>The “builder’s remedy” is a very old law from the 1990s
Yeah that ain't "very old"
Builder's Remedy goes into effect in many California cities tomorrow
991–1000 of 1001 posts
Re: Builder's Remedy goes into effect in many California cities tomorrow
#992Earlier quoted context omitted.
But why is that? Maybe because children don’t play on the street at all in the city. So what does the fraction look when we take children playing outside and be healthy instead of just children? The chance remains the same but for the ones that survive there is a better quality of life.
The disconnect between city folk and rural/suburban folk is wild. We've got comments below saying (paraphrased, my interpretation) "well of course kids play in the streets" followed by "well not literally , I mean on the sidewalks, who on earth would literally play in the street where cars drive". My neighbors have a basketball hoop facing their street. They consider the street, the street that cars drive on , a bask…
And let me emphasize that's still suburban, not rural. I live 8 minutes from a good grocery store, 30 minutes from a city of 46,000 people. Small roads aren't paved here (the nearby highway is, and the in-town streets are), and the 20 mph road maintained by nobody else but a couple of residents with tractors is 400 feet from the house.
(And the trade-off for this level of remoteness, for those wondering, is I have about 200 square miles of public lands walkable from the house without crossing a highway. Ever taken a two-hour walk from your house, with your dogs off leash, without seeing another human?)
Re: Builder's Remedy goes into effect in many California cities tomorrow
#993Earlier quoted context omitted.
Streets are dangerous because of cars zipping around. Cars contribute to air pollution quality (until electrified) and noise quality. So, you ban cars from streets and allow only pedestrians and cyclists. Next, you allow local amenities to pop up so you don't feel the need to get a car out. The suburban pattern of development as it currently exists isn't the only way to facilitate the quality of life you're looking f…
Even electrified, tires shed loads of nasty particulates.
And at higher speeds make a good chunk of the noise, too.
Re: Builder's Remedy goes into effect in many California cities tomorrow
#994Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Basically how things were built pre-WW2? The majority of America was not some idyllic "streetcar suburb" even pre WWII. Majority of it was either grid based urban development or rural residential / agriculture in large plots (often 20, 40, 80, 160, 320, 640 acre plots). https://web.archive.org/web/20131108174122/http://www.thegre... As agriculture got more efficient, and raising food for ones self became less commo…
I grew up in a house built in the 1890s (with residual pipes for gas lighting because electricity hadn't been "invented" yet). It was designed to be with-in walking distance of retail and streetcars/trams/trolleys, because the car had not been invented yet. Grid layout pre-dates the automobile: * http://oldtorontomaps.blogspot.com/p/index-of-maps.html There's nothing "natural" about car-centric design and giving prio…
Well I've been in many pre 1890s buildings and houses that were never anywhere near a streetcar or even railroad, because they were not located anywhere near a dense urban area. The United States is a vast swath of highly arable land. Far more of it is amenable in terms of climate than Canada. And huge swaths of this country were sparsely inhabitated, broken up into these large rural parcels as I described. People moved to the United States throughout the 1800s specifically to obtain land.
> There's nothing "natural" about car-centric design and giving priority to cars
Look at the video footage of San Fran in 1906 I posted. It is just about as perfect of a model as you could find. It was a premier city at the time. It had cable car infrastructure across the city that survives to this day. However, even in this footage people are foregoing the cable car for the automobile. More people are jetting around in their car, far before any real infrastructure even existed specifically for the car. It was a consumer choice.
People like to think it was some kind of conspiracy that streetcars and railroads fell out of favor for cars.
No, cars replaced horses and horse carriages, which were flexible in path movement, did not depend on central operators, asynchronous in that they could be deployed any time, and also like horses, cars were owned.
Independence, ownership, empowerment, etc. Huge American cultural values in part shaped by the sheer geography of the U.S.
For the United States, based on its geography and culture, absolutely inevitable that independent and self owned forms of transportation would dominate.
Sprawl, in a sprawling country, is inevitable.
Re: Builder's Remedy goes into effect in many California cities tomorrow
#995Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Unfortunately, it does not mean you get lower cost of housing You don't believe in supply and demand? I'm not saying you have cheap housing. I'm saying you would have more expensive housing if there were fewer of them, the same way GPUs are more valuable when there are fewer of them.
> You don't believe in supply and demand? Induced demand is a thing, as (and much more common) are demand curves that are flat enough that shifting the supply curve to the right by some large fraction of the current market clearing quantity has no discernable effect on the market clearing price. Real life supply and demand involves more than the simplest Econ 101 illustrative examples of the general direction of the…
While you are right that the dynamics are complex, research has clearly established that an increase in housing supply decreases its cost.
See e.g. https://www.lewis.ucla.edu/research/market-rate-development-...
Re: Builder's Remedy goes into effect in many California cities tomorrow
#996Earlier quoted context omitted.
A little game theory may come to play though. If the whole city booms and just my neighborhood stays single-family large lot, my price/sqft may increase drastically, and I may get better return on any improvements I do to my property based on my investment profile. If instead my neighborhood is converted to apartments or high-density condos, I might not have the capital to take advantage of those opportunities but my…
No, it's almost entirely short-sighted, at least in terms of economics. First, I've never heard of anyone being forced to sell, unless there's some truly huge and necessary infrastructure development. You are generally offered some money by a developer and you personally decide whether or not to take it. Sometimes people can be stubborn and there are plenty of examples of large high-rises built around tiny structures…
I never meant that anyone was forced to sell, legally. Only that the economics forced them to sell at a different schedule or terms than they would have preferred.
Re: Builder's Remedy goes into effect in many California cities tomorrow
#997There 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 .
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.
Please edit swipes and flamebait out of your HN posts. You created a whole bunch of predictable low-quality reactions with that first bit.
Re: Builder's Remedy goes into effect in many California cities tomorrow
#998Earlier quoted context omitted.
Souls? you mean other people? Or, f- them in favor of the existing residents... And 'affordable dystopian' housing? Only 20% of the units are required to be affordable. Who knows what private developers will come up with to maximize their profits. So, dystopian? Probably. Affordable? Just a little.
Affordable is about supply and demand. Build enough and all houses are affordable. Don't build enough and people will find ways to cheat to get what you make as 'affordable' so they get in.
Of course there will always be people taking advantage of every system. I think it's more problematic when the people setting up a system is also participating in it. See: US Congress making rules for itself, including stock trading (small potatoes) and corporations investing in politicians for massive returns (very large potatoes)
Not-so-poor people playing a game well that results in massive benefits? A mere distraction.
>Build enough and all houses are affordable.
There are more vacant units in the US than homeless people. There is some nuance in how the market functions - it happens to be profitable for large private landlords to set prices higher. The market does not exist to optimize the number of people who have housing, it exists to optimize the amount of money that landlords can make.
Re: Builder's Remedy goes into effect in many California cities tomorrow
#999Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a lot more comfortable to take drugs at home, too. They would take homes if they could.
SF/LA has numerous programs that will give you housing if you're homeless. The issue is that many of the homeless refuse to take up these programs and insist on staying in their tents.... so... no?
I'm from Vancouver so I'm pretty familiar with this issue. They give you housing but don't allow drugs. Being able to own your own place where you can do drugs helps.
These people are addicts and homeless. We can cure homelessness with more homes, but we also need to help them get rid of addiction.
Re: Builder's Remedy goes into effect in many California cities tomorrow
#1000Earlier quoted context omitted.
Land ownership need not equal building ownership. The two can be in the separate hands and there are indeed buildings where that is the case.
Sure but in doing so you've stiffed the people least able to fight it. They don't treat businesses or the middle and upper classes like this because they'd fuck the county 23 different ways in court. Essentially it's a slow-acting imminent domain without compensation.
Such an arrangement is not unlawful though. In fact, it can even be in two (or three even! ) different private entities: one for the land, one for the building, one for the unit ownership and and then the final tenant of the unit.