12 ms·

I think what’s interesting is that there are people in the Bay who want to live in apartments and take transit to work and there are people who want to live in

I think what’s interesting is that there are people in the Bay who want to live in apartments and take transit to work and there are people who want to live in houses with gardens and stuff. The people in the latter group do not want to allow the people in the former group to have the experience they desire. But that’s because the people in the latter group do not want just to live in houses with gardens. They want to live in houses with gardens where their neighbours also have houses with gardens. So we have these big fights about property rights and whatnot when it’s just that the two aims are incompatible and the latter group wants the status quo (which is necessarily easier to adhere to)

twblalock 8y ago
They aren't incompatible. The people who want houses with gardens just need to live further away from the transit stations than the people who want to live in apartments and take transit.
- Brakenshire 8y ago
  London has recently mandated a minimum housing density for any development within walking distance of a train or tube station. Seems a good idea.
  - selectodude 8y ago
    Chicago keeps trying to encourage that and apparently that causes "gentrification". Everybody is going to get pissed off about something.
    - shanghaiaway 8y ago
      You know what really causes gentrification? Artists.
- pessimizer 8y ago
  There's a perverse incentive in that, considering that the people who want houses with gardens have them already, and the developers are making a request to build apartments, i.e. if you destroy local public transportation, you will make it more expensive to build apartments in the neighborhood.
- jakelarkin 8y ago
  "just need to live further away" there's the rub. most suburban outposts of transit on the west coast just have SFH around them, which is a nice $billion entitlement to public infrastructure if you can get it. anyway THOSE people have the most to lose (neighborhood, lifestyle) from new apartments and a huge amount of political leverage over land-use in their area. in summary, very fine grain local control of housing/transit planning is bad.
  - masonic 8y ago
    most suburban outposts of transit on the west coast just have SFH around them If you define "suburban" as SFH neighborhoods, that's a tautology. With respect to Caltrain, it's not the case at all.
ProfessorLayton 8y ago
A lot of these big fights also happen because of the "FU, got mine attitude" that affects owners and renters alike. The fact of the matter is that cities like San Francisco are mostly composed of renters, and could easily outnumber NIMBY homeowners to build much more dense housing. However, thanks to policies like rent control, among other issues, renters don't organize and vote to advance their own interests the same way homeowners do.
- omegaworks 8y ago
  >thanks to policies like rent control, among other issues, renters don't organize and vote I'm not sure I understand this train of thought, can you clarify how rent control disenfranchises people?
  - ProfessorLayton 8y ago
    I'm not sure if disenfranchise is the right word to describe it, but rent control leads to the following, in SF at least: - Not caring about getting new housing built, because the tenant is under rent control, and their housing hasn't really gotten more expensive, not their problem etc. - Not wanting new housing to be built because new housing is not subject to rent control — They'd rather keep the old units. - New renters subsidizing old renters because landlords can't charge market rates to old tenants, creating a divide between old tenants and new ones. - Creates a sort of class divide between the haves and have-nots, well off newcomers paying exorbitant prices vs. those less well off trying not to be gentrified away from "their" neighborhood. This is also a reason many oppose new housing in lower income neighborhoods (Mission, for example). Taken together it is easy to see that policies like rent control make it difficult to organize behind a common interest (More, and cheaper housing for everyone) the way homeowners do (Keeping property values high). I am not suggesting this is the only reason housing prices are extreme, but I do believe that if renters were more closely aligned in such a tenant city like SF, they could easily overpower NIMBYsm to achieve their interests. 60% of SF renters are under rent control [1] [1] http://commissions.sfplanning.org/cpcpackets/2017‐007933CWP.pdf http://commissions.sfplanning.org/cpcpackets/2017‐007933CWP....
  - 8y ago
Twirrim 8y ago
I'll bite... I've protested apartments being built near my house-with-a-garden in the suburbs (Seattle area). Not because I have a particular interest in my house price, or want to interfere with other people, but because the plans are doing absolutely sweet FA to improve the infrastructure to cope with the additions. In general, I'd be happy for the extra apartments if they came with extra infrastructure. We'd all benefit from it. In one case, they started planning to add hundreds of apartment blocks specifically targetting young families, and yet the way it was being done there would be zero money going towards local schools to deal with the extra influx. Usual construction requires money towards schools, but there are loopholes, and the developer was using them, and the city seemed happy to let them. Nor were there any plans to deal with the additional cars being added. Even with good transit links to Seattle, the roads leading to the proposed site. Nor were there plans to deal with increased sanitation or power demand on an already flaky power grid. The list literally goes on and on. What we keep seeing around here is developers interested in doing the absolute bare minimum to build apartment blocks, and a city content to just let them overload an stretched resources.
- WaxProlix 8y ago
  Whose job is it/should it be to get that infrastructure built, and on what timeline? Obviously it's not reasonable for a private contractor to have to build a school addition for each housing block (or is it?), but if the people haven't moved in yet then there's no data to show the city so that they can project tax/levy money and scale schooling, transit, and other infrastructure appropriately. If we let the circular dependencies stymie us at all turns, we'll never get anywhere. Gotta start somewhere, and having people to clamor for services seems like a good place to do so as any to me.
  - vkou 8y ago
    > Whose job is it/should it be to get that infrastructure built, and on what timeline? The new residents, so, by proxy, the developer putting the apartment block in. Of course, the developer immediately starts grousing about regulation, and excessive fees, and apparently, this is the reason for why we can't have sub-$400,000 apartment units. > Obviously it's not reasonable for a private contractor to have to build a school addition for each housing block (or is it?) It is reasonable for them to pay the city enough money to construct the infrastructure necessary to serve the new density they are adding.
ip26 8y ago
people in the latter group do not want just to live in houses with gardens. They want to live in houses with gardens where their neighbours also have houses with gardens. If the apartments threaten to block the sun for your garden, is it really totally irrational to care? You might think gardens are stupid, but you've got to admit gardens generally require sunlight!
- dantheman 8y ago
  I'm sure the neighbors will be happy to sell the air rights above their buildings so that plants can get that sunlight. Which I'm sure would promptly sold by the garden owner o because its worth a lot of money. It's a classic, well I don't personally profit and in fact lose a little so I'll stop them from doing it -- I could try to bargain with them (compensate them, etc) but I choose not to.
  - ip26 8y ago
    I think it's simpler than that; I think there's a subconscious application of the doctrine of prior use. If I'm using the sunlight to grow plants, I feel like somebody shouldn't be able to roll in next door and shade my garden with solar panels. There's plenty of precedent, see water law in the West.
    - estebank 8y ago
      And California also has problems dealing with water pricing during draughts due to the that precedent.
  - pessimizer 8y ago
    > I'm sure the neighbors will be happy to sell the air rights above their buildings so that plants can get that sunlight. Or the majority of the people that live somewhere will have all "air rights" controlled by the city, and dictate how tall things can be built. "Air rights" aren't a thing unless the jurisdiction makes it a thing; you can't charge a toll for planes passing overhead. Why would you "bargain" with someone who doesn't own anything that you want? You're talking about compromise, not bargaining, and that involves a friendly relationship; the kind normal people living in a home don't have with anonymous developers.
walshemj 8y ago
I think people would like to live in a freehold house and take transit to work if given the option between a lease hold apartment with all the extra costs ground rent, management changes etc
Sharlin 8y ago
Unless things are being zoned in some crazy space-filling fractal shape, the vast majority of houses-with-gardens are going to have houses-with-gardens as neighbors. And the boundaries don't have be abrupt. There's plenty intermediate solutions between houses-with-gardens and 20-story apartment towers and any planner worth their salt knows it.
- kurthr 8y ago
  Yes, it should be that way, but if you can talk the planning committee into making an exception just for you... you can make a bunch of money in the year it takes to build and sell the building... then you leave (well, first you need to contribute to the right politicians).
rsync 8y ago
"They want to live in houses with gardens where their neighbours also have houses with gardens." ... which is a totally reasonable and in-bounds objective for an actor in a democracy. I might not personally vote for such a thing - I happen to think that a LOT of San Francisco should be in-filled and doubled in height - but I value democracy and local control more than I value my personal tastes in SF neighborhoods. The predictable retort which will now appear, like clockwork, is that local control is inherently undemocratic to which I would respond: how did you vote in the Marijuana legalization ballot initiative ? Where do you stand on sanctuary cities ? Why are those local control issues palatable, but financially inconvenient ones are not ?
- fzeroracer 8y ago
  A local city choosing to ban gay marriage or gay people from their city would be completely democratic, but would you be willing to defend that action? It gets even muddier when you start to consider who has more power in those situations to influence votes, or to deny people their rights to vote and so forth. This is similarly the case with NIMBYism which can be viewed as a battle between the wealthier home owners and the influx of young professionals who are being priced out of basic living arrangements. Democracy only really works when each individual actor is playing on the same equal playing field. When you have companies lobbying to frack on public parks or wealthier individuals taking advantage of outdated laws or AirBnB, that's not exactly something I'd consider democratic.
- xvedejas 8y ago
  I have learned not to value local control. This is because I value incumbent residents and future residents equally, but local control only can give the former group of people a voice. In this way, I do absolutely find it anti-democratic. I would definitely prefer issues like marijuana and sanctuary to be settled on the national level if that were possible. Same goes for zoning. I don't see the paradox you seem to see; when these things are forced to be solved on the local level, I'll support my position. That doesn't stop me from thinking that sometimes the local level is part of the problem.
  - 8y ago
spiritcat 8y ago
gardens for everyone i say
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  gardens for some... miniature American flags for others!
tomcam 8y ago
> the people in the latter group do not want just to live in houses with gardens. Pro tip: you are a very smart person, but not even you are good at reading the minds of everyone else. Not only that, there are people who live in houses with gardens who share your opinion.
mcovey 8y ago
A lot of NIMBY-ism is because of money. Having an apartment complex go up in your backyard often reduces property values. It's not that people don't want other people to have a place to live, they retain want to retain their property values. It sucks selling your house for less than you paid, or worse, being upside down on your mortgage.

twblalock 8y ago

They aren't incompatible. The people who want houses with gardens just need to live further away from the transit stations than the people who want to live in apartments and take transit.

Brakenshire 8y ago
London has recently mandated a minimum housing density for any development within walking distance of a train or tube station. Seems a good idea.
- selectodude 8y ago
  Chicago keeps trying to encourage that and apparently that causes "gentrification". Everybody is going to get pissed off about something.
  - shanghaiaway 8y ago
    You know what really causes gentrification? Artists.
pessimizer 8y ago
There's a perverse incentive in that, considering that the people who want houses with gardens have them already, and the developers are making a request to build apartments, i.e. if you destroy local public transportation, you will make it more expensive to build apartments in the neighborhood.
jakelarkin 8y ago
"just need to live further away" there's the rub. most suburban outposts of transit on the west coast just have SFH around them, which is a nice $billion entitlement to public infrastructure if you can get it. anyway THOSE people have the most to lose (neighborhood, lifestyle) from new apartments and a huge amount of political leverage over land-use in their area. in summary, very fine grain local control of housing/transit planning is bad.
- masonic 8y ago
  most suburban outposts of transit on the west coast just have SFH around them If you define "suburban" as SFH neighborhoods, that's a tautology. With respect to Caltrain, it's not the case at all.

ProfessorLayton 8y ago

A lot of these big fights also happen because of the "FU, got mine attitude" that affects owners and renters alike. The fact of the matter is that cities like San Francisco are mostly composed of renters, and could easily outnumber NIMBY homeowners to build much more dense housing. However, thanks to policies like rent control, among other issues, renters don't organize and vote to advance their own interests the same way homeowners do.

omegaworks 8y ago
>thanks to policies like rent control, among other issues, renters don't organize and vote I'm not sure I understand this train of thought, can you clarify how rent control disenfranchises people?
- ProfessorLayton 8y ago
  I'm not sure if disenfranchise is the right word to describe it, but rent control leads to the following, in SF at least: - Not caring about getting new housing built, because the tenant is under rent control, and their housing hasn't really gotten more expensive, not their problem etc. - Not wanting new housing to be built because new housing is not subject to rent control — They'd rather keep the old units. - New renters subsidizing old renters because landlords can't charge market rates to old tenants, creating a divide between old tenants and new ones. - Creates a sort of class divide between the haves and have-nots, well off newcomers paying exorbitant prices vs. those less well off trying not to be gentrified away from "their" neighborhood. This is also a reason many oppose new housing in lower income neighborhoods (Mission, for example). Taken together it is easy to see that policies like rent control make it difficult to organize behind a common interest (More, and cheaper housing for everyone) the way homeowners do (Keeping property values high). I am not suggesting this is the only reason housing prices are extreme, but I do believe that if renters were more closely aligned in such a tenant city like SF, they could easily overpower NIMBYsm to achieve their interests. 60% of SF renters are under rent control [1] [1] http://commissions.sfplanning.org/cpcpackets/2017‐007933CWP.pdf http://commissions.sfplanning.org/cpcpackets/2017‐007933CWP....
- 8y ago

Twirrim 8y ago

I'll bite... I've protested apartments being built near my house-with-a-garden in the suburbs (Seattle area). Not because I have a particular interest in my house price, or want to interfere with other people, but because the plans are doing absolutely sweet FA to improve the infrastructure to cope with the additions. In general, I'd be happy for the extra apartments if they came with extra infrastructure. We'd all benefit from it. In one case, they started planning to add hundreds of apartment blocks specifically targetting young families, and yet the way it was being done there would be zero money going towards local schools to deal with the extra influx. Usual construction requires money towards schools, but there are loopholes, and the developer was using them, and the city seemed happy to let them. Nor were there any plans to deal with the additional cars being added. Even with good transit links to Seattle, the roads leading to the proposed site. Nor were there plans to deal with increased sanitation or power demand on an already flaky power grid. The list literally goes on and on. What we keep seeing around here is developers interested in doing the absolute bare minimum to build apartment blocks, and a city content to just let them overload an stretched resources.

WaxProlix 8y ago
Whose job is it/should it be to get that infrastructure built, and on what timeline? Obviously it's not reasonable for a private contractor to have to build a school addition for each housing block (or is it?), but if the people haven't moved in yet then there's no data to show the city so that they can project tax/levy money and scale schooling, transit, and other infrastructure appropriately. If we let the circular dependencies stymie us at all turns, we'll never get anywhere. Gotta start somewhere, and having people to clamor for services seems like a good place to do so as any to me.
- vkou 8y ago
  > Whose job is it/should it be to get that infrastructure built, and on what timeline? The new residents, so, by proxy, the developer putting the apartment block in. Of course, the developer immediately starts grousing about regulation, and excessive fees, and apparently, this is the reason for why we can't have sub-$400,000 apartment units. > Obviously it's not reasonable for a private contractor to have to build a school addition for each housing block (or is it?) It is reasonable for them to pay the city enough money to construct the infrastructure necessary to serve the new density they are adding.

ip26 8y ago

people in the latter group do not want just to live in houses with gardens. They want to live in houses with gardens where their neighbours also have houses with gardens. If the apartments threaten to block the sun for your garden, is it really totally irrational to care? You might think gardens are stupid, but you've got to admit gardens generally require sunlight!

dantheman 8y ago
I'm sure the neighbors will be happy to sell the air rights above their buildings so that plants can get that sunlight. Which I'm sure would promptly sold by the garden owner o because its worth a lot of money. It's a classic, well I don't personally profit and in fact lose a little so I'll stop them from doing it -- I could try to bargain with them (compensate them, etc) but I choose not to.
- ip26 8y ago
  I think it's simpler than that; I think there's a subconscious application of the doctrine of prior use. If I'm using the sunlight to grow plants, I feel like somebody shouldn't be able to roll in next door and shade my garden with solar panels. There's plenty of precedent, see water law in the West.
  - estebank 8y ago
    And California also has problems dealing with water pricing during draughts due to the that precedent.
- pessimizer 8y ago
  > I'm sure the neighbors will be happy to sell the air rights above their buildings so that plants can get that sunlight. Or the majority of the people that live somewhere will have all "air rights" controlled by the city, and dictate how tall things can be built. "Air rights" aren't a thing unless the jurisdiction makes it a thing; you can't charge a toll for planes passing overhead. Why would you "bargain" with someone who doesn't own anything that you want? You're talking about compromise, not bargaining, and that involves a friendly relationship; the kind normal people living in a home don't have with anonymous developers.

walshemj 8y ago

I think people would like to live in a freehold house and take transit to work if given the option between a lease hold apartment with all the extra costs ground rent, management changes etc

Sharlin 8y ago

Unless things are being zoned in some crazy space-filling fractal shape, the vast majority of houses-with-gardens are going to have houses-with-gardens as neighbors. And the boundaries don't have be abrupt. There's plenty intermediate solutions between houses-with-gardens and 20-story apartment towers and any planner worth their salt knows it.

kurthr 8y ago
Yes, it should be that way, but if you can talk the planning committee into making an exception just for you... you can make a bunch of money in the year it takes to build and sell the building... then you leave (well, first you need to contribute to the right politicians).

rsync 8y ago

"They want to live in houses with gardens where their neighbours also have houses with gardens." ... which is a totally reasonable and in-bounds objective for an actor in a democracy. I might not personally vote for such a thing - I happen to think that a LOT of San Francisco should be in-filled and doubled in height - but I value democracy and local control more than I value my personal tastes in SF neighborhoods. The predictable retort which will now appear, like clockwork, is that local control is inherently undemocratic to which I would respond: how did you vote in the Marijuana legalization ballot initiative ? Where do you stand on sanctuary cities ? Why are those local control issues palatable, but financially inconvenient ones are not ?

fzeroracer 8y ago
A local city choosing to ban gay marriage or gay people from their city would be completely democratic, but would you be willing to defend that action? It gets even muddier when you start to consider who has more power in those situations to influence votes, or to deny people their rights to vote and so forth. This is similarly the case with NIMBYism which can be viewed as a battle between the wealthier home owners and the influx of young professionals who are being priced out of basic living arrangements. Democracy only really works when each individual actor is playing on the same equal playing field. When you have companies lobbying to frack on public parks or wealthier individuals taking advantage of outdated laws or AirBnB, that's not exactly something I'd consider democratic.
xvedejas 8y ago
I have learned not to value local control. This is because I value incumbent residents and future residents equally, but local control only can give the former group of people a voice. In this way, I do absolutely find it anti-democratic. I would definitely prefer issues like marijuana and sanctuary to be settled on the national level if that were possible. Same goes for zoning. I don't see the paradox you seem to see; when these things are forced to be solved on the local level, I'll support my position. That doesn't stop me from thinking that sometimes the local level is part of the problem.
- 8y ago

spiritcat 8y ago

gardens for everyone i say

mlthoughts2018 8y ago
gardens for some... miniature American flags for others!

tomcam 8y ago

> the people in the latter group do not want just to live in houses with gardens. Pro tip: you are a very smart person, but not even you are good at reading the minds of everyone else. Not only that, there are people who live in houses with gardens who share your opinion.

mcovey 8y ago

A lot of NIMBY-ism is because of money. Having an apartment complex go up in your backyard often reduces property values. It's not that people don't want other people to have a place to live, they retain want to retain their property values. It sucks selling your house for less than you paid, or worse, being upside down on your mortgage.