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The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

nber.org

11–20 of 105 posts

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#11
post #2

If you care about places like Silicon Valley or New York, or if you care about social justice across (and within) generations, it's time to research and understand why housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable in the most dynamic areas of the world. It's not due to lack of land. In California, we have a chance to fix things. SB-827 is a new bill that prevents local governments from banning density near public tra…

Since that's a marketing page for SB827, can someone explain to me how it doesn't ultimately create an incentive against public transit? All it would take to get around the zoning override would be to remove transit... I assume removing a bus stop (or even an entire route) is trivial. I could definitely foresee more homeowners blocking development of new routes/stations. With those considerations, it's possible we co…

The plan is to pin the requirements to 'transit routes at a specific date' not float them to 'what is the transit route today', so changing the routes can't be used to manipulate the legislation.

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#12
post #2

If you care about places like Silicon Valley or New York, or if you care about social justice across (and within) generations, it's time to research and understand why housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable in the most dynamic areas of the world. It's not due to lack of land. In California, we have a chance to fix things. SB-827 is a new bill that prevents local governments from banning density near public tra…

Since that's a marketing page for SB827, can someone explain to me how it doesn't ultimately create an incentive against public transit? All it would take to get around the zoning override would be to remove transit... I assume removing a bus stop (or even an entire route) is trivial. I could definitely foresee more homeowners blocking development of new routes/stations. With those considerations, it's possible we co…

"cough prop 13"

It's getting old. People seem to have no idea how it was before. Yes--counties has more money. And they spent that money on so-so many pet projects.

(I live in Marin County. All of west Marin (where George Lucas built his castle) was rezoned in the 70's to 1 home per 100 acres. The late supervisor Gary Giacomoni freely admits without that war chest he wouldn't be able to rezone. I was young, but the money was wasted on so many instances.)

I didn't have to read I'm Mad as Hell, by Howard Jarvis to understand my father literally tearing up when that property tax bill was opened at the dinnner table.

I guess people will need to revisit history on order to understand the pain? Or, Prop 13 is just a easy target?

I won't be back to defend my post, but if you want to debate, please state if you were alive during the money grab.

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#13
post #2

If you care about places like Silicon Valley or New York, or if you care about social justice across (and within) generations, it's time to research and understand why housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable in the most dynamic areas of the world. It's not due to lack of land. In California, we have a chance to fix things. SB-827 is a new bill that prevents local governments from banning density near public tra…

I'd suggest that you research why it's necessary for companies to cram so much demand for housing in a few areas.

It's seems absurd in this day and age that we're still concentrating business to such an extent in places like the NY Metro Area and the Bay Area. IBM in the olden times leveraged locating facilities in nowheresville as a competitive advantage. I'm surprised it isn't catching on now that engineers are being so highly compensated.

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#14
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since that's a marketing page for SB827, can someone explain to me how it doesn't ultimately create an incentive against public transit? All it would take to get around the zoning override would be to remove transit... I assume removing a bus stop (or even an entire route) is trivial. I could definitely foresee more homeowners blocking development of new routes/stations. With those considerations, it's possible we co…

It's not a marketing page, really. I made it. Did you see my vlog? It's too bad it looks so pro... it looks like a real estate developer built it :) But Senator's Wiener's FAQ answers the question you ask: https://extranewsfeed.com/my-transit-density-bill-sb-827-ans... he says "First, most cities and towns don’t operate their own transit systems, given that transit agencies are typically separate from cities or regio…

It's definitely a "marketing page" in that it's only purpose is to convince people to support sb-827.

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#15
post #2

If you care about places like Silicon Valley or New York, or if you care about social justice across (and within) generations, it's time to research and understand why housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable in the most dynamic areas of the world. It's not due to lack of land. In California, we have a chance to fix things. SB-827 is a new bill that prevents local governments from banning density near public tra…

Every time I see this posted, I ask about noise. Dense housing near rapid-transit, particularly rail, has led to lots of people getting exposed to massive volumes of noise, even at night. This is the type of long-term negative that get people to move out to the suburbs (e.g. self-defeating the policy) or call for more construction such as sound walls. You can see Reno for a perfect example of this. Everyone moved out to the burb, traffic sucks, then they ended up just building sounds walls anyways.

Does any piece of this legislation deal with the inherent problem of rapid-transit noise + dense housing?

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#16
post #15
post #2

If you care about places like Silicon Valley or New York, or if you care about social justice across (and within) generations, it's time to research and understand why housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable in the most dynamic areas of the world. It's not due to lack of land. In California, we have a chance to fix things. SB-827 is a new bill that prevents local governments from banning density near public tra…

Every time I see this posted, I ask about noise. Dense housing near rapid-transit, particularly rail, has led to lots of people getting exposed to massive volumes of noise, even at night. This is the type of long-term negative that get people to move out to the suburbs (e.g. self-defeating the policy) or call for more construction such as sound walls. You can see Reno for a perfect example of this. Everyone moved out…

We should upzone everything!

Noise sucks, but for some people it's the right tradeoff. We should allow people to choose that if they want.

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#17
post #15
post #2

If you care about places like Silicon Valley or New York, or if you care about social justice across (and within) generations, it's time to research and understand why housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable in the most dynamic areas of the world. It's not due to lack of land. In California, we have a chance to fix things. SB-827 is a new bill that prevents local governments from banning density near public tra…

Every time I see this posted, I ask about noise. Dense housing near rapid-transit, particularly rail, has led to lots of people getting exposed to massive volumes of noise, even at night. This is the type of long-term negative that get people to move out to the suburbs (e.g. self-defeating the policy) or call for more construction such as sound walls. You can see Reno for a perfect example of this. Everyone moved out…

> inherent problem of rapid-transit noise

What inherent problem? Rapid transit is certainly quieter than vehicle traffic. Noise pollution comes from sirens and heavy trucking, not public transportation.

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#18
post #2

If you care about places like Silicon Valley or New York, or if you care about social justice across (and within) generations, it's time to research and understand why housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable in the most dynamic areas of the world. It's not due to lack of land. In California, we have a chance to fix things. SB-827 is a new bill that prevents local governments from banning density near public tra…

Since that's a marketing page for SB827, can someone explain to me how it doesn't ultimately create an incentive against public transit? All it would take to get around the zoning override would be to remove transit... I assume removing a bus stop (or even an entire route) is trivial. I could definitely foresee more homeowners blocking development of new routes/stations. With those considerations, it's possible we co…

> Since that's a marketing page for SB827, can someone explain to me how it doesn't ultimately create an incentive against public transit?

How does building high density housing near public transportation incentivize people to not use that public transportation?

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#19
post #2

If you care about places like Silicon Valley or New York, or if you care about social justice across (and within) generations, it's time to research and understand why housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable in the most dynamic areas of the world. It's not due to lack of land. In California, we have a chance to fix things. SB-827 is a new bill that prevents local governments from banning density near public tra…

Since that's a marketing page for SB827, can someone explain to me how it doesn't ultimately create an incentive against public transit? All it would take to get around the zoning override would be to remove transit... I assume removing a bus stop (or even an entire route) is trivial. I could definitely foresee more homeowners blocking development of new routes/stations. With those considerations, it's possible we co…

> I could definitely foresee more homeowners blocking development of new routes/stations.

Say, you own a piece of land with a house near public transit. Since the local township can no longer forbid building an apartment building on your land, you can probably sell your land to a developer for $$$$, so you make much more money than selling just a single house.

And because you didn't want to live near public transit, with the $$$$ you can spend $$$ to buy a house that is sufficiently far away from public transit and still make a good profit in the trade.

So if you like money more than your current house, why would you oppose?

Re: The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability (2002)

#20
YES.

Seeing an NBER paper on Hacker News of all places makes me want to cry tears of joy.

That zoning and insane levels of regulation are absolutely the causes of the housing crises in the US is the mainstream consensus among economists.

For those unfamiliar, Glaeser is widely considered the foremost urban economist, so I'm shocked to see his famous paper linked on here. He's absolutely brilliant.

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