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Builder's Remedy goes into effect in many California cities tomorrow

darrellowens.substack.com

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Re: Builder's Remedy goes into effect in many California cities tomorrow

#321

Post by TulliusCicero »

kevinburke wrote: post #238
gumby wrote: post #107

This is a great article about great news (except for the first sentence calling it "A little known law" -- it's been quite contentious). Palo Alto has fought these rules and I'm glad they will be enforced. When I first moved to Palo Alto in the early 80s it had a very progressive climate: a couple of SRO buildings, lower average income than some of the neighboring towns, a lot of social support programs, and decidedl…

It won't make economic sense to try a builder's remedy project in lower land value jurisdictions, especially when you consider the legal headache. This is why we saw so many in Santa Monica and few in, say, the Inland Empire.

Right, and I mean the Inland Empire doesn't have anywhere near the housing shortage of the coast anyway, right?

Re: Builder's Remedy goes into effect in many California cities tomorrow

#322

Post by thegrimmest »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #295
thegrimmest wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? if a low density community wants to plan to remain low density, who are the rest of us to stop them?

then they should enforce 1 child per family while they're at it. their kids have to live somewhere right? I live in a rural city in Utah that doesn't like building new homes yet it's a Mormon town where families are about 5 kids on average. if you want grandkids nearby then more homes need built. period.

Or people whom the community has no room for can leave. I think this comes from an axiomatic disagreement about what being born/alive entitles a person to. My view is that we are all born owning nothing, and that everything we acquire we must acquire via consensual exchange.

Re: Builder's Remedy goes into effect in many California cities tomorrow

#323

Post by raldi »

stevehawk wrote: post #286
jedberg wrote: post #127

There is a developer in Cupertino who has been fighting with the city for years, who got awfully quiet lately. Now I know why. I suspect they have a plan for an absolutely massive high rise behind my house that they will be submitting at 8am tomorrow morning. My neighbors are going to be pissed .

Is it Bob Tillman? Because I'm absolutely rooting for him if he's still stuck in San Fran building purgatory.

Bob was the owner of the "Is this a historic laundromat?" property. He knew that his project was fully compliant with state laws that would force San Francisco to approve his permit for eight stories of mixed-use housing, and indeed, after much bluster, they eventually were. The building was demolished last year and construction is in progress.

Re: Builder's Remedy goes into effect in many California cities tomorrow

#324

Post by HDThoreaun »

kevinburke wrote: post #247
danans wrote: post #123

For all of California's huge dysfunctions (which are frequently the side-effects of its huge successes), this is a good example of what the state gets right. To people who are freaked out that this is going to turn into the opening scenes from Pixar's "Up", more often than not, in suburban areas, this will just result in a few dwellings per lot, imagine 2-3 town homes on what is now a .25 acre single family lot.

The 20% affordable component of Builder's Remedy means you need to propose at least 5 homes so one of them can be affordable. That said, a "missing middle" program is a really helpful thing to help cities get their Housing Element into compliance so if you think there is a place where this density would be helpful, send a comment to your city council and cc HousingElements@hcd.ca.gov.

It can also be 100% affordable to moderate income although that's almost assuredly less lucrative.

Re: Builder's Remedy goes into effect in many California cities tomorrow

#325

Post by arrosenberg »

thegrimmest wrote: post #293
arrosenberg wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American citizens with the freedom of movement? If you want to remain low-density go settle where California City is, I guarantee you will stay small. Santa Monica, however, is going to have to build housing.

freedom of movement != freedom over the personal property of others, or freedom from binding agreements. You can walk the streets of any neighbourhood you please. Using state authority to overrule local decisions about local matters is what I'm objecting to here.

No one is taking their personal property? The state is removing the restriction around what a developer can build on their own property.

Further, the state is doing their job. If the town next to mine enacts restrictive housing measures, then my town is likely to become more burdened by the issue. If we then enact restrictive housing, the next town over now has to deal with the effects of 2 freeriders. Why should the rest of California allow Beverly Hills and Santa Monica to saddle us with the burden of housing everyone? So the wealthy can have their enclaves?

Re: Builder's Remedy goes into effect in many California cities tomorrow

#326

Post by ck2 »

That photo is just freaking me out.

https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/d...

Reminds me of this movie quote

> I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you… multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus.

Re: Builder's Remedy goes into effect in many California cities tomorrow

#327

Post by raldi »

gumby wrote: post #107

This is a great article about great news (except for the first sentence calling it "A little known law" -- it's been quite contentious). Palo Alto has fought these rules and I'm glad they will be enforced. When I first moved to Palo Alto in the early 80s it had a very progressive climate: a couple of SRO buildings, lower average income than some of the neighboring towns, a lot of social support programs, and decidedl…

If you were to stop 100 people on the street and ask if they'd heard of the law, how many do you think it would be?

Re: Builder's Remedy goes into effect in many California cities tomorrow

#329

Post by ketzo »

thegrimmest wrote: post #240
toast0 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cities should be able to plan their own growth. They are able to plan their own growth, but they aren't able to refuse to grow. Or at least, not through zoning; being located where potable water or sewer/septic are at capacity is probably still valid to restrict new building.

Why not? if a low density community wants to plan to remain low density, who are the rest of us to stop them?

I don't think you should be blindly downvoted for this -- I think it is a totally valid question, and one that the YIMBY movement needs to find a way to answer consistently.

Personally, I would say that lots of low-density communities do remain low-density. And generally, that's because people don't want to move to them.

But if you're a small town in Northern California, one of the most desirable places in the world, saying "we want to remain low density" is basically saying "we got here first, so it's ours -- nobody else gets to have this!"

And I think that's a fundamentally wrong way for us to organize our places. Desirable communities shouldn't be able to keep out people who want to come in, just because they want to stay exclusive.

But I don't think that's a settled point, and there is a lot of nuance to basically every adjective I just used.

Re: Builder's Remedy goes into effect in many California cities tomorrow

#330

Post by rcme »

CalRobert wrote: post #299
rcme wrote: post #279

This has the real possibility to destroy wealth and land value. I understand the desire for more housing, but you absolutely need people in the community to be making these decisions. State-level officials don't have the ability to make informed decisions on important local issues like this. Unfortunately, I have first-hand experience with this. The state decided to build a (very) small bridge over a creek in my neig…

Bummer, but people aren't cars and builder's remedy shouldn't apply to bridges on public roads? You just named a good reason to ban cars nearby though.

The point is that the state made a decision for the state’s benefit without considering the impact on the town itself. And this is natural: those in the state government have little incentive to care about the impact on the town.

Also, ironically, the town has excellent train and bus coverage. Most don’t own cars. And if they do, they use them seldomly. We all moved here because we don’t like cars and wanted a place with good mass transit. Now all those benefits are gone.

When people want housing change, I think they really want to transfer some of the wealth from landowners to other people. But in my case, no wealth was transferred. It was literally destroyed. Everyone is worse off.

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