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Battle lines being drawn: A map of YIMBY-NIMBY skirmishes in Bay Area
- pacala 7y agoSpelling suggestion: YIYBY - YesInYourBackYard
- opportune 7y agoAre you suggesting that property owners should be the only ones who get to decide how things should get built? I suppose if you want that, you should live somewhere where renting is not allowed.
- jefftk 7y agoFor what it's worth I'm a homeowner and landlord who is strongly in favor of building more housing to bring down the cost of housing. It's not in my immediate economic best interest to see lower rents, but it's what our city needs. (I own a two-family house in Somerville MA, and we rent out the first floor unit and part of our unit as well.)
- mc32 7y agoSo I’m for more building in the Bay Area and in SF. I’m for a denser SF, denser downtowns and business districts of the many Bay Area cities. ...But, you have s point. Some activists want to steamroll any and everyone. They want to go into residential neighborhoods and remake them into SoMa or Van Ness; they're often not saying, yes build in my SoMa, The Mission BkYd, no, they're saying, hey you over there with the yard, we wanna build over there! There are lots of areas prime for infill. You don’t have to go disturbing traditionally single-family-home neighborhoods and reshape them into your image.
- wbl 7y agoAre you saying people don't live in apartment buildings? Many of those residential neighborhoods used to be denser.
- mc32 7y agoI'm saying don't force people to change the char of their neighborhoods. If it's dense now, don't try to make it into single-family-homes. If it's single-family-homes, don't try to turn it into multi-family-housing units.
- rhizome 7y agoYou should be able to build up to, let's say 8-10 stories, within 2-4 blocks of every BART station.
- mc32 7y agoI'd say that's mostly reasonable, with some exceptions. Some BaRT stations are hemmed in in tight places and it would make things horrible. But overall, generally for a plurality of stations 6-10 in the city, 4-8 in the 'burbs.
- bradleyjg 7y agoWho is forcing whom?If you want to control the neighborhood, buy it. Otherwise the state of California is the sovereign entity and all the citizens therein get a vote.
- mc32 7y agoPeople only say that when things go their way, otherwise the claim all kinds of things. Tyranny of majority or it was the boomers' fault, or homeowners interests, among other things.
- qtplatypus 7y agoIf you want to have more people in the same area then the density has to increase somewhere. You can’t increase the number of households without somewhere becoming more dense then it was.
- jogjayr 7y agoIf I'm a homeowner/landowner who wants to build a condo complex on my land to profit from increased demand, zoning laws don't allow me to. On my own land. YIMBY seems accurate to me.
- astazangasta 7y agoYou also can't build a brothel, foundry or nuclear reactor. On your own land!
- jogjayr 7y agoNone of those are housing.
- lobotryas 7y agoNo, but these are things you can’t build because of zoning (and other) laws.
- jogjayr 7y agoI can build those things on land zoned for those things, as long as I pass safety regulations, pay taxes and registration fees etc. The neighboring foundry can't say "Don't let them build a more efficient foundry next door because it'll change the character of this industrial park." (or if they can, that's a terrible place to do business)
- TACIXAT 7y agoTaking backyard literally, this is exactly the opposite of what is happening. NIMBYs are concerned far beyond their property line. If someone owns land, they shouldn't be blocked from increasing density by someone who doesn't own that land.
- irq11 7y agoIt’s simply true by definition that everyone who wants to alter zoning rules - no matter how - is telling other people what should be in their backyard. To suggest otherwise is intellectually dishonest. Your drive to change building rules mostly affects other people. ...but that’s also how our system of government works, so just own it already. What the OP is pointing out is the doublespeak nature of “YIMBY” as a rallying cry. Just be honest about what you want: unless you truly only care about what you can do with your property, what you really want is for other people to stop fighting development in their backyard, too. Trying to frame this as a drive for personal choice misses the point of the debate: the other side doesn’t care what you do in your backyard, but they sure as hell don’t want it affecting theirs. (Nothing I’m saying here is advocating for a side in this argument. If you’re downvoting me reflexively because you think I’m being “NIMBY”, you’re blinded by ideology.)
- deschutes 7y agoI live in a city. I don't think it should matter but I do own property in the city. I support relaxation of zoning restrictions in the same city. How is it not my backyard? I think YIMBY is totally appropriate.
- TACIXAT 7y agoBy changing zoning rules, I'm not forcing you to upgrade your single family home. I am enabling me to do so.
- irq11 7y agoYou’re attempting to force everyone to live with the externalities of your decision. It’s fine to want density, but stop being dishonest about why other people might oppose what you want.
- SilasX 7y agoYou have a point, but I think the idea behind the "My" part is that this group has made a commitment that housing is so important that they're willing to be less picky even about things in their own backyard, in recognition of the seriousness of the problem.
- RickJWagner 7y agoSomehow I think the balance of power will tilt towards NIMBY. The wealthy just won't put up with it. Even Cher (reliably liberal) says it's not sustainable.
- pcwalton 7y agoThe "progressive" NIMBYs have a 9-2 majority on the Board of Supervisors. Hard for things to tilt even more toward them.
- jedberg 7y agoApparently every single browser on my iPhone is “too private” for the Mercury News.
- tonywastaken 7y agoSame. The DuckDuckGo app did the trick
- tannedNerd 7y agoAdd /amp to the end of the url
- einarvollset 7y agoWhile I have friends who have had to leave the Bay Area because of high rents, I also have (non tech, multi-generational local) friends who have the vast majority of their wealth tied up in their (or their parents) house here. I don’t love how some members of the YC community (often independently wealthy tech types) seem to suggest that this latter group need to sacrifice themselves by supporting policies that would effectively undermine the only thing that is allowing them to stay in the Bay Area. I realize that the YIMBY crowd fervently believe that eventually, at some point, their policies will benefit both groups, but in the meanwhile the house prices here are stagnating and predicted to fall next 12 months which is already causing anxiety. Simply dismissing this group as NIMBYs who don’t want to look at high rises so badly misses the point that I’m not surprised they are failing in their mission
- richk449 7y ago>I also have (non tech, multi-generational local) friends who have the vast majority of their wealth tied up in their (or their parents) house here. ... I don’t love how some members of the YC community (often independently wealthy tech types) seem to suggest that this latter group need to sacrifice themselves by supporting policies that would effectively undermine the only thing that is allowing them to stay in the Bay Area. If they already own a house in the bay area, why would falling housing prices affect their ability to stay here?
- einarvollset 7y agoBecause few people own their house outright, and the equity in their house is their only form of financial cushion or retirement savings. In many cases, the kind of house price drop agitated for would bankrupt and evict them, with no way of buying into the market again despite the average lower prices.
- richk449 7y agoThose scenarios seem few and far between. If it is a family home that has been owned for at least a decade in the bay area, then it has increased in value dramatically since it was bought, and no matter what kind of mortgage they have, they will have plenty of equity. If it was bought recently, then they probably don't have HELOCs or other instruments that would put them at risk, so the market value should be irrelevant to their financial situation. I can't see how a market price decrease of a house that one owns, or has a mortgage on, could bankrupt someone or cause them to be evicted. The worst thing that could happen is for they homeowner to go "underwater", but even then, as long as they continue to pay their monthly mortgage payments, they get to keep their house.