Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

sfchronicle.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 228 posts

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

#91

Post by toast0 »

jmyeet wrote: post #74

I think this article overstates the risks to those wanting to use the builder's remedy. It suggests wealthy towns would have the means to fight this in court. But the reality is the towns have very little legal defense. Just last year, 4000+ new units were approved via the builder's remedy in Santa Monica, a rich envlcave of LA that has notoriously fought development with oppressive zoning for decades. Also, the poin…

> For those who don't understand, particularly non-Americans, schools are funded primarily by local property taxes.

This was true historically, and may still be true in some states, but court cases since the 1970s [1] have been forcing reforms on school funding to be more equitable at the state level.

[1] https://edeq.stanford.edu/sections/section-4-lawsuits/landma...

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

#92

Post by swatcoder »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #71
jai_ wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-family_zoning It's the first sentence in the History section

I admittedly rolled my eyes at the WP link. To atone for this, I’ve copy and pasted the relevant references from that line in the History section: [1] Baldassari, Erin; Solomon, Molly (October 5, 2020). "The Racist History of Single-Family Home Zoning". NPR. Archived from the original on November 14, 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20201114004918/https://www.kqed.... [3] Hansen, Louis (March 1, 2021). "Is this the…

Accurate or not, I hate that all of these references are from one 6-month regional news cycle. They may as well be 1 citation, rather than 5. The excess just makes the inclusion of claim look more motivated by political investment than a desire to be informative.

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

#93

Post by jeffbee »

shuckles wrote: post #38
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.

Exempting infill housing from CEQA is on the YIMBY agenda. That said, CEQA only applies to discretionary decisions, so if permitting residential development is a ministerial decision (i.e. anyone who meets certain criteria is approved), then the CEQA review for it is incorporated into the Housing Element. That is itself a huge step forward.

I don't think that is current law or jurisprudence. There is a bill introduced in this session that will make any project consequent to an adopted general, area, or specific plan be "not a project" under CEQA. But that's not where we are now, which is why cities have to EIR their general plans and then every project has another EIR.

Personally, I think they should just write down that anything inside the boundary of an incorporated city, built on a site that previously had something on it, is not a project.

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

#94

Post by enragedcacti »

edgyquant wrote: post #83
jai_ wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-family_zoning It's the first sentence in the History section

This disputes the claim it originated in SF and the reasons listed. Odd that Wikipedia is centered on SF and its claim is backed up by (several experts believe.) Looks to me like another example of Wikipedia pushing a narrative and pretending it’s fact. https://economics21.org/history-zoning-america-flexible-hous...

Zoning and SFH zoning are aren't the same thing, and wikipedia concurs with your article w.r.t. early US zoning policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoning#United_States

Looks to me like another example of HN guy pushing a narrative and pretending it’s fact. Or maybe someone just made a mistake and a more charitable reading would show that there is perhaps not a conspiracy going on but instead just a misunderstanding.

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

#95

Post by shuckles »

jeffbee wrote: post #93
shuckles wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exempting infill housing from CEQA is on the YIMBY agenda. That said, CEQA only applies to discretionary decisions, so if permitting residential development is a ministerial decision (i.e. anyone who meets certain criteria is approved), then the CEQA review for it is incorporated into the Housing Element. That is itself a huge step forward.

I don't think that is current law or jurisprudence. There is a bill introduced in this session that will make any project consequent to an adopted general, area, or specific plan be "not a project" under CEQA. But that's not where we are now, which is why cities have to EIR their general plans and then every project has another EIR. Personally, I think they should just write down that anything inside the boundary of…

Yes it is: private projects are only subject to CEQA if permits are discretionary cf https://ohp.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=21723.

In San Francisco and some neighboring cities, every permit is discretionary either directly or through ambiguity (https://law.ucdavis.edu/sites/g/files/dgvnsk10866/files/medi...), but it doesn’t have to be that way.

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

#96

Post by Karrot_Kream »

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 builder's remedy applies to housing and only housing. Nothing else. It doesn't, however, stop developers from proposing housing projects in non-residential zones.

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

#97

Post by shkkmo »

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?

If you want something more rigourous than a wikipedia article, that article's oldest source is the 2020 NPR article which links to this paper: http://www.schoolinfosystem.org/pdf/2014/06/04SegregationinC...

TLDR: the real estate developer that founded Claremont (Mason-McDuffie Co spearheaded by Duncan McDuffie) imposed conditions in its titles that explicitly bared non-whites and prohibited commercial enterprises. However, those title conditions couldn't control neighboring areas, so McDuffie pushed to get zoning laws passed that were explicitly inspired by anti-chinese laundry regulations in LA. The Berkley regulation was "expedited" to prevent a "negro dance hall" from opening.

To me, the existence of the anti-commercial provisions in the McDuffie title restrictions in addition to explicit racial exclusions indicates that racial exclusion was not the only motivating factor in adopting single family zoning laws. However, the context and immediate usage does make it pretty clear that racial exclusion was a significant part of the motivation.

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

#98

Post by astrange »

edgyquant wrote: post #82
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.

You should clarify “in SF” since this isn’t true for the actual history of residential zoning (which originated in New York)

Well, this article is about the Bay Area.

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

#99

Post by mherdeg »

edgyquant wrote: post #82
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.

You should clarify “in SF” since this isn’t true for the actual history of residential zoning (which originated in New York)

Gosh, growing up near Cleveland I always thought zoning "started" in Euclid Heights. I guess there are lots of different firsts?

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

#100

Post by Karrot_Kream »

abeppu wrote: post #72

> The builder’s remedy says that noncompliant cities must allow housing at any density and any height, anywhere in the city, as long as at least 20% of the new homes are affordable. https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/builde... For most places in the Bay Area, is there an existing affordability percentage requirement? How much of an increase is this? I'm not a development/construction insider, but a…

Most cities in the Bay with IZ have close to 10% with a few close to 20%. Indeed, 20% IZ only usually works in high income areas where the market rate for housing is high enough to make the affordable unit requirements profitable. Most Builder's Remedy housing will therefore be proposed in high income areas.
Post reply on HN