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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

#461

Post by twelvechairs »

softsound wrote: post #364

Looking at other countries like Japan with like barely any zoning laws, this looks great, I hope it leads to more mixed cities again and more walkable/liveable areas like before WW2. It is funny that America land of the free had so many restrictions, building up hundreds of zoning laws across the country did a lot of bad and led to a lot of urban sprawl leading to very poor cities and towns that literally cannot pay…

> Japan with like barely any zoning laws,

Japan has strong national zoning laws that are very strictly applied. The biggest differences are the zones allow for a looser range of outcomes than the American ones, and the zoning approach is not controlled by local government (which often is NIMBYs)

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

#462

Post by lezojeda »

nostromo123 wrote: post #394
xwdv wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good. Fuck your neighbors. The region is long overdue for more housing to fix the ridiculous situation that has formed down there. Hopefully the region will become more affordable as new housing floods the area and brings down prices and makes things generally more affordable.

Yeah, f*k other people, let's cram as many souls as we can in affordable dystopian high rises... that's the spirit!

[flagged]

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

#463

Post by y-curious »

eddsh1994 wrote: post #436
cal5k wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Median sale price in Houston is currently $310,500, vs $441,250 in Sacramento, $917,500 in LA and $1.3MM in SF. Aesthetic judgments aside, seems like a winning strategy for housing affordability?

I live in Palo Alto and saw a local ad for an acre of land with no house in Atherton going for $5.2M. The housing here is really screwed.

But think about the aesthetics!!!! /s

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

#464

Post by ericmay »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #348
ericmay wrote: post #212

I loathe the suburbs and car-only infrastructure. It's backwards, bone-headed, and downright treacherously stupid. In addition to zoning reform we should nationally remove mandatory parking minimums. Hell, if anything we should de-zone strip malls and any new development that practically requires a car to get to (implementation details fuzzy). But I do have sympathy for people who move to a location or community for…

> There is real harm done, and it is anti-democratic in some ways to take state or national laws and have those supercede (micromanage in this case) local building rules or regulations. No, it's really not. There's nothing fundamentally anti-democratic about higher government overriding lower government. Often, deciding rules at a lower level doesn't work well, and this is a good example of that. Deciding housing den…

> There's nothing fundamentally anti-democratic about higher government overriding lower government.

> It'd probably be better to decide this with a metro-level authority rather than the state, but the state is still better than the city.

What about if the state of Ohio overrides Columbus' gun restrictions? (ex)

What if the state of Nevada mandates cities provide 2 parking spaces per dwelling?

You're just picking and choosing when the "higher" government overrides the "local" government. When you agree with it, it's good. When you disagree it's presumably still good right?

> Deciding housing density at the neighborhood or city level has been an abject failure

It's been a failure for one simple reason, which is what we build car-only infrastructure. You can't build density and car-only infrastructure. It won't work.

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

#465

Post by Slighted »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #313
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…

> This has the real possibility to destroy wealth and land value. Good. Treating increasing unaffordability as a good thing is an insane part of American culture. We didn't celebrate car prices going through the roof during the pandemic, and neither does it make sense to celebrate skyrocketing housing prices. The ideal price of housing would be zero, same as other products.

I mean hey, sucks for the people that live there already, but it ain't happening to me so its not my problem!

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

#466

Post by RangerScience »

CydeWeys wrote: post #430
RangerScience wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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” fr…

> 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. That article doesn't mention it because that's not correct. It's not tied to transit.

Right - that's the prior bill that didn't pas SB50?

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

#467

Post by tagami »

eddsh1994 wrote: post #436
cal5k wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Median sale price in Houston is currently $310,500, vs $441,250 in Sacramento, $917,500 in LA and $1.3MM in SF. Aesthetic judgments aside, seems like a winning strategy for housing affordability?

I live in Palo Alto and saw a local ad for an acre of land with no house in Atherton going for $5.2M. The housing here is really screwed.

that's about 90 apartment units, or ~ $60k/unit in land cost...

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

#468

Post by bcrosby95 »

foobarian wrote: post #406
ketzo wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

It seems pretty clear cut given the focus on property rights in the States that whoever got there first does get to call the shots. There are maybe some overrides like eminent domain but it seems the only non-coercive way to change this is to get your own land and make your own rules (e.g. HOAs, incorporate towns with better rules, etc). Besides, who's to say that these desirable places are not desirable because they…

> Besides, who's to say that these desirable places are not desirable because they are low-density? It's a chicken and egg problem.

If this were true, you wouldn't need zoning, and people would just build low density because that's what everyone wants anyways.

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

#469

Post by jimnotgym »

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?

Which street?

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

#470

Post by thehappypm »

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…

This is hardcore pearl-clutching.

You know what’s really a problem? How dystopian America is.

The opportunity and jobs are in big cities. But housing makes it impossible for many people to even live near the city. People want to solve this problem, but are blocked because people like that their neighborhood has street parking.

It’s killing America and it’s really killing our ability to become a modern, progressive society.

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