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Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama

sfchronicle.com

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Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama

#31

Post by runnerup »

bluGill wrote: post #22
jollyllama wrote: post #12

What's to stop a landlord from turning a floor in his apartment building into a chicken battery farm now?

Why do you care if they do? Now you should have the right to demand that the chicken farm controls the smell, and otherwise isn't polluting, but stopping chicken farms completely is the wrong solution. The above includes assurance that fire and accidents will not spread. Of course land in the bay is valuable enough that nobody will do what you suggest. However that is economics, it shouldn't be law.

Sometimes there are things are obviously bad and harmful and it can be known ahead of time that it will harm people. These things should be stopped before they happen in a properly functioning society.

If someone invents a way to do it safely, they should have the burden of safely proving that first.

If someone wants to stockpile 100 tons of explosive material in my neighborhood, I don't want my estate to use the courts to find remedy after my section of the neighborhood gets leveled/cratered. I want the obviously harmful activity to be stopped before the hazard is created.

Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama

#32

Post by gadflyinyoureye »

dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #18
jollyllama wrote: post #12

What's to stop a landlord from turning a floor in his apartment building into a chicken battery farm now?

Battery chicken farms are known to cause cancer in the State of California?

Probably. Everything does. https://www.newsweek.com/heres-why-everything-gives-you-canc...

Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama

#33

Post by encoderer »

davidw wrote: post #29
MarkMarine wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a great article about this a couple weeks back: https://darrellowens.substack.com/p/ca-cities-to-lose-all-zo... Basically, until these cities get a housing plan validated with the state, who is apparently sick of their crap like zoning in the middle of an active mall that will not be torn down, builder’s remedy is in place.

Congrats to https://cayimby.org/ and https://yimbyaction.org/ for all their work on this! Great organizations to get involved with if you care about other people being able to afford a place to live.

[flagged]

Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama

#35

Post by potatolicious »

occz wrote: post #3

Zoning laws broadly are probably still in effect, right? I doubt you could build something industrial in residential zones. It's just the bad parts of zoning that are disabled, if I understood the article correctly. Excellent development in any case. Hope a lot of good dense housing gets built.

Yes, also residential "zoning laws" broadly still exist - it's just that they are state-level residential zoning regs rather than city/county ones.

The implication that this is anarchy is incorrect. Construction and zoning are still highly regulated, just by someone else this time (FWIW, I fully support this and hope many projects built and cities stop crying and get in compliance with the HCD).

Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama

#36

Post by shuckles »

encoderer wrote: post #33
davidw wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congrats to https://cayimby.org/ and https://yimbyaction.org/ for all their work on this! Great organizations to get involved with if you care about other people being able to afford a place to live.

[flagged]

Why is it nonsense for the state to fund shelter programs by buying out non-viable businesses (empty motels at the height of the pandemic), bailing out both business owners and building shelter capacity at much lower cost than building it new?

Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama

#37

Post by davidw »

encoderer wrote: post #33
davidw wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congrats to https://cayimby.org/ and https://yimbyaction.org/ for all their work on this! Great organizations to get involved with if you care about other people being able to afford a place to live.

[flagged]

Once someone has a home, they're no longer homeless, so it's a good strategy in some circumstances. Even where that person has other 'issues', it's a lot easier to deal with those once they're in a stable location.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/14/headway/houston-homeless-...

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/01/homeles...

Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama

#38

Post by shuckles »

GalenErso wrote: post #4

The next target should be CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act. NIMBYs can endlessly delay new construction by requesting CEQA assessments. I am hugely pro-environment, mind you, but an environmental assessment for a new development should be relatively fast and easy to complete, and it shouldn't prevent new builds wholesale except in the direst cases.

Exempting infill housing from CEQA is on the YIMBY agenda. That said, CEQA only applies to discretionary decisions, so if permitting residential development is a ministerial decision (i.e. anyone who meets certain criteria is approved), then the CEQA review for it is incorporated into the Housing Element. That is itself a huge step forward.

Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama

#39

Post by frosted-flakes »

encoderer wrote: post #33
davidw wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congrats to https://cayimby.org/ and https://yimbyaction.org/ for all their work on this! Great organizations to get involved with if you care about other people being able to afford a place to live.

[flagged]

Seems like a decent short-term plan, if it were to be properly funded and actually run like a hotel, minus the profits.

Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama

#40

Post by noselasd »

bluGill wrote: post #22
jollyllama wrote: post #12

What's to stop a landlord from turning a floor in his apartment building into a chicken battery farm now?

Why do you care if they do? Now you should have the right to demand that the chicken farm controls the smell, and otherwise isn't polluting, but stopping chicken farms completely is the wrong solution. The above includes assurance that fire and accidents will not spread. Of course land in the bay is valuable enough that nobody will do what you suggest. However that is economics, it shouldn't be law.

I’ll assume there’s law controlling animal welfare, pollution, building codes for fire, water etc. hazards, but without zoning laws are there grounds to control noise, smell, traffic etc. ?
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