11 ms·

Seems like it could work. Nonsense local policies to encourage "affordable" housing like inclusionary zoning have been huge failures. In big cities, we just nee

Seems like it could work. Nonsense local policies to encourage "affordable" housing like inclusionary zoning have been huge failures. In big cities, we just need way more housing. Yet NIMBYs fight it at every step, esp in SF.

bilbo0s 8y ago
Local policies actually make a lot of sense in most places, as most places have unique concerns. In Madison Wisconsin there were, for a long time, policies that tended to discourage building on the main east-side thoroughfare. Over time, no one really remembered why those policies, some of which one might construe as "inclusionary zoning", were in place. So we jumped on the urban development bandwagon. We were "All In" on it. I mean getting rid of older policies, introducing things like TIF for that very east side corridor, the whole nine yards. Fast forward to today, and there are buildings built down that corridor with giant footprints. And some people even think they are beautiful. So we congratulated ourselves. Then something strange started to happen. Whenever it rained, that very corridor would flood. Odd? It never did that before? Well, we never built like that down that corridor before. Not to worry. The flooding wasn't really that bad. But it's gotten worse and worse. And only now are people starting to realize why those old guys back before and during the Greatest Generation wanted to discourage building anything critical there. Long story short, we're a city situated on a system of five lakes, we can't just look at what everyone else in the nation does and copy them. We need to follow a plan that makes sense for our geography. We need policies that make sense for us, even if on the surface, those policies appear to hamstring us economically. I'm sure Madison is not special in this regard. It's likely most cities have some feature endemic to them that would similarly constrain where and how a wise man would build in that municipality. Like us, most cities have probably even forgotten the why of their constraints. I sympathize. But just as a piece of kindly intended advice from a people who have "been there, done that, currently trying to clean up the mess"... don't look at old policies and say they're "outdated", or "nonsense"... look at old policies and ask, "OK, what was the reason for this?"
- burlesona 8y ago
  Fair, but the root reason for many of the core zoning codes is that the WW2 and Boomer generations felt that cars were the future and that low density car-oriented development was the only kind of thing they wanted to be allowed near them, mostly for aesthetic reasons and also because they perceived (accurately at the beginning) that “those people,” meaning criminals but mostly just low income people, wouldn’t be able to follow, and thus they’d have their idillic suburban life. So when we examine those root causes it turns out that they’re pretty crap and we don’t need to keep them around.
- darksaints 8y ago
  In vast swathes of the US, the reason for it was to prevent black people from moving into white neighborhoods. I'd still call that outdated.
- jrm415 8y ago
  Yes, it's good to be mindful of Chesterson's Fence [0]. We should understand the reasons for policies before changing them. In many cases, we understand the reasons for exclusionary zoning; they're repulsive, and they should be changed. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence
ryandrake 8y ago
You can’t just add in “moar housing” in a vacuum and declare mission accomplished. Let’s say SF doubled its housing. Where are all these new residents going to park? So, now it’s housing and parking that needs to be fixed. Assume none of these new residents have cars? Ok now it’s housing and public transit that needs to be fixed. Where are their kids going to go to school? So we need more school capacity, too. How much more water, sewage, electrical capacity will you need? How many more grocery stores will you need? Restaurants? Gas stations? Where will all this new development go?
- s0rce 8y ago
  Chicken-egg problem though. If you say transit doesn't go places or doesn't run often people claim the density is too low and we need more people to use it. Can't have the same excuses just used to block everything. Just start building everything, high density housing, dedicated bus lanes, multi-level parking garages, better utilities.
  - bilbo0s 8y ago
    >Just start building everything, high density housing, dedicated bus lanes, multi-level parking garages I'd advise against this. We did that in Madison, and before we even got very far doing this, Mother Nature started to hint to us that it might not be a good idea. Maybe there are places where you can just build Willy-Nilly. (I doubt it, but what do I know?) I suspect, however, most places are like Madison, just not quite as delicate. You probably have to be REALLY careful about what you're building. And even more careful about where you're building it.
    - 0xffff2 8y ago
      > Mother Nature started to hint to us that it might not be a good idea. Could you explain what you mean by this?
      - bilbo0s 8y ago
        When we started building down what all the experts told us was an "under utilized" corridor, a bit of flooding appeared. Initially, when the rain would come down, you'd have to navigate through maybe 6 inches of water. Max. Annoying, but not necessarily cause for alarm. As we built more, and more down that corridor, it's gotten worse. Fast forward to today, and when the rain comes down hard you're navigating through maybe a foot or a foot and a half on a bad day in that area. It's also taking much longer to drain. (Nothing speaks to the folly of thoughtless building like high end, fancy restaurants, in gleaming new fancy buildings with sand bags out front that you have to jump over.) So yeah, no new plans for any new massive footprint, high density buildings along that area in the near future. I suspect until they get this whole thing worked out. Point is that just digging out massive parking garages, paving over areas, building high density housing, it all sounds good on the surface. And it might be good for other cities? Who knows? But we now have a better understanding that you need a more well thought out plan if you're a city built on a system of five lakes with a dam and locks system delicately balancing their water levels as it is.
rustcharm 8y ago
In Palo Alto, California, the people there would consider themselves "progressive." Yet they only will accept below market-rate housing if they can hand-pick the "right" people. This, IMHO, is disgusting, blatant, racism. https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2018/04/17/supervisors-set-aside-6m-for-teacher-housing-in-palo-alto https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2018/04/17/supervisors-s... (And it's another way to pay people off-the-books and under-the table in the form of discounted housing. In theory, the discount is taxable income when it's provided because of employment, but good luck getting _these_ people to pay up.)

bilbo0s 8y ago

Local policies actually make a lot of sense in most places, as most places have unique concerns. In Madison Wisconsin there were, for a long time, policies that tended to discourage building on the main east-side thoroughfare. Over time, no one really remembered why those policies, some of which one might construe as "inclusionary zoning", were in place. So we jumped on the urban development bandwagon. We were "All In" on it. I mean getting rid of older policies, introducing things like TIF for that very east side corridor, the whole nine yards. Fast forward to today, and there are buildings built down that corridor with giant footprints. And some people even think they are beautiful. So we congratulated ourselves. Then something strange started to happen. Whenever it rained, that very corridor would flood. Odd? It never did that before? Well, we never built like that down that corridor before. Not to worry. The flooding wasn't really that bad. But it's gotten worse and worse. And only now are people starting to realize why those old guys back before and during the Greatest Generation wanted to discourage building anything critical there. Long story short, we're a city situated on a system of five lakes, we can't just look at what everyone else in the nation does and copy them. We need to follow a plan that makes sense for our geography. We need policies that make sense for us, even if on the surface, those policies appear to hamstring us economically. I'm sure Madison is not special in this regard. It's likely most cities have some feature endemic to them that would similarly constrain where and how a wise man would build in that municipality. Like us, most cities have probably even forgotten the why of their constraints. I sympathize. But just as a piece of kindly intended advice from a people who have "been there, done that, currently trying to clean up the mess"... don't look at old policies and say they're "outdated", or "nonsense"... look at old policies and ask, "OK, what was the reason for this?"

burlesona 8y ago
Fair, but the root reason for many of the core zoning codes is that the WW2 and Boomer generations felt that cars were the future and that low density car-oriented development was the only kind of thing they wanted to be allowed near them, mostly for aesthetic reasons and also because they perceived (accurately at the beginning) that “those people,” meaning criminals but mostly just low income people, wouldn’t be able to follow, and thus they’d have their idillic suburban life. So when we examine those root causes it turns out that they’re pretty crap and we don’t need to keep them around.
darksaints 8y ago
In vast swathes of the US, the reason for it was to prevent black people from moving into white neighborhoods. I'd still call that outdated.
jrm415 8y ago
Yes, it's good to be mindful of Chesterson's Fence [0]. We should understand the reasons for policies before changing them. In many cases, we understand the reasons for exclusionary zoning; they're repulsive, and they should be changed. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence

ryandrake 8y ago

You can’t just add in “moar housing” in a vacuum and declare mission accomplished. Let’s say SF doubled its housing. Where are all these new residents going to park? So, now it’s housing and parking that needs to be fixed. Assume none of these new residents have cars? Ok now it’s housing and public transit that needs to be fixed. Where are their kids going to go to school? So we need more school capacity, too. How much more water, sewage, electrical capacity will you need? How many more grocery stores will you need? Restaurants? Gas stations? Where will all this new development go?

s0rce 8y ago
Chicken-egg problem though. If you say transit doesn't go places or doesn't run often people claim the density is too low and we need more people to use it. Can't have the same excuses just used to block everything. Just start building everything, high density housing, dedicated bus lanes, multi-level parking garages, better utilities.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  >Just start building everything, high density housing, dedicated bus lanes, multi-level parking garages I'd advise against this. We did that in Madison, and before we even got very far doing this, Mother Nature started to hint to us that it might not be a good idea. Maybe there are places where you can just build Willy-Nilly. (I doubt it, but what do I know?) I suspect, however, most places are like Madison, just not quite as delicate. You probably have to be REALLY careful about what you're building. And even more careful about where you're building it.
  - 0xffff2 8y ago
    > Mother Nature started to hint to us that it might not be a good idea. Could you explain what you mean by this?
    - bilbo0s 8y ago
      When we started building down what all the experts told us was an "under utilized" corridor, a bit of flooding appeared. Initially, when the rain would come down, you'd have to navigate through maybe 6 inches of water. Max. Annoying, but not necessarily cause for alarm. As we built more, and more down that corridor, it's gotten worse. Fast forward to today, and when the rain comes down hard you're navigating through maybe a foot or a foot and a half on a bad day in that area. It's also taking much longer to drain. (Nothing speaks to the folly of thoughtless building like high end, fancy restaurants, in gleaming new fancy buildings with sand bags out front that you have to jump over.) So yeah, no new plans for any new massive footprint, high density buildings along that area in the near future. I suspect until they get this whole thing worked out. Point is that just digging out massive parking garages, paving over areas, building high density housing, it all sounds good on the surface. And it might be good for other cities? Who knows? But we now have a better understanding that you need a more well thought out plan if you're a city built on a system of five lakes with a dam and locks system delicately balancing their water levels as it is.

rustcharm 8y ago

In Palo Alto, California, the people there would consider themselves "progressive." Yet they only will accept below market-rate housing if they can hand-pick the "right" people. This, IMHO, is disgusting, blatant, racism. https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2018/04/17/supervisors-set-aside-6m-for-teacher-housing-in-palo-alto https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2018/04/17/supervisors-s... (And it's another way to pay people off-the-books and under-the table in the form of discounted housing. In theory, the discount is taxable income when it's provided because of employment, but good luck getting _these_ people to pay up.)