9 ms·

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

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.
      - davidw 7y ago
        The more you read about this stuff, you realize that there's some real ugliness there - now and in the past. Maybe not everyone, but it goes well beyond the original intent of zoning to keep housing away from factories and tanneries and such. https://www.sightline.org/2018/05/25/a-century-of-exclusion-portlands-1924-rezone-is-still-coded-on-its-streets/ https://www.sightline.org/2018/05/25/a-century-of-exclusion-... Of course, in places like San Francisco and Portland, people are mostly smart enough to not "say the quiet part out loud", so they come up with other excuses.
        inferiorhuman 7y ago
        Of course, in places like San Francisco and Portland, people are mostly smart enough to not "say the quiet part out loud", so they come up with other excuses. No we fucking said the quiet part out loud quite proudly in San Francisco. Take a look at the covenants in the Forest Hill neighborhood. It's still fairly bad as those folks recently successfully fought an attempt at building a low income retirement home. And we certainly weren't that offended by the Chinese Exclusion Act.
        inferiorhuman 7y ago
        Long form piece about racist housing policies in San Francisco: https://www.fastcompany.com/90242388/the-bad-design-that-created-one-of-americas-worst-housing-crises https://www.fastcompany.com/90242388/the-bad-design-that-cre...
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.

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.
    - davidw 7y ago
      The more you read about this stuff, you realize that there's some real ugliness there - now and in the past. Maybe not everyone, but it goes well beyond the original intent of zoning to keep housing away from factories and tanneries and such. https://www.sightline.org/2018/05/25/a-century-of-exclusion-portlands-1924-rezone-is-still-coded-on-its-streets/ https://www.sightline.org/2018/05/25/a-century-of-exclusion-... Of course, in places like San Francisco and Portland, people are mostly smart enough to not "say the quiet part out loud", so they come up with other excuses.
      - inferiorhuman 7y ago
        Of course, in places like San Francisco and Portland, people are mostly smart enough to not "say the quiet part out loud", so they come up with other excuses. No we fucking said the quiet part out loud quite proudly in San Francisco. Take a look at the covenants in the Forest Hill neighborhood. It's still fairly bad as those folks recently successfully fought an attempt at building a low income retirement home. And we certainly weren't that offended by the Chinese Exclusion Act.
      - inferiorhuman 7y ago
        Long form piece about racist housing policies in San Francisco: https://www.fastcompany.com/90242388/the-bad-design-that-created-one-of-americas-worst-housing-crises https://www.fastcompany.com/90242388/the-bad-design-that-cre...

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.