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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

#61

Post by another_story »

hardtke wrote: post #55
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.

The same "Builder's Remedy" kicked in last year in many Southern California cities when they missed similar deadlines, and as far as I know it has led to approximately (if not exactly) zero new construction.

How closely are you following residential home building in most of Southern California that you're able to make this statement?

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

#62

Post by asdff »

Analemma_ wrote: post #5
digdugdirk wrote: post #2

Is there anywhere to see the list of projects that are being insta-approved as they come in? Also, does anyone know what legal recourse there is to block projects that are submitted under the current no-zoning state?

My understanding is that they can still be delayed by CEQA lawsuits, which NIMBYs have become very good at, but at least CEQA usually only delays projects instead of blocking them entirely.

Sometimes the delay or threat of delay is enough to take a project from being profitable to being unprofitable for any local developer. This sometimes explains why you have vacant lots in areas like the bay area where any and all land would be in demand. Doesn't matter how much demand there would be if you can't afford to capture it at the pricepoint it exists at.

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

#63

Post by eric-hu »

astrange wrote: post #58
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.

Residential-only zoning is "the bad kind of zoning". It wasn't invented to keep factories away from homes; it was /literally/ invented in Berkeley to stop Chinese immigrants from being able to afford homes by running laundry businesses out of them.

I did a search to check the history of this claim, but maybe I wasn’t searching for the right thing. Would you mind sharing a link?

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

#64

Post by asdff »

klooney wrote: post #13
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.

Especially infill. There are no endangered animals living in SOMA.

Just wait for the SOMA sewer rat to become a protected species

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

#65

Post by samstave »

That guy in the Mission District of SF who fought this for decades should deserve a windfall...

Ill try to find a link, but basically this guy got initial approval to build a building and got hit with a typhoon of zoning laws and knew he was in the right, but a bunch of SF NIMBYS were fighting him forever and he got F'd...

This guy deserves something like a payout for someone imprisoned for no reason.

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

#66

Post by jai_ »

eric-hu wrote: post #63
astrange wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Residential-only zoning is "the bad kind of zoning". It wasn't invented to keep factories away from homes; it was /literally/ invented in Berkeley to stop Chinese immigrants from being able to afford homes by running laundry businesses out of them.

I did a search to check the history of this claim, but maybe I wasn’t searching for the right thing. Would you mind sharing a link?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-family_zoning

It's the first sentence in the History section

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

#68

Post by abeppu »

samstave wrote: post #65

That guy in the Mission District of SF who fought this for decades should deserve a windfall... Ill try to find a link, but basically this guy got initial approval to build a building and got hit with a typhoon of zoning laws and knew he was in the right, but a bunch of SF NIMBYS were fighting him forever and he got F'd... This guy deserves something like a payout for someone imprisoned for no reason.

But SF is _not_ one of the cities affected by the builder's remedy currently. The article says:

> Among large cities, only San Francisco is in compliance.

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

#69

Post by more_corn »

GalenErso wrote: post #44
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.

> until these cities get a housing plan validated with the state I could see the cities just refusing to submit any plans at all. The state should then make its own housing plans with the developers directly. Cities should be cut out of the loop.

SGTM

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

#70

Post by more_corn »

hardtke wrote: post #55
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.

The same "Builder's Remedy" kicked in last year in many Southern California cities when they missed similar deadlines, and as far as I know it has led to approximately (if not exactly) zero new construction.

Something about that turn of phrase makes me smile. Intellectual humility while making a strong statement.
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