621–630 of 1001 posts
Soon the peaceful suburbs of California will look like congested cities like Seoul or Mumbai with a whole bunch of slums thrown in between.
I mean, California already has both a massive homelessness problem and a major housing shortage. The prices from the latter have driven a ton of migration out of the state. Is your solution to just do nothing?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Especially when they fight with each other, as neighbors do. The wealthy aren't always a monolithic block of undifferentiated piles of money so, not that I know what the future holds, but imagine you've been squabbling with your neighbor for decades; you've always wanted to move back east. What better giant finger to that neighbor than selling your multi-acre estate to be replaced by a 30 or 100-unit apartment comple…
Right, a "spite" transaction. But on the other hand, the coalition of rich neighbors could organize a counter-offer to buy out neighbors who want to leave. A bit like lands are bought up by conservation groups to prevent development. Put a price on how much you want to preserve your neighborhood. They could even buy out the developer who purchased a spite sale, unless there are deed restrictions in that sale. Most de…
Free money for defection and could easily exhaust the resources of this coalition.
FIRE!... Water!... Sewage... Who covers the new costs for high-rise firetrucks, crews, and training? What about high-pressure water supply for upper floors and high-capacity sewage management for the suddenly increased, ahem... effluence of these new living spaces? What about suddenly dumping another 2,000 cars into a neighborhood without parking and traffic management for everyone leaving and returning at the same t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
California cities like Atherton, Woodside, Bradbury, San Marino, etc. are bad metrics to use for anything approaching affordable housing.
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…
> With no constraints on construction will there be a small boom in new development, tearing down virgin forest in order to make empty developments? Probably? I live in Michigan, which (with the exception of two spots) has no meaningful limits on construction. Even the cities that technically have-and-enforce zoning, waive all the rules constantly anytime a developer asks. And yes -- it means developers can build alm…
Are you taking into account the inflation we've experienced? If the mental anchor against which you compare this "all time high" is 2015, for example, then we've seen over 20% inflation. Over 33% inflation since 2008.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The answers are very uncomfortable. Are they? Isn't it possible that people who live in beautiful neighborhoods with mature trees, nice big yards, and low traffic streets that are safe for kids to play around, want to keep them that way for primarily those reasons? Of course their desires alone shouldn't be the final word on proposed changes to codes, but implying that all of these homeowners are primarily driven b…
> Isn't it possible that people who live in beautiful neighborhoods with mature trees, nice big yards, and low traffic streets that are safe for kids to play around, want to keep them that way for primarily those reasons? Yes that is absolutely something people want. You can get that in cities if you give up on yard and instead share with parks. That said, some of the reasons people want it are uncomfortable. Some pe…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The answers are very uncomfortable. Are they? Isn't it possible that people who live in beautiful neighborhoods with mature trees, nice big yards, and low traffic streets that are safe for kids to play around, want to keep them that way for primarily those reasons? Of course their desires alone shouldn't be the final word on proposed changes to codes, but implying that all of these homeowners are primarily driven b…
> Isn't it possible that people who live in beautiful neighborhoods with mature trees, nice big yards, and low traffic streets that are safe for kids to play around, want to keep them that way for primarily those reasons? Yes that is absolutely something people want. You can get that in cities if you give up on yard and instead share with parks. That said, some of the reasons people want it are uncomfortable. Some pe…
I totally agree parks are an amazing solution and can create really nice places for kids to play safely. We love our parks. That said, even if the end product is objectively better for the current homeowners due to new amenities, etc. there is still a long period of lots of construction they'll have to endure that might be the only years their kids are at an age where they'd normally be wandering the previously quiet neighborhood. None of this is simple, and it's going to be a trade-off between the valid interests of the existing property owners and the valid interests of the larger metro area population that needs a place to live.
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…
This has little to do with the existence of zoning laws themselves, but the specific zones that they define. Japan has zones, so does Spain. But there's just nothing anywhere near as Restrictive as most US cities' R1 zone. Many places have R2s and R3s that are still more restrictive than the least dense thing than a Spanish city has. Remove zones alone, and HOAs will get areas into legally binding covenants that are…
In principle, I hate this. Cities should be able to plan their own growth. In practice, coming from CA, I am 100% onboard. It's a mess of red tape and bullshit lawsuits.
I reject this principle. Cities are not sovereign.
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 .
By "high-rise", you must mean 5-over-1, right? I doubt anyone's going to build an actual high rise in the suburbs.
A high rise in the middle of a popular suburb is an easy way to do that and does exist in many parts of the world.