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Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

inpractice.yimbyaction.org

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Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#301

Post by mac-mc »

GenerWork wrote: post #261
seryoiupfurds wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a YIMBY, ADUs are an introductory "first step" policy that should obviously be legal, but were never expected to have any real effect. True YIMBY policy would be zoning for six-story apartments by-right citywide, with density going up to 20 stories near rapid transit. But even policies that sound great on paper are often sabotaged by cities with unworkable affordability requirements that prevent anything from bein…

>As a YIMBY, ADUs are an introductory "first step" policy that should obviously be legal, but were never expected to have any real effect. This is such a weird thing to say. Why would lawmakers ever want to support a new YIMBY policy when the people that support them openly admit that it was never meant to achieve what they claimed was going to achieve?

If you listen to the histrionics that NIMBYs say, it's an example legislation that would lead to typical NIMBY histrionics, but when implemented leads to none of those claimed issues, because it doesn't get used that much.

"See, that wasn't that hard". It's baby's first upzoning.

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#302

Post by s1artibartfast »

dmitrygr wrote: post #288
s1artibartfast wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rent an ADU in California, and many of the Tennant rights are waived for it if the primary property is owner occupied, aside from some cities like oakland. I would not want to rent a separate property in CA as an individual, especially as counties start banning criminal background checks.

> many of the Tennant rights are waived for it if the primary property is owner occupied, aside from some cities like oakland And this can change overnight... CA cities have made some pretty drastic changes quite suddenly in the past. Not worth it. Eg: https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2025/01/29/mountain-view-stren...

Oh how I know it. I know someone who got fucked by the COVID eviction moratorium. 3 years of lost rent on a Bay area house while eating the mortgage, plus 250k property damage.

Judgement proof Tennant mean that comes out of retirement and college funds. Makes me wish criminal charges were viable.

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#303

Post by s1artibartfast »

ty6853 wrote: post #289
legitster wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shipping containers are a huge red flag that a project is a gimmick. People have this mistaken idea that there are a ton of shipping containers that need to be recycled (there was a brief period in the mid aughts where this may have been true). But a used shipping container is neither cheap nor a great material to build a home from.

Last I checked you could get a 20 ft container for what, 6 grand? That's 160 sq ft. And you need a foundation. And to frame inside for insulation. If you go Amish style without mains power you could finish out a kacynziski sized studio for under 20k.

800-20k is a pretty tidy profit margin for someone with connections. I think the bid was for a hundred of them.

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#304

Post by CivBase »

mrguyorama wrote: post #297
CivBase wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that what she ran on? My perception was that she ran on "more of the same but also different... nevermind, look at all these celebrities telling you to vote for me!" and something vague about protecting women's rights. It's almost like you need more than a couple months to run a serious presidential campaign. Despite being the VP for 4 years, most people didn't know what to expect from her. Almost nobody was enthu…

Did you look up her platform at all? Or do you insist this because it wasn't spoon fed to you? There was a platform document pretty early on in her campaign. Meanwhile Trump in 2020 did not have a platform at all and yet the voters didn't give a shit.

> Did you look up her platform at all? Or do you insist this because it wasn't spoon fed to you?

I know her actual platform was more detailed than that, but it doesn't matter what I know. The point is it was not communicated effectively. Go out on the streets and ask the common folk what her platform was. Aside from "I don't know", the answers you'll get will be all over the place - mostly just generic DNC talking points. The average liberal/moderate/independent voter was not excited about Harris.

Do you honestly think most voters are researching candidates? Honestly? Of course they aren't. They expect it to be spoon fed to them.

> There was a platform document pretty early on in her campaign.

Good luck insisting voters should RTFM. Professionals don't even RTFM most of the time.

> Meanwhile Trump in 2020 did not have a platform at all and yet the voters didn't give a shit.

Trump lost in 2020, so I'm not sure why this is relevant. But regardless his platform was the same as it was in 2016 and 2024 - "Make America great again," "drain the swamp," these are household phrases. And just as Trump's platform resonated better with voters in 2016 and 2024, Biden's "return to normalcy" platform resonated in 2020 amidst the pandemic. There's more to these platforms than a catchy slogan, but that's the part people remember. It's effective marketing.

Look man, I want the Democrats to put forth a strong candidate and an effective campaign but this whole "blaming the voter" thing is not going to get them there. It's just going to continue alienating the people they need most.

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#305

Post by eddythompson80 »

archagon wrote: post #296
e40 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Berkeley, CA in the 80s (90s?) a lady went into the hospital for an extended stay and rented her place. She had a verbal agreement that they'd leave when she got out. She got out, they didn't leave. Last I heard about the case it was 10 years later and they were still there. Yeah, I know, Berkeley. Rent control was very anti-landlord. But "rents have total rights as long as they pay" sounds too harsh to me.

I feel for the lady, but the problem is that she didn’t get it in writing. Renter protections are almost orthogonal.

Yeah, that’s usually the answer. At the end of the day, never communicate with your tenant except through a lawyer or an officer. Corporate is much better fit for rent than small scale landlords. No emotions involved, no trust required, and they can achieve economy of scale with legal fees.

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#306

Post by lotsoweiners »

floatrock wrote: post #273
ReptileMan wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works wonders for utilities and telcos. You stop paying your bills - your phone is dead, you have no internet and electricity in X days after skipping an invoice. Why should be leasing real estate any different?

It is expensive to be poor because of feedback loops. If you lose a job and miss a paycheck this month, maybe you need an extra month to get back on your feet. If you lose housing right away, it's gonna be harder to find a job ("why is your suit wrinkled? why do you smell like you haven't taken a shower in a week?"), which makes it harder to get an apartment that would stabilize things. We have safety nets so the sma…

Ok but we have plenty of other safety nets. Govt programs like SNAP, Unemployment, TANF, etc. We have other potential safety nets such as family, churches, various other organizations that help out, friend’s couches. I don’t understand why a small time landlord who probably doesn’t have huge cash flow on a property should be unable to pay the mortgage on the property for 6 months or a year. It doesn’t seem right to me.

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#307

Post by scoofy »

anon7000 wrote: post #73
legitster wrote: post #46

I've grown a little bit more skeptical of what can realistically be achieved by the passive nature of YIMBY-ism. In Portland, they passed some radical new zoning laws a few years ago that allowed anyone, anywhere the ability to zone ADUs on their property. And the cost to get permits is almost nothing. I have lots of friends and family in the area with property. But not a single one has added an ADU. It seems like it…

It’s more about long term, but I see what you mean about lighting a fire under butts. One of the most eye opening discoveries for me on my urbanism journey is how Amsterdam got better. It wasn’t always a bicycle paradise; its city center had massive parking lots, huge roads, and a poor pedestrian environment. But today it’s much different — because policies were enacted decades ago which ensure roads are re-configure…

>We didn’t get into the current situation because someone woke up and decided housing scarcity would be cool.

I mean, in a way, we did.

CEQA didn't become the monster that it is now because the California legislature intended to enact a monster. It was effectively an accident of an interesting, and arguably activist, interpretation by the CA Supreme Court in a case called Friends of Mammoth v. Board of Supervisors:

>In 1972, the California Supreme Court broadened CEQA by interpreting a "public" project as any development that needed government approval.[4][5]: 1 Since then, CEQA has become the basis for anyone with a grievance against a project to file lawsuits to slow projects by years or kill projects by imposing delays and litigation costs that make projects infeasible.[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Environmental_Quali...

https://casetext.com/case/friends-of-mammoth-v-board-of-supe...

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#308

Post by loeg »

vaidhy wrote: post #51
loeg wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the entire result of NEPA/CEQA/SEPA legislation is mandated process rather than any specific environmental goals or regulation. They should be scrapped and replaced with specific goals and/or a government regulatory authority (like the EPA).

One is strategic and other is tactical. The goal is the strategy and the process is tactical. Just having a goal without specific means of achieving it is useless.

I don't think this is responsive to my comment.

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#309

Post by hintymad »

> The DOGE point of view says if the government can’t do anything, we should just get rid of the government

I have a hard time wrapping my head around this statement. If a department in a company does not work, we don't get rid of the department? If a company does not work, this company does not go out of business? If a church does not help its community, people will still go there on Sundays? If a school does not teach effectively, will parents still send their kids there if they have a choice? Then why is it suddenly different when it comes to government.

Now before some of you scream far-right, I do want to note that classical liberalism does advocate for constraints on government authority, and are open to replacement and reform if an institution demonstrably fails.

Re: Abundance isn't going to happen unless politicians are scared of the status quo

#310

Post by rayiner »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #281
rayiner wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People support the nice sounding abstract phrase until you tell them specifically what you mean by it. And I didn’t cherry pick anything. I quoted the portions of the article that said support depends on context, and then the paragraph discussing the college context and the employment context. The article itself happens to specify a percentage in text for one but not the other. Then I mentioned Prop 16 as a concrete…

Further down in the article, it also cites a poll in which over 60% of people say racial and ethnic diversity is either extremely or somewhat important. People have a lot of conflicting opinions! The idea that the data here supports any sort of “overwhelming” consensus is just straight up not true.

That’s not a conflicting opinion. People support diversity, but oppose the principal approach to achieving diversity.

Note that the questions for both admissions and employment specify diversity as the goal. For example, the options for the employment question are:

> Only take a person's qualifications into account, even if it results in less diversity

> Take a person's race and ethnicity into account, in addition to qualifications, in order to increase diversity

People support the end of increased diversity, but oppose race conscious admissions and hiring as a means to that end. That’s entirely consistent.

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