How Anti-Growth Sentiment, Reflected in Zoning Laws, Thwarts Equality • Hacker News Board

Re: How Anti-Growth Sentiment, Reflected in Zoning Laws, Thwarts Equality

#81

Post by HillaryBriss » Tue, Jul 05, 2016, 3:10 PM UTC

zackmorris wrote: post #66

HillaryBriss wrote: post #26

> The lost opportunities for development may theoretically reduce the output of the United States economy by as much as $1.5 trillion a year We should also do away with National Parks and Forests, which are nothing more than zoning laws at the Federal level. For that matter, state and local parks get in the way too. How much lost economic output are restrictions on real estate development in Golden Gate Park costing…

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but I can't let this stand without replying. I live in Idaho and the protected areas are relatively pristine (aside from the inevitable gas stations and lodges needed to handle the high volume of sightseers) but the unprotected areas have been largely deforested, desertified and poisoned by extractive timber, grazing and mining practices. They don't tell you that 95% of forests…

Yes. Sarcastic.

I appreciate especially this part of your comment: If anyone is on the fence about sustainability vs economic growth, I strongly urge you to do a full accounting with all externalities.

If we focus on the full accounting of positives (not even looking at externalities), we already see problems with these economic models. They fail to assign positive economic value to the zoning laws.

The economists in the article say something like "these zoning laws are depressing economic output by $1.5 trillion."

But, there's another way to look at it: "the value that communities derive from having the power to zone their cities as they see fit is $1.5 trillion."

In other words, these local communities are willing to exchange $1.5 trillion in easy-to-value economic activity for the power to create not-so-easy-to-value zoning laws. The fact that these economists choose to ignore that economic value does not eliminate that value.

I see it as comparable to a stay-at-home spouse who raises children. Such a person doesn't receive an easy-to-count dollar-value paycheck. But those stay-at-home parents across the country are, without any doubt, working hard and contributing significantly to GDP. It's a matter of measurement, not existence. The economic value definitely exists.

How seriously should any of us take an economic model which completely ignores such contributions to GDP?

Re: How Anti-Growth Sentiment, Reflected in Zoning Laws, Thwarts Equality

#82

Post by makomk » Tue, Jul 05, 2016, 7:53 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #53

Dowwie wrote: post #48

In a realistic scenario, de-regulated zoning around San Francisco would benefit developers and lenders while worsening the financial burden of the middle class. If zoning were de-regulated around San Francisco, I doubt that many of you would pay much less than what you'd pay now for housing, assuming you're not making less than the AMI. San Francisco had an Area Median Income in 2014 of $83,222. Those who make below…

> If you were a developer, wouldn't you try to maximize profit for your investors? Selling 1000 units at $2000 is more profitable than selling 500 units at $2500. Moreover, collusion is a) illegal, allowing us to smite them with the Hammer of Antitrust Enforcement, and b) assumes there are few enough developers that they can actually do that without anybody defecting, which seems unlikely. > In a realistic scenario,…

Selling 1000 units at $2000 is only more profitable than selling 500 units at $2500 if those units cost nothing to build. That's very far from being the case.

Re: How Anti-Growth Sentiment, Reflected in Zoning Laws, Thwarts Equality

#83

Post by pas » Wed, Jul 06, 2016, 7:24 AM UTC

spacecowboy_lon wrote: post #80

pas wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience the paying the lease (or whatever the money due is formally called) is the least controversial part of it. You'll have more problems with the owners of the apartments. (So all the problems of the dreaded HOAs, exist for every building if it's owned by a group - which is quite usual in Europe.) But these are very low-level problems, and they tend to sort themselves out pretty quickly (in ~5 years, let…

Try getting a mortgage on a property with a short lease <60 Years it can be hard and expensive to extend the lease to make it practicabel.

If you are getting a mortgage, you usually buy it.

Also, if you want to get a mortgage for a lease, you can, if the mortgage repayment deadline is before the lease expiry. When it comes to property banks only care about getting a notarized mortgage contract and getting on the property's land registry sheet in a first position. (And this latter part is interesting, because most land registries - as far as I know - don't really have the concept of expiring records - so you can't record the fact of your lease.)