3 ms·

Why don't I just buy the house next to yours and start a 100 seat restaurant? Maybe have a poolside bar in the backyard? Anyhow, zoning exists for a reason.

by Mikeb85 10y ago

Why don't I just buy the house next to yours and start a 100 seat restaurant? Maybe have a poolside bar in the backyard? Anyhow, zoning exists for a reason. Hotels are a business. You can't run any business out of your home. If you do allow any home to become a hotel, you're opening a huge can of worms...

davidw 10y ago
> Anyhow, zoning exists for a reason Yeah, to keep out black people, poor people and other undesirables who cannot afford single family detached homes: http://reason.com/archives/2014/04/02/zonings-racist-roots-still-bear-fruit http://reason.com/archives/2014/04/02/zonings-racist-roots-s... Also, to ensure that you must have a car to do anything at all. God forbid anyone build something like a corner store within walking distance. Other reasons here: http://www.nimbyngo.com/ http://www.nimbyngo.com/
- sdoering 10y ago
  At least in Germany zoning laws are there to prevent businesses to intrude into residential neighborhoods. That means, I get to live in an area that is not "polluted" by noisy trucks driving up and down the street to deliver or collect goods - and so on. It also means, I am restricted in what I do with my own property in such, that I cannot build a factory inside my home/on my ground for the same reasons. Imho this is quite a reasonable policy. Some other zoning laws in German communities might restrict me from planting some trees while forcing me to plant a hedge from a small list of pre defined plant varieties - just to make sure the neighborhood looks homogenous. These laws do not make the slightest sense imho. Esp. as the allowed plant varieties oftentimes are not local but some stuff that is easy in handling and not that great for nature (no possibilities for birds to nest and such stuff).
  - davidw 10y ago
    I can understand the sentiment, but I think we've gone a bit too far with it in the US. In Italy, where I lived, there were certainly residential areas, but they were very close to businesses - from our house we could walk 5/10 minutes and be at a coffee shop, supermarket, our kids schools, a tram stop, a bakery, and a few other things. In the US, you have massive residential-only neighborhoods like this: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.1036878,-121.3081349,1586a,20y,106.49h,44.73t/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@44.1036878,-121.3081349,1586a,2... It's a car or nothing. Philosophically, you can say they just designed it wrong, but I think you can also make an argument that sometimes it's best to evolve complex things, via markets, rather than attempt a big up front design and then rigidly enforce that.
- Mikeb85 10y ago
  Please, plenty of high density cities mix commercial and residential - still doesn't mean you can run a hotel or a restaurant in your flat. Hell, even in suburbia where I (begrudgingly) live right now, there's a grocery store, convenience store, 5 restaurants and 2 bars within a 10 minute walk (and at least 3 liquor stores).
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  Isn't the illegal racial zoning of the past quite different from commercial/residential/tourist zoning of today? Or are they the same because they both contain the word "zoning" in them?
- moptar 10y ago
  A lot of disagreement on this but it's basically true. Homeowners want to protect their investment and their comfortable lifestyle so they make sure local government restricts others from diluting what they have. If more houses could be built on the same sized sections, then poorer people would move in because they'd be cheaper. Poor people tend to be more of a disturbance to their neighbors so that would make the incumbents lose what they paid for when they bought their high priced properties in peaceful suburbia. Same goes for hotels which attract transient people that the existing property owners want to keep away. This happens on many scales. We don't want poor strangers living in our bedroom, on our lawn, in our suburb or in our country. So we have trespass laws, zoning and immigration restrictions to protect us from them.
- gambiting 10y ago
  Please come over to Poland which has almost no zoning laws, and every other house has some sort of business in it - car garages, hair dressers, dentists - everyone runs their business out of their house. Your neighbour wants to open a sawmill in his garage? He sure can! And yes, people do have corner shops in their houses - amazing! Except that they get deliveries at 5am every day, so a 14 tonne truck is destroying your street and waking you up every morning - isn't it great? Maybe in US it was done to keep black people out. But I seriously doubt it, not everything has to have a racial undertone to it.
  - davidw 10y ago
    There's a limit somewhere, but in the US we've gone well beyond it. The town I live in specifies the minimum number of spots driveways must have (2), and that kind of thing is not abnormal. What would happen to all those people if they were forced to close their home businesses and rent an office somewhere else? What would happen to traffic?
CalRobert 10y ago
That sounds fantastic. I'd take it over several square miles of asphalt hellscape, which is your typical American residential neighborhood.

by Mikeb85 10y ago

davidw 10y ago

> Anyhow, zoning exists for a reason Yeah, to keep out black people, poor people and other undesirables who cannot afford single family detached homes: http://reason.com/archives/2014/04/02/zonings-racist-roots-still-bear-fruit http://reason.com/archives/2014/04/02/zonings-racist-roots-s... Also, to ensure that you must have a car to do anything at all. God forbid anyone build something like a corner store within walking distance. Other reasons here: http://www.nimbyngo.com/ http://www.nimbyngo.com/

sdoering 10y ago
At least in Germany zoning laws are there to prevent businesses to intrude into residential neighborhoods. That means, I get to live in an area that is not "polluted" by noisy trucks driving up and down the street to deliver or collect goods - and so on. It also means, I am restricted in what I do with my own property in such, that I cannot build a factory inside my home/on my ground for the same reasons. Imho this is quite a reasonable policy. Some other zoning laws in German communities might restrict me from planting some trees while forcing me to plant a hedge from a small list of pre defined plant varieties - just to make sure the neighborhood looks homogenous. These laws do not make the slightest sense imho. Esp. as the allowed plant varieties oftentimes are not local but some stuff that is easy in handling and not that great for nature (no possibilities for birds to nest and such stuff).
- davidw 10y ago
  I can understand the sentiment, but I think we've gone a bit too far with it in the US. In Italy, where I lived, there were certainly residential areas, but they were very close to businesses - from our house we could walk 5/10 minutes and be at a coffee shop, supermarket, our kids schools, a tram stop, a bakery, and a few other things. In the US, you have massive residential-only neighborhoods like this: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.1036878,-121.3081349,1586a,20y,106.49h,44.73t/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@44.1036878,-121.3081349,1586a,2... It's a car or nothing. Philosophically, you can say they just designed it wrong, but I think you can also make an argument that sometimes it's best to evolve complex things, via markets, rather than attempt a big up front design and then rigidly enforce that.
Mikeb85 10y ago
Please, plenty of high density cities mix commercial and residential - still doesn't mean you can run a hotel or a restaurant in your flat. Hell, even in suburbia where I (begrudgingly) live right now, there's a grocery store, convenience store, 5 restaurants and 2 bars within a 10 minute walk (and at least 3 liquor stores).
seanmcdirmid 10y ago
Isn't the illegal racial zoning of the past quite different from commercial/residential/tourist zoning of today? Or are they the same because they both contain the word "zoning" in them?
moptar 10y ago
A lot of disagreement on this but it's basically true. Homeowners want to protect their investment and their comfortable lifestyle so they make sure local government restricts others from diluting what they have. If more houses could be built on the same sized sections, then poorer people would move in because they'd be cheaper. Poor people tend to be more of a disturbance to their neighbors so that would make the incumbents lose what they paid for when they bought their high priced properties in peaceful suburbia. Same goes for hotels which attract transient people that the existing property owners want to keep away. This happens on many scales. We don't want poor strangers living in our bedroom, on our lawn, in our suburb or in our country. So we have trespass laws, zoning and immigration restrictions to protect us from them.
gambiting 10y ago
Please come over to Poland which has almost no zoning laws, and every other house has some sort of business in it - car garages, hair dressers, dentists - everyone runs their business out of their house. Your neighbour wants to open a sawmill in his garage? He sure can! And yes, people do have corner shops in their houses - amazing! Except that they get deliveries at 5am every day, so a 14 tonne truck is destroying your street and waking you up every morning - isn't it great? Maybe in US it was done to keep black people out. But I seriously doubt it, not everything has to have a racial undertone to it.
- davidw 10y ago
  There's a limit somewhere, but in the US we've gone well beyond it. The town I live in specifies the minimum number of spots driveways must have (2), and that kind of thing is not abnormal. What would happen to all those people if they were forced to close their home businesses and rent an office somewhere else? What would happen to traffic?

CalRobert 10y ago

That sounds fantastic. I'd take it over several square miles of asphalt hellscape, which is your typical American residential neighborhood.