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This is the exact FU attitude that GP is describing. There is nothing about "building the community" that entitles you to prevent other people from living near

This is the exact FU attitude that GP is describing. There is nothing about "building the community" that entitles you to prevent other people from living near you. They aren't trying to use political power to force you to give up what you've helped build, they are trying to buy land and build homes. It simply isn't ok for people to prevent other from living near the so they can turn their "communities" into elitist social clubs. Foreign buyers are irrelevant. They wouldn't be getting involved at all if homes in CA weren't so absurdly overpriced.

afpx 9y ago
Wait, did public opinion and political thought change somewhere within the last two decades such that owning property now doesn’t give one rights over that property and rights to shared governance of the incorporated area? Sorry if that comes across as flippant, but it’s a really serious question. I kind of bought this property so that I could enjoy it for at least 30 years. It’s not my fault that it’s appreciated so much. What do you want me to do?
- khuey 9y ago
  Buying a property gives you the right to your property. It shouldn't give you the right to tell other people who live nearby what to do with theirs (i.e. to tell them not to redevelop it at a higher density if they so choose).
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    Unfortunately not the case. Ownership of your property gives you an effective fractional ownership interest in your local radius through zoning and community governance. No amount of state law is going to change that. You can keep fighting the issue (and you might have some traction in a decade or two) or move somewhere more accommodating.
    - emh68 9y ago
      And for the betterment of society, we should take away some of that power. It's clearly being abused.
      - toomuchtodo 9y ago
        You will never have as much power as those property owners without a time machine to 30-40 years ago, and in the unlikely event you become a property owner, it’s against your interests to do anything that devalues your investment (ie increasing supply). You’re asking rational actors to make irrational decisions. The results are what you’d expect.
        taysic 9y ago
        Increasing supply doesn't necessarily devalue your investment. When the large single family mansions on 5th Ave in Manhattan were slowly replaced by skyscrapers, the value of their land went up. That would be unthinkable today though.
        tmh79 9y ago
        state law overrides local law. These battles are not going to be won by exclusionary wealthy communities willingly opening the gates, its going to be done by the state blowing the gates open. See the past year, bills like SB167 (Ability to sue for units denied at planning commision that are zoning/code compliant)sb 166 (making sure cities are up to date with their RHNA targets)and SB35 (bypassing local planning for zoning compliant projects).
        toomuchtodo 9y ago
        It will take years, if not longer, for any challenges to work their way through the courts. By then, the next economic event will occur, driving out non-owners in the Bay Area. As I mention in a sibling comment, you might see changes in a decade or two, but no sooner. I am not opposed to efforts related to increasing the housing supply (although I do think it’s a fool’s errand in the Bay Area as demand is insatiable due to the tech industry and foreign money seeking a safe asset store), I’m just describing the uphill climb these endeavors face. It’s hard to fiddle with a core component of the economy (property law).
- random314 9y ago
  If someone is entering your property and enjoying it at the very same time that you are in the throes of enjoyment of your rightful property then you must dial 911 with great haste!
- cmurf 9y ago
  I don't think direct property rights are in question. It's the indirect, or imaginary, rights that have developed afterward, and put into law by established locals to make it difficult to build higher density housing that's up for debate. I don't know a whole lot about it, but in NYC they have some concept of air rights, i.e. a particular 2D plot of land also has a height limit, and somehow those can be changed by buying up two plots and adding them together. And then most everywhere is the idea of "I have a right to this particular view in that direction, and maybe also this other direction over here, you can't build a building to block that view unless you compensate me - oh but wait no I don't want to be compensated actually, I want to just be able to prevent you from building anything." So at one time people resolved such a dispute with bribes, or threats, or murder. And then later on it was resolved with bribes and elections, where only land owners had the right to vote so renters couldn't just come in and change all the rules. Today renters can vote, and basically if your town has more politically involved renters than owners, they can change the building codes, and get more high density housing built or whatever. Anyway, it could be worse: no one wants to live there and it depreciates.
- landryraccoon 9y ago
  I don't see what the problem is. You think that if your neighbors are replaced by luxury condos that your house being one of the few single family homes on the block is going to go down in price? Like, do you think if they bulldozed Manhattan to a big lawn that would make the price of the brownstones and single family homes actually worth more? Your house would be millions more if your neighbors were allowed to develop to build market rate housing. People want the price per unit to go down by building more density. That means each lot will be worth more since you can replace it with more units. You own a home that's on a lot. You win financially if people are allowed to build. Think about how much a developer would offer you or your kids for your home after you don't need it if they're allowed to actually build. You'd be leaving your kids a fortune.
  - tmh79 9y ago
    the problem is (1) all these old folks want to drive everywhere and fear the increase in traffic and change in their lifestyle and (2) fear the loss of exclusivity of their neighborhood when one can buy a condo for less than a SFH. IMO these concerns shouldn't inform policy.
- Lazare 9y ago
  > I kind of bought this property so that I could enjoy it for at least 30 years. If what happens on the properties around you is critical to your enjoyment of your property, you should have bought them too. You can't go to a fancy restaurant, order a salad, and expect to get a steak for free because it's necessary for you to properly enjoy the salad. If you really want a steak, you're going to have to pay for the steak.
  - whiddershins 9y ago
    I can go to a fancy restaurant and have the expectation that the person at the next table isn’t screaming at the top of their lungs and vomiting on the floor. The restaurant example is actually perfect because a big part of what you pay for in a restaurant is not just the food. It is the service and ambience. Edit: My home price is based on access to the subways. I don’t own the subways. We happen to live in a system where the subways are run by the government, not privately owned. But regardless, I would do everything in my power to make sure the subways stay as good as possible, partly because I use them myself all the time, and partly because my home value is tied to them.
    - closeparen 9y ago
      We aren’t talking about people screaming at the top of their lungs and vomiting on the floor, but simply existing in homes. This is demanding that the restaurant leave perfectly good floor area clear and let a line form around the block, because more tables would ruin its quiet ambiance.
afpx 9y ago
I’m really not an elitist person, so that’s a painful representation. But, anyway, I’m willing to change my opinion. Just argue your case more persuasively. How is adding more supply going to fix this? For example, if on any given day 20 people want to buy in my neighborhood (just guessing), how much supply would have to be built to even reduce prices? Seems like it would have to be massive. How do you prevent over-supply from being built? How do you ensure that the housing is of suitable quality? By the way, I’m not the type of person that would oppose denser development. I just would prefer it be built slowly, in a controlled manner only because I’ve witnessed first hand developers destroying areas for quick profits. For example, a friend recently visited and used airbnb to lodge at one of those newish buildings on 9th street. The building looks great on the outside. But, inside, the units looked and felt like what I imagine Soviet block style buildings would be like.
- austenallred 9y ago
  The reason prices are so high in the area you live is that so few people want to leave, so the available housing is a tiny percentage of the total housing that is being bid on, compounded by the fact that you can rent out your house for 4x you’re mortgage, so why sell? Adding more housing alleviates that pressure significantly. It’s been years and next to nothing has been built in the vast majority of the Bay Area - housing has decreased in some parts. It’s not a rapid development concern, it’s a no development concern.
  - Nuzzerino 9y ago
    I saw a recent figure that around half of residents want to leave. Where did you get the idea that few people want to leave?
    - austenallred 9y ago
      The reason they want to leave is because they can’t afford to stay. The number of homes for sale is orders of magnitude lower than comparable areas.
- Decade 9y ago
sliverstorm 9y ago
Redeveloping a low density property for higher density is fine, except part of what makes that new property attractive is the neighborhood it was built in. Which in our hypothetical, is low density and maybe nice. Then in the process of redeveloping, as more and more properties are redeveloped, the old character is lost to everybody- the people who lived there as well as the new people who moved there for that character! It's not a new conundrum- what do you do about people moving to a community for it's desirable character, but killing that character in the process? It hurts everyone involved. HN frequently likes to take the position that the parcel you bought is yours, but if your neighbor wants to bootstrap a red light district you just have to deal. But, all over the country we have HOA's and zoning and so forth. Turns out, people want to come together and live in a community. Nobody particularly likes living in a free-for-all, so mutual agreements were set up to ensure the neighborhood you bought into doesn't turn into something totally different overnight.
- zackelan 9y ago
  > what do you do about people moving to a community for its desirable character but killing that character in the process? Here's what I think is the central (and flawed) assumption in this line of reasoning - people move to an area because of its "character". And that "character" is an intangible, immeasurable quality, but it is somehow diminished if more people move to the area. I grew up in Seattle. Both of my grandparents, when I was a kid, lived in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood. I live in Fremont today. From one perspective, the Fremont of my childhood is completely changed. On the other hand, it's still Fremont, with the Center of the Universe sign and the statue of Lenin and many other things I remember from childhood. Does it have the same "character"? Does it have a newer, different, but just as good, "character"? Those are impossible questions and it boils down to a Ship of Theseus style argument. Either way, I can't bring myself to assert that the housing supply of Fremont should be artificially constrained by zoning policies, in order to preserve my ideal of what Fremont "should be" or "used to be".
  - sliverstorm 9y ago
    I admittedly come to this from a different angle. Many people move to my town for nature & recreation. Every new house & every new infill is less nature, less trails, less recreation. So paradoxically, by moving here, are we killing what we moved here for? Not a Ship of Theseus. In our case redevelopment for density actually helps preserve that character. But I still feel like I can understand the Bay Area home owners.
whiddershins 9y ago
GP "helped build" a neighborhood presumably by buying when it was less desirable, and investing time and money and effort in to making the neighborhood better. Yes, building a bunch of new units will change a neighborhood. Yes, changing zoning will alter a neighborhood. What, precisely, gives everyone who wishes to live in an area the "right" to live there affordably, as defined by whatever arbitrary definition? I am all for relaxing zoning and building new houses because the rent is too damn high, but I also see this attitude in NYC and it is insane. No one has a right to move to NYC, and most particularly my block. If you don't like the prices, no one is forcing you to move in to my neighborhood. Actually, I'm beyond saturated with people moving in to the neighborhood I invested 20 years in to, and subsequently telling me and my neighbors who did similarly how to live, how to behave, and driving every existing business away and replacing it with the same exact thing but priced at triple. And yes, I know gentrification and new developments are orthogonal and in many cases allowing more construction would lower rents and transitively lower prices which is why I am generally in favor of relaxing zoning. But this general sense of entitlement, SHEESH! You don't have a right to move on to my block, at whatever price you feel like paying.
- rayiner 9y ago
  GP got his reward for that investment in the form of increased value of his own property. That’s all he’s entitled to. > No one has a right to move to NYC, and most particularly my block. People have a right to use their property as they see fit. If that means tearing down a brownstone in your neighborhood and building a high rise so a bunch of people from the Midwest can move in, so be it. The government can limit those rights when necessary, but the affirmative burden is on the party demanding such regulation to show why it is necessary to interfere with peoples’ property rights.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - CapitalistCartr 9y ago
    "GP got his reward for that investment in the form of increased value of his own property. That’s all he’s entitled to." Says you. I don't see that. Although I live in a working-class area in a lesser city, I've worked to make my community better, and my interests don't stop at money. "People have a right to use their property as they see fit. If that means tearing down a brownstone in your neighborhood and building a high rise so a bunch of people from the Midwest can move in, so be it. The government can limit those rights when necessary, but the affirmative burden is on the party demanding such regulation to show why it is necessary to interfere with peoples’ property rights." But you are the one arguing for gov't intervention. The locals want things to stay the same. Its local landowners who don't want change. I don't understand this part of your argument.

afpx 9y ago

Wait, did public opinion and political thought change somewhere within the last two decades such that owning property now doesn’t give one rights over that property and rights to shared governance of the incorporated area? Sorry if that comes across as flippant, but it’s a really serious question. I kind of bought this property so that I could enjoy it for at least 30 years. It’s not my fault that it’s appreciated so much. What do you want me to do?

khuey 9y ago
Buying a property gives you the right to your property. It shouldn't give you the right to tell other people who live nearby what to do with theirs (i.e. to tell them not to redevelop it at a higher density if they so choose).
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  Unfortunately not the case. Ownership of your property gives you an effective fractional ownership interest in your local radius through zoning and community governance. No amount of state law is going to change that. You can keep fighting the issue (and you might have some traction in a decade or two) or move somewhere more accommodating.
  - emh68 9y ago
    And for the betterment of society, we should take away some of that power. It's clearly being abused.
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      You will never have as much power as those property owners without a time machine to 30-40 years ago, and in the unlikely event you become a property owner, it’s against your interests to do anything that devalues your investment (ie increasing supply). You’re asking rational actors to make irrational decisions. The results are what you’d expect.
      - taysic 9y ago
        Increasing supply doesn't necessarily devalue your investment. When the large single family mansions on 5th Ave in Manhattan were slowly replaced by skyscrapers, the value of their land went up. That would be unthinkable today though.
      - tmh79 9y ago
        state law overrides local law. These battles are not going to be won by exclusionary wealthy communities willingly opening the gates, its going to be done by the state blowing the gates open. See the past year, bills like SB167 (Ability to sue for units denied at planning commision that are zoning/code compliant)sb 166 (making sure cities are up to date with their RHNA targets)and SB35 (bypassing local planning for zoning compliant projects).
        toomuchtodo 9y ago
        It will take years, if not longer, for any challenges to work their way through the courts. By then, the next economic event will occur, driving out non-owners in the Bay Area. As I mention in a sibling comment, you might see changes in a decade or two, but no sooner. I am not opposed to efforts related to increasing the housing supply (although I do think it’s a fool’s errand in the Bay Area as demand is insatiable due to the tech industry and foreign money seeking a safe asset store), I’m just describing the uphill climb these endeavors face. It’s hard to fiddle with a core component of the economy (property law).
random314 9y ago
If someone is entering your property and enjoying it at the very same time that you are in the throes of enjoyment of your rightful property then you must dial 911 with great haste!
cmurf 9y ago
I don't think direct property rights are in question. It's the indirect, or imaginary, rights that have developed afterward, and put into law by established locals to make it difficult to build higher density housing that's up for debate. I don't know a whole lot about it, but in NYC they have some concept of air rights, i.e. a particular 2D plot of land also has a height limit, and somehow those can be changed by buying up two plots and adding them together. And then most everywhere is the idea of "I have a right to this particular view in that direction, and maybe also this other direction over here, you can't build a building to block that view unless you compensate me - oh but wait no I don't want to be compensated actually, I want to just be able to prevent you from building anything." So at one time people resolved such a dispute with bribes, or threats, or murder. And then later on it was resolved with bribes and elections, where only land owners had the right to vote so renters couldn't just come in and change all the rules. Today renters can vote, and basically if your town has more politically involved renters than owners, they can change the building codes, and get more high density housing built or whatever. Anyway, it could be worse: no one wants to live there and it depreciates.
landryraccoon 9y ago
I don't see what the problem is. You think that if your neighbors are replaced by luxury condos that your house being one of the few single family homes on the block is going to go down in price? Like, do you think if they bulldozed Manhattan to a big lawn that would make the price of the brownstones and single family homes actually worth more? Your house would be millions more if your neighbors were allowed to develop to build market rate housing. People want the price per unit to go down by building more density. That means each lot will be worth more since you can replace it with more units. You own a home that's on a lot. You win financially if people are allowed to build. Think about how much a developer would offer you or your kids for your home after you don't need it if they're allowed to actually build. You'd be leaving your kids a fortune.
- tmh79 9y ago
  the problem is (1) all these old folks want to drive everywhere and fear the increase in traffic and change in their lifestyle and (2) fear the loss of exclusivity of their neighborhood when one can buy a condo for less than a SFH. IMO these concerns shouldn't inform policy.
Lazare 9y ago
> I kind of bought this property so that I could enjoy it for at least 30 years. If what happens on the properties around you is critical to your enjoyment of your property, you should have bought them too. You can't go to a fancy restaurant, order a salad, and expect to get a steak for free because it's necessary for you to properly enjoy the salad. If you really want a steak, you're going to have to pay for the steak.
- whiddershins 9y ago
  I can go to a fancy restaurant and have the expectation that the person at the next table isn’t screaming at the top of their lungs and vomiting on the floor. The restaurant example is actually perfect because a big part of what you pay for in a restaurant is not just the food. It is the service and ambience. Edit: My home price is based on access to the subways. I don’t own the subways. We happen to live in a system where the subways are run by the government, not privately owned. But regardless, I would do everything in my power to make sure the subways stay as good as possible, partly because I use them myself all the time, and partly because my home value is tied to them.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    We aren’t talking about people screaming at the top of their lungs and vomiting on the floor, but simply existing in homes. This is demanding that the restaurant leave perfectly good floor area clear and let a line form around the block, because more tables would ruin its quiet ambiance.

afpx 9y ago

I’m really not an elitist person, so that’s a painful representation. But, anyway, I’m willing to change my opinion. Just argue your case more persuasively. How is adding more supply going to fix this? For example, if on any given day 20 people want to buy in my neighborhood (just guessing), how much supply would have to be built to even reduce prices? Seems like it would have to be massive. How do you prevent over-supply from being built? How do you ensure that the housing is of suitable quality? By the way, I’m not the type of person that would oppose denser development. I just would prefer it be built slowly, in a controlled manner only because I’ve witnessed first hand developers destroying areas for quick profits. For example, a friend recently visited and used airbnb to lodge at one of those newish buildings on 9th street. The building looks great on the outside. But, inside, the units looked and felt like what I imagine Soviet block style buildings would be like.

austenallred 9y ago
The reason prices are so high in the area you live is that so few people want to leave, so the available housing is a tiny percentage of the total housing that is being bid on, compounded by the fact that you can rent out your house for 4x you’re mortgage, so why sell? Adding more housing alleviates that pressure significantly. It’s been years and next to nothing has been built in the vast majority of the Bay Area - housing has decreased in some parts. It’s not a rapid development concern, it’s a no development concern.
- Nuzzerino 9y ago
  I saw a recent figure that around half of residents want to leave. Where did you get the idea that few people want to leave?
  - austenallred 9y ago
    The reason they want to leave is because they can’t afford to stay. The number of homes for sale is orders of magnitude lower than comparable areas.
Decade 9y ago

sliverstorm 9y ago

Redeveloping a low density property for higher density is fine, except part of what makes that new property attractive is the neighborhood it was built in. Which in our hypothetical, is low density and maybe nice. Then in the process of redeveloping, as more and more properties are redeveloped, the old character is lost to everybody- the people who lived there as well as the new people who moved there for that character! It's not a new conundrum- what do you do about people moving to a community for it's desirable character, but killing that character in the process? It hurts everyone involved. HN frequently likes to take the position that the parcel you bought is yours, but if your neighbor wants to bootstrap a red light district you just have to deal. But, all over the country we have HOA's and zoning and so forth. Turns out, people want to come together and live in a community. Nobody particularly likes living in a free-for-all, so mutual agreements were set up to ensure the neighborhood you bought into doesn't turn into something totally different overnight.

zackelan 9y ago
> what do you do about people moving to a community for its desirable character but killing that character in the process? Here's what I think is the central (and flawed) assumption in this line of reasoning - people move to an area because of its "character". And that "character" is an intangible, immeasurable quality, but it is somehow diminished if more people move to the area. I grew up in Seattle. Both of my grandparents, when I was a kid, lived in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood. I live in Fremont today. From one perspective, the Fremont of my childhood is completely changed. On the other hand, it's still Fremont, with the Center of the Universe sign and the statue of Lenin and many other things I remember from childhood. Does it have the same "character"? Does it have a newer, different, but just as good, "character"? Those are impossible questions and it boils down to a Ship of Theseus style argument. Either way, I can't bring myself to assert that the housing supply of Fremont should be artificially constrained by zoning policies, in order to preserve my ideal of what Fremont "should be" or "used to be".
- sliverstorm 9y ago
  I admittedly come to this from a different angle. Many people move to my town for nature & recreation. Every new house & every new infill is less nature, less trails, less recreation. So paradoxically, by moving here, are we killing what we moved here for? Not a Ship of Theseus. In our case redevelopment for density actually helps preserve that character. But I still feel like I can understand the Bay Area home owners.

whiddershins 9y ago

GP "helped build" a neighborhood presumably by buying when it was less desirable, and investing time and money and effort in to making the neighborhood better. Yes, building a bunch of new units will change a neighborhood. Yes, changing zoning will alter a neighborhood. What, precisely, gives everyone who wishes to live in an area the "right" to live there affordably, as defined by whatever arbitrary definition? I am all for relaxing zoning and building new houses because the rent is too damn high, but I also see this attitude in NYC and it is insane. No one has a right to move to NYC, and most particularly my block. If you don't like the prices, no one is forcing you to move in to my neighborhood. Actually, I'm beyond saturated with people moving in to the neighborhood I invested 20 years in to, and subsequently telling me and my neighbors who did similarly how to live, how to behave, and driving every existing business away and replacing it with the same exact thing but priced at triple. And yes, I know gentrification and new developments are orthogonal and in many cases allowing more construction would lower rents and transitively lower prices which is why I am generally in favor of relaxing zoning. But this general sense of entitlement, SHEESH! You don't have a right to move on to my block, at whatever price you feel like paying.

rayiner 9y ago
GP got his reward for that investment in the form of increased value of his own property. That’s all he’s entitled to. > No one has a right to move to NYC, and most particularly my block. People have a right to use their property as they see fit. If that means tearing down a brownstone in your neighborhood and building a high rise so a bunch of people from the Midwest can move in, so be it. The government can limit those rights when necessary, but the affirmative burden is on the party demanding such regulation to show why it is necessary to interfere with peoples’ property rights.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- CapitalistCartr 9y ago
  "GP got his reward for that investment in the form of increased value of his own property. That’s all he’s entitled to." Says you. I don't see that. Although I live in a working-class area in a lesser city, I've worked to make my community better, and my interests don't stop at money. "People have a right to use their property as they see fit. If that means tearing down a brownstone in your neighborhood and building a high rise so a bunch of people from the Midwest can move in, so be it. The government can limit those rights when necessary, but the affirmative burden is on the party demanding such regulation to show why it is necessary to interfere with peoples’ property rights." But you are the one arguing for gov't intervention. The locals want things to stay the same. Its local landowners who don't want change. I don't understand this part of your argument.