Bay Area cities want to end single-family home zoning

This is more pro-developer shilling.

"This scared the hell out of homeowners in rich neighborhoods, because apartments were for poor people and minorities"

Bullshit. The fact is that they're ugly, they block out the sun from neighboring structures and yards, and they promote an influx of people that the community may not be prepared to handle.

These "good" bills are full of developer handouts like this:

"Off-street parking of up to one space per unit, except that a local agency shall not impose parking requirements in either of the following instances:

(A) The parcel is located within one-half mile walking distance of either a high-quality transit corridor, as defined in subdivision (b) of Section 21155 of the Public Resources Code, or a major transit stop, as defined in Section 21064.3 of the Public Resources Code.

(B) There is a car share vehicle located within one block of the parcel."

These bills regard a single bus stop as "transit," knowing full well that it's useless to the vast majority of people. And that "car share vehicle" provision is straight-up insulting. WTF, a single shared car for FOUR BLOCKS of apartment buildings? And what happens when that car gets removed or wrecked? Tear the buildings down?

So now you have a shitload of new people and cars taking all the street parking from existing residents.

The country isn't "full." What kind of fool promotes rolling out the welcome mat for MORE people in an area headed into yet another historic drought? We can't support the people who are already here, and these shills want to pack MORE in?

Insulting and stupid.

wow this got long, but I'm in Denver and we have like 4 ballot measures to vote on that revolve around this issue of race, class, development. Specifically Apartment Prohibition!! If anyone is interested. -- denver is going to vote on a ballot measure soon to repeal the repeal of apartment prohibition and I feel it is similarly driven by race & class bias, driven by largely white home owners who literally say they want to protect their wealth (below).

Our city council only recently changed zoning to allow an increase from only 2!!! non-related adults living in the same place to 5. It's crazy to me that was ever a limit in the first place.

No 3 bed apartments for non-blood relatives?!

The old zoning that was fixed also made it harder and limited certain types of group homes, rehabs etc too, especially the number of and locations.

One of the filers of this repeal said the following in a press article - clear intent imho.

“This affects their very wealth. Their very wealth,” said George E. Mayl, one of the five voters who officially filed to create a referendum committee. “And not only that, their children’s, their heirs’ wealth. Someone’s home is their single largest investment of their life.”

also the way they use 'neighborhood' to me is not so veiled language in the context of race and class - just like the many policies and laws in the past. It's used as a rhetorical excuse just like 'protecting the kids' is often used.

Similarly like Trump & Reps in 2020 made 'protect the suburbs from' or 'border invasion' a key message.

There are another 2 housing measures on the ballot that are competing.

A big developer spent like $20 million or something to buy rights for a golf course in the city that they want to develop.

They bought it with a green space park easement... But to be profitable they have to repeal the easement so they can built over the park. They gambled on their power to change the law.

So they filed a measure to allow them to build more (to be fair they still plan on having a park, but less green space than currently protected in an easement).

So now there is a competing measure in response to protect the park.

I'm for it we don't have a ton of open green space in Denver and we can't build more. Let's change laws and remove red tape to build UP.

What happens if they both pass? who in the world will be able to decipher the two when voting?

And what does it say that corporations & white homeowners consistently and so plainly manipulate the law directly for their bottom line (oil and gas is a big one here)?

Another one on the ballot around homelessness. HUGE problem, we have tents in residential neighborhoods and lots of theft.

But it's pretending to address the problem while really making more laws and regulations to criminalize homelessness and disallow solutions.

They're so brave to invest in allowing homeless to sleep in parking lots lol...

While simultaneously making it harder to create group living and the rehab that a ton of homeless individuals would greatly benefit from.

Thankfully we do have some push by Rep. DeGette and a few others to buy old motels. That's a good investment and would actually help.

I don't understand what you are (rhetorically) advocating for?

Indeed.

A big thing I've noticed - especially on HN which is mostly white and male - is we perhaps fundamentally disagree on what 'racist' means.

To me I view racism as a larger umbrella. Includes bias, both on the surface but also more broadly what has been cultivated as a society. Context is very important in my definition viewpoint. centuries of historic oppression, which led to unequal wealth, opportunity, and more. ongoing bias which discriminates in hiring and opportunity and more.

I view this context as a kind of 'prior' (to use a ML term I don't fully understand lol) when assessing whether or not something is 'racist.'

While on the other hand it seems like some view racism as solely a person knowingly and vocally treating one ethnicity differently and discriminating openly.

To me I agree with parent and I hold the larger viewpoint.

Because of centuries of oppression BIPOC have less money, less opportunity, own less housing, communities are segregated don't have nearly as much ownership in the 'single family neighborhoods' & that community which drives the policy we are talking about.

I don't think one can ignore that context, and its implicit bias, when looking at why these laws, regulations, zoning were (and are) being passed.

And plus many times it's also explicitly racist like the latter viewpoint; like the language Trump & Republicans use about 'invading' the suburbs.