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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

#381

Post by pj_mukh »

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…

Santa Monica building 4000 homes seems like such a dream. However, I wonder how many of these will get CEQA blocked [1] :(

[1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/signature-...

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

#382

Post by outworlder »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #363
opportune wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does this narrative about evil greedy developers come from? If the new housing represents a net increase in people, then the developers are filling unmet demand. It’s not that different from restricting the supply of milk and getting angry that milk producers will make more money when those restrictions are lifted. Yeah, they will, but only because there is more demand for their product than they were previousl…

Truth is people want to live in a community of the character they choose when they moved into that community. The high density housing community seems to think everyone just needs an efficiency unit in a Soviet style housing block and anyone else is an entitled NIMBY. What the person said was developers don’t care about the community they’re building into. Loosening of community rules means they can move in start bui…

> Truth is people want to live in a community of the character they choose when they moved into that community.

They are not _entitled_ to forever freeze a city just because they live there. I bet they would not like their town if it still looked the same as it was in 1890.

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

#383

Post by RangerScience »

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…

The article doesn’t mention it, but it’s my understanding that this auto-approval only happens within a certain distance of public transit as well. I know that’s been a part of prior laws by Wiener, but I could totes be wrong that it’s a part of this one as well.

The developers still have to abide by construction laws - safety, and I think environmental impact. All that’s released (AFAIK?) is the zoning-based “no” from cities (and when within a certain distance from public transit hubs, maybe).

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

#384

Post by hemloc_io »

gretch wrote: post #39
ethanbond wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, most zoning is created by property owners, too. Gotta preserve their investment at the expense of our nation's growth.

As a property owner, I've always found this to be remarkably short sighted. If the city booms, land value goes up. E.g. Manhattan. Trying to keep your small suburb a small suburb isn't maximizing investor value. edit: to responders, yes I'm aware houses have other value. My comment is in response the parent comment that specifically addresses investment value protection aspect.

It can be when you can artificially induce a housing shortage.

E.g. I have a friend whose area has become extremely popular for city people and prices have gone up a ton over the past couple years.

Their father owns a bunch of property in the area and sits on a bunch of local board, and specifically lobbies to block housing development to protect their "future" that's locked up in these properties. (Mostly SFH in suburbs.) It's an explicit goal for some people.

As long as demand is high, b/c of mostly immutable factors, schools/weather/job opportunities etc and people have the money to spend then prices will go up if you keep housing supply low.

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

#385

Post by cody_coconuts »

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…

Maybe "little know outside of California" is more accurate. I certainly haven't heard anything about this, and it seems like the article is aiming for the broader audience

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

#386

Post by raldi »

rcme wrote: post #367
raldi wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another way to say "this will destroy land value" is "this will lower housing prices". That's the point. But reality is more nuanced than that; the cost/value of apartments will go down, but the cost/value of single-family houses will go up, as there will be interest in buying the latter and turning it into the former. Land values will go up; rent and condo prices will go down.

No, that's not what I'm saying at all. "Destroy land value" doesn't mean lower housing prices, or at least lower in a productive way. Imagine you have some land and then the city builds a dump next to the land. That destroys the value of the land because no one wants to live there anymore. Housing prices are a second-order effect based off of the land value and the availability of housing units. The new policy in Cal…

Multifamily housing is not analogous to a garbage dump.

"The study finds that the upzoning increased property values by 15-23%"

http://theadvocatecornell.com/2022/02/03/does-upzoning-work/

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

#387

Post by kevinburke »

opportune wrote: post #249
nemo44x wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, people here celebrating this don't understand at all that all this does is give developers more power over communities they have no interest in but money. And of course, the politicians that they will fund/bribe to make this happen. We just went from democracy to oligarchy in this case.

Where does this narrative about evil greedy developers come from? If the new housing represents a net increase in people, then the developers are filling unmet demand. It’s not that different from restricting the supply of milk and getting angry that milk producers will make more money when those restrictions are lifted. Yeah, they will, but only because there is more demand for their product than they were previousl…

People are looking for any scapegoat for the problems in their community so they don't have to look in the mirror.

This is the same reason why there's a persistent myth that homeless are bused in from other states or whatever (when in reality, 70-90% of them were in homes in San Francisco before going on the street). It absolves people of blame

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

#388

Post by cinericius »

raldi wrote: post #327
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?

You could refer to Java as a "little known programming language" and use this as a defence.

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

#389

Post by spookthesunset »

spacedcowboy wrote: post #371
raldi wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If I were to stop 100 people on the street and ask them if they'd heard of hedgehogs, the positive answer percentage would be depressingly low, I feel...

Sonic was a hedgehog in a video game. Older people might get that reference.
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