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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

#161

Post by muninn_ »

closeparen wrote: post #102
muninn_ wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how many people are going to move there to live in a bus? I certainly wouldn't. If property values get too high I'll just not move there. I don't understand this mentality where everybody thinks they should be able to afford to live in the best cities in the country, especially in California. It's just simple supply and demand. If housing prices get too high and people can't afford to live there they will live so…

I don't understand this mentality where everybody thinks they are entitled to prevent others (from the same country, no less!) from moving in to their community. It's not "supply and demand" until the supply caps come off. It's just policy set by the entrenched.

No different than any other prevention, or rule. Why shouldn't they be able to? If you moving to my community and doing whatever causes damage to the value of my property that's no different than doing damage to anything else.

It's their community they set the rules. Why have communities or governments, or even countries for that matter? Fundamentally they do the same things.

Why should I not be able to just come live in your house or just build a house in your backyard? Oh you have a great view? Let me just build a huge nonsense wall here and live in a small shack or something. Why not?

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

#162

Post by makomk »

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?

Property taxes pay to run the schools, barely. The obvious problem with paying for building new schools from property taxes is that it gives every single existing resident a financial incentive to block new development: they have to pay for all the supporting infrastructure, whilst all of the financial benefits go to the property developers. If there's no provision that says otherwise, they'd probably even have to pay to buy the land for the schools off the property developers.

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

#164

Post by Zach_the_Lizard »

Sukotto wrote: post #140
ianamartin wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds an awful lot like you're suggesting that people who have already acquired the rights to a piece of property shouldn't be allowed to keep them if a housing developer wants to put a high rise where your Burger King is. Also, I wonder if you would make the same argument for places that are also generally though of as real-estate constrained. Like Manhattan, or Tokyo. Or the part of Brooklyn where I live.

Here in Japan your neighbour can build pretty much anything they want (within zoning constraints) and there is little you can do about it. The zoning here is pretty different than in the US though. The government created a national, unified zoning standard consisting of 12 zones. Local governments can split their land into more-or-less arbitrary regions, and choose which zone type they want each region to have. They…

We not only have zones, but we layer on historic districts, parking minimums, setbacks, etc., going further than just not mixing commercial and residential. We mandate certain lifestyles in a pretty big way. A big shock vs. living in Japan where one can choose very different lifestyles.

I also miss the freedom Japanese architects seemed to have, where a building shaped like a treehouse would be just one of several interesting buildings.

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

#165

Post by muninn_ »

hpaavola wrote: post #158
timr wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Not really. There's plenty of room to build a ton more in San Francisco." "Anti-building regulations are the only meaningful reason why the housing supply is so restricted." Prove your claim. The GP is right that there is essentially no undeveloped land in SF; a huge part of the housing moratorium debate centered on the fact that there are only a half-dozen or so vacant parcels in the Mission. This is true across th…

"or the owner of the land doesn't want to redevelop it" I don't know the English terms here, but that kind of situation where individuals are earning massive profits because everybody else built city around them, is just wrong. That unearned rise in the property value should be taxed away. So, just zone more apartments in that area and put big enough property tax on underdeveloped land area. That way the economic inc…

> because somebody else built a city around them

Doesn't sound like that's the property owner's problem. They didn't ask for the city to be built around them.

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

#166

Post by muninn_ »

dalbasal wrote: post #154
fmboingo wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always find it interesting to hear what people believe they deserve. In these comments you can hear the "I deserve to live in a house with my family of 4 in Palo Alto". Do you really deserve that? Says who? That would be like me showing up in NYC and saying I deserve to live in a penthouse on 5th Ave. No I don't. There is plenty of wide open space outside the Bay Area.

I suppose that's what this discussion is about. Who deserves what. I don't think anyone really has suggestions that enable anyone to by a family home in Palo Alto. But, the question is do local residents deserve the right to keep out newcomers. Who has what rights (who deserves what) is not an abstract truth we discover. It’s decisions we make.

But then you're asserting that those who live in Palo Alto don't have the right to govern their community. They aren't keeping out newcomers at all, in fact, there are houses for sale in Palo Alto. For some reason people think that living in that area should be affordable. It shouldn't be. Live somewhere else.

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

#167

Post by matt4077 »

golemotron wrote: post #33

Maybe the answer is to stop growing and let other parts of the country grow. The brain drain to SV has been disastrous for other communities. It's contributed to inequality and deep geographic/political polarization. Yes, you can downvote me but consider formulating a counter-argument.

I agree with you in principle. Specifically, having the "coastal elites" spread out a bit could also serve to close the political chasm that is threatening to swallow the US.

But, thinking of counterarguments, it appears there is a network effect going on here, i. e. the value (an attractiveness) of a tech hub is proportional to something larger than the sum of its components.

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

#169

Post by ericd »

timr wrote: post #138
skewart wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which is 99% developed. Not really. There's plenty of room to build a ton more in San Francisco. Just because there's already, say, a parking lot or a Burger King with a drive-through on a block in the city doesn't mean that it wouldn't be possible to build apartments there instead. Geography and existing land use do not prevent building more housing in SF. Anti-building regulations are the only meaningful reason w…

"Not really. There's plenty of room to build a ton more in San Francisco." "Anti-building regulations are the only meaningful reason why the housing supply is so restricted." Prove your claim. The GP is right that there is essentially no undeveloped land in SF; a huge part of the housing moratorium debate centered on the fact that there are only a half-dozen or so vacant parcels in the Mission. This is true across th…

There are a lot of vacant buildings being sat on by property speculators, with very little property tax to motivate use thanks to Prop 13 (and because existing tenants hurt resale value).

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

#170

Post by [deleted] »

timr wrote: post #138
skewart wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which is 99% developed. Not really. There's plenty of room to build a ton more in San Francisco. Just because there's already, say, a parking lot or a Burger King with a drive-through on a block in the city doesn't mean that it wouldn't be possible to build apartments there instead. Geography and existing land use do not prevent building more housing in SF. Anti-building regulations are the only meaningful reason w…

"Not really. There's plenty of room to build a ton more in San Francisco." "Anti-building regulations are the only meaningful reason why the housing supply is so restricted." Prove your claim. The GP is right that there is essentially no undeveloped land in SF; a huge part of the housing moratorium debate centered on the fact that there are only a half-dozen or so vacant parcels in the Mission. This is true across th…

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