
| dntrkv wrote:
| I've lived in many homes and a couple high-rises. The noise
| isolation in the high-rises was miles ahead of that in the
| homes. I'm guessing the concrete construction is a pretty
| big factor in this.
| crooked-v wrote:
| There are plenty of high-density buildings that don't
| require 'light sleepers'. I live in one right now. The only
| sound I hear from other units is if we both have windows
| open; otherwise it's dead quiet to the point that I had to
| put in some rugs to muffle echoes from walking around on
| the tiled floors.
| mancerayder wrote:
| I live in the most modern and luxurious of modern luxury
| buildings and while most people don't complain about
| noise, I'm jolted awake by door slamming in the hallway,
| I can hear parties two floors up and music (bass
| specifically) travels effortlessly through all the modern
| concrete floor and non-concrete walls all the same. It
| depends more on the neighbors than the construction.
| Nothing will stop a modern subwoofer.
|
| The uncertainty around neighbors and the obligation to be
| tolerant is why single family houses are preferable to
| some people. Barking dogs when owners are away are
| another joy of apartment living.
| veec_cas_tant wrote:
| There is an epidemic of "luxury" units that are really
| just poorly constructed buildings with a fancy stove and
| granite countertop. Modern buildings will have noise
| leakage via doors and windows for obvious reasons, but
| should not be transmitting anything but extreme noise
| through floors and walls. If you can really hear noises
| two floors away, I'm guessing your building wasn't built
| with noise in mind OR the party goers have blasted their
| eardrums too many times. Regardless, I'm surprised the
| landlords haven't handled this already if they are
| charging luxury prices.
| crooked-v wrote:
| It sounds like where you live isn't actually a luxury
| building... it's just an expensive but cheaply built
| building that was labeled 'luxury' to try and justify the
| price tag.
|
| The solution here isn't to pretend that high-density
| buildings aren't needed, because they absolutely are;
| rather, it's to apply and enforce reasonable standards
| around noise insulation in shared-wall units, and to
| reduce the time and expense of the permitting and
| planning process in general so that there isn't as much
| motivation to cut corners to save money on the back end.
| [deleted]
| wrycoder wrote:
| And some state pols getting rich over this.
| epistasis wrote:
| This seems to be a completely baseless accusation of
| corruption... or is there some other meaning here I'm not
| understanding?
| Nition wrote:
| I had to laugh at the Santa Monica list in the article where
| someone, immediately after the Builder's Remedy came into
| effect, submitted a 2000 unit development. I wonder how long
| they'd been sitting on that one.
| telotortium wrote:
| By "high-rise", you must mean 5-over-1, right? I doubt anyone's
| going to build an actual high rise in the suburbs.
| jedberg wrote:
| The original plan from the developer included multiple 8
| story towers. But the property is right off of a major
| freeway and just a few minutes from 20+ story towers in San
| Jose, so I see no reason to hold back.
| telotortium wrote:
| Interesting - I could see California cities attempting to
| force fairly tall towers (taller than 5-over-1s) into small
| areas in an attempt to prevent upzoning the rest of the SFH
| areas in their cities. Hopefully this will work better than
| the last time this strategy was attempted (housing projects
| in mid-20th-century USA).
| apozem wrote:
| I mean, maybe it's a high rise. When the builder's remedy
| went into effect for Santa Monica, developers proposed 15-
| and 11-story apartment buildings [0].
|
| There is a massive amount of demand for housing in California
| that is being choked by restrictive, ruinous zoning. Meeting
| that demand is going to take some _big_ buildings.
|
| [0]: https://www.planetizen.com/news/2022/12/120313-first-
| full-bu...
| tomtheelder wrote:
| Well that's a little different as Santa Monica is already
| full of high rises- it's definitely a city and not a
| suburb.
| threeseed wrote:
| Why ? Developers are driven by what makes them money.
|
| A high rise in the middle of a popular suburb is an easy way
| to do that and does exist in many parts of the world.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Vallco?
| jedberg wrote:
| Yeah, Sand Hill Properties in particular.
| stevehawk wrote:
| Is it Bob Tillman? Because I'm absolutely rooting for him if
| he's still stuck in San Fran building purgatory.
| raldi wrote:
| Bob was the owner of the "Is this a historic laundromat?"
| property. He knew that his project was fully compliant with
| state laws that would force San Francisco to approve his
| permit for eight stories of mixed-use housing, and indeed,
| after much bluster, they eventually were. The building was
| demolished last year and construction is in progress.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Yes, people here celebrating this don't understand at all that
| all this does is give developers more power over communities
| they have no interest in but money. And of course, the
| politicians that they will fund/bribe to make this happen.
|
| We just went from democracy to oligarchy in this case.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| No, what this does is give developers the power to bring
| affordable housing to california. Them making money is just
| the incentive to do it. Silicon valley was already an
| oligarchy since housing affordability ensures only the
| wealthy can afford to vote in local elections.
| matchbok wrote:
| They are building housing for people and are risking
| millions. How dare they make some money! How rude of them.
|
| Hint: Developers don't have power over communities, rich
| homeowners do.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| And whose fault is it?
| mullingitover wrote:
| So much of the problems with housing in the state stem from
| the fact that lots of community members are valuing their
| investment in their own house over everything else. Housing
| can either be affordable or it can be a good investment, it
| really can't be both.
|
| At this point the market has been so perverted by entrenched
| interests blocking new development that I would be okay with
| a dictatorship of developers for a solid decade. It _might_
| be enough to dig us out of the hole we 're in.
| scop wrote:
| This is a point I don't often see discussed. I have friends
| and family in CA whose primary asset is their home, with
| little to nothing invested elsewhere (perhaps because of
| the high cost of living)...resulting in a mortgage they
| have no intention of ever paying off, little retirement
| savings, and fingers crossed for a cash-out down the line.
| sa1 wrote:
| With this one-time change in zoning, they can cash out by
| converting their single family home to multi-family
| housing.
| nickspag wrote:
| That's not all of it, either. Older buyers have gotten
| the lionshare of their wealth from housing appreciation
| by preventing new housing _and_ pay a lower tax burden
| than new buyers due to Prop 13. There 's a reason that
| when it made it to the supreme court Justice Stevens
| called it medeival and referred to entrenched owners as
| Squires. "During the two past decades, California
| property owners have enjoyed extraordinary prosperity. As
| the State's population has mushroomed, so has the value
| of its real estate. Between 1976 and 1986 alone, the
| total assessed value of California property subject to
| property taxation increased tenfold. Simply put, those
| who invested in California real estate in the 1970s are
| among the most fortunate capitalists in the
| world.Proposition 13 has provided these successful
| investors with a tremendous windfall and, in doing so,
| has created severe inequities in California's property
| tax scheme. These property owners (hereinafter "the
| Squires) are guaranteed that, so long as they retain
| their property and do not improve it, their taxes will
| not increase more than 2% in any given year. As a direct
| result of this windfall for the Squires, later purchasers
| must pay far more than their fair share of property
| taxes."
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/90-1912.ZD.html
| mullingitover wrote:
| > and do not improve it
|
| This might be one of the craziest parts of it, and it
| makes me understand how a lot of neighborhoods in
| California just look sort of...dumpy. The system actively
| discourages you from improving a property!
|
| My dream is to see the state property tax code flipped to
| land value tax. No penalties for improving the property,
| just purely tax the value of the land and penalize people
| who park their vacant lots for year after year.
| la64710 wrote:
| Yet you can hardly get a house sitting in the market even
| if it is more than a million dollars. Obviously the
| demand is very high.
| jmeister wrote:
| Who cares if the developers get rich? Do you(and the rest of
| society) get what you want?
|
| "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer,
| or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard
| to their own self-interest. We address ourselves not to their
| humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of
| our own necessities, but of their advantages" -- Adam Smith
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Do you(and the rest of society) get what you want?
|
| That is an interesting question. In many cases people here
| are advocating that the locals don't get what they want, so
| that "the rest of society" does.
| mediaman wrote:
| It's interesting to hear people describe government-organized
| supply restriction cartels as some sort of utopia, whereas,
| in their world, eliminating the cartel is in fact creating an
| "oligarchy."
| rcpt wrote:
| Home owners, not developers, get all the profits in real
| estate.
|
| https://oregoneconomicanalysis.com/2021/03/16/who-
| benefits-f...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Collectively, perhaps, but the developer who built my house
| has by far the biggest house in the area, on the nicest
| property, with the nicest cars, and Facebook albums filled
| to the brim with pictures of him meeting famous people I'll
| not ever get to schmooze with.
|
| I think his profit margin must be okay.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Oh no, not companies making money by producing something
| people want! Anything but that!
|
| Seriously, I don't care if developers are "greedy". "Greedy"
| describes every business and most people!
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > give developers more power over communities they have no
| interest in but money
|
| They make something that people would like. Calling that
| "power" is extremely unhelpful.
| civilian wrote:
| holy shit I love oligarchy now
| [deleted]
| opportune wrote:
| Where does this narrative about evil greedy developers come
| from?
|
| If the new housing represents a net increase in people, then
| the developers are filling unmet demand. It's not that
| different from restricting the supply of milk and getting
| angry that milk producers will make more money when those
| restrictions are lifted. Yeah, they will, but only because
| there is more demand for their product than they were
| previously legally allowed to satisfy.
|
| Developer margins should actually decrease when zoning is
| more permissive anyway. Right now in SF there is a whole
| cottage industry of "facilitators" and direct
| graft/corruption making it hard to build housing unless you
| know how to work the system.
|
| While it's absolutely true that developers can cut corners, I
| personally don't see them as any more evil than any other
| business.
| kevinburke wrote:
| People are looking for any scapegoat for the problems in
| their community so they don't have to look in the mirror.
|
| This is the same reason why there's a persistent myth that
| homeless are bused in from other states or whatever (when
| in reality, 70-90% of them were in homes in San Francisco
| before going on the street). It absolves people of blame
| [deleted]
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > 70-90% of them were in homes in San Francisco before
| going on the street
|
| Do you have a citation for that? I could do with a decent
| source.
| kevinburke wrote:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/06/us/homeless-
| population.ht...
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Sadly I can't get to that. Never mind!
| mdavidn wrote:
| Here's the source cited by the Times. Skip to slide 24.
|
| https://www.lahsa.org/documents?id=3437-2019-greater-los-
| ang...
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| That seems to show 65% of the homeless population of LA
| County were living there before they became homeless -
| others travelled within state or from another state to be
| there.
|
| That wasn't quite what I expected to see based on the
| stats cited above, but it's useful info. Thank you.
| TedShiller wrote:
| > Where does this narrative about evil greedy developers
| come from?
|
| Reality
| Manuel_D wrote:
| The fact that housing prices are high isn't a sign of
| greed: it's a sign of a constrained supply. Developers
| build housing, the price is set by what people are
| willing to pay.
| [deleted]
| burntwater wrote:
| The price is also set by developers. There's no reason
| for rent to increase 30-50% in a single year other than
| literal greed. Will people pay it? Yes, because they have
| no choice in the matter, they need a place to live. But
| it's still greed raising the price.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Truth is people want to live in a community of the
| character they choose when they moved into that community.
| The high density housing community seems to think everyone
| just needs an efficiency unit in a Soviet style housing
| block and anyone else is an entitled NIMBY. What the person
| said was developers don't care about the community they're
| building into. Loosening of community rules means they can
| move in start building the anti-NIMBY idealized massive
| communal living arcology in the on the east and west of
| your 100 year old Victorian neighborhood blocking the sun
| for 70% of the day, razing historic buildings and creating
| a construction zone for the next five years. Then once
| they've made everyone miserable for forever they pocket the
| profit and use it to buy a nice Victorian in a community
| with community zoning laws.
| dkhenry wrote:
| This is not at all true, if you wanted character to your
| community then the community should have approved a
| building plan that kept the character and allowed for
| more housing. As it stands these communities have said no
| to everything and now housing is being foisted upon them,
| and I say good. Too many people and families have been
| displaced by the absolutely absurd housing situation in
| California, and the failure of the people of California
| to address the cost of housing in their communities shows
| their abject dismissal of the overwhelming humanitarian
| toll they have inflicted on their neighbors and the
| environment.
| crooked-v wrote:
| > your 100 year old Victorian neighborhood
|
| Well, you know, it sure would be nice if people could
| build more of those tightly-clustered Victorians in, say,
| San Francisco, to continue the classic character of the
| city and replace ugly box houses... but zoning laws mean
| they can't.
| rrsmtz wrote:
| Even if they could, they wouldn't.
|
| The modern trend is demolishing beautiful, sustainably-
| built housing with shoddy, ugly, mass-produced 5-over-1s.
| techsupporter wrote:
| I'm truly sorry if this comes off as a personal attack
| because I'm trying really hard for it not to be but my
| frustration bubbles over.
|
| > demolishing beautiful, sustainably-built housing with
| shoddy, ugly, mass-produced 5-over-1s
|
| YES. BECAUSE THAT'S ALL MODERN ZONING PERMITS. WHICH IS
| PRECISELY THE [bad word] PROBLEM.
|
| In our haste, particularly on the West Coast, to ensure
| that we build absolutely nothing anywhere near anybody,
| we've made zoning codes that produce THIS OUTCOME.
|
| There's a reply upthread that says that density advocates
| want to cram everyone into Soviet-style "dystopian" high
| rises and, to be honest, your reply here sounds a lot
| like that.
|
| A WORLD of difference exists between "detached dwelling
| on a 7,500 square foot lot" and "clone stamp 5-over-1
| with empty retail on the bottom." BUT ZONING DOESN'T
| PERMIT IT. We absolutely should be building rowhouses and
| stacked flats and plaza housing and all of the other
| beautiful, people-scale-yet-still-dense, workable housing
| types that have been tried all over the planet yet
| America thinks we're too god damn special to have because
| "American Dream".
|
| If you have rules that say you can only build 5-over-1s,
| it should come as no shock at all when those are the only
| things being built, especially in the very tiny slice of
| areas where it's permitted to build anything dense at
| all.
| rrsmtz wrote:
| If the truth is that zoning is the only obstacle holding
| us back from idyllic, beautiful mixed-density cities,
| then I'm showing my ignorance, but I'm not convinced that
| it is. From what I've seen, developers love building
| places like Mission Bay in SF and Seaport in Boston, made
| of cheap and ugly ticky-tacky that caters to insular WFH
| yuppies. If that's the vision of our utopian future,
| count me out.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Developers "love" building that stuff because... it's
| what zoning allows them to build.
|
| You would need to actually look at a place with better
| zoning to see a functional example, like suburban
| metropolitan Japan or France or Spain, where
| neighborhoods are often made of tightly-clustered
| detached homes (e.g. the old-fashioned Victorian row home
| equivalent) mixed with corner store retail.
| techsupporter wrote:
| > If the truth is that zoning is the only obstacle
| holding us back from idyllic, beautiful mixed-density
| cities, then I'm showing my ignorance, but I'm not
| convinced that it is.
|
| It definitely is. I work in IT but one of my kids is in
| land use planning and they have regaled me with many
| stories of how builders come to the city (not in
| California) with plans. All of them involve a zoning
| variance and, more often than not, a trip through what is
| called Design Review. If the zoning change doesn't kill
| it--usually because they want a departure from what is
| called "floor area ratio" rules or from the "wedding
| cake" style zoning that is supposed to keep zones of
| detached housing "safe" from "impacts"--then design
| review absolutely does. Which dovetails into...
|
| > made of cheap and ugly ticky-tacky that caters to
| insular WFH yuppies
|
| ...your other point. It's fine to not like the design of
| a particular building, but to enforce design aesthetic
| onto someone else is also a failing of zoning. Design
| review is often used as a cudgel to "catch" what zoning
| doesn't (so the rules say this kind of building is
| allowed but neighbors don't want it) and then
| administrivia it into, if not oblivion, then a very
| expensive project through things like "more building
| modulation" and "tamp down building massing" and
| "mitigate shadow impacts".
| nemo44x wrote:
| In your world, everyone counts except the people who
| actually live in the community today and will be affected
| by changes. You're shocked that outsiders come into a
| town with plans to build things that require special
| consideration and the people of the town demand it be put
| through a rigorous process?
|
| I get it, there are real issues. But minimizing real
| concerns of people that are the stakeholders isn't fair.
| Construction means years of noise and dust, and traffic
| issues in many cases and people don't want that. People
| are wary of the character of their town being ruined -
| what makes the town a great place to be. I agree that
| there's usualy a middle ground that could be found. But
| importantly, to your last point...
|
| > It's fine to not like the design of a particular
| building, but to enforce design aesthetic onto someone
| else is also a failing of zoning.
|
| I disagree. Go to somewhere like the UK and you'll see in
| many places they not only restrict what you can do to
| existing structures, but they dictate which materials can
| be used to build new developments. They do this because
| it allows the area to develop while also hopefully
| maintaining the character of the place. The thing that
| makes the place nice today. If someone wanted to put up a
| house covered in vinyl siding, they wouldn't be allowed
| to.
|
| I fully support enforcing new developments having to use
| certain materials and be restricted to certain sizes,
| styles, and layouts.
| techsupporter wrote:
| > In your world, everyone counts except the people who
| actually live in the community today and will be affected
| by changes.
|
| In my world, everyone counts _including_ the people who
| actually live in the community today and will be affected
| by changes...alongside the people who do not yet live
| there and thus have no voice.
|
| I am vehemently opposed to ladder-pulling in all its
| forms.
|
| > But minimizing real concerns of people that are the
| stakeholders isn't fair.
|
| I do not believe I am minimizing their real concerns, I
| believe I am putting them on the same footing as other
| real concerns, concerns which people who want to act
| insular have no motivation to consider. Concerns like the
| state bill in question here attempts to balance.
|
| Cities change or they die. The world is full of
| inconveniences and problems related to change but it is
| not fair to use the regulatory power of the state to
| insist that a hamlet remain as-is in perpetuity. There
| are strategies to mitigate those inconveniences instead
| of "nope, not here."
|
| > I fully support enforcing new developments having to
| use certain materials and be restricted to certain sizes,
| styles, and layouts.
|
| In a perfect world, I would be fine with this, but we do
| not live in a perfect world and these restrictions are
| more often used as a fig leaf to keep people out than
| they are to maintain a character. Hell, the phrase
| "neighborhood character" is very often used as a code
| phrase for keeping out "those people", whomever is the
| villain of the day (often renters or people who want to
| buy but who can't or don't want to buy a massive
| structure).
|
| These sorts of rules can be useful--look at Leavenworth
| in Washington State, for example--but, in a lot of places
| in the United States and especially on the West Coast,
| they are impossible-to-meet predicates for exclusion.
|
| And that's not fair.
| opportune wrote:
| Have you been to California?
|
| A lot of the housing they are demolishing to build
| 5-over-1s are kinda shitty 1950s-60s ranches. Not really
| beautiful at all.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| As an aside... I find it fun that people in the US use
| the term 'Victorian' to describe an era. I like the idea
| of naming an era in a Republic after a foreign monarch.
|
| Incidentally, if it were 100 years old it would be
| _Georgian_. Vitoria died in 1901
| panzagl wrote:
| Georgian refers to George I-III here, so ends in the
| 1780's.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| No, the term describes an architectural style that was
| popular ~100 years ago. I might be off by some number of
| years. It is related to the era, but it is independent of
| it.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_architecture
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Ummm more like 120 years ago, during the reign of Queen
| Victoria, just like your link says.
|
| > In the United States, 'Victorian' architecture
| generally describes styles that were most popular between
| 1860 and 1900
| outworlder wrote:
| > Truth is people want to live in a community of the
| character they choose when they moved into that
| community.
|
| They are not _entitled_ to forever freeze a city just
| because they live there. I bet they would not like their
| town if it still looked the same as it was in 1890.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| They aren't, but they're entitled to advocate for it
| without derision. My point is the NIMBY crowd have their
| point, and it's unreasonable and unfair to assume they're
| entitled asshats that hate poor people. Solutions where
| they exist will lie in the middle, otherwise in a
| democracy we have ways of resolving these things.
|
| However it really should be a city level decision - the
| whole point of having lots of cities is they can vary in
| their character and quality. Moving these decisions to a
| state level doesn't allow for the advocacy of a
| neighborhood to matter as much. That's not good.
|
| The world shouldn't revolve around some NIMBY, but a
| community of NIMBYs should be respected for their desires
| as the community. Ceding community control to the
| government and developers isn't the right way to go.
| crooked-v wrote:
| > They aren't, but they're entitled to advocate for it
| without derision.
|
| The voters of California have clearly decided that they
| aren't.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Yeah and I think they'll regret it. If you think the
| voters of California are good stewards you've not paid
| attention to California.
| ambrozk wrote:
| The policy they've chosen to advocate _directly_ harms
| me. Not in a, "oh, no, there's now a construction
| project nearby" sort of way. In a, "I literally cannot
| afford to live in this city anymore, so I have to leave"
| sort of way. I will deride the hell out of the extremely
| privileged status quo interests who put their precious
| aesthetic opinions above the basic needs of their
| children and grandchildren. If you loudly advocate your
| selfish and in doing so you hurt the hell out of large
| groups of people, they will dislike you for it.
| hcurtiss wrote:
| But isn't your position premised on an entitlement to
| live in a particular place? I don't recall ever creating
| or affirming that entitlement. And it doesn't exactly
| strike me as reasonable. There are expensive
| neighborhoods that I cannot afford to live in. I don't
| see anything wrong with that.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| I see, the harm done is if the city won't change to
| accommodate you you might have to move to another city.
| The harm done to the other side is they can't stand to
| live in the city that changed to accommodate you so you
| didn't have to leave, and they have to leave. Their
| advocacy for the city accommodating them is selfish, but
| your advocacy for the city accommodating you is
| egalitarian?
|
| I see a lot of people say this is direct harm. I don't
| think people understand what that term means. "I'm upset
| by the outcome of your advocacy" doesn't mean direct
| harm. Advocacy isn't directed towards you, no one has
| come to you and harmed you. Direct harm would be them
| coming and removing you from your home and keeping you
| under housed directly. Their advocacy indirectly leads to
| higher housing prices, and even then there's a lot of
| other confounding factors. "I'm really upset with the
| situation and those guys are advocating for a partial
| factor that gives rise" is about as indirect as you get.
| EricDeb wrote:
| Harm is done to the person owning the single family home
| absolutely but I would argue that is the lesser of two
| evils. The best way would be to give them some element of
| compensation, but still, if one wants a nice, lower
| density area they should move away from the rapidly
| growing city. You can't just expect to maintain that
| forever.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| The same could be said of the person who wants a larger
| apartment than they could afford given the market for
| housing - move further away from the city.
|
| Neither extreme makes sense, we should probably recognize
| both camps have valid points and a middle path is likely
| the right one, and no one will be fully satisfied.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| > They aren't, but they're entitled to advocate for it
| without derision.
|
| I mean, no they aren't? These people are directly
| screwing over people like me. I'm gonna disagree with
| them loudly and publicly until the problem is solved.
|
| If you are being harmed, of course you have a right to
| speak up against the ones committing said harm!
| ROTMetro wrote:
| So if you don't like someone's opinion on HK you should
| be able to attack them, not the argument they are making?
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Explain how this is a direct screwing over please. It
| seems fairly indirect. Did they enter into a contract
| with you for an affordable home and then broke it? Did
| they jack up your rent and evict you? Or did they lobby
| their government for a policy you don't like and could,
| along with other factors, cause your rent to go up? If
| it's the latter, that's pretty indirect.
| noslenwerdna wrote:
| Technically you are correct about his word choice. But I
| think you missed the point.
| thrwy_918 wrote:
| >Moving these decisions to a state level doesn't allow
| for the advocacy of a neighborhood to matter as much.
| That's not good.
|
| I firmly believe that it is good. Neighborhoods shouldn't
| have the right to work together to exclude other people
| from moving to that neighborhood.
| floren wrote:
| > They are not _entitled_ to forever freeze a city just
| because they live there
|
| I agree, and I apply the same logic when somebody
| complains about gentrification.
| triceratops wrote:
| The government controlling what kind of housing you can
| build on your property sounds way more Soviet to me.
| thehappypm wrote:
| This is hardcore pearl-clutching.
|
| You know what's really a problem? How dystopian America
| is.
|
| The opportunity and jobs are in big cities. But housing
| makes it impossible for many people to even live near the
| city. People want to solve this problem, but are blocked
| because people like that their neighborhood has street
| parking.
|
| It's killing America and it's really killing our ability
| to become a modern, progressive society.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| I think the real problem is the density of opportunity
| and jobs in cities. I'm hopeful that remote work will
| break that tyranny to some extent. In five years when the
| emotions have cooled about return to office and the
| director of finance provides an analysis to the CFO about
| how much they could save and increase EPS while improving
| productivity using 2020/21 data and the CFO takes it to
| the board, that will be the end of the opportunity
| density in the cities.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| Yes, but on the flip side thousands of people will no
| longer be paying $3k/mo in rent for a shitty apartment,
| and homelessness will drop dramatically.
|
| The anti-NIMBY movement didn't come about because people
| want to override existing communities. It came about
| because people need a place to live, and NIMBYs were
| actively campaigning against it for decades with no
| consideration for the needs of others.
|
| Now, I think it's reached the stage where at least among
| young people making their lives miserable is honestly
| seen as a positive.
| Xeronate wrote:
| People need a place to live but does that place have to
| be in California? It doesn't make sense to talk about
| living in Santa Monica as a need.
| TimPC wrote:
| People want to live where the jobs are. It doesn't make
| sense for California to brag about being the world's
| fifth largest economy but to also plan on housing 0 new
| people a year.
| xsmasher wrote:
| If you expect to have retail stores, teachers, and
| tradespeople nearby, then you need to build housing they
| can afford. If everyone has a one-hour commute to get to
| their job at 7-11 you're going to see even more
| inflation.
| hnav wrote:
| that's where the opportunity is, i've done a 2-3hr
| roundtrip commute to santa monica before, have you?
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Maybe it's time to end commutes then?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| How the heck is the janitor of the facebook campus going
| to remote work?
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| There won't be a Facebook campus. The janitor will have
| to find another place to work, sadly.
| hnav wrote:
| And that's happening, but still your plumber has to come
| from somewhere. As the need to commute drops the
| population density that can be accommodated will rise
| just because there won't be huge flows of commuter
| traffic.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| A lot of plumbers make more than a lot of software devs.
| hnav wrote:
| not software devs that work in santa monica usually
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Yes, if you work in california that place needs to be in
| california. Every community needs to chip in to solve the
| crisis.
| jldugger wrote:
| Interest rates are super high right now, so you might get some
| reprieve in the short term. They'll probably slow play Vallco
| until rates come down, doing just enough to keep their zoning
| exemption?
| CydeWeys wrote:
| The reprieve in the short term would be lots of new housing
| built as quickly as possible, to help alleviate massively
| rising rents. High interest rates preventing construction of
| new, desperately needed housing is exactly the opposite of
| what we need.
| jedberg wrote:
| I think they only have to file for the permit, not sure how
| long they can wait to build. But they probably already had
| the financing locked up?
|
| You're right though, I'm sure they'll do as little as they
| can to get their project approved and stay approved while
| waiting for cheaper money.
| bluGill wrote:
| Interest rates are not super high. They seem that way if you
| only look at the past few year, but they are close to normal
| if you look on a larger time scale.
| jldugger wrote:
| It's not me you have to convince buddy, its the Sand Hill
| Property team and their econometrist, who are probably
| expecting an interest rate cut cycle this year.
| jeffbee wrote:
| The "local control" freaks have misapprehended the entire
| situation. The state of California is not analogous to the
| federal system of the United States. Cities have no powers other
| than those granted by the state, no natural right to exist, and
| continue to exist only at the sufferance of the state
| legislature. The legislature can disincorporate any city with a
| simple majority. Cities like Santa Monica should be relieved if
| land use planning is the only power they lose. The state would be
| well within its rights and powers to conclude that the existence
| of Santa Monica is not in the public interest and to assign their
| lands to Los Angeles.
| epistasis wrote:
| One of the few things Twitter does well is turn city council
| meetings into a digestible summary, and it is absolutely
| hilarious to see all the upset, privileged citizens thinking
| that if they just fight back hard enough, the law will not
| apply to them. And it's sad to see the loca politicians that
| pander to this obviously incorrect belief, as several
| politicians that did try to follow state law were ejected by
| their constituents.
|
| And to some degree, the citizens have been right, when fighting
| individual projects. Delay a project long enough, and the
| financial incentive to build can be eliminated, so the
| developer moves on. Frivolous, baseless lawsuits are a great
| way to do that. But when it comes to fighting the State, there
| is no financial incentive to disappear and make the State stop
| fighting. There is only the law.
| nikhilsimha wrote:
| What can one do to effectively support these laws?
| p0pcult wrote:
| This seems like a way to reduce homelessness and fix the housing
| market in one fell swoop.
| anovikov wrote:
| Fixing homeless requires removing homeless, not adding homes.
| It's a law enforcement problem, not an economic problem.
| twiddling wrote:
| I assume you have a FINAL solution?
| p0pcult wrote:
| I suppose, through a certain carceral and inhumane viewpoint,
| your approach works too.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I mean, it stands to reason that there also need to be homes
| for those people to live in. Unless you're planning on
| executing or imprisoning them instead.
| fundad wrote:
| you know that's the plan
| travisjungroth wrote:
| Remove them to where?
| rcpt wrote:
| As long as Prop 13 is on the books we're pretty fucked but yes
| this is huge
| deepakhj wrote:
| I think another attempt to reform prop 13 will happen in
| 2024.
| rcpt wrote:
| Yes but I don't think it'll affect residential.
| LewisVerstappen wrote:
| > reduce homelessness
|
| Is the homeless problem due to the cost of housing? Or is it
| moreso due to fentanyl?
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| It's not really going to help the people that most imagine
| when they think of their personal experience of homelessness.
| i.e. people sleeping in the streets or on the subway, or the
| "crazy people" you cross the street to avoid.
|
| For example, in NYC, more than 95% of the homeless are
| actually sheltered (whether in the city shelter system, or in
| other temporary situations like doubling up with friends or
| relatives), and more than 80% of homelessness is situational
| rather chronic. 30% of homeless families have at least one
| employed adult. 60% of all shelter residents are families.
|
| Most spending on combating homelessness is invisible to us;
| and most improvements in affordable housing are going to have
| little impact on the (predominantly) male, drug-using and/or
| mentally-ill street sleepers.
| iskander wrote:
| Homeless population by state is more or less a map of housing
| cost: https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-
| rankings/homeless-po...
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| This might just be because homeless people prefer to live
| in the same places everyone else does though, which is why
| those places are expensive.
| iskander wrote:
| You would then expect the percent of homeless per state
| to be roughly similar, when it in fact varies
| tremendously:
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/727847/homelessness-
| rate...
|
| NYC, HI, CA >40 per 100k homeless in 2020 (higher now)
|
| States with lots of poverty _but_ also extremely cheap
| housing at the bottom with a 5x lower rate of
| homelessness: LA, AL, MS
|
| Similarly, WV very low on the list despite being high on
| all of the other supposedly causal factors such as mental
| health and drug problems
|
| Poor people with mental health and addiction problems can
| still live with a roof over their head as long as they're
| not competing with tech salaries to buy any kind of
| shelter.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| There are confounding factors at work here - for example,
| since 1979, people in NY have a legal right-to-shelter
| founded on the state constitution which does tend to
| generate a more encompassing homelessness policy than in,
| say, PA.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| > You would then expect the percent of homeless per state
| to be roughly similar
|
| No, I would expect the opposite. All the would be
| homeless in unappealing states leave and go to california
| or NYC because if they're not paying for housing they
| figure might as well go to the nicest area.
| schnable wrote:
| It's three main things: lack of housing, lack of support for
| the mentally ill, and drug addiction. The proportion of each
| varies in different cities.
| andromeduck wrote:
| Lack of opportunity at the lower rungs as well. No
| factory/construction jobs means it's service or bustwithout
| a college degree.
| timerol wrote:
| Homelessness Is a Housing Problem:
| https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/
|
| > Over the course of the book, the researchers illustrate how
| absolute rent levels and rental vacancy rates are associated
| with regional rates of homelessness. Many other common
| explanations--drug use, mental illness, poverty, or local
| political context--fail to account for regional variation.
| lalaithion wrote:
| If they had homes, it wouldn't be called homelessness. You
| can take fentanyl in an apartment.
| m00x wrote:
| It's a lot more comfortable to take drugs at home, too.
| They would take homes if they could.
| LewisVerstappen wrote:
| SF/LA has numerous programs that will give you housing if
| you're homeless. The issue is that many of the homeless
| refuse to take up these programs and insist on staying in
| their tents.... so... no?
| metalforever wrote:
| no, dealing with this issue with a friend in SF right
| now, theres a waitlist and its long.
| roughly wrote:
| First one and then the other.
| sonofaplum wrote:
| it's due to the cost of housing, as evidenced by lower
| homelessness rates in places where housing is cheaper.
| m00x wrote:
| Homelessness is mostly due to lack of housing, and fentanyl
| crisis mostly due to addiction.
|
| https://www.newscientist.com/article/2356643-we-can-
| reduce-h...
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Stats like these are only true because the general public
| and policymakers/NGOs mean completely different populations
| of people when discussing "the homeless."
|
| Private market housing in SF will not get most of the very
| visible & mentally ill off of the streets, this likely
| requires services and some level of compulsion.
| timerol wrote:
| Note that homelessness is a constant flow of people. The
| services and compulsion removing people from the streets
| is currently happening. The problem is that the housing
| market is dumping more new homeless onto the street than
| our current system can handle. Turning off the faucet, so
| to speak, will make dealing with the existing homeless
| population a much simpler and more humane activity.
| epistasis wrote:
| If you redefine "homelessness" to only include those with
| addiction or mental illness problems, then you might have
| a point. But that's not a terrible useful definition, and
| many of those addiction and mental illness problems stem
| from not having housing and the extreme difficulty of
| that situation.
|
| Other areas with higher rates of addiction, but cheaper
| housing, have lower rates of homelessness. Cheaper
| housing really does allow people to get off the streets.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Expensive housing is also correlated with better
| provisioning of services which draws people here.
|
| I am not redefining anything, I am describing to you what
| people are colloquially talking about and why these
| conversations oftentimes are just people talking past
| each other because they have different issues in mind.
| When people in SF say "homelessness is out of control",
| they are typically talking about the population I am
| mentioning - one that is unlikely to be helped by changes
| to housing costs at the margin.
| daveguy wrote:
| Well, we are going to find out. Something tells me everyone
| who's homeless isn't a fentanyl addict. Especially given
| housing costs.
| LewisVerstappen wrote:
| > Something tells me everyone who's homeless isn't a
| fentanyl addict. Especially given housing costs
|
| SF/LA has numerous programs that will give you housing if
| you're homeless. The issue is that many of the homeless
| refuse to take up these programs and insist on staying in
| their tents.... because they're mentally ill.... because of
| drugs.
| Aloha wrote:
| You should look at the often onerous restrictions that
| come with those programs, often including:
|
| * No Pets
|
| * No Visitors
|
| * Curfew Time
|
| * Limits on the number of people per unit (meaning,
| families and couples cannot always be accommodated
| together)
|
| - and a host of others. Also in some places there is a
| requirement that you have a social worker, and/or
| receiving mental healthcare treatment - except there are
| long waiting periods.
|
| For most long term homeless people telling them "you have
| to give up your dog" will keep them on the streets - its
| not "housing, no questions asked" its "housing with
| rules".
|
| Building more housing will reduce the existing homeless
| population - because a significant portion of existing
| homeless are working poor, but more importantly, it will
| stall the creation of new homeless, the longer you're
| homeless the more likely you are to acquire an addiction,
| or other mental health issue.
| [deleted]
| danenania wrote:
| I'm sure it can't be this simple, but I would love to
| hear what the problems are with building large apartment
| complexes on cheap land in the outskirts of cities,
| staffing them with security, social workers, medical
| workers, etc. and then letting people live there no
| questions asked.
|
| You would of course still need _some_ rules in these
| places and there would certainly be various issues and
| difficulties, but it seems a whole lot better than what
| we have happening now in city centers?
| crooked-v wrote:
| That's pretty much right on the nose when it comes to
| 'Housing First' approaches to the homeless. Most
| localities refuse to do that for political reasons more
| than practical ones: too many people take to crab-bucket
| complaining as soon as you just give homeless people
| homes.
| Aloha wrote:
| There is opposition to it across the ideological
| spectrum, the right doesnt like it, because they feel
| people should do for themselves, parts of the left doesnt
| because of one of two reasons A) it doesnt provide an
| acceptable enough standard of living for those pushed
| into it B) it doesnt provide the 'comprehensive care'
| required to really help people (as seen from folks inside
| the homelessness industrial complex, which is to say,
| anyone with a vested interest in continuing the status
| quo).
|
| In reality housing first solves a great many problems,
| and creates some others - but its better than anything
| else we're currently doing.
| Aloha wrote:
| I want to predicate this with a statement, I believe
| there is no such thing as 'unworthy poor' all poverty is
| worth solving, because the broader societal costs in not
| solving poverty is corrosive on wider society. Poverty is
| at the roots of some of the causes of homelessness, but
| not all of them.
|
| So, a generation ago, we warehoused people who had an
| _inability to thrive_ in society in mental hospitals, now
| we do it with jails, or just leave them on the streets. I
| think it 's a thought that upsets people (and runs into
| ideological issues across the spectrum), but essentially,
| there is some percentage of the population, that no
| matter the supports they are given, will fail to thrive.
| If we try to jail them all, or just ignore the problems,
| it creates a great number of externalities which effect
| all of us in a myriad of ways.
|
| To further drill down, it's a spectrum of behaviors, some
| folks have enough problems that cash benefits and
| subsidized housing are not enough to allow them to follow
| the rules in general society.
|
| In any case, to circle back around, it essentially
| creates an second class citizen and nuisances around
| these places, thats a solvable problem though, but rather
| authoritarian in how you'd have to solve it.
|
| I've had extensive conversations for this with friends,
| and we've come to the conclusion (reluctantly) that the
| only _complete_ fix for homelessness would be something
| the equivalent of civil commitment to a 'guided living'
| community, you'd have a large community on the edge of
| town, it'd have a mix of halfway houses, group living and
| individual apartments and has centers for mental health,
| social work, as well as sources of employment, shops and
| communal spaces.
|
| The idea is, if simple housing supports wont get you out
| of homelessness, you could be sent there - there would be
| a way to graduate out of the program, but for some they
| would go and might never be able to leave.
| danenania wrote:
| Thanks for the very thoughtful comment. The solution you
| describe strikes me as so common sensical that I feel I
| must be missing something or else it would have already
| been implemented, considering how universally everyone
| seems to agree that the status quo is urgently
| unacceptable.
|
| It's clear, as you say, that we need something that is
| not prison or a psych ward, but also not the streets of a
| city center.
|
| It definitely seems that we're letting perfect be the
| enemy of good on this. It's like there's a burning
| building and everyone's standing around arguing about
| what the pH level of the water from the hoses should be
| rather than putting the damn thing out.
|
| And while I agree with the concern about creating second
| class citizens, I'd say these people are in a worse
| situation than that currently, and they are bringing
| entire neighborhoods full of innocent people down with
| them.
| Aloha wrote:
| There are a couple of factors I think in the way of
| adopting the solution I've outlined -
|
| * It's incredibly authoritarian, ripe for abuse (as the
| commitment to mental hospitals was), and requires an
| evolution in legal thinking about what civil commitment
| can be used for.
|
| * It offends a wide swath of people in an ideological
| way. No one really want to believe that some people
| cannot help themselves improve enough to exist in wider
| society (liberals assume everyone unless profoundly
| disabled can if given proper support, conservatives just
| assume people need to tug harder on those bootstraps).
| Similarly everyone on some level I've talked to about it
| is offended by the authoritarian nature of - it bothers
| people of all stripes once they think about it a little
| (including myself as a liberal with a general libertarian
| lean). Conservatives also object to spending money on
| such a venture (why should _those_ people who contribute
| nothing to society eat better than I do?) for pretty
| obvious and consistent reasons.
|
| * No one knows how to fund it, you need to either create
| new sources of revenue or deallocate money from someplace
| else, now, yes perhaps you could reduce funding allocated
| to policing - but there are existing stakeholders who
| will fight ardently to prevent it.
|
| * Finally, there are existing stakeholders (the homeless
| industrial complex, as I glibly descried them) who want
| the status quo to persist for various reasons (for many
| organizations it is raison d'etre - either for religious
| reasons, or more basal ones - money, they have workforces
| who are paid, and are a consumer of taxpayer grants).
|
| I agree broadly with you, that the _current_ illness is
| worse than the cure, but the cure isn 't without its own
| side effects.
|
| For what it's worth the example that I use of some people
| not being able to improve themselves is the Vanderbilt
| family, One of Cornelius Vanderbilt's great grandchildren
| was born into poverty. No matter what advantages
| afforded, some people will fail to thrive. (See
| https://www.amazon.com/Fortunes-Children-Fall-House-
| Vanderbi... for more information)
|
| I agree with you, everyone is very busy arguing about
| either the PH of the water, the color of the water spout
| or if you should spray the base of the fire, or the top
| of the fire, and the fire rages further consuming people
| in its path and we never quite get around to putting the
| fire out.
|
| There are a whole host of issues in society that are like
| this - where the optimal solution will never get
| significant political support behind it without the
| problem being perceived by voters as much worse than it
| is perceived now.
|
| Some of these are:
|
| * End of Life Care (from old age, chronic illness, etc)
|
| * Cigarette Regulations (There are a ton of stakeholders
| who want to preserve the status quo of regressive taxes
| with general availability, when lower taxes with a
| gradually increasing age of purchase would be better for
| society)
|
| * Overemphasis on safety in automobiles and other things
| (I did a cost benefit analysis on backup cameras, and it
| came out to something like 15,000 dollar per life saved,
| and most of these added burdens end up on the poor)
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| The provision of housing to the homeless can be refused
| for a lot of reasons. One being that the housing might be
| in a place where the person has no access or restricted
| access to other social programs such as food or jobs
| programs. The housing might make them feel unsafe, such
| as being crammed into a shelter. The housing might be
| overly restrictive, such as refusing to allow them to
| bring their pet which may be the only thing keeping them
| going emotionally. They may feel they don't have adequate
| support to transition to housing, if the housing demands
| they get off an addictive substance first (chicken and
| egg problem, because its much harder to get off an
| addiction if one is currently in crisis like being
| homeless).
| [deleted]
| metalforever wrote:
| so i am dealing with this issue with a good friend of
| mine right now, who is homeless in the city of san
| francisco. No, this isnt true , theres a very very long
| waitlist for assistance. His credit is shot and he cannot
| find a new rental. so, hes been living in a hotel. Hes
| paying the daily, so he has money.
| piperswe wrote:
| Okay, correct me if I'm wrong:
|
| - They're homeless
|
| - Because they're mentally ill
|
| - Because they're on drugs
|
| - Because they're mentally ill
|
| - Because they're homeless
| LewisVerstappen wrote:
| To be clear, I'm not suggesting a drug problem is a
| character defect nor am I implying that these people
| don't deserve a huge amount of empathy.
|
| I'm just unsure if the root cause is the price of housing
| (despite there meaning numerous problems to house &
| relocate them) or if it's due to the drug addiction.
|
| Anyway, obviously I'm for more housing to reduce the
| price of rent.
|
| There's a youtube channel called Invisible People that
| interviews homeless people on the streets and the story
| is very frequently
|
| _had job_ - > _got on highly addictive drugs_ - >
| _everything is about getting another hit_ - > _tried
| rehab multiple times and want to go to rehab again_
|
| And yeah I mean, heroine/meth/whatever is obviously super
| dangerous & addictive so you can't really blame them.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Depends on what you mean by homeless. Regular people mean
| people living on the street. Policy types mean them but also
| people living in overcrowded conditions.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Someone who takes fentanyl but has a home isn't homeless;
| while someone who does not take fentanyl but does not have a
| home is. So.
| raincom wrote:
| Homelessness also makes people get addicted to alcohol and
| drugs too.
| jwagenet wrote:
| People enter homelessness and drug use from both directions.
| Many homeless are not addicts and more affordable housing
| will help get those off the street and keep more people at
| the margin in more stable housing situations. This will in
| turn help make services more available for the drug using
| homeless.
| treesrule wrote:
| Other people have linked good articles, but a good way to
| think about it is in Japan and West Virginia they have almost
| no homelessness and in both those places its very easy to
| rent a studio for under 300$ a month. Even for someone
| addicted to drugs you can see how its possible to manage 300$
| a month (or for say a charity or city organization to come up
| with the money) without solving the underlying issues.
| hangonhn wrote:
| Why not both? And if the law fixes the prior, it will reduce
| overall homelessness. I'll take the progress and we can deal
| with the fentanyl issue in parallel for its own reasons.
| miniman1337 wrote:
| not sure if its going to "fix" the housing market, but its a
| step in the right direction, away from nimbyism.
| p0pcult wrote:
| Fair point, perhaps I should have said "achieve a lower
| equilibrium price point." Maybe that would have been wordy
| and technical enough for HN?
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| My understanding is that California is short around a million
| housing units. Truly a staggering number that will take very
| long to catch up on. Not sure how many units are being
| allowed by builder's remedy but it surely isn't the full
| million.
| TedShiller wrote:
| It's not short anything. Other states have housing.
| fosk wrote:
| Somehow we have grown a whole generation of people that
| thinks they are entitled to live wherever they want, when
| that has never been the case in world's history.
|
| I too want a penthouse in Manhattan, who do I need to
| mail to demand I am given a penthouse in Manhattan?
|
| California clearly doesn't have the capacity to serve the
| current population, let alone an increased population.
| All services are 3rd world quality, besides a few rich
| enclaves.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Somehow we have grown a whole generation of people that
| thinks they are entitled to tell their neighbors what
| they are allowed to build. I too want everyone around me
| to have a one story house so I can look over them from my
| balcony, but guess what, that would impede on their
| property rights. California absolutely has the capacity
| to serve the current population, they just need to fix
| the shit show that is their housing policy.
| RangerScience wrote:
| Fun fact: Scott Wiener, one of the authors/drivers of this law,
| is brother of Zach Wienersmith of SMBC.
| retrocryptid wrote:
| Cool! Maybe I'll be able to build an earthship in rural
| California now!
| BLO716 wrote:
| Honestly, sounds like a "drain the swamp" type event, to put it
| bluntly.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| That slogan has been poisoned in the public consciousness, but
| the idea of it isn't a bad one. You do get problems like this
| in government occasionally where it's not _exactly_ corruption,
| but things have degraded so much it looks corruption-esque.
| xyzelement wrote:
| I am not an expert in California but I don't love this concept in
| general. Here in New York, the Governor is attempting to drive
| higher housing density in certain places regardless of what the
| local people think and want.
|
| I think this is a sort of obvious effort at a form of
| gerrymandering - if the assumption is that the residents of
| higher-density dwellings are more likely to vote Democrat on
| average vs the current home owners, spreading high density
| housing around districts (vs concentrating them in the already-
| super Blue cities) locks democratic control over those districts
| with more probability/certainty.
|
| There are obvious concerns being raised about - traffic, ability
| of utilities to handle the extra density, school capacity, not to
| mention wishes of those (like me) who explicitly chose a suburban
| lifestyle for our family - when viewed through the cynical
| electoral lens these concerns aren't relevant to the decision
| which optimizes for power concentration at the expense of
| everything else.
|
| No idea if the same dynamics are at play in Cali.
| AnnikaL wrote:
| The entire SF Bay Area votes strongly Democratic already; the
| most Republican county in the Bay Area is Solano County, where
| Trump got 34% of the vote in 2020.
| jurassic wrote:
| I don't think Democrats are worried about losing control of
| California any time soon, it's basically a one party rule
| situation. The political divide is primarily rural parts of the
| state vs everyone else. The entire Bay Area, including the
| suburban parts, consistently votes Democrat about 2:1.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| I generally agree with what you're saying, but things have
| swung so hard in California that's it's impossible to build
| here. It's only natural when everything boils over and it
| swings hard in the other direction. Eventually there will be
| equilibrium.
| kevinburke wrote:
| If the Governor is wildly successful your town's housing supply
| will grow by about 2% per year. That is not enough to do a
| gerrymander and it's not going to change your "suburban
| lifestyle."
|
| It will let more people afford to live close to one of the
| world's great cities though, instead of moving to a lower
| opportunity area like Jacksonville.
| xyzelement wrote:
| // our town's housing supply will grow by about 2% per year.
| That is not enough to do a gerrymander and it's not going to
| change your "suburban lifestyle."
|
| I don't get your math. If the town is very closely split as
| many of NY suburbs are, they may go 49/51 red or blue
| depending on the year.
|
| 2% a year is 8% growth (ignoring compounding..) between two
| presidential elections. That's enough to lock in the outcome
| if you can predict that incoming residents are bluer or
| redder (in this case, bluer) than the existing given how
| close it is.
| pvarangot wrote:
| Around California cities which is where this discussion is
| relevant, everyone already votes Democrat. The thing is which
| Democrat.
|
| So, it's a little bit of this, a little bit of that regarding
| gerrymandering. For example the article talks about Atherton
| getting high-rises. Those apartments would probably be occupied
| by transplants from another city like San Francisco, and those
| voters would be more familiar with the "left" Democrats and
| maybe turn Atherton less conservative (which is honestly not
| that hard, it's a city that's literally against public
| transport). The units those people vacate on San Francisco
| would get squeezed in by lower income voters upgrading their
| living conditions which is something very functional to the
| current SF government. That's just a theory of course.
|
| In my opinion most of this more aggressive stance at fixing the
| California housing emergency is motivated either by true
| commitment and vocation, which is not hard to find regarding
| housing since the situation is really bad. In the case of
| Wiener he's been doing this for a while and sounds like a true
| believer. Of course some legislators supporting this may just
| be thinking about using it as a platform to run for executive
| or federal positions, but honestly looking at the track record
| of most people pushing this you can see they legitimately have
| been tackling hard problems in all of their political careers.
| closeparen wrote:
| The local people in every place want to live in rural towns 5
| minutes from the big city. It's built into the human psyche.
| The problem is it's geometrically impossible. So it comes down
| to how important you think "finders keepers" is - do the people
| who got there first have the right to lock everyone else out
| forever? However justified they may be in wanting this, it's
| hard to deny that the costs imposed on everyone else from being
| locked out of (or trying to squeeze into) the inadequate
| housing supplies in high-opportunity regions are massive.
| xyzelement wrote:
| // So it comes down to how important you think "finders
| keepers" is - do the people who got there first have the
| right to lock everyone else out forever?
|
| I get the point you're making and it's not illogical, it's
| just what do you prioritize? In many situations honoring the
| existing relationships and the wishes of people in it is the
| more humane choice.
|
| When your dad married your mom, he locked everyone out from
| marrying her. We honor the exclusivity of their relationship
| even if there are like 5 single guys in town. We don't force
| your parents to let 5 additional men into the relationship
| because it's not fair that they are locked out.
|
| Why _should_ your dad have some special status with your mom
| - why "finders keepers?" But in reality, we honor that
| because we understand that forcing equity here would be
| horrific.
|
| Obviously I am making assumptions about your fam and that's
| just an example, and obviously your marriage is an even more
| intimate topic than the nature of your town, but you can see
| the continuum I think. If I upended my life to live in a
| certain type of town, it's very turbulent to have that town
| completely change by government decree.
|
| Also - there's no finders keepers here. Like 20% of my town
| is families that moves from the city during covid. There's
| constant turnover as older folks move out and younger
| families move in. What stays constant is the nature of town -
| those who want that nature move here, those who don't, stay
| in NYC.
| closeparen wrote:
| Men and women are naturally born in equal proportion, and
| government policies that have created big structural
| imbalances are generally considered awful mistakes.
| [deleted]
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Honestly that's some pretty complex calculus. I think it has
| more to do with the fact there are Hoovervilles all over the
| west coast due to the extreme cost of housing. Being in NY I
| get it, you don't really see them there. But but you should
| come visit the best coast and check it out - the homelessness
| problem is like a Great Depression scene. Literally every
| public open space in seattle is encamped, every road is lined
| with broken down RVs that folks are living in, etc. It's gotten
| worse over the last 5 years to the point there's something
| obviously wrong. While the insane and drug dependent are the
| most visible my understanding is this new wave of homeless are
| simply priced out of housing.
|
| The only solution is to build more homes. It doesn't get more
| complicated.
|
| Note, these homeless already live here and are entitled to
| vote. Putting them in a home won't change the demographics.
|
| That said, I'm generally not in favor of radical housing and
| zoning reform. I think there are middle path solutions. But
| it's not a gerrymandering induced issue, it's an extreme
| homelessness induced issue.
| outworlder wrote:
| > regardless of what the local people think and want.
|
| NIMBY has caused so many issues that I'm not sure the people
| who already live in a place should have this much power. They
| bought the land their property sits on and nothing else.
|
| > if the assumption is that the residents of higher-density
| dwellings are more likely to vote Democrat on average vs the
| current home owners
|
| Citation needed.
|
| > There are obvious concerns being raised about - traffic
|
| You know the great thing about higher density areas? You can
| have effective public transportation. Low density zoning
| connected by highways is the main driving force for traffic.
|
| > ability of utilities to handle the extra density
|
| It's much cheaper to do that versus low density.
|
| > school capacity
|
| Might require more schools. Or larger schools since one can
| serve more people. Certainly easier to do than having many
| schools spread across a large area.
|
| > not to mention wishes of those (like me) who explicitly chose
| a suburban lifestyle for our family
|
| You should book a trip with your family and visit an european
| country, with their walkable cities. And then come back and let
| us know if a suburb - which you can only reach via car and
| people are mostly inside their houses because there's nothing
| to do outside - is really preferable to a city where you can
| actually walk around (and, for kids, actually socialize)
| xyzelement wrote:
| // You should book a trip with your family and visit an
| european country, with their walkable cities. And then come
| back and let us know if a suburb - which you can only reach
| via car and people are mostly inside their houses because
| there's nothing to do outside - is really preferable to a
| city where you can actually walk around (and, for kids,
| actually socialize)
|
| (I am the person you're responding to.) I grew up in Europe
| and then lived in NYC. So I am _extremely_ familiar with this
| model. I am also someone who chose to live in the burbs once
| we had kids.
|
| In Manhattan, my neighbors had ~0 kids on average. In my
| current town, my neighbors are by and large former NYC
| residents who have ~3-4 kids on average. Very clearly people
| with kids are choosing the burbs, despite plenty of
| experience with the other model, and I expect that most of my
| neighbors have been to Europe plenty. We know the options.
|
| Also, have you ever been to Europe outside the big cities?
| You need a car.
|
| And also also, do you have kids? I was much more enthused
| about city life before I had a family, now I get it.
| ladberg wrote:
| As someone who grew up in California and is now in NY, I don't
| think that hypothesis is correct at all. And even if it was,
| isn't it actually less gerrymandering? Uniformly spreading the
| different populations is much fairer than artificially
| restricting them to an "already-super Blue city".
| xyzelement wrote:
| // artificially restricting them to an "already-super Blue
| city".
|
| I think the idea is that people are choosing how to live.
| When I was younger, I chose to live in Manhattan because that
| made sense for work and dating. If Manhattan was rezoned to
| single-family homes, I'd be pissed.
|
| Now I chose to live in an a medium density area (.15 acre
| lots, way less dense than the city, much more dense than the
| 2 acre lots in other towns) because of the lifestyle it
| affords. We know all our neighbors, the streets are quiet,
| etc. Everyone who lives here owns here. Everyone in this town
| chose this town for these attributes.
|
| To stick in a high-rise here despite the desires of every
| resident would be the "artificial" thing. In the city, you
| can always build higher and nobody can really object to the
| extra density because that was always part of the equation.
| hemloc_io wrote:
| The deadlock in the bay area is much worse than than NYC, not
| sure about new york state. E.g. NYC has a maximum amount of
| time you're allowed to argue about some new development, the
| bay area doesn't.
|
| Generally speaking in the Northeast there's way more inbuilt
| density so this is less of an issue imo.
|
| Things are so spread out over here that trains literally don't
| exist.
| Labienus wrote:
| It's unlikely to change development significantly.
|
| California NIMBYs still have enormous autonomy through CEQA. It
| enables any individual to contest developments for years,
| obligating developers enormous sums of money and time to study
| "environmental impacts".
|
| Last winter, the law was expanded through a ruling in Berkeley.
| If a development adds a sizable number of people, it can be seen
| as an environmental impact and denied.
|
| Development will remain costly, time consuming, and ultimately as
| unpredictable as the law allows. Wealthy and well connected
| developers might get by, but it won't be a Japan-like situation.
| For those wishing reform on an "environmental law" it will be a
| lot more politically costly. We'll likely get another Houston
| situation where "no zoning" doesn't imply what it should imply.
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/signature-...
|
| https://calmatters.org/commentary/2023/01/how-environmental-...
| theGnuMe wrote:
| I encourage you to read
|
| https://www.yimbylaw.org/law-journal/does-it-matter-that-ceq...
|
| 20% affordable housing projects are exempt.
| raldi wrote:
| Perhaps not coincidentally, Berkeley's housing element was just
| rejected today (the deadline by which they needed it certified
| in order to avoid the Builder's Remedy). The provisions in this
| piece will kick in there tomorrow.
|
| As for CEQA, here's what a local law firm has to say: "In
| particular, the intersection between Builder's Remedy and
| California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) remains untested.
| Jurisdictions may try to use CEQA to regain discretionary
| authority over Builder's Remedy projects. Whether that tactic
| will prove effective remains to be seen, given that CEQA may
| not be used to do that which other statutes prohibit. Pub. Res.
| Code, SS 21004; CEQA Guidelines SS 15040(e)."
|
| https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2022/10/build...
| chung8123 wrote:
| This isn't removing zoning. It is changing zoning to someone
| else's view. There are still low income requirements for
| building. The state still has zoning powers.
| cobaltoxide wrote:
| I love it.
| el_don_almighty wrote:
| FIRE!... Water!... Sewage...
|
| Who covers the new costs for high-rise firetrucks, crews, and
| training?
|
| What about high-pressure water supply for upper floors and high-
| capacity sewage management for the suddenly increased, ahem...
| effluence of these new living spaces?
|
| What about suddenly dumping another 2,000 cars into a
| neighborhood without parking and traffic management for everyone
| leaving and returning at the same time? (magical thinking about
| mass transit?)
|
| Surface and sub-surface infrastructure costs remain the hidden
| barrier to expansion and they can't be wished away. Real zoning
| is about managing capital investments and leveraging
| infrastructure for dual use where possible. Yes, it can be used
| for evil, but at the root, zoning is actually about central
| social management of scarce infrastructure resources.
|
| So, I guess, hooray? You've unleashed a bunch of capitalist land
| barons who can now ignore local citizen oversight of their
| countryside and capital infrastructure spending?
|
| You may not be happy with today, but the impact of this change is
| not well considered and I suspect the 7-year wailing will come
| from every optimistic constituent whose childlike expectations
| were obviously never possible through simple inspection of the
| proposal
| wyago wrote:
| What makes you assume that urban infrastructure is net costlier
| per capita than suburban?
| CydeWeys wrote:
| All of the issues you just mentioned are much more expensive on
| a per capita basis to deal with in spread-out car-centric
| suburbs than in dense cities. Indeed if these are the issues
| that you _actually_ care about them you should be championing
| as many people living in dense cities in possible. Such people
| use much less water, can much more efficiently be served by
| emergency services, generate way less car traffic, etc., etc.
| This law being enforced is a win-win as far as you 're
| concerned.
| beambot wrote:
| Is there a list of all SFBA cities and their status...?
| flaque wrote:
| Here ya go:
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WG6X2sttiYltyGbWWfG4...
| crooked-v wrote:
| Sadly this won't apply to San Francisco, which has made a very
| unlikely-sounding pinkie promise to allow 8,200 new housing units
| a year starting right now.
| opportune wrote:
| The SF plan does make some sense though. For example most of
| Lombard street through the Marina got upzoned. So all those old
| motor hotels can probably be converted into multistory housing.
| arnonejoe wrote:
| Low income housing in Marin County, Orinda, Lafayette, Danville,
| Menlo Park, Atherton? Will never happen.
| jimmydddd wrote:
| We've had these laws in NJ (USA) for many years now. The results
| are mixed. What basically happened is that if a several acre lot
| became available in a suburban town, the builder would petition
| to change the single familty home zoing to allow them to build a
| 100 unit condo buliding. My relatively small town had a
| population of about 7k people for many years, but then quickly
| shot up to 10k in just a few years due to many 100 unit buildings
| being built.
|
| NJ is unusual in that we have many small towns. The large
| builders learned how to take advantage of these laws and built
| legal teams that can easily defeat the lawyers representing the
| small towns. And the small towns don't want to risk millions of
| taxpayer dollars on a litigation with a small chance of winning.
|
| And the town always loses in the court of public opinion. The
| towns try to argue against forced over development, but the large
| builders change the narative to the town being
| racist/classist/greedy, etc. If you go to the K Hovnanian site
| and look at the map of their developments, NJ is full of red
| dots.
| gowld wrote:
| What's wrong with building housing for people who want a place
| to live?
| outside1234 wrote:
| LOVE IT! LET'S GO!
| slibhb wrote:
| > That all changed with laws mainly passed by state senators
| Nancy Skinner (D - Berkeley) and Scott Wiener (D - San Francisco)
| in the 2010s to update the RHNA requirements. Cities now had to
| zone for a variety of equitable impacts, most importantly putting
| housing in affluent neighborhoods, away from toxic industry and
| in ways that were feasible for development. So for example, SoCal
| cities loved to zone for apartments on top of active, popular
| shopping centers that would never be torn down. This was no
| longer permitted.
|
| > And Wiener's law SB 828 reformed RHNA so that the numbers had
| to more accurately gauge for population demand, lack of vacant
| housing and household formation which increased housing
| requirements tremendously. Places like Beverly Hills went from
| being required to build 3 homes over 8 years in the previous RHNA
| cycle to 3,000 homes now post-SB 828.
|
| As someone who is generally anti-woke, stuff like this is
| sobering. Laws drafted by woke politicians aimed at achieving
| woke buzzwords ("equitable impacts") led to something really
| excellent.
|
| A great argument for "the cunning of reason".
| softsound wrote:
| Looking at other countries like Japan with like barely any zoning
| laws, this looks great, I hope it leads to more mixed cities
| again and more walkable/liveable areas like before WW2. It is
| funny that America land of the free had so many restrictions,
| building up hundreds of zoning laws across the country did a lot
| of bad and led to a lot of urban sprawl leading to very poor
| cities and towns that literally cannot pay for themselves. I
| think we need _some_ zoning laws though, and I 'm sure these laws
| will come back faster then people expect mostly from bad planning
| or large bribes whichever. But hopefully some good helpful zoning
| laws will stick.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| They demolish everything every 30 years
| zugi wrote:
| > like Japan with like barely any zoning laws
|
| I read an article a year or two ago (maybe posted here?) about
| Japan's zoning laws and they just make sense.
|
| - Rather than dozens of categories, there are just 4 or 5 in
| increasing amounts of annoyance (e.g residence -> retail/office
| -> manufacturing) and areas approved for one level can always
| be used by lower levels.
|
| - The laws are uniform nationally.
|
| - Zoning decisions get made at higher levels (prefecture or
| national?) so they can consider what the whole region needs,
| and get less NIMBYism / maximize-my-near-term-property-value-
| ism.
|
| I don't recall whether they even have the distinct single-
| family versus multi-family dwelling categorization that seems
| to cause so much of the housing supply shortage in the U.S.
| asciimike wrote:
| Was it http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-
| zoning.html by chance?
| zajio1am wrote:
| I think that many US people have too optimistic idea about
| zoning laws in other countries. In many countries there are
| floor area ratio requirements in zoning plans and if you have
| ratio limit 0.2 on <1000 m^2 land lots, you cannot really build
| anything much different than single family housing.
| hibikir wrote:
| This has little to do with the existence of zoning laws
| themselves, but the specific zones that they define. Japan has
| zones, so does Spain. But there's just nothing anywhere near as
| Restrictive as most US cities' R1 zone. Many places have R2s
| and R3s that are still more restrictive than the least dense
| thing than a Spanish city has.
|
| Remove zones alone, and HOAs will get areas into legally
| binding covenants that are also just as tough as their current
| zoning regulation.
|
| To solve the US density issue, localities have to be severely
| restricted in what they can block, but we also have to look at
| the bigger picture: What is making people want to restrict
| their neighborhood to extremely low density suburbs? The
| answers are very uncomfortable.
| nlavezzo wrote:
| > The answers are very uncomfortable.
|
| Are they? Isn't it possible that people who live in beautiful
| neighborhoods with mature trees, nice big yards, and low
| traffic streets that are safe for kids to play around, want
| to keep them that way for primarily those reasons?
|
| Of course their desires alone shouldn't be the final word on
| proposed changes to codes, but implying that all of these
| homeowners are primarily driven by prejudice is a pretty big
| leap given the many obvious benefits of the status quo for
| them.
|
| I imagine you could take almost any demographic and put them
| in a low density neighborhood with big yards, trees, low
| traffic, and neighbors that they've known for decades, and
| they're going to resist change.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > Isn't it possible that people who live in beautiful
| neighborhoods with mature trees, nice big yards, and low
| traffic streets that are safe for kids to play around, want
| to keep them that way for primarily those reasons?
|
| Yes that is absolutely something people want. You can get
| that in cities if you give up on yard and instead share
| with parks. That said, _some_ of the reasons people want it
| are uncomfortable.
|
| Some people don't like change and moved somewhere based on
| how it looked in <year>, understandable, but change is a
| part of life especially as our population grows. Streets
| that are safe for kids are common in many parts of the
| world, in many different city structures, not just suburbs.
| So the "family friendly" myth about suburbs isn't true.
|
| Regarding uncomfortable truths, if you go and listen to
| some of the town meetings, you'll walk away with a couple
| points, of varying degrees of prejudice.
|
| Some people simply want it to be "exclusionary" to keep
| prices up, and to keep themselves feeling special. Those
| people in town meetings may suggest paying for affordable
| housing _in another town_ to keep theirs as is.
|
| Some people will say they don't want affordable housing
| because "we all know that _those people_ bring crime". This
| can be a varying degree of prejudice, whether it's low
| income people or racial minorities, but invariably someone
| always says it.
| eweise wrote:
| My brother bought a house in Fremont next to an apartment
| building. Had nothing but trouble with the neighbors;
| loud noise, trash around, tons of traffic in front of his
| house. He eventually had to move.
| GenerocUsername wrote:
| Parks cannot replace yards as long as the homeless camps
| exist across every existing park in my city.
| nerdbert wrote:
| And people will be homeless in large numbers until enough
| housing is built for them, and the government is allowed
| to spend the $x to house them rather than the $(x * y)
| required to deal with all the effects them being
| homeless.
| xp84 wrote:
| This is very true. Sadly there is zero chance of finding
| a politically-palatable solution for this one in
| California.
| d3nj4l wrote:
| What is the non-politically-palatable solution?
| nerdbert wrote:
| Build subsidized housing for people who need it. Time and
| time again experience has shown that to be the cheapest
| solution. But many Americans who never grew past
| toddlerhood find that unacceptable because it means
| someone else is getting something they aren't.
| Dig1t wrote:
| Yes, exactly this. Additionally we have seen how many
| once beautiful cities and parks have turned into unsafe
| homeless camps because of government policy. If I buy a
| house with a nice backyard I can guarantee that it will
| be nice as long as I maintain it. I cannot guarantee that
| the local park will not turn into a needle strewn
| homeless camp sometime in the future when some politician
| changes something.
| nlavezzo wrote:
| I'm sure at town meetings there are plenty of unsavory
| things said, and people with prejudices show up in
| disproportionate numbers. It's just not accurate or OK to
| imply that all property owners seeking to keep their
| neighborhoods from rapidly changing to higher densities
| are doing so out of prejudice. Give people the benefit of
| believing they are primarily motivated by rational self
| interest rather than some irrational prejudice.
|
| I totally agree parks are an amazing solution and can
| create really nice places for kids to play safely. We
| love our parks. That said, even if the end product is
| objectively better for the current homeowners due to new
| amenities, etc. there is still a long period of lots of
| construction they'll have to endure that might be the
| only years their kids are at an age where they'd normally
| be wandering the previously quiet neighborhood. None of
| this is simple, and it's going to be a trade-off between
| the valid interests of the existing property owners and
| the valid interests of the larger metro area population
| that needs a place to live.
| gspencley wrote:
| I have nothing against parks. Parks are great. But I'm
| not sure what problem they supposedly solve.
|
| If I were living in an apartment, then a park would be
| better than nothing.
|
| But I can't grow a vegetable garden in a park. I can't
| enjoy the park while I have stuff inside my house that I
| need to check on in 15 minutes. You can't let a 5 year-
| old go to the park alone but, if your backyard is
| relatively secured and you can see them out of your
| window, then you can let them play in the backyard. I
| can't let my dog out to run to the park in order to "do
| its business" etc. I don't have the same level of privacy
| and solitude at a park as I do in my backyard.
|
| While there are certain things I would prioritize over a
| backyard (like having a garage to set up a "makers shop"
| in), there's not much I would trade a backyard for ...
| least of all a park.
|
| Beyond the "yard solution" I also have a very hard time
| living in even medium-sized cities, let alone large ones.
| I don't like noise, traffic (street or pedestrian) or
| crowds. Public transportation is a nightmare for me and
| grocery delivery services have actually saved my life so
| I don't need or want a grocery store within walking
| distance (I find shopping to be one of the most stressful
| activities in life). Rural living is for me.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > But I can't grow a vegetable garden in a park.
|
| Zurich has community gardens because of that. Of course,
| demand is high, you'll need to get on a list for a plot.
|
| But it sounds like you really need rural living, but just
| a heavy socialized municipality.
| notch898a wrote:
| In the US it is an arrestable offense for your kids to go
| play in the park on their own, so I pretty much see it as
| a waste to fund children's playgrounds. Average parent is
| worked to death just keeping the household afloat with no
| time to have to accompany their kid the whole time.
| Rather have a private one where the police at least need
| a warrant to enter the secured curtilage.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > In the US it is an arrestable offense for your kids to
| go play in the park on their own
|
| No, that is definitely just an urban legend. First, the
| law would depend on the state, and second, most states
| don't have restrictions for kids once they are 7-8 years
| old, which I consider way too young to be by themselves
| but I wouldn't get arrested over it.
| notch898a wrote:
| OK as long as you say you won't be arrested I'm sure you
| won't. The news stories simply from googling "arrested
| child park" were all fake.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| It does depend on your state, but whenever it happens,
| it's a news story simply because it doesn't happen often.
| Nuance is important:
|
| > Phillips, Debra Harrell's attorney, confirmed there is
| no age at which a child can be left on his or her own
| specified in South Carolina law. The challenge for the
| prosecutor will be to prove that this child's needs and
| care were not adequately arranged before she was left at
| the park, he said.
|
| There is no law against it (in South Carolina at least).
| The law they are using for the charge is reckless
| endangerment. And usually at the end of it, prosecutors
| drop all charges due to lack of evidence.
| notch898a wrote:
| Have you ever been subject of a criminal complaint? Not
| long ago I was detained on some absurd hearsay. I was
| cuffed, I was fingerprinted, I was strip searched. Tossed
| in a cell. Made to perform bodily functions in front of
| officers. You don't know who is going to take care of
| your pets, your child(ren). You don't know if you'll be
| fired from your job. You don't know when you'll be
| released. In the case of something involving a child, it
| will be used as prejudicial information in the DCS case
| and the followup investigation. You quite likely will be
| put on a civil list of child abusers, which makes it
| difficult to work with children or adopt.
|
| All these things make public playgrounds just extremely
| inconvenient. It's such a treacherous hazard I can't in
| good conscious consider it as anything close to a
| substitute.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Again that's not how it works. First, whenever this
| happens it is broadcast widely in the news. Second, there
| is some debate, a mention that no state law (and
| definitely no federal law, as the original comment
| suggested) actually exists prohibiting kids from being at
| the playground alone, a vague weak law is used and then
| the prosecutor goes WTF were the police thinking.
| scythe wrote:
| >But I can't grow a vegetable garden in a park.
|
| It's funny how common things like vegetable gardens are
| in Internet rhetoric and how comparatively rare they are
| in the world I actually walk around in.
|
| This is a thread about development policy. If you
| actually want to raise a vegetable garden, you're in a
| small minority. Nobody is forcing you to live anywhere,
| and there is certainly no need to prevent the growth of
| cities or preserve low-density neighborhoods in the inner
| region of a major metropolitan area to ensure there will
| be space for the small fraction of us who want to grow
| their own tomatoes. In fact the opposite is true:
| allowing dense development to take place ensures that
| there will be more unspoilt land available on the
| outskirts for those of us with a green thumb.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _I 'm sure at town meetings there are plenty of
| unsavory things said, and people with prejudices show up
| in disproportionate numbers. It's just not accurate or OK
| to imply that all property owners seeking to keep their
| neighborhoods from rapidly changing to higher densities
| are doing so out of prejudice._
|
| Perhaps not, but it's the people who attend town meetings
| and complain (more often than not for prejudiced reasons,
| IME) who influence housing policy. City planning
| leadership reacts to and votes on the opinions of _those_
| people primarily, not the people who don 't show up.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| And additionally, the only people who _would_ show up
| already live there, when a large part of this issue is
| about a non-present constituency: those who have either
| been forced to leave, or those who would like to move
| there, but cannot afford to currently.
|
| So it's even more non-representative than that!
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > It's just not accurate or OK to imply that all property
| owners seeking to keep their neighborhoods from rapidly
| changing to higher densities are doing so out of
| prejudice
|
| Very few people here are implying this. It's true that
| some people are doing it out of prejudice, and that some
| of American culture has been conditioned to like the
| suburbs, out of historic prejudices.
|
| > there is still a long period of lots of construction
| they'll have to endure that might be the only years their
| kids are at an age where they'd normally be wandering the
| previously quiet neighborhood.
|
| Those people will still have the yards they had yesterday
| though? They'll still have everything they had the day
| before zoning changed. Nothing is lost for homeowners.
| The whole neighborhood isn't going to be under
| scaffolding overnight and quiet neighborhoods are far
| more dangerous for kids to play outside than a more
| developed area.
|
| And just as development isn't instantaneous, neither is
| childhood growth - the people that move into new houses
| that are built will likely be pre-child families looking
| to move somewhere (still quite) quiet to raise a kid.
|
| > trade-off between the valid interests of the existing
| property owners and the valid interests of the larger
| metro area population that needs a place to live.
|
| Completely false dichotomy. This isn't about metro vs
| suburbs. It's those homeowners vs all of society, or more
| precisely current town residents vs future town
| residents.
|
| The suburbs need more housing, and the cities. All of
| American society has too few houses for the population,
| and people have to live somewhere. Some want to live in a
| big city, but some want to live outside a big city. This
| population should not be looked at as "city overflow" and
| more than the current residents should be considered city
| dwellers. Plenty of people would rather live in a 5% more
| dense Hillsboro than a 5% more dense San Francisco. And
| both towns may need to be 5% more dense to support
| housing needs.
| scythe wrote:
| > > The answers are very uncomfortable.
|
| > but implying that all of these homeowners are primarily
| driven by prejudice
|
| This is a good example of why being coy rather than
| explicit is bad for productive discussion. Bigotry of its
| various forms is certainly one possible uncomfortable
| answer to the question. But there are others, like crime,
| or the effect of local property-value-to-enrollment ratio
| on school quality, or plenty of other problems that
| systematically occur in American cities.
|
| NIMBYism is by no means the exclusive domain of homeowners
| in low-density neighborhoods. Even when it comes from them,
| they are often concerned with developments that are not
| actually in their neighborhoods -- their trees and yards
| not being in jeopardy. There's a fundamental distrust of
| the overall process of development that animates anti-
| growth sentiments not only in middle-class neighborhoods
| but also in, for example, the Mission.
| JAlexoid wrote:
| They absolutely can.
|
| In the end it should be their right... but... what happens
| now, is that they underpay for the infrastructure and
| services they get.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Low traffic streets are a reason to remove cars, not
| people.
| dahfizz wrote:
| The pro-density crowd cannot comprehend wanting to live in
| a quiet, safe, uncrowded town. They say the only possible
| motivations are money and racism.
| [deleted]
| lamontcg wrote:
| San Fransisco left behind "uncrowded town" quite a lot
| time ago.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| Sure we can. We just think that can also look like this:
| https://youtu.be/5APjiZz_XCY
|
| Uncrowded is subjective I suppose but it's certainly no
| Manhattan.
| xp84 wrote:
| many others have pointed out how tunnel-vision you are
| being, but just wanted to add:
|
| Low traffic - Less cars driving
|
| How do you get less cars driving? People need realistic
| options. How do you get those options? Density to support
| transit and Density to support having businesses close to
| everyone's homes so they can just walk or bike. Car-
| dependent suburbia IS the problem, and the more of it you
| have in the city the bigger the problems of traffic and
| unaffordability get.
|
| Finally though:
|
| > want to keep them that way
|
| Look, don't get carried away. Unless a very significant
| block of homeowners in your beautiful leafy neighborhood
| are itching to sell, you have literally nothing to fear.
| Maybe when a large mall is demolished a mile away from you,
| someone will build something other than single-family tract
| homes. Big whoop.
|
| *Nobody is coming for your suburbs with bulldozers* just
| because "SFH" might not be enshrined as the only way
| anything can be developed.
| dahfizz wrote:
| This is a very simplistic view. Less people per unit land
| also means less cars per unit land. Depending on how the
| roads are designed, you can get a spread out neighborhood
| with no traffic on your street.
|
| I grew up on a cul-de-sac. There were 8 houses on the
| street. The only time there was a car on the street is
| when someone from one of those 8 houses went somewhere.
| There was zero traffic and the street was safe for kids
| to play in.
| nerdbert wrote:
| > Less people per unit land also means less cars per unit
| land.
|
| Only if you arbitrarily cherry-pick the unit of analysis
| to support your argument.
|
| The only way to actually reduce cars per unit of land
| across all available land is to increase housing density
| so that sensible transportation alternatives like bicycle
| and metro become viable for the lazier marginal
| population.
| nlavezzo wrote:
| > many others have pointed out how tunnel-vision you are
| being
|
| I'm not advocating for low density suburbs or for things
| to remain unchanged.
|
| My point was that the implication that some kind of
| nefarious prejudice was the main reason for homeowners
| wanting to keep the status quo, isn't fair or accurate.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _Isn 't it possible that people who live in beautiful
| neighborhoods with mature trees, nice big yards, and low
| traffic streets that are safe for kids to play around_
|
| Basically how things were built pre-WW2?
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0&t=68s
|
| The _Oh the Urbanity_ channel has a video on the
| (misguided) idea that _" urban living" = Manhattan / Hong
| Kong apartment blocks_:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCmz-fgp24E
|
| Examples (Streetview):
|
| * https://www.google.com/maps/place/125+Hampton+Ave,+Toront
| o,+...
|
| * https://www.google.com/maps/place/50+Geoffrey+St,+Toronto
| ,+O...
|
| * https://www.google.com/maps/place/70+Jackman+Ave+Toronto,
| +ON
|
| See also:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO6txCZpbsQ&t=9m28s
|
| Fifteen minutes pedalling in one direction is downtown
| Amsterdam, fifteen minutes in the other is farm land.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| > Basically how things were built pre-WW2?
|
| The majority of America was not some idyllic "streetcar
| suburb" even pre WWII. Majority of it was either grid
| based urban development or rural residential /
| agriculture in large plots (often 20, 40, 80, 160, 320,
| 640 acre plots).
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20131108174122/http://www.the
| gre...
|
| As agriculture got more efficient, and raising food for
| ones self became less common, and as cars became more
| prevalent these large rural plots often got sold to
| developers who would be tasked with breaking up the land
| into parcels and installing new roads and infrastructure.
|
| Even in 1906 in San Francisco, you can see that cars are
| beginning to overtake the cable car and horse carriage as
| the central form of transport:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHkc83XA2dY
|
| So it's natural that majority of American land was
| developed around the automobile.
| willnonya wrote:
| "Basically how things were built pre-WW2?"
|
| Or, like many places still build them today?
| hadlock wrote:
| Many of the big trees are on public right of ways. Nothing
| is happening to them. The center of many city residential
| blocks are still quiet green oasis. Busy streets will still
| stay busy, quiet side streets tend to stay that way. Go
| look at any european city, or any city outside of the US
| really
| parineum wrote:
| > Many of the big trees are on public right of ways.
| Nothing is happening to them.
|
| *Until the city decides they want to change it
|
| That's why people want to ensrine in law that those trees
| don't change. They don't trust the city to maintain
| homeostasis for the duration of their residency.
|
| What happens when people want to build a new apartment
| building but those trees are too big to safely build next
| to?
| nerdbert wrote:
| You make a very good point: Only cities chop down trees,
| private landowners absolutely never ever do.
| anyfoo wrote:
| > Are they? Isn't it possible that people who live in
| beautiful neighborhoods with mature trees, nice big yards,
| and low traffic streets that are safe for kids to play
| around, want to keep them that way for primarily those
| reasons?
|
| You're describing European cities, there. That is literally
| how I grew up in a big city, and we were lower middle class
| at best.
| dnissley wrote:
| I would say that the reasons you stated above are
| uncomfortable because they are implicitly discriminatory to
| people outside those areas who want to move in. People who
| already live there are, in effect, saying "we're full up
| here, go somewhere else". And these are often the same
| people with signs in their front yard saying things like
| "no matter where you are from, we're glad you're our
| neighbor" in multiple languages, or "climate change is
| real", or "no human is illegal" which espouse values in
| direct opposition to that implicitly discriminatory
| message.
| kiba wrote:
| _Are they? Isn 't it possible that people who live in
| beautiful neighborhoods with mature trees, nice big yards,
| and low traffic streets that are safe for kids to play
| around, want to keep them that way for primarily those
| reasons?_
|
| Cars are currently two tons noise and pollution machine.
| It's no wonder why people feel unsafe around them.
|
| You could restrict traffic to only bicycles and pedestrians
| combined with mixed zoning.
|
| Also, lawn mowers....They're extremely loud.
| harvey9 wrote:
| Seems like a non sequitur
| andrepd wrote:
| > low traffic streets that are safe for kids to play around
|
| Suburban streets are extremely dangerous to kids (in fact
| being hit by a driver is the leading cause of death to kids
| under 14).
|
| You know what is safe? Walkable cities, pedestrianised
| streets, speed bumps wherever cars do drive inside the
| city, etc.
| api wrote:
| > that are safe for kids
|
| It's all about kids.
|
| Without kids in the picture sure, go ahead, make cities
| look like Coruscant from Star Wars.
|
| The instant you have kids you see how important open spaces
| safe enough for unstructured minimally supervised play are.
| Without spaces like this all you have are kids drooling on
| Roblox and YouTube all day. There's nothing for kids in an
| urban core.
|
| Those spaces don't have to be undeveloped or even outdoor
| but I have yet to see a city successfully create an
| environment safe enough that I'd let my small daughters run
| around.
|
| So while I agree that zoning is dumb and complicated, I
| also think it's important to understand where people are
| coming from.
| kelnos wrote:
| Your opinion here seems to come from more a lack of
| experience or imagination, than from reality. Yes, many
| US "urban cores" are as you describe. But that is not the
| norm. The US is severely broken when it comes to city
| planning, and has been since at least the advent of the
| automobile.
| dvdkon wrote:
| With suburban sprawl, it's likely the only places within
| walking distance (i.e. "kid-reachable") are other houses,
| maybe a park. If managed well, a dense(r) city can have a
| forest or other semi-natural area nearby to everyone.
| dahfizz wrote:
| Name a single city in walking distance to a forest. And
| no, Central Park is not a forest.
|
| I have acres of woods _in my backyard_. There are also no
| homeless people sleeping on the benches.
| dvdkon wrote:
| Good for you that you have the money to buy acres of
| woods (or an exclusive parcel bordering woodland) and a
| job that can support living in a remote place. For many
| people that would want that lifestyle it's simply
| unattainable, and we should give them reasonable
| alternatives.
|
| I live in Prague, my parents in a nearby town. Walking 10
| minutes gets me either to a metro station or an "urban
| forest"/heavily wooded park called Stromovka. I think
| it's a very appropriate place for kids to play in nature.
| My parents have walking/biking access to similar places.
|
| Not every place in Prague is this close to nature, but
| it's common enough that someone seeking that kind of
| housing can get it at basically no premium.
| noelwelsh wrote:
| Freiburg in Germany. The black forest literally starts at
| the edge of the city. It was a while since I was there,
| but we definitely walked from the city centre to the
| forest. Might have been 30 minutes. Would be quick on a
| bike.
|
| Zaragoza in Spain. Walked from the old city centre to the
| edge of the city (which was apartment blocks) in a
| reasonable time. It was mostly agricultural land, but I
| recall some forest along the river.
|
| San Sebastian, also in Spain. You can walk into the
| hills, but we went to the beach.
|
| Parks covered in homeless people is a US problem, in my
| experience. I've been around most of Europe and haven't
| seen anything like that. The homeless problem in the US
| is a policy choice, just like the urban development is.
| It's easily solvable given political will.
|
| Can you walk to a cafe?
| nerdbert wrote:
| > Name a single city in walking distance to a forest.
|
| Offhand, from relatively recent experience:
|
| Singapore and Hong Kong contain forests, and when living
| there I regularly walked to them. Hong Kong is more than
| half green space.
|
| The east side of Cologne is around an hour's walk from a
| proper forest.
|
| Central Salzburg is an easy walk from several forests.
|
| Hiroshima is surrounded by gorgeous forests, easily
| reached on foot, where you occasionally encountered
| secluded temples along the paths.
| neilparikh wrote:
| Japan is much more child friendly in terms of that. For
| example, young children are regularly sent to do errands
| on their own (see the Old Enough tv show for an
| exaggerated version of that). So people may believe it to
| be the case, but I'm not convinced our zoning style
| achieves that goal.
| somethoughts wrote:
| In theory I agree - however there some differences
| between Japan and the US/CA.
|
| I think the key with Japan is that they have several big
| HOA style restrictions at the very front of their
| property - the border. Immigration and existing cultural
| norms of being super respectful and following conventions
| in public places make this possible - the HOA style rules
| are built in at the country level.
|
| There's also a very strict police presence apparently to
| ensure HOA compliance. [1]
|
| It'd be awesome if there was experimental urban (or
| suburban) development in the US/CA that existed that was
| very high density and had very strict HOA rules and
| enforcement similar to Japan/Singapore.
|
| [1] Japan, a "heaven for cops"
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAri8cD4kN8
| anticensor wrote:
| This is what every country needs.
| [deleted]
| JAlexoid wrote:
| I grew up in a Soviet planned city, with courtyard
| focused developments.
|
| Our playgrounds were(they still are) larger and more
| accessible, than anything my current neighbours kids get
| on their 2a of land in rural USA.
|
| Even the new developments in Eastern Europe provide a kid
| friendly courtyard. Shielded from all traffic and
| observable by literally the whole community.
|
| Suburbia should be reserved for the insane rich people,
| that hate their neighbors.
| [deleted]
| mistrial9 wrote:
| Advantages for real-estate developers triumphed over the
| community-minded across a lot of the USA. I talked to my
| elderly Uncle, and he said that these zoning and quality
| of life issues were discussed quite a bit in the 1950s,
| but the "sprawl" pattern won in most cases. Shopping mall
| retail is another example of low-quality results in the
| USA, but with a different menu of inputs.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| You can have all this (and more!) in cities as well. Lived
| in Seattle for a bit and my apartment had several
| neighborhoods of single-family homes within a couple
| blocks: each with mature trees, yards, and low traffic
| streets. Sure, the yard maybe isn't as massive as you can
| get in a suburb, but there's still plenty of space (and far
| more public parks).
|
| Because they were so close to dense housing, they also had
| the added benefits of public transit and being walking
| distance to several grocery stores. Much better than
| suburbia in my opinion.
| brundolf wrote:
| Having lived in Texas my whole life this idea was mostly
| foreign to me, but last year I visited Brooklyn and had
| my eyes opened
| steveklabnik wrote:
| ... and I moved to Texas from Brooklyn, and I can assure
| you, longer term residents than me are still finding it
| foreign. That's slowly changing...
| hcurtiss wrote:
| But I do think that's a matter of opinion, and totally
| unrelated to prejudice.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Much better than suburbia in my opinion.
|
| I think a lot of people just assume that the only kind of
| suburbia that exists is endless tract housing as far as
| the eye can see. I'm absolutely positive that does
| happen, but I've never lived in a suburban neighborhood
| that fit such a description. We have stores. We have
| business parks here and there. Heck, we even have public
| transit.
|
| This is probably why there is such a dichotomy between
| those who hate suburbia, and those who love it. Different
| experiences piggybacking on the same terminology.
| runarberg wrote:
| I don't think parent was denying that, or at least I
| don't get a sense of this dichotomy in the text. As
| someone that lives on Vashon island (what some consider a
| suburb of Seattle; but I actually consider rural King
| County), I got the sense that suburbia here was
| specifically directed at the endless tract of housing one
| (so like East Bellevue, Kent, or large parts of
| Kirkland), but not actual small towns around the main
| city (like Bothel, Lynnwood, Kirkland proper, or--well--
| Vashon) or even other dense urban areas like Burien or
| Redmond.
| chrisfinazzo wrote:
| If you find your way to my other comment ("suburban
| sprawl") this is largely what it looked like to me when I
| visited my brother. The developments aren't very large
| and there is roughly nothing around them.
|
| Contrast to NJ, where the NYC suburbs extend way outside
| Midtown and the city limits.
|
| As a result, it is very rare to feel like you are in the
| middle of nowhere.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Those single family homes are the exact plots that people
| look to as examples of NIMBY homeowners standing in the
| way of affordable housing.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Old narrow-street, maybe an alley in the back, grid-
| layout suburbs with the odd block corner zoned commercial
| and all-neighborhood-streets routes to all kinds of
| businesses and parks and libraries and such are a whole
| different beast from the twisty-road car-dependent mazes
| of post-70s suburbia. And they're so much damn nicer. Too
| bad no-one builds them anymore.
| twiddling wrote:
| problem isn't zoning but design regulations. A lot of
| street design is dictated by being able to fire engine
| equipment in and turned around. Hence no new alleys are
| being built.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I don't even mean _that_ narrow. Just not, like, 4ish
| cars wide. More like 3 or 2.5 (if one-way).
| ultrarunner wrote:
| The "residential" road that I live on is (and most in the
| area are) 45 ft wide, with 2.5' sidewalks. The Hummer H1
| is an incredible 7.2 feet wide, meaning you could fit six
| full-size hummers side-by-side down this road. Add in the
| mandatory front 30ft setback and you have a sight line
| that is around 110 feet wide.
|
| People are expected to go up to 30 mph here. They don't.
| alistairSH wrote:
| We could build fire equipment to fit narrower streets.
| c0nsumer wrote:
| We moved from the latter to the former about a year ago,
| and it's SO MUCH BETTER. The low traffic residential grid
| roads make great walking and cycling (for quite long
| distances) and the closer proximity to neighbors seems to
| result in friendlier people. I'm amazed at what a
| different feeling it is compared to our old
| McMansion/Condo stuff where people kept to their boxes
| and didn't seem to know how to politely interact.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Most cities have zoning that doesn't allow that kind of
| thing.
| jtbayly wrote:
| I mean, you're basically saying that you can have
| suburbia in the city?
|
| If lots of people want it, the price will skyrocket, so
| then somebody will buy some land just outside the city
| and build suburbia there so more people can afford it.
|
| Rinse and repeat.
| zzzeek wrote:
| I dont like noise, light pollution, or crowds. I'd like
| nighttime to be silent and pitch dark, and the daytime to
| be mostly silent as well.
|
| I go on trips and need to be able to load lots of stuff
| in and out of "my" or "a" car without living in terror of
| all of my stuff getting stolen while I'm inside.
|
| Where should I live?
|
| Note: I lived in three different boroughs of NYC for 25
| years
| Larrikin wrote:
| Sounds like you're describing a farm
| yamtaddle wrote:
| ... in Winter.
|
| Warm months can get noisy. Especially the god-damned
| locusts, but there are crickets and all kinds of things
| at night, even when those are dormant. Coyotes--those
| even, and perhaps especially, in Winter, but at least
| they're not so unpleasant to listen to unless your dogs
| are out or you forgot to put the fowl in for the night.
| Seemingly-endless Canada geese flocks low overhead,
| honking from horizon to horizon. God help you if you're
| near water. Frogs. Ugh. Frogs.
|
| But, not so much neighbors' lawnmowers, or cars. Or car
| horns. Or people yelling. Or anyone else's music. That is
| nice. And _man_ are the Winters peaceful.
|
| Dust from gravel roads (you have no idea how much if
| you've not experienced it--dust every surface at 9am, can
| write in the new dust on the kitchen table by 4pm, on a
| bad day when the wind's wrong and it's dry), "snow" from
| combines and various ag processing plants (pretty sure
| this stuff's terrible on your lungs, but at least it's
| not all the time and only in some places). That shit
| smell for a few days when the next farmer over spreads
| manure. Your hour-plus drive (each way) every two to four
| weeks for your "big shopping" (and they say _cities_ have
| food deserts! LOL--and if you think there aren 't rural
| folks so damn poor they have trouble keeping a car
| running and need tons of help just to get groceries...
| well, there are, and lots of them) and _needing_ to have
| a deep freeze or two and maybe even two refrigerators
| depending on how big your family is. Having to drive that
| far, too, if your kid needs clothes or shoes and the
| limited selection at the tractor & feed won't cut it.
| Forget walking anywhere that ain't your own land.
|
| Got its own challenges. But, sometimes, it is very, very
| quiet.
| [deleted]
| mypalmike wrote:
| Most single family homes in neighborhoods of major cities
| are like this, provided your home is one of the 90+% that
| is not on a major road.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Virtually anywhere in the entire country?
| scythe wrote:
| >I go on trips and need to be able to load lots of stuff
| in and out of "my" or "a" car without living in terror of
| all of my stuff getting stolen while I'm inside.
|
| This is not a problem in cities in Asia. It was not a
| problem before the '60s. It is still not a problem in the
| dense downtowns of a few small American cities that have
| avoided the modern homelessness crisis. It is a
| specifically recent American major city phenomenon that
| nobody wants to accept as the norm.
| zzzeek wrote:
| people with homes steal things they see available as
| well. even people who aren't poor steal things, either
| just for "fun" or because they are opportunistic and
| trying to just amass more wealth. laptops, cars etc. are
| not stolen by homeless people, more like professional
| thieves. I've seen a lot of things stolen, my own and
| that of close family members. Crowded places have more
| theft, facilitated by there just being lots of people
| around and also that it's the norm for everyone to be
| completely anonymous of everyone else. Have not been to
| Asia but you certainly will get your stuff stolen in
| European cities as well (have had that happen also in
| Dublin for example, extremely traumatizing).
| tormeh wrote:
| > extremely traumatizing
|
| Words have meaning, and "extremely traumatizing" should
| be reserved for slightly more damaging things than
| getting ready to leave the restaurant and realizing your
| phone is gone. I realize word inflation is a battle that
| is lost every day, but it's still annoying. See what I
| did there? I didn't say that word inflation is extremely
| enraging or plunges me into a mental breakdown. It's just
| annoying.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| Sounds like the country is the place for you, I
| experienced all of that in a suburb.
|
| The "living in terror" part sounds like you could use
| some work on mindfulness though.
| joebob42 wrote:
| I live in a decently "nice" part of Seattle. Constantly
| concerned stuff will get stolen. Have had car broken in
| to more than once. "Terror" might be overstating if, but
| the level of property crime is objectively harming my
| day-to-day experience.
| veec_cas_tant wrote:
| Just curious: do you believe this a Seattle problem, a
| United States problem, or an urban problem?
| zachthewf wrote:
| That is less an inherent property of density and more a
| property of Seattle's moronic lack of petty crime
| enforcement.
| omegaworks wrote:
| We're seeing a level of wealth inequality now that rivals
| the level seen in the Gilded Age. "Petty crime
| enforcement" won't do anything but place more of your
| neighbors in harm's way. An oppressively policed
| neighborhood does not make the neighborhood safer.
|
| The child poverty rate was halved under an emergency
| declaration in 2020. That policy was allowed to expire in
| 2022[1] and that, along with unchecked inflation and
| labor-averse federal monetary policy, is naturally
| producing misery and desperation.
|
| 1. https://www.povertycenter.columbia.edu/news-
| internal/monthly...
| zzzeek wrote:
| thanks for the patronizing, very mindful! not had your
| stuff stolen then , I gather ?
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| That's nice. Many of us don't want that, but have it
| forced upon us considering something like 90% of all
| residential zoning in the USA is R1 zoning.
|
| There will be demand for neighborhoods you want and they
| will exist but it won't necessarily be in the middle of
| major population centers like it is now.
| zzzeek wrote:
| > 90% of all residential zoning in the USA is R1
|
| well if that's based on land area that's not a very
| informative number. you'd want to do it by population.
| toast0 wrote:
| > Where should I live?
|
| If you just want less human noise, somewhere with a large
| lot. On my 9 acre lot I can still hear human noise, but
| usually only big things, which tends to be daytime, and
| not a lot of it. Oh, and backyard roosters; they're
| everywhere around here, but only noisy when the sun is
| up. Vehicle noises carry a long way when people have more
| horsepower than brains, though; gunshots and fireworks
| too. Not sure how to avoid those noises. I don't get a
| lot of artificial light from the neighbors, but there's
| some; more forest or a larger lot would help.
|
| On the other hand, there's a lot of noise from local
| wildlife, and wind and rain and hail and other natural
| phenomenon that creates noise. And sometimes the moon is
| pretty bright at night. I guess you could live somewhere
| with caves and avoid some of that, but critters are
| everywhere.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Nothing about this would let a developer cut down your
| tree, build on your yard, etc. You just wouldn't be able to
| stop your neighbor from selling their property to a
| developer who might cut down trees and build things there.
| It's not unreasonable for you to have preferences about
| what your neighbors do with their property, just like it's
| not unreasonable for you to have preferences about which
| kinds of restaurants are close to your home. But should you
| be able to prevent your favorite restaurant from legally
| closing?
| nlavezzo wrote:
| Your neighbor doesn't currently have the right to do
| anything they want with their property though. They don't
| absolutely own it and have some kind of sovereign status.
| They can't turn it into a gas station or auto repair
| shop. They have the right to exclusive use of the land
| for the purpose of a single family dwelling built to
| certain specifications and abiding by various guidelines
| and regulations.
|
| When each neighbor bought into the neighborhood, they all
| signed up for this same basic deal. Many of them would
| likely have chosen to not spend their money on the
| property had their neighbors not been bound by the same
| rules.
|
| What is being proposed is a significant change to those
| rules that every owner at some point agreed to. This
| absolutely does affect everyone in the neighborhood
| because an older neighborhood is more than a collection
| of unrelated properties, it is a collection of actual
| homes of similar size and character with a particular
| feel and aesthetic.
|
| A change to the rules may absolutely be necessary for the
| health of the city / population as a whole. Totally agree
| with this. Don't pretend though that it's not coming at
| the cost of infringing on the existing homeowners'
| reasonable expectations of what they bought into when
| they purchased their properties. Again, maybe it does
| need to happen, but homeowners are not unreasonable for
| wanting to keep their neighborhoods as they've always
| known and loved them.
| _ZeD_ wrote:
| ...and then you need a car because _everything_ is
| literally miles away
| SamBam wrote:
| > and low traffic streets that are safe for kids to play
| around
|
| Actually, suburban streets are significantly more dangerous
| than urban streets, in terms of number of children killed,
| as a fraction of both population and miles driven.
|
| > Motor vehicle traffic was the leading mechanism of
| unintentional injury death among children aged 5-13, with
| the rural rate (3.1) twice as high as the urban rate (1.5)
|
| > Motor vehicle traffic was the leading mechanism of
| unintentional injury death among children aged 14-17 in
| both urban and rural areas; the rate was 2.5 times higher
| in rural (12.5) than in urban areas
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db421.htm
|
| > cul-de-sac communities actually have some of the highest
| rates of traffic accidents involving young children. In
| fact, children in suburban communities are five times more
| likely to be killed in a pedestrian accident than urban
| children.
|
| https://www.lewisandtompkins.com/motor-vehicle-and-public-
| tr...
|
| > City streets safer than suburban roads, study finds
|
| https://whyy.org/articles/study-city-driving-often-safer-
| tha...
|
| > Cul-de-Sacs Are Killing Us: Public Safety Lessons From
| Suburbia
|
| https://usa.streetsblog.org/2011/06/07/cul-de-sacs-are-
| killi...
| spockz wrote:
| But why is that? Maybe because children don't play on the
| street at all in the city. So what does the fraction look
| when we take children playing outside and be healthy
| instead of just children?
|
| The chance remains the same but for the ones that survive
| there is a better quality of life.
| veec_cas_tant wrote:
| I'm not sure I agree that a high quality of life requires
| playing in the streets. Perhaps an issue is that many
| rural areas lack adequate pedestrian pathing and
| recreational areas? Maybe an even larger issue is that
| parents generally feel unsafe leaving their kids alone
| outside.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Probably bikes right? Children surely are doing less
| biking in cities per capita compared to suburban areas.
| civilized wrote:
| The disconnect between city folk and rural/suburban folk
| is wild. You've got comments below saying "of course kids
| play in the streets" followed by "well not _literally_ ,
| who on earth would do that".
|
| My neighbors have a basketball hoop facing their street.
| They consider the street, the street _that cars drive on_
| , a _basketball court_.
| Swizec wrote:
| Higher speeds. Suburban streets/roads/stroads optimize
| for traffic safety, not pedestrian safety.
|
| The wide roads and large front yards promote higher
| driving speeds. For a long time the thinking was even
| that front yards can work as a place for cars to stop
| safely if they fly off the road.
|
| They talk about this in Strong Towns iirc
| notch898a wrote:
| May also be type of vehicle. Big farm truck in
| suburbs/rural, can't see anyone under ~3ft well when
| they're right up on you unless you're really
| intentionally looking down. Also could be the children
| are improperly trained. False sense of security, whereas
| in the city it's basically entrenched in anyone that as
| soon as you set foot outside that the cars are trying to
| slaughter everyone so kids & adults alike are always on
| alert. Whenever I live in the city I basically assume if
| I'm not in a city park a car is on the prowl to run me
| over at any minute, which means I'm not really caught
| unawares.
| CalRobert wrote:
| I live on 3 acres in a rural area and "if you go in to
| the road a driver will slaughter you" was the most
| important lesson we had to teach our kid.
| notch898a wrote:
| Yes that was the lesson. Not "if you go outside a driver
| will slaughter you" which is the lesson in the city, and
| probably a more accurate one. You still go outside but
| you know you're in the slaughterhouse. Farm kid by your
| own admission doesn't realize they're still in the
| slaughterhouse when off the road.
| hcurtiss wrote:
| I think it's more likely because there are very few kids
| playing outside in urban areas. There are kids in the
| Pearl and the South Waterfront in Portland. It is rare to
| see them play outside, much more rare to see them playing
| in the street. On the other hand, kids playing catch or
| riding their bikes on suburban streets is a daily
| occurrence in my neighborhood. That's definitely going to
| drive up interactions with cars, but the motor vehicle
| rates you cite above are still exceedingly low.
| naravara wrote:
| > Maybe because children don't play on the street at all
| in the city.
|
| They absolutely do
| asda_ wrote:
| Lol what? Where do you see kids playing close to downtown
| or in the streets of a heavily urban center. Examples?
| Retric wrote:
| Children do play on city streets, however one of the big
| differences is sight lines. Suburban streets tend to be
| dangerous due to visibility issues and often lack well
| connected sidewalks etc.
|
| A core reason for this is developers want to maximize the
| number of houses they can fit on a given plot of land
| which will often have odd shapes etc. So kids simply
| walking to a friends house are often in real danger.
| lumb63 wrote:
| Some anecdata here having moved from a suburb to Boston
| metro:
|
| I regularly have to slow down for children riding bikes,
| playing basketball or hockey in the street, etc. to this
| day when I visit my mom in the suburbs. I have never seen
| a single child playing in the streets in nearly five
| years living near Boston.
| ves wrote:
| Where in Boston did you live? That's definitely the case
| in the fancy parts of Boston and definitely not the case
| in the minority ghettoes like roxbury, JP, and dorchester
| SamBam wrote:
| To be clear, in the city kids don't play literally in the
| streets. They're on the sidewalks and playgrounds. It's
| the fact that suburban kids are often in the actual
| street that is part of the problem, and the fact that the
| streets are actually roads and designed for cars to go
| fast on.
| lumb63 wrote:
| I thought about this as I posted my story. There's a park
| on the street next to mine. When weather allows, kids
| play basketball and baseball there and play on the jungle
| gym. We never had that growing up. For us, there were two
| or three parks in town, but none were within walking
| distance of our house, so we didn't play there. If areas
| were set aside and accessible for kids to play safely,
| I'd imagine more would do that.
| pkulak wrote:
| I'd argue it's wide suburban streets that encourage high
| speed driving. The road I live on is not wide enough for
| two cars to pass each other if there are also cars parked
| on each side, and driving even 20mph feels way too fast.
| But when I go visit family members in the suburbs, the
| streets are wide enough for two lanes of parked cars,
| plus 3 lanes of driving cars. Driving under 50mph feels
| like you might as well get out and walk.
| andrepd wrote:
| This is called "traffic calming", the notion that you
| have to design the streets so it's impossible for drivers
| to go at unsafe speeds, rather than making wide straight
| roads and plonking down a "pls no speederino" sign.
|
| Leave wide straight roads for segregated highways and
| build streets for people, not just cars.
| willnonya wrote:
| There is also a significant ant difference in the
| absolute numbers.
|
| Not to mention people tend to be much lore cautious in
| high traffic areas.
| [deleted]
| BurningFrog wrote:
| I think the primary reason in 2023 is to keep housing
| values high and rising, not racism.
| giantrobot wrote:
| > Are they? Isn't it possible that people who live in
| beautiful neighborhoods with mature trees, nice big yards,
| and low traffic streets that are safe for kids to play
| around, want to keep them that way for primarily those
| reasons?
|
| For one if zoning laws change tomorrow no one is going to
| bulldoze those neighborhoods on Thursday. So everyone
| already in their "safe" neighborhood will remain "safe".
| Except in rare circumstances no one is going to build a
| 10-lane expressway behind that tract of "safe" houses.
|
| Second you've got to be realistic about the socioeconomic
| factors behind those "safe" suburbs.
|
| The small, often winding suburban streets are largely
| impenetrable to buses and completely immune to light rail.
| This means public transit often used by "those people" (for
| whatever local definition of "those") is inaccessible from
| inside the "safe" suburban housing tracts. This is
| exacerbated by many suburbs lacking sidewalks.
| Inaccessibility of public transit was a design criteria for
| early suburbs preventing anyone that could afford a house
| but not a car from moving to them.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > For one if zoning laws change tomorrow no one is going
| to bulldoze those neighborhoods on Thursday.
|
| I'm so in favor of up zoning, but some parts of
| California will be quickly thrust into a new reality.
|
| Santa Monica was the first town to fail the housing
| element. They previously had 1600 houses built in the
| last 8 years. Since failing recently, developers have
| submitted permits for 4000 units. That's 20x above the
| yearly average. If I was a "desirable" town, I'd be very
| nervous to not comply.
|
| If I owned property in one of those towns I'd have been
| advertising it to developers hard too.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| > Are they? Isn't it possible that people who live in
| beautiful neighborhoods with mature trees, nice big yards,
| and low traffic streets that are safe for kids to play
| around, want to keep them that way for primarily those
| reasons?
|
| You mean like all the medium-density neighborhoods of San
| Francisco? American R-1 suburbs are a nightmare for kids,
| and that's why you never see any kids outside there, tell
| me how this: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Menlo+Park,+
| CA/@37.4562493...
|
| , in one of America's most expensive suburbs, is any sort
| of safe for kids.
| nradov wrote:
| You don't see many kids in San Francisco because homes
| are tiny, prices are crazy, police don't enforce public
| order, and the public school system is mess. Opening up
| zoning restrictions is generally a good thing, but it's
| not going to make SF an attractive place for middle-class
| families to raise small children.
| hcurtiss wrote:
| I live in a suburban R-1 neighborhood in Oregon and my
| kids play basketball, ride bikes, and roller skate in the
| street literally every day with boatloads of other kids.
| If that's your vision of a nightmare, I fear we're not
| going to agree on any of this.
| veec_cas_tant wrote:
| I'm seriously shocked by how many people value the idea
| that kids can play in the street. Why not a park or other
| recreation area? I get that it isn't entirely common in
| the United States to build walkable parks but that is a
| United States problem, not a city problem. Cities built
| for living should offer much better alternatives to
| children than playing in the street.
| frenchy wrote:
| > Why not a park or other recreation area
|
| How do they get there? What might not be obvious is that
| the parks are often far away, because you can't afford to
| maintain many parks because the tax base is too small.
| [deleted]
| theironhammer wrote:
| [dead]
| PaulHoule wrote:
| When I visited Palo Alto I found it a very strange
| experience, my 'terrain reading' skills that would lead me to
| a convenience store and similar affordances in most developed
| and developing countries did not work at all.
|
| It seemed to me that you could double the population density
| of that kind of neighborhood by replacing a single family lot
| with a 8 story tower every other block and filling in an
| occasional duplex, triplex or small apartment building. Such
| a neighborhood would be different but still pretty nice by
| most people's standards, you can see neighborhoods like that
| in L.A. or Sao Paulo.
|
| To be devil's advocate though I'd say there are larger scale
| reasons why people might conclude that 'California is full'.
| One is that the population density of California overall is
| about the same as Germany even though most of California is
| uninhabitable or massive farm fields. Certain regions of the
| coast are highly populated by U.S. standards even if they are
| nothing like Hong Kong or Singapore. The linear pattern of
| dense development means the radio spectrum is utilized like
| nowhere else in the US such that there are more OTA TVs
| channels in LA than some cable plans.
|
| California struggles with water and any population addition
| would require adding more infrastructure of all kinds. It
| could be more highways, it could be more public transit but
| it has to be paid for. And the US is a country that spends
| 10's of billions to duplicate a train station in NYC or run
| rail from Bakersfield to Fresno. A reasonable person could
| very well try to gum up the gears in that machine no matter
| how they can.
|
| You might say that more population means more economic
| activity and more tax base but I am not so sure. A lot of it
| seems driven by inequity and monopoly power. Google and
| Facebook could not double their revenue by doubling their
| hiring in California and it is not so plausible that the next
| big startup in the U.S. would be able to accomplish what
| they've done. There was a time you could dream of selling a
| company like WhatsApp to Facebook even if going public was
| not in the cards but the monopolists would hate to have to
| spend that much to defend their positions and surely try to
| shape the environment to prevent that. (Now from _Genshin
| Impact_ to _Tik-Tok_ innovation in social /entertainment is
| happening in the PRC because that economy is more open to
| competition.)
| tshaddox wrote:
| > It seemed to me that you could double the population
| density of that kind of neighborhood by replacing a single
| family lot with a 8 story tower every other block and
| filling in an occasional duplex, triplex or small apartment
| building.
|
| And you could probably maintain or even increase the amount
| of ground-level "yard" space per capita even while
| increasing population density. Of course it would need to
| be parks that you share.
| JAlexoid wrote:
| Dealing with HOAs is actually easier - transfer all
| infrastructure ownership and maintenance to them... you'll
| see some big changes real fast.
|
| Like treat HOA as a commercial entity for purposes of trash,
| water and sewage. (HOAs are, de facto, incorporated
| organizations). Tax land under the roads as plain land.
|
| As for localities - they should be mandated to reassess
| property values every X years and distribute infrastructure
| maintenance costs appropriately. I now live in a rural area,
| and I underpay taxes for the services I get... while smaller
| houses in town overpay.
| TimPC wrote:
| This is the dumbest idea I've heard. You'll end up with
| people paying $0 for infra for 70 years then suddenly
| having to buy multimillion dollar projects with no cash
| reserves. The net result will be widespread chaos and huge
| social pressure on government to bail out badly managed
| HOAs.
| SECProto wrote:
| Not different from the current system, where we elect
| politicians who promise not to raise taxes, so they defer
| maintenance on all infrastructure, until in 70 years we
| have to spend trillions replacing old pipes/bridges/roads
| that could have been kept up for decades longer with
| better maintenance.
|
| Except they can't go begging to the feds, because they've
| also have been voted in under platforms of "minimize tax
| increases" for 40 years, so they're also indebted.
| enaaem wrote:
| First thing to fix is the broken financial model. Exclusive
| suburbs pay disproportional less taxes for low density, low
| efficient, infrastructure. They are being subsidised by high
| density areas. That's not fair.
| pitaj wrote:
| Yep, municipalities should require a large deposit up-front
| to connect new neighborhoods to existing infrastructure,
| based on the amount of infrastructure (roads, water, sewer)
| the new neighborhood has.
| JAlexoid wrote:
| I second that.
|
| We moved from Manhattan an hour north into a rural area.
| Our town clears our road continuously during winter, while
| are property taxes are low single thousands. We get three
| trash pickups per week and other trash removal services
| included.
|
| We woefully underpay for those services.
| adrr wrote:
| How does that work? Property tax is by city and suburbs are
| their own cities. For example, my city has implemented has
| implemented a Mello-Roos for new developments to fund new
| schools.
| enaaem wrote:
| https://youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI
| rnk wrote:
| It's not that mysterious why people want this. For people of
| means, they want to preserve the quality of life that they
| see in having mostly single family homes and in the past keep
| it full of white people with money, hopefully the only whites
| thing has faded. Of course racism was a core issue in how
| these exclusions panned out in the US.
|
| If I'm in a city and and I own one of these houses, it's
| clear economically that wanting to limit building multi-unit
| housing near me enhances the value growth of my property -
| because you can't build nearly as many SFH as you can
| apartments. I'm sure racism and fear of the other is still an
| issue (I'm from the south, I know it's an issue based on
| personal experience) but it's far more economic imho today.
| The end result is the same, people want to hold on to what
| they see as part of their "intrinsic value" in their
| neighborhood setup.
| [deleted]
| zajio1am wrote:
| There is evidence that opposition to new construction is
| not only from home-owners, but also from renters, due to
| economic ignorance: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginal
| revolution/2022/11/th...
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| I think the renters are often acting rationally, given
| the fact that new construction is so overwhelmingly often
| directed at their own neighbourhoods where they currently
| live in affordable apartments. Accordingly no real
| surprise that someone would act out of self interest to
| oppose being evicted.
|
| So rarely if ever is new apartment development targeted
| at a mansion district, and I've never seen an apartment
| dweller oppose that concept. I don't know why they would
| and I wouldn't expect them to.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| I dunno why this is being downvoted because in my
| experience this is spot on, and I've heard such things from
| my neighbours. (maybe people are uncomfortable with the
| truth spoken so plainly)
|
| Most of all people want exclusivity. Only having a handful
| of neighbours is something that is hard to buy. It's easier
| enforced through regulation.
|
| Established neighbourhoods push for regulations to keep
| people out.
|
| In the past it absolutely was for racist reasons. Today
| more likely economic ones. Apartments means renters which
| means less wealthy people. Exclusive detached home areas
| are pretty much guaranteed to have a high floor of wealth.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > I dunno why this is being downvoted
|
| People don't like to be casually accused of racism when
| there are other perfectly reasonable explanations.
| [deleted]
| hervature wrote:
| > it's clear economically that wanting to limit building
| multi-unit housing near me enhances the value growth of my
| property
|
| This argument never made sense for me. Being able to put
| more units in the same space drastically increases the
| value of the land. It of course reduces the value of other
| things like having towering buildings around your 2 story
| home which blocks your view. In this sense, home owners
| need to turn to zoning to prevent that despite it being
| detrimental to their land value.
| ipaddr wrote:
| It lowers your house price but may increase the value of
| the land that has been sliced up.
| kccqzy wrote:
| They have a different argument, namely by making sure
| houses are less dense, the total number of houses being
| built in an area is far less than what the land can
| support, leading to artificial scarcity in the market.
| The artificially limited supply then leads to high
| prices.
| hervature wrote:
| Restricting supply obviously increases prices. That's
| economics 101. Their claim is that they are doing it
| precisely for economic gains. Whereas I'm saying that it
| is actually not about the economic gains because they are
| giving up economic value (much higher land value) in
| order to preserve non-economic things (neighborhood,
| view, etc.). My point is that an acre of land in the
| center of Manhattan is worth a lot of money. That value
| goes drastically down if something prevents you from
| building above 35 feet.
| jp57 wrote:
| > Remove zones alone, and HOAs will get areas into legally
| binding covenants that are also just as tough as their
| current zoning regulation.
|
| This. Houston has little or no zoning and is terribly
| sprawling and car-centric. Despite the lack of zoning, in
| most neighborhoods you can't just build whatever you want
| because of restrictive covenants. Developers build massive
| car-focused single-family-only developments and load them
| with covenants that prevent anything else from being built on
| the property after it is sold.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| Next up, get rid of HOAs.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| HOAs are the most local form of democracy there is.
| Perhaps just reduce the overwhelming supermajority
| requirements to dissolve them, perhaps. In many places
| your only viable option if you don't like your HOA is get
| elected to the board yourself along with enough like-
| minded neighbors. You might not be able to dissolve it,
| but you could seriously neuter the policies if you
| wanted.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| > HOAs are the most local form of democracy there is.
|
| Yes, they're the most local demonstration of the fact
| that "democracy" is not an acceptable approach to decide
| what color I can paint my house, or what plants I can
| plant, or how soon after the 6am garbage pickup my
| garbage can has to be brought inside.
|
| They're also, _often_ , not even a democracy: they're a
| loudest-ocracy, because most people have better things to
| do with their time than dictate what their neighbors can
| do.
|
| Destroy HOAs with fire.
|
| To be clear, echoing a point from elsewhere in this
| thread: nobody should have to have an asphalt
| manufacturing plant next to their home. But that same
| premise doesn't extend to "nobody should have a house
| next to them with an Unapproved Paint Color".
| bandofthehawk wrote:
| You're right Houston doesn't call it zoning, but they
| basically have the same rules. This video sums it up well:
| https://youtu.be/TaU1UH_3B5k
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| The answer is very comfortable. Lots of people like a quiet
| neighborhood and a good amount of space to themselves. It
| might be a bit selfish, and there are undoubtably some
| exceptions, but the idea that the suburbs are full of awful
| people trying to keep out some specific segment is flat
| wrong. Most people are too concerned with keeping their day
| to day life together to sit around worrying about/hating on
| others.
| ipaddr wrote:
| The answers are very uncomfortable
|
| Like cleaner air, safer streets, less traffic and a better
| place to raise a child and/or dog with backyards and privacy.
| anyfoo wrote:
| > Like cleaner air, safer streets, less traffic and a
| better place to raise a child and/or dog with backyards and
| privacy.
|
| So, like in European cities.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I don't have to try that hard with google maps to find
| places in Europe that look just like suburbs of the US.
| anyfoo wrote:
| And I grew up in Germany all my life and live in the US
| now. Maybe "places like suburbs in the US" do exist,
| though I doubt they are as restricted as the suburbs I'm
| seeing here, and that you can recognize their nature from
| a quick Google Maps glance.
|
| But in any case, it does not change the fact that I grew
| up in a big city, with, as listed above, "cleaner air,
| safer streets, less traffic, a better place to raise a
| child and/or dog with backyards and privacy", and that
| that was common all around me. Children, me included,
| played on the streets. It's literally called a
| "Spielstrasse", and they are very common. We just walked
| over to school, too, maybe took the bus for a few
| stations.
|
| I've been living in the US for close than a decade now,
| and it's markedly different. I don't blame the US, I just
| hate zoning with a passion. I so miss living in a nice
| area in the city and being able to walk over to a small
| supermarket, a cafe, a barber, within the same area. Just
| live my life, without having to hop into my car and make
| it a journey for every tiny thing. It's so isolating
| here.
|
| These news give me hope.
| xienze wrote:
| > I so miss living in a nice area in the city and being
| able to walk over to a small supermarket, a cafe, a
| barber, within the same area.
|
| So what's stopping you? Move to the downtown area of any
| decently-sized city. You make it sound as if such areas
| don't exist at all in the US.
| anyfoo wrote:
| Did you read the rest? There are significant differences
| between the typical downtown area of a US city, and what
| I was describing. In my experience, downtown is not
| exactly where children get to play on quiet streets.
|
| But it is true that I don't know every larger city. So if
| there is a city where the zoning laws I'm lamenting do
| not apply, great, let's have that in California as well,
| please.
| xienze wrote:
| Post a couple photos of what you're describing and I'll
| show you some similar areas in the US then.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > I've been living in the US for close than a decade now,
| and it's markedly different.
|
| For what it's worth, the US is huge. I've lived in a
| number of places around this country, and I can't
| generalize much of anything between them. This is
| probably why I love suburbia and you hate it. My
| neighborhood is _awesome_ and sounds just like you
| describe your ideal neighborhood to be. It 's also
| suburban by any definition.
|
| Sometimes I wonder if people just assume that all of the
| US has Midwest-style tract housing that sprawls for
| miles, or if we're all like California, etc. It's so
| variable, and the generalizations unhelpful (but
| hilarious).
| anyfoo wrote:
| Right, so I guess your city does not have the zoning laws
| that I'm lamenting here? I even specifically wrote "I
| don't blame the US, I just hate zoning laws with a
| passion".
| lfuller wrote:
| Nearly all studies regarding suburban vs. urban streets
| have shown that suburban streets have significantly higher
| rates of child deaths and injuries than urban streets.
| cheeseomlit wrote:
| Probably because kids dont play outside on urban streets
| at all, it'd be an instant death sentence
| notch898a wrote:
| Nah some people do. I saw a lady who was letting her
| infant crawl across an urban road. She gave me the death
| glare because her child decided to crawl out from
| underneath a parked vehicle right in front of me and I
| was only able to avoid it at the last minute because I
| wasn't expecting crawling babies to pop out from
| underneath a parked car.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| Out of curiosity (I do not know the answer), is there a
| study on the percentage of time that children spend
| playing outside in urban vs suburban vs rural areas?
| anhner wrote:
| I guarantee you children in (european) urban areas go out
| more because there are more children and places to play
| with.
|
| In suburban hell what are you supposed to play with? And
| with whom? The only other two kids on the street?
| RHSeeger wrote:
| There are constantly kids in my area out and about,
| playing or on their way to play. I'm not sure what kind
| of wasteland you thing the suburbs is, but lots of
| children are within walking distance of each other.
| kiba wrote:
| Streets are dangerous because of cars zipping around. Cars
| contribute to air pollution quality (until electrified) and
| noise quality.
|
| So, you ban cars from streets and allow only pedestrians
| and cyclists. Next, you allow local amenities to pop up so
| you don't feel the need to get a car out.
|
| The suburban pattern of development as it currently exists
| isn't the only way to facilitate the quality of life you're
| looking for.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| You can't ban cars before you have the infrastructure and
| commercial resources to replace what cars were used for.
| florbo wrote:
| When are US cities going to ban cars? My guess is 0-2 in
| the next century.
| rayiner wrote:
| > What is making people want to restrict their neighborhood
| to extremely low density suburbs? The answers are very
| uncomfortable.
|
| That's just urbanists smearing people with innuendo about
| racism to advance unrelated policy goals. It's actually
| ironic, because one of the major population trends right now
| is "black flight" to the suburbs.
|
| People, especially families, like low density suburban zoning
| because it's convenient. I live in a pre-zoning code suburb
| with houses packed tightly together. People are always
| fighting over parking spots, contractor trucks can block
| people into their parking spots or block the road, etc.
| There's a lot of retired people, and they complain about
| families with young kids moving in due to the noise. (And
| these are white and white adjacent kids too.) My parents
| refused to move into the subdivision, and instead moved
| nearby to a 1 acre plot surrounded by trees where they didn't
| have to interact with their neighbors.
| JasserInicide wrote:
| >What is making people want to restrict their neighborhood to
| extremely low density suburbs?
|
| Because it's actually what many people want. They want a
| house in the quiet suburbs that they can sell in 30 years for
| much more than it's worth. This is obviously all because
| nearly everyone alive that can vividly remember a time before
| WW2 are dead. All they know are car-centric architecture. And
| we all know how much people love change.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Dumb question, but how do HOAs enforce things? Presumably
| they have some binding agreement, but I can't imagine why
| someone would opt into one. 'Why yes, I'd love to pay dues
| and fines to my noisiest neighbors.'
| steveklabnik wrote:
| > I can't imagine why someone would opt into one.
|
| You cannot buy without being a part of the HOA.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| It's in the deed so owning the property means you agree to
| follow the rules of the deed. The HOA can sue you for
| enforcement.
|
| At a high level, anyone can sue you to enforce a deed term,
| as long as the organization/person with an interest is
| around to do it and knows to do it. As an easy example, a
| long time ago people added racist stuff to deeds, but those
| family descendants no longer enforce it. HOAs don't die
| like people and collect dues so they don't run out of legal
| fees.
|
| You can try to get dead HOAs removed from a deed, and you
| can try to get a living HOA removed from a deed. Obviously
| one is a lot easier because it doesn't fight back. You can
| also get the residents to vote to dissolve an HOA. Some
| HOAs expire after so long if the residents don't renew.
|
| TLDR you can't buy the house without agreeing to the HOA.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| > you can try to get a living HOA removed from a deed
|
| I'd be curious about people's experiences and successes
| with this. Has anyone successfully pulled that off with a
| still-existing HOA?
| adra wrote:
| Not entirely the same, but here in Canada (still common
| law), any housing covenants applied to a deed can be
| struck down if they are illegal. There were a bunch of
| houses with ancient unenforceable covenants like not
| selling homes to certain ethnic/religious groups and they
| were granted the right to no just ignore, but actually
| remove those causes from the deed. Transitively, I
| imagine any deeds for HOA rules and regulations that are
| illegal under the law could also be challenged under
| similar merits. I've got no examples of this though, so
| who knows.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| That definitely seems like the easy case, sure.
|
| I'd be extremely interested in cases of any modern HOA
| being successfully removed from a deed and thus rendered
| moot, ideally administratively without a massive legal
| battle.
| xp84 wrote:
| Had occasion to visit my hometown last year, so I drove
| around the middle-class neighborhood where I grew up.
| People have trash, old appliances, rusting inoperable cars
| parked on the lawn, 4-foot grass and weeds growing. People
| who spent like a million bucks on a house don't want the
| neighborhood to be full of blight and trash.
|
| In a typical average HOA neighborhood:
|
| * The HOA pays for landscaping of all the common areas like
| green belts and parks within the tract. If you don't have
| an HOA, you either are benefiting from your city choosing
| to locate and maintain those kinds of amenities right by
| where you live, or you just don't get any of those.
|
| * Obviously one of the big ones, the other main HOA budget
| item is pools, clubhouses you can rent cheaply for parties,
| tennis courts, etc. For rich people they don't care since
| they have their own pools, but it's a great boon to people
| not rich enough to have a pool to have easy free access to
| one that isn't crowded and is close to home.
|
| * They, in theory, fine you for outwardly living like an
| absolute slob or selfish jerk. NOTE: In practice nobody
| cares about most of these little rules, like mailbox color
| or a patio chair left on your lawn, unless you're acting
| wildly outside the norms. The rules are there to let them
| enforce them selectively on the person who's making
| everyone miserable.
|
| * They regulate architecture and paint color. This may be
| my least favorite because it seems like we shouldn't need
| this, I have taste and why should I have to submit my stuff
| for approval to these jerks? But really, this is only there
| because there would be SOMEBODY who would paint their house
| an absurd garish color or build a giant ugly addition in
| their front yard or something that looks wildly out of
| place.
| bluGill wrote:
| HOAs vary a lot. My mom is in an HOA because they shovel
| the snow to her front door in window. Really she lives in a
| 4 unit apartment where everyone has separate entrances and
| they are allowed to paint the walls and otherwise change
| the interior as they want. Which is to say for her needs
| she has the best of both apartment living and single family
| house living at the same time. The HOA does all exterior
| maintenance, and is a good deal.
|
| There are also HOAs that place a lot of weird restrictions
| on what you can do. It really depends on the HOA, some are
| good, some are very bad.
|
| That said, for the place where I personally am in life, a
| HOA is bad and I refuse to live in one.
| auctoritas wrote:
| If people live in a low density area, we can assume they want
| to live in a low density area. So it makes perfect sense they
| would be against making their low density area high density.
| What is so uncomfortable about that?
|
| To get at what your really implying though, what's wrong with
| maintaining some degree of cultural homogeneity in a
| neighborhood? It's a good thing in that it makes for high
| trust communities.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| The answer is that people benefit from stability, both
| financially and socially.
|
| Single and duplex zoning was a great deal for cities and
| close suburbs because they are operationally efficient - less
| services are required; fewer parks, fewer schools, fewer
| calls for fire and police service. It's a good deal for
| people because financially it has been historically better to
| own a building and land vs rent or buy into coops.
|
| For existing, pre-1990 low density urban neighborhoods,
| retrofitting medium density housing is usually a shitshow.
| Why?
|
| - The areas of were detached houses that usually have yards,
| no parks, fire stations, etc.
|
| - Because of healthcare and tax policy, it's very difficult
| to run the types of small businesses that are needed to
| support an urban lifestyle. Boutiques, restaurants/bars and
| similar
|
| - Because there are no local amenities, people still need
| cars, and there's rarely enough parking to meet demand.
|
| - Schools are tied to geography, and changes in school
| assignments are impactful and traumatic to families.
|
| - Developers usually get tax credits for including street
| level retail, but have no financial incentive to rent them as
| tax policy pays them to do nothing.
|
| If you look at functioning urban environments like NYC, you
| see it all over the place. I grew up in Brooklyn and Queens.
| As small retail fades away, major big box scaled retail moves
| in. The neighborhood 20-40k sq ft grocery stores of my
| childhood (Key Food, Finest, A&P, ShopRite) are being
| displaced by bodegas at the low end and big developments on
| the high end - which drive demand for cars and exclude people
| relying on transit.
|
| You can only fix this stuff with fairly radical change, that
| will be very painful for lots of stakeholders.
| twelvechairs wrote:
| > Japan with like barely any zoning laws,
|
| Japan has strong national zoning laws that are very strictly
| applied. The biggest differences are the zones allow for a
| looser range of outcomes than the American ones, and the zoning
| approach is not controlled by local government (which often is
| NIMBYs)
| programmarchy wrote:
| Another data point on lax zoning laws is Houston, which is
| awful and completely unwalkable. It's not cool when someone
| builds a concrete plant next to your house either.
| ignormies wrote:
| Houston has "zoning but we're not calling it zoning" zoning
| laws
|
| https://youtu.be/TaU1UH_3B5k
| steveklabnik wrote:
| One thing that's interesting about Japanese zoning is that I
| wouldn't describe it as "no zoning," (for that matter I
| wouldn't in Houston either because that's more rhetorical
| than reality but anyway).
|
| They key is that they don't do Euclidian, or _exclusive_
| zoning. You can build housing in almost every single one of
| their (iirc) fifteen different zoning designations.
|
| So to US norms, this feels like "no zoning," but it's still
| restrictive in many ways. Just not in a way that says "only
| housing here" or "no housing here." (again on that last one,
| in the vast majority of cases, but not strictly speaking
| all.)
| twblalock wrote:
| Tokyo has lax zoning, but it looks the way it does only because
| people who live there want it to look that way.
|
| Houston, which also has loose zoning, looks totally different
| because most Texans want to live in suburbs and drive cars.
|
| In other words, zoning laws are generally an expression of what
| the majority of people already wanted.
|
| I can tell you for sure that in most parts of California (and
| most of the rest of the USA) the _majority_ of people want to
| live in a detached single-family home that they own, and prefer
| driving cars to public transit.
|
| People who prefer a denser arrangement are an especially vocal
| minority on the internet, but if you put it to a vote, you'd
| end up with pretty much what we have today -- the fact that
| people wanted them is why they got built in the first place!
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| Texans don't want to live in suburbs in drive cars, they have
| no choice because it's illegal to build dense housing via
| deed covenants and city ordinances that work in place of
| zoning. The most expensive and desirable housing (not
| counting the hyper-wealthy enclaves) in Houston is also the
| most walkable and dense.
| twblalock wrote:
| Like most discussions about zoning, this mixes up cause and
| effect.
|
| Certain types of housing are illegal because people don't
| like them, and voted to ban them! Zoning laws don't just
| magically appear out of nowhere.
| LynxInLA wrote:
| I'm not an expert, but I lean towards relaxing zoning laws but
| not getting rid of them completely. Look to Houston to see what
| happens when there are no zoning laws at all.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| What's wrong with Houston? You have pretty much whatever you
| want there. You can go get a single family house, live in a
| gated community, rent a shack on the bayou, go be a hipster
| in montrose, live in a high-rise downtown... Pretty good as
| far as I'm concerned.
| surfaceofthesun wrote:
| [dead]
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| Houston has lots of zoning laws in the way of parking
| minimums. These parking spot requirements apply to new
| buildings and make it very difficult to build dense housing.
| It's a big reason why Houston has so much sprawl.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Can they now build housing in parks and open space? Those
| require zoning to keep separate.
| AmpsterMan wrote:
| Would just like to correct a common misconception:
|
| Houston technically has no zoning laws, but it has a
| combination of other laws that end up behaving similarly to
| exactly how zoning laws work. Giving you a link to City
| Beautiful which works as a great primer.
|
| https://youtu.be/TaU1UH_3B5k
| shuckles wrote:
| There are a myriad of ways Houston does control land use
| beyond zoning such as minimum parking requirements and
| private covenants.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Yeah.
|
| In Houston, we have what is effectively zoning. It's just
| that we do it at the neighborhood level. You want to go
| into the museum district or third ward and develop x, or y,
| or z? No problem. So long as the neighbors agree with you.
|
| Hint: Once they gentrify to the point of being called "The
| Museum District", they will definitely not be agreeing with
| you.
|
| I saw someone above throw out a figure of 3 or 4 hundred k
| as a price point and I had to chuckle. If all you want to
| do is build a low-rise for workforce housing? Yeah, this
| neighborhood wouldn't care if you had the money or not.
| Piss off peasant. The people in the Museum District no
| longer wish to reside in proximity with your kind. Some
| neighborhood get togethers you almost get the impression
| that people would like to put gates to the city at all the
| 610 exits. Keep the riff raff out. And don't even get me
| started about what I hear from friends behind the gates
| down Sunset.
|
| In Houston, the zoning is way worse than in other cities.
| Because people can literally stop anyone they want. No city
| council permission necessary.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > No problem. So long as the neighbors agree with you.
|
| That's what zoning laws are.
| somethoughts wrote:
| What I've noticed too - when I've visited a couple of
| times - in addition once you move out of the city center,
| in the suburbs surrounding Houston, residential
| developments with strict HOAs are pretty much the de
| facto standard for residential developments.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| You're going to need to do more than just toss off a
| scaremongering phrase like "look to Houston" with no
| elaboration, particularly when the replies are already
| explaining that its approach to zoning has been rewarded with
| much more tractable prices. What, specifically, is wrong with
| Houston, and is it worse than the affordability disaster that
| is most of California?
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Technically not most of California, since population is
| focused into a few urban areas and otherwise you have vast
| amounts of nothing if you actually see the state.
|
| Houston is a huge urban/semi-urban sprawl, the kind that
| used to be popular in LA a few decades ago. Dallas is
| similar, Austin gets that way outside of its downtown, San
| Antonio does also but at least has a much more interesting
| urban core. It always seemed you get what you pay for in
| Houston, there isn't anything wrong with that, but many
| people don't want it.
| cal5k wrote:
| Median sale price in Houston is currently $310,500, vs
| $441,250 in Sacramento, $917,500 in LA and $1.3MM in SF.
|
| Aesthetic judgments aside, seems like a winning strategy for
| housing affordability?
| eddsh1994 wrote:
| I live in Palo Alto and saw a local ad for an acre of land
| with no house in Atherton going for $5.2M. The housing here
| is really screwed.
| Zafira wrote:
| California cities like Atherton, Woodside, Bradbury, San
| Marino, etc. are bad metrics to use for anything
| approaching affordable housing.
| eddsh1994 wrote:
| It just highlights the craziness of the area and zoning
| rules
| RHSeeger wrote:
| There's also the matter of cause and effect
|
| - Is it a desirable location, and the zoning laws cause
| the prices to skyrocket because not all the people that
| want to live there can
|
| - Is it desirable because the zoning laws make sure it's
| a certain type of environment, and the desirability is
| what causes the price to increase
|
| - Is it a combination of the two.
|
| I think any reasonable person would say it's a
| combination of the two. And removing the zoning laws
| would both make it less desirable _and_ lower the price
| of housing. It would not leave it just as desirable, but
| with more people living there.
| y-curious wrote:
| But think about the aesthetics!!!! /s
| tagami wrote:
| that's about 90 apartment units, or ~ $60k/unit in land
| cost...
| eddsh1994 wrote:
| Currently atherton zones only allow one family house per
| acre (with this change you could convert it into flats
| now though!)
| HWR_14 wrote:
| No doubt the $5.2MM anticipated the zoning changes. No
| one would be stupid enough to sell property based on the
| law today if you knew it was going to change tomorrow.
| twblalock wrote:
| Atherton is the Beverley Hills of Northern California.
| epistasis wrote:
| With a moderate density like 40du/acre, that amounts to
| about $130,000 in land cost per unit, which is not so
| bad!
|
| even at our grossly inflated land costs, simply allowing
| density throughout the Bay Area would enable much more
| housing affordability, allow more transit, and reduce our
| emissions and enhance our social contact. But a side
| benefit of broad legalization of density would be that
| those land costs would drop dramatically too, as there
| would be a much greater supply.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Wow, Sacramento looks like a really good deal. Almost as
| cheap as Houston, it probably has better weather as well?
| HWR_14 wrote:
| I mean, houses abutting landfills are even cheaper, but no
| one would consider "put landfills everywhere" a good
| strategy.
|
| Houston has had a stable population (per square mile) over
| the past decade and has a median income of ~$50,000.
| Sacramento has had the population per square mile increase
| by ~15% in the past decade and has a median income of
| ~$71,000. San Francisco has had the population per square
| mile increase by ~9% in the past decade and has a median
| income of ~$126,000.
| strawhatguy wrote:
| Yes, zoning is a terrible idea, a way to insert politics
| literally in our homes, or at least the land the home sits
| on.
| [deleted]
| bad_good_guy wrote:
| California has a population density of 249.1 people per sq
| mile compared to 103.2 people per sq mile in Texas. Seems
| an obviously more important factor here.
| bluGill wrote:
| Both states have a lot of rural areas that should not be
| counted when considering density. CSA and MSA for a city
| are the easiest to look up that can be compared. Even
| then though things are misleading. (the MSA for my city
| is mostly large farms so overall our density is very low,
| but if you only take the parts that look like a city is
| much higher)
| davidf18 wrote:
| [dead]
| gamblor956 wrote:
| He's referring to the hundreds of houses that were
| _knowingly_ built in a floodplain, because Houston does not
| have the kind of zoning that would have prevented that.
| Those houses are at high risk of flooding any time there is
| a storm, and many of them did flood during last year 's
| storms.
|
| It's easy to have cheap housing when you ignore common
| sense and just build wherever. (Also, part of the expense
| for LA and SF is that we have earthquakes, and our
| buildings have to be built to withstand earthquakes. For
| example: a 5.4 earthquake in 2011 caused over $300 million
| in damage on the East Coast. A series of CA earthquakes
| stronger than that in 2019, including 6.4 and 7.1 quakes,
| only caused a few thousand in damage near the epicenter. A
| 5.1 earthquake earlier this year in SoCal caused so little
| damage that most people slept through it and only know it
| happened because the news reported it. Note that each
| "magnitude" is about 30x difference in strength, so the 6.4
| quake was 30x stronger than the 5.4 quake, and the 7.1
| quake was nearly _900x_ stronger.)
| bluGill wrote:
| I'm not sure what codes are in Texas, but I can tell you
| in MN the housing codes are designed nationally to cover
| CA earthquakes and Florida Hurricanes even though both
| are not factors. Of course those codes also cover
| insulation which the other two states don't really need
| as much of..
| tigen wrote:
| When looking at market prices, how should we distinguish
| between "affordable" and "undesirable"?
| rcme wrote:
| You can't compare prices across geographic areas like that.
| For instance, property taxes are way higher in Houston.
| Assuming everything else was equal, the price of real
| estate in Houston would be less simply because it has
| higher carrying costs. That's just one of many possible
| differences unrelated to zoning.
| bluGill wrote:
| There are no income taxes in Houston though, so while the
| property tax load is higher, the tax part of cost of
| living is not very different. (depending on what state
| you compare to)
| andrepd wrote:
| It's disingenuous/dishonest to paint it like that. Japan for
| example has _extremely strict_ controls on on-street parking:
| if you want to buy a car you need to prove you own the parking
| space to put it. Try to make that fly in the US.
| graphitegrey wrote:
| This video provides a great overview of zoning in Japan:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfm2xCKOCNk
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| Tokyo is not a free-for-all. It does zone for different uses by
| forbidding certain uses above a certain nuisance or hazard
| level. For instance, in many areas you can't just plop down a
| chemical factory. The cool thing about Tokyo zoning though is
| that anything below a nuisance level is pretty much allowed.
| Want to build a house next to a dump or above a discotheque? Go
| for it, no one is going to stop you.
| anotheracctfo wrote:
| "I live above a bowling alley, and below another bowling
| alley"
|
| Rent has gotten so outrageous that this is a good thing now.
| mrfox321 wrote:
| "Don't ask me how the economy works"
| steveklabnik wrote:
| Some people have different preferences when it comes to
| housing.
|
| My place overlooks a freeway. I really, truly dislike that
| freeway. But one thing I _do_ like about it is the noise
| that it makes, even at night. I find it very hard to fall
| asleep in silence.
|
| Oh and I should mention that most of the units in my
| building do not face the freeway, and therefore, those who
| prefer quiet can also get that, even in the same building.
| [deleted]
| nemo44x wrote:
| You should really check the air quality you're breathing.
| I agree about sound, but there's other ways to generate
| it. Seriously though, check the air quality you breath.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| Air quality is absolutely one of the reasons that I hate
| that highway. It sucks.
|
| I'm of the persuasion that highways should _never_ go
| through cities. I 'd never argue living by a highway is
| good. It's just that one isolated aspect of it that
| others may find bad, I find good, due to preference.
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| Yes, it makes sense to mix Residential and Commercial in many
| cases. It rarely makes sense to mix Industrial with either
| Residential or Commercial. No one wants a smelter next to a
| house or an office.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| This SimCity style thinking about zoning is just too
| simplistic. Yes, absolutely, nobody wants to live next to a
| smelter. But not every commercial property is a smelter.
| People love to live near corner stores, yet that is
| "commercial."
| WkndTriathlete wrote:
| That's why zoning in the US is classified Residential,
| Commercial / Light Industrial, and Heavy Industrial, and
| Residential never abuts Heavy Industrial.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| Yes. I personally still find this far too simplistic, and
| would prefer non-exclusionary zoning.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| The smelter is "Industrial" not "Commercial". At least in
| SimCity abstractions.
|
| Usually commercial and some level of manufacturing
| overlap in zoning, but smelters are in a different
| category.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| Sure. Three or five total zoning designations is still
| not fine-grained enough, especially if they're exclusive.
| JAlexoid wrote:
| A tailor and laundry are technically industrial use, yet
| I wouldn't mind having a taylor or a laundry service
| nearby.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| They seem to be zoned commercially in most zoning laws I
| look at. Where are they zoned only industrial?
| parkaboy wrote:
| As yet anothor note in this thread about Houston (from a long-
| time Houstonian) and less in direct response to OP -- the lack
| of zoning bit is actually a bit more complicated than at first
| glance. While it's true there is no zoning, there are two other
| forces at work that exacerbate the sprawl issues here:
|
| (1) Minimum parking lot size requirements (as others
| mentioned). Commercial properties are required to have X amount
| of parking spaces available.
|
| (2) Political issues and how money gets invested: despite
| public "protests" (maybe more like "kvetching"), there's
| continued investment in freeway expansion / car-centric
| infrastructure due to lobbying/other political efforts instead
| of public transportation.
|
| Our sprawl is more due to (1) and (2) rather than lack of
| zoning regulation.
|
| But also to Houston's credit, things are slowly (SLOWLY)
| getting better.
| chrisfinazzo wrote:
| If I can make a nuanced point...
|
| _Suburban_ sprawl is fine and coming from NJ, going to a place
| where it doesn 't exist feels very strange.
|
| My brother lives just outside Charlotte - outside of the
| airport and city proper, you hit what I would consider rural
| areas within roughly 20 minutes.
|
| It's a thing...I guess?
| runarberg wrote:
| Whats wrong with having rural areas close to the city proper?
| In Berlin (one of Europe's largest cities) you don't need to
| go more the 10 km from Neukolln (one of it's densest
| neighborhoods) before you hit the country side. In Seattle
| the Snoqualmie River and the Duvall valley is a beautiful
| countryside only 20 miles from the city center. Why would you
| want to sacrifice that for a sub-optimal housing sprawl with
| horrible carbon footprint?
|
| For people that like the quiet living they can live in a
| nearby town (Duvall has around 10,000 people living in the
| town), the density of the town means you'll probably be close
| to a grocery store and other amenities, and probably even a
| bus line or a commuter train to the nearby city if you need
| to commute to work. Meanwhile the countryside is open for
| everyone (including city dwellers) to enjoy.
|
| It feels like sacrificing this for boring monotonous suburban
| sprawl (as is tradition in California) benefits nobody while
| ruining a good thing many have.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| I dunno, I feel like things like heavy manufacturing,
| smokestack etc. Should have their zoning controlled, everything
| else.. go nuts. I just don't want to breathe emissions.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-01-31 23:01 UTC)