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Did the laws have protections for the current home owners? It seems perfectly reasonable to me that people would want to protect themselves if they don't have

Did the laws have protections for the current home owners? It seems perfectly reasonable to me that people would want to protect themselves if they don't have any assurances that developers won't just build ugly tower blocks. On the other hand, if people are opposing development that involves real architects developing aesthetically pleasing designs that respect the existing community, then it seems reasonable to me to criticize NIMBYism.

jedberg 7y ago
> It seems perfectly reasonable to me that people would want to protect themselves if they don't have any assurances that developers won't just build ugly tower blocks. If developers want to build ugly tower blocks, and people would actually buy those blocks, why stop them? Just because I bought my house ten years ago doesn't give me the right to stop someone from building something "ugly". At least, it shouldn't. It's important to remember that just because the law says, "you can now build a thing", that doesn't mean the thing will get built. First, the current property owner has to sell, and sell at a price that it makes sense to build the ugly thing. Then a developer has to want to take the risk of building the thing. It turns out, making it legal to build things doesn't really mean they spring up instantly. It's a slow process that takes decades to play out. In the 70s, a section of San Francisco that was zone single family only was rezoned to dual/triple/quads-allowed. Since the 70s, only a few of the single family have been torn down and replaced with quads.
- harimau777 7y ago
  What gets built next to someone's home can affect their quality of life (e.g. due to noise, pollution, increased traffic, blocking sunlight, blocking views, etc.). So I don't see why they shouldn't have a say. It's no different than any other negative externality.
  - davidw 7y ago
    I think it's reasonable that you don't get an actual nuclear waste facility next door, but people in California have gone so far beyond any kind of "reasonable". Exhibit 239839229: https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/10/san-jose-trying-build-low-cost-housing-teachers/572665/ https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/10/san-jose-trying-build... - people getting bent out of shape about housing for teachers, FFS!
    - harimau777 7y ago
      It's not clear to me from that article: Did the plan that they were opposing provide any assurances that the houses built would be good quality? The people quoted state that their concern is that overcrowded or low quality public housing[1] would be built. If the law addresses their stated concerns and they still oppose it then I think that it's fair to criticize them. However, I don't think it's fair to just assume that they are lying about the reason for their opposition. [1] I could see criticizing public housing being code for "we don't want anyone who isn't upper middle class"; which of course is unreasonable. However, on the other hand I've lived in places where the public housing took the form of a massive tower block that was like something out of Judge Dredd; so I think its understandable that people would be concerned about it if they aren't given any assurances.
      - davidw 7y ago
        > "we don't want anyone who isn't upper middle class" This is precisely what it is. They're teachers, for crying out loud. The US hasn't really done 'giant tower block' public housing for decades. That's just scare tactics.
        harimau777 7y ago
        In that case, then I think it would be reasonable to criticize them. Although, it still seems to me that it wouldn't hurt to put something in the law that specifically says that they won't build giant tower blocks.
        7y ago
  - KaiP 7y ago
    Because giving them a say has caused massive inequality and the loss of billions of dollars in wealth?
    - altoidaltoid 7y ago
      https://www.amazon.com/Neighborhood-Defenders-Participatory-Politics-Americas/dp/110870851X https://www.amazon.com/Neighborhood-Defenders-Participatory-...
  - jedberg 7y ago
    Their say is their ability to move away. Neighborhoods change. The irony is that when they moved in, their neighbors were complaining about all the change happening. Here in Cupertino, everyone says, "this should all be single family homes!". If you look at the old newspapers from the 30s and 40s, everyone was saying, "We should remain farmland!". Why is it that the people who built the single family homes happen to be right? Maybe it should have been farmland. Or maybe it will be even better as a mixed community of single family and multi-unit dwellings. It's called progress. For some reason people think that when they bought the house everything was perfect. The progress until then was good, and any progress afterwards is bad.
    - harimau777 7y ago
      I think that's reasonable. The issue that I would see is a situation where the new construction causes property value to drop and therefore the original residents cannot afford to sell their homes and move to a neighborhood similar to the one before the construction. If they cannot afford to move away then its really not a meaningful say.
    - sjg007 7y ago
      The way to do this is to repeal prop 13. This will force people to sell and move.
      - jelliclesfarm 7y ago
        So you want to create a upper middle class transient population that is mostly tech workers? Because if prop 13 is repealed..after 15-20 years of work, the retired tech employees can’t afford annual increase in taxes either. Or is this just to get seniors to leave Bay Area by making it unaffordable for them?
        jedberg 7y ago
        Being priced out of one's home is a red herring that the low tax zealots want you to believe to keep prop 13 in place. Somehow in the 49 other states that don't have Prop 13, people aren't priced out of their homes from taxes. There are other options. There are home equity lines, reverse mortgages, or even freezing tax payments and adding them as liens on the property at time of transfer. But even if you're worried about that, you should still support repealing prop 13 on anything that isn't an owner occupied single family home. There is no reason a rental property should have tax protection, or a commercial property.
  - BurningFrog 7y ago
    "A say" covers an enormous spectrum. What much of California gives neighbors is "a veto". There are many other jurisdictions that have solved this tradeoff in a functioning way.
  - GhettoChild 7y ago
    Now that I live in Houston which does not have zoning in the typical sense I prefer that things get done ASAP instead of people arguing for years for the right to build more housing on a lot that they already own. This contributes to the obscenely high cost of living in certain parts of the country.
    - harimau777 7y ago
      In my experience (granted I only lived in Houston for about three months during an internship), the lack of planning makes the city a nightmare to get around. I always considered Houston an example of what not to do.
  - asdff 7y ago
    If you want to preserve your sun, traffic, views, whatever, you are free to buy it. Nothing is stopping you from buying your entire neighborhood and leasing to your neighbors, other than your lack of capital. Why should you get something for free that has nothing to do with what you paid for, the parcel and the air 30 feet above it?
    - harimau777 7y ago
      It has everything to do with what you paid for. The environment around a home effects the home itself.
      - asdff 7y ago
        It sure does, but you haven't bought the private environment around your property and therefore should have no right to dictate its use by its actual owners. If someone is doing you legitimate harm, like dumping toxic waste into your drinking water, then you have the public government than can dictate the rights in regard to private use on the toxic waste dumper on behalf of the public. Increasing housing supply in an area with high demand is not doing legitimate harm, it keeps housing affordable and is good for the environment vs. infinite sprawl.
snickerbockers 7y ago
No, it's reasonable to criticize them no matter what because they're preventing other people from having the same opportunities that they were afforded.
- harimau777 7y ago
  I'm not advocating that more housing shouldn't be built. What I am saying is that there is a middle ground between allowing existing homeowners to veto any proposals and not giving them any say or protection.
  - altoidaltoid 7y ago
    https://www.amazon.com/Neighborhood-Defenders-Participatory-Politics-Americas/dp/110870851X https://www.amazon.com/Neighborhood-Defenders-Participatory-...
  - kelnos 7y ago
    Sure, there probably is. But if we imagine that this is a spectrum where 0 means "no say" and 10 means "absolute veto power", CA is at 9, and most functioning communities with healthy housing growth are probably at 5 or below.
AJ007 7y ago
The irony of complaining about aesthetics as mentally ill people run around shouting at pedestrians and pooping on the sidewalk in mid day...
grandmczeb 7y ago
The aesthetic preferences of crotchety neighbors should be close to the bottom of our housing priorities.
- harimau777 7y ago
  I don't think it's fair to assume without evidence that existing homeowner are "crotchety neighbors". It's quite possible that they have legitimate concerns that, and would support new construction if their concerns were addressed.
  - davidw 7y ago
    Go to public hearings. Their demands are almost never reasonable. New housing should never add any traffic ever, and it should look fantastic (with different people differing on what this means) and it shouldn't have children because there's no way the schools could cope with the "massive increase", and it should have enough parking to handle the entire extended family at Thanksgiving (in a severely land-constrained area) and by the way it should also be actually "affordable" (far below market rates). They really don't generally argue in good faith.
    - altoidaltoid 7y ago
      I would recommend looking into Katherine Levine Einstein's research on the concept of "Neighborhood Defenders".
  - grandmczeb 7y ago
    I've been to plenty of neighborhood meetings. The "issue" most of the time is a personal anxiety over change. Why should society cater to that?
    - harimau777 7y ago
      I don't necessarily disagree with you; however, strictly for sake of argument, a couple of potential reasons: - Providing a sense of security strikes me as a core role of society. - People who are afraid tend to be willing to resort to draconian measures like NIMBYism to protect themselves. - Anxiety that things could change so much that one is unable to follow their chosen way of life strikes me as a reasonable fear.

jedberg 7y ago

> It seems perfectly reasonable to me that people would want to protect themselves if they don't have any assurances that developers won't just build ugly tower blocks. If developers want to build ugly tower blocks, and people would actually buy those blocks, why stop them? Just because I bought my house ten years ago doesn't give me the right to stop someone from building something "ugly". At least, it shouldn't. It's important to remember that just because the law says, "you can now build a thing", that doesn't mean the thing will get built. First, the current property owner has to sell, and sell at a price that it makes sense to build the ugly thing. Then a developer has to want to take the risk of building the thing. It turns out, making it legal to build things doesn't really mean they spring up instantly. It's a slow process that takes decades to play out. In the 70s, a section of San Francisco that was zone single family only was rezoned to dual/triple/quads-allowed. Since the 70s, only a few of the single family have been torn down and replaced with quads.

harimau777 7y ago
What gets built next to someone's home can affect their quality of life (e.g. due to noise, pollution, increased traffic, blocking sunlight, blocking views, etc.). So I don't see why they shouldn't have a say. It's no different than any other negative externality.
- davidw 7y ago
  I think it's reasonable that you don't get an actual nuclear waste facility next door, but people in California have gone so far beyond any kind of "reasonable". Exhibit 239839229: https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/10/san-jose-trying-build-low-cost-housing-teachers/572665/ https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/10/san-jose-trying-build... - people getting bent out of shape about housing for teachers, FFS!
  - harimau777 7y ago
    It's not clear to me from that article: Did the plan that they were opposing provide any assurances that the houses built would be good quality? The people quoted state that their concern is that overcrowded or low quality public housing[1] would be built. If the law addresses their stated concerns and they still oppose it then I think that it's fair to criticize them. However, I don't think it's fair to just assume that they are lying about the reason for their opposition. [1] I could see criticizing public housing being code for "we don't want anyone who isn't upper middle class"; which of course is unreasonable. However, on the other hand I've lived in places where the public housing took the form of a massive tower block that was like something out of Judge Dredd; so I think its understandable that people would be concerned about it if they aren't given any assurances.
    - davidw 7y ago
      > "we don't want anyone who isn't upper middle class" This is precisely what it is. They're teachers, for crying out loud. The US hasn't really done 'giant tower block' public housing for decades. That's just scare tactics.
      - harimau777 7y ago
        In that case, then I think it would be reasonable to criticize them. Although, it still seems to me that it wouldn't hurt to put something in the law that specifically says that they won't build giant tower blocks.
        7y ago
- KaiP 7y ago
  Because giving them a say has caused massive inequality and the loss of billions of dollars in wealth?
  - altoidaltoid 7y ago
    https://www.amazon.com/Neighborhood-Defenders-Participatory-Politics-Americas/dp/110870851X https://www.amazon.com/Neighborhood-Defenders-Participatory-...
- jedberg 7y ago
  Their say is their ability to move away. Neighborhoods change. The irony is that when they moved in, their neighbors were complaining about all the change happening. Here in Cupertino, everyone says, "this should all be single family homes!". If you look at the old newspapers from the 30s and 40s, everyone was saying, "We should remain farmland!". Why is it that the people who built the single family homes happen to be right? Maybe it should have been farmland. Or maybe it will be even better as a mixed community of single family and multi-unit dwellings. It's called progress. For some reason people think that when they bought the house everything was perfect. The progress until then was good, and any progress afterwards is bad.
  - harimau777 7y ago
    I think that's reasonable. The issue that I would see is a situation where the new construction causes property value to drop and therefore the original residents cannot afford to sell their homes and move to a neighborhood similar to the one before the construction. If they cannot afford to move away then its really not a meaningful say.
  - sjg007 7y ago
    The way to do this is to repeal prop 13. This will force people to sell and move.
    - jelliclesfarm 7y ago
      So you want to create a upper middle class transient population that is mostly tech workers? Because if prop 13 is repealed..after 15-20 years of work, the retired tech employees can’t afford annual increase in taxes either. Or is this just to get seniors to leave Bay Area by making it unaffordable for them?
      - jedberg 7y ago
        Being priced out of one's home is a red herring that the low tax zealots want you to believe to keep prop 13 in place. Somehow in the 49 other states that don't have Prop 13, people aren't priced out of their homes from taxes. There are other options. There are home equity lines, reverse mortgages, or even freezing tax payments and adding them as liens on the property at time of transfer. But even if you're worried about that, you should still support repealing prop 13 on anything that isn't an owner occupied single family home. There is no reason a rental property should have tax protection, or a commercial property.
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  "A say" covers an enormous spectrum. What much of California gives neighbors is "a veto". There are many other jurisdictions that have solved this tradeoff in a functioning way.
- GhettoChild 7y ago
  Now that I live in Houston which does not have zoning in the typical sense I prefer that things get done ASAP instead of people arguing for years for the right to build more housing on a lot that they already own. This contributes to the obscenely high cost of living in certain parts of the country.
  - harimau777 7y ago
    In my experience (granted I only lived in Houston for about three months during an internship), the lack of planning makes the city a nightmare to get around. I always considered Houston an example of what not to do.
- asdff 7y ago
  If you want to preserve your sun, traffic, views, whatever, you are free to buy it. Nothing is stopping you from buying your entire neighborhood and leasing to your neighbors, other than your lack of capital. Why should you get something for free that has nothing to do with what you paid for, the parcel and the air 30 feet above it?
  - harimau777 7y ago
    It has everything to do with what you paid for. The environment around a home effects the home itself.
    - asdff 7y ago
      It sure does, but you haven't bought the private environment around your property and therefore should have no right to dictate its use by its actual owners. If someone is doing you legitimate harm, like dumping toxic waste into your drinking water, then you have the public government than can dictate the rights in regard to private use on the toxic waste dumper on behalf of the public. Increasing housing supply in an area with high demand is not doing legitimate harm, it keeps housing affordable and is good for the environment vs. infinite sprawl.

snickerbockers 7y ago

No, it's reasonable to criticize them no matter what because they're preventing other people from having the same opportunities that they were afforded.

harimau777 7y ago
I'm not advocating that more housing shouldn't be built. What I am saying is that there is a middle ground between allowing existing homeowners to veto any proposals and not giving them any say or protection.
- altoidaltoid 7y ago
  https://www.amazon.com/Neighborhood-Defenders-Participatory-Politics-Americas/dp/110870851X https://www.amazon.com/Neighborhood-Defenders-Participatory-...
- kelnos 7y ago
  Sure, there probably is. But if we imagine that this is a spectrum where 0 means "no say" and 10 means "absolute veto power", CA is at 9, and most functioning communities with healthy housing growth are probably at 5 or below.

AJ007 7y ago

The irony of complaining about aesthetics as mentally ill people run around shouting at pedestrians and pooping on the sidewalk in mid day...

grandmczeb 7y ago

The aesthetic preferences of crotchety neighbors should be close to the bottom of our housing priorities.

harimau777 7y ago
I don't think it's fair to assume without evidence that existing homeowner are "crotchety neighbors". It's quite possible that they have legitimate concerns that, and would support new construction if their concerns were addressed.
- davidw 7y ago
  Go to public hearings. Their demands are almost never reasonable. New housing should never add any traffic ever, and it should look fantastic (with different people differing on what this means) and it shouldn't have children because there's no way the schools could cope with the "massive increase", and it should have enough parking to handle the entire extended family at Thanksgiving (in a severely land-constrained area) and by the way it should also be actually "affordable" (far below market rates). They really don't generally argue in good faith.
  - altoidaltoid 7y ago
    I would recommend looking into Katherine Levine Einstein's research on the concept of "Neighborhood Defenders".
- grandmczeb 7y ago
  I've been to plenty of neighborhood meetings. The "issue" most of the time is a personal anxiety over change. Why should society cater to that?
  - harimau777 7y ago
    I don't necessarily disagree with you; however, strictly for sake of argument, a couple of potential reasons: - Providing a sense of security strikes me as a core role of society. - People who are afraid tend to be willing to resort to draconian measures like NIMBYism to protect themselves. - Anxiety that things could change so much that one is unable to follow their chosen way of life strikes me as a reasonable fear.