Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bills before the California Legislature would crack down on NIMBYs

citylab.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 329 posts

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

#41

Post by jacobn »

cjensen wrote: post #28
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: t…

That there's not a balanced zoning requirement (housing, jobs, services) seems to me as a lay person to be really weird.

I'm sure there's a ton of good-sounding legal reasons for it, but seriously?!

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

#42

Post by muninn_ »

tomcam wrote: post #37
cjensen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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: t…

Wait, developers should pay for schools? What are property taxes for?

I think what they are talking about is the resident who will move in that need schools (and will pay property tax), not the developers. He developers can't build the residencies without having enough schooling for families moving in.

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

#43

Post by panzer_wyrm »

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.

Please do not change the goalposts. You were talking about property not houses. Condos are property and are easier to obtain.

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

#44

Post by SamReidHughes »

wfunction wrote: post #36
jkimmel wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mo…

Wouldn't you need to grow more food supporting the growing in-population though?

You can be sure California exports a ton of its food.

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

#45

Post by AnimalMuppet »

jkimmel wrote: post #29
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 mo…

One gallon per almond? But... one gallon of bottled water is more than a dollar. I know there's packaging and transportation, but there's packaging and transportation for the almonds, too. And almonds are not one dollar per almond.

Do the almond growers receive subsidized water? I don't know how else the economics of this works out. (Unless the water used to grow almonds isn't up to the purity standards of drinking water, and they're counting on the tree to filter it...)

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

#46

Post by stevenwoo »

wfunction wrote: post #36
jkimmel wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mo…

Wouldn't you need to grow more food supporting the growing in-population though?

California exports food so it would just have to stop exporting so much. https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/statistics/

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

#47

Post by AnimalMuppet »

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.

How far is it from Silicon Valley to a really good trout stream? In Boise, it's a lot closer.

How about hiking in a wilderness area? Skiing?

Now, true, if you want high-quality Chinese food, Boise may not be your cup of tea (pun intended). But I bet there are enough tech people who like the outdoors more than the big city to make a small-ish tech hub in someplace like Boise.

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

#48

Post by sjg007 »

cjensen wrote: post #28
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: t…

It's a 30min commute and if Bart extends not a big deal. Also people move.

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

#49

Post by WillPostForFood »

enraged_camel wrote: post #32
posixplz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, i fear that any sufficiently strong measures to restrict empty homes or foreign investment (see: empty home taxes in British Columbia) will be met with strong resistance from Democrats. As a resident of the Pacific Northwest, the same property squeeze is happening here on a similarly massive scale, also driven by foreign "investment". In my experience, advocating for…

>>i fear that any sufficiently strong measures to restrict empty homes or foreign investment (see: empty home taxes in British Columbia) will be met with strong resistance from Democrats. Uh, I'm not sure why Democrats would be against this, especially considering Prop 13 was passed by Reagan.

I know people like to blame Reagan for lots of things, but Prop 13 was passed by voter initiative in 1978, Reagan was Governor from 1967 to 1975. He probably voted for it though.

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

#50

Post by pfooti »

tomcam wrote: post #37
cjensen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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: t…

Wait, developers should pay for schools? What are property taxes for?

Thanks to the vagaries of prop 13, schools (and other municipal services) tend to get a lot better-funded from commercial real estate than housing. So we see cities prioritizing office space and not building enough housing to hold the people who will be working in those cities. It's pretty ridiculous.
Post reply on HN