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Bills before the California Legislature would crack down on NIMBYs

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Re: Bills before the California Legislature would crack down on NIMBYs

#21

Post by golemotron »

imbusy111 wrote: post #17
golemotron wrote: post #9

It's a very anti-democratic move by California. They are willing to destroy local control of people in their communities to foster growth that will lead to further deterioration of living standards. Wouldn't it be better to try to grow tech outside of California in places like the Dakotas and Idaho where there is plenty of land and people in need of work? The American heartland could be a place rich in opportunity if…

Not a lot of people want to live in places that you mentioned. The really smart people will find a way to stay in California forcing all others to gather around them.

That sort of intellectual/economic wealth concentration is problematic for society. Wouldn't it be better to have many smaller hubs that more expansive communities can grow from?

Re: Bills before the California Legislature would crack down on NIMBYs

#22

Post by mythrwy »

mikekij wrote: post #4

Currently trying to build a house in San Diego county. Red tape, permitting, and waiting on the county to review things has consumed no less than 18% of our total budget. I'm happy that California protects our environment from negative environmental impacts, but the way in which they do it makes new housing almost entirely uneconomical.

I've always suspected if not the overt aim, then a "side benefit" of this kind of activity was to restrict the inflow of people into desirable areas (rather than just protecting the environment or collecting taxes or else general bureaucratic nonsense).

I'd love to live in San Diego. If I could afford it and live like I do now I'd be there in a heartbeat. Not the case with San Fransisco which I'd have to be paid a whole lot more than could reasonably be expected to go near.

Re: Bills before the California Legislature would crack down on NIMBYs

#24

Post by euyyn »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #16

IMO, it's gotten bad enough in the Bay Area that local control of zoning ought to get abolished. Make a new regional zoning commission, put together some clear and consistent rules about what can be built and where, and rubber-stamp everything that meets those rules. Literal rubber-stamp here, as in "you give us an affidavit saying that your plan meets the specified rules, and you get a permit to build the same day,…

Just for zoning requirements, not environmental ones, though.

Re: Bills before the California Legislature would crack down on NIMBYs

#25

Post by moultano »

golemotron wrote: post #15
favorited wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you expect California to want to grow the tech industry in other states? California has a pretty vested interest in making sure that high-earning tech employees and companies continue to pay California state taxes.

It is something we could do as a nation. There is so much land and there are so many people who need jobs. Many of them can't move to the cities.

Mostly they can't move to cities because zoning laws prevent the places they would live from being built.

Re: Bills before the California Legislature would crack down on NIMBYs

#26

Post by colordrops »

School-Cotton wrote: post #18
alexbecker wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It didn't used to be. We should be asking why things seem to have regressed, shouldn't we?

Didn't it? Were individuals ever commonly buying houses (EDIT: any property) in Manhattan, for example? I don't have any hard numbers, but I suspect LA simply having become more urban and desirable is a big part of it. It's certainly still possible to buy houses in suburban flyover country very cheaply.

Not a fair comparison. Manhattan is a very dense small area. More comparable to L.A. would be the greater NY metropolitan region.

Re: Bills before the California Legislature would crack down on NIMBYs

#27

Post by colordrops »

School-Cotton wrote: post #6
colordrops wrote: post #2

I'm making what I would think to be an upper middle class salary and I can't afford a home in a modestly decent neighborhood in L.A. It seems to me that there is definitely a problem and I support loosening development restrictions. It's not only restrictions though. Of the people I know who own property, many, if not the majority, own more than one property, some of them empty. I also know many remote Chinese that o…

> afford a home Can you afford rent, though? Isn't a bit extreme to expect to be able to own property -- like some sort of medieval lord -- in a major city?

Why would affording to purchase a property in a large diverse city like L.A. with a high salary be unreasonable? I really don't understand your stance.

Re: Bills before the California Legislature would crack down on NIMBYs

#28

Post by cjensen »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #16

IMO, it's gotten bad enough in the Bay Area that local control of zoning ought to get abolished. Make a new regional zoning commission, put together some clear and consistent rules about what can be built and where, and rubber-stamp everything that meets those rules. Literal rubber-stamp here, as in "you give us an affidavit saying that your plan meets the specified rules, and you get a permit to build the same day,…

Under existing rules, developers do not pay enough fees to allow the School Districts to build new schools to support the new housing. Now you'd like to rubber stamp this?

For example there's a new development in Fremont of a few hundred houses: the school district had to zone it as "we'll provide school for you, but it'll be wherever we have space across the entire city." That's not good.

To me the idiocy is this: the state government mandates that all cities build new housing. But they don't mandate that housing and jobs balance. A city like Fremont was master-planned with enough space for both, but is being forced by the state to build houses instead for people who will work in Sunnyvale which has too many jobs and not enough houses.

Re: Bills before the California Legislature would crack down on NIMBYs

#29

Post by jkimmel »

wfunction wrote: post #23

Does the state have a plan for the water crisis that keeps getting worse if it were to make it easier and easier for more and more people to settle down in it?

Only ~10% of California's water use is residential/urban (varies a little bit year to year) [0].

The majority of non-environmental water is used to grow cash crops in the central valley, like almonds, which take 1 gal/almond.

Overall, urban residents have far less impact on climate than exurban residents who drive around in SUVs. It is in the best interests of everyone on planet Earth to make our cities denser and more inviting [1, 2].

[0] - http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_show.asp?i=1108

[1] - http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/

[2] - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/mar/23/city-dwe...

Re: Bills before the California Legislature would crack down on NIMBYs

#30

Post by fra »

wfunction wrote: post #23

Does the state have a plan for the water crisis that keeps getting worse if it were to make it easier and easier for more and more people to settle down in it?

Two things: 1. Despite population growth, urban water use is falling in california 2. Residential water consumption is dwarfed by industrial & agricultural uses

http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_show.asp?i=1108

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