5 ms·

Except the school bus is a public good. Are you saying that we should reframe housing as a public good as well and provide it as such?

nostrademons 7y ago
There's no need to assume this. Even if you treat land & housing as a private good, you're entitled to decide what you do with your own land. You're not entitled to decide what other people do with their land. Zoning laws, development restrictions, and HOAs violate this principle - they give existing homeowners a collective power to decide what other homeowners can do with their private property. This makes housing a weird sort of public/private hybrid where you have the private right to protect yourself from change but also the public right to prevent change within your neighborhood, which biases everything towards the status quo. (Importantly, no such restriction exists on population: within the U.S. at least, nobody has the right to prevent their neighbors or fellow citizens from having kids, while they do have the right to prevent their neighbors from building more housing units. There's an inevitable mismatch between reality here...)
- jbattle 7y ago
  You are oversimplifying. Are you OK with someone opening hog farms all around your house? Setting up fracking rigs? Building a factory and running heavy industry?
  - jschwartzi 7y ago
    And you're misrepresenting what the OP is saying. Someone opposed to HOA and zoning isn't saying that it should be okay to locate a chemical plant next door to a preschool. It's more that we as a society shouldn't let people with entrenched interests in the status quo dictate that we stay with the status quo even when it's clear how awful the status quo is. To wit if I want to raise chickens or garden in my suburban backyard that should be my right as long as the chickens don't get out or cause a ruckus. And if the chickens do cause a problem my neighbors' should be limited to seeking legal remedies and not preventing everyone from raising chickens in the future, as most chicken owners are generally responsible. That's very different from running a fracking rig and is much more like the things an HOA prevents you from doing.
    - jbattle 7y ago
      I really don't think I'm misrepresenting. I tried to take a literal but good-faith reading of what the OP wrote: > You're not entitled to decide what other people do with their land. Zoning laws, development restrictions, and HOAs violate this principle - they give existing homeowners a collective power to decide what other homeowners can do with their private property. Zoning laws and HOAs are (some of the more common mechanisms) we currently arbitrate the boundaries of what are acceptable uses for a property. You say raising chickens should be your right. You say running a fracking rig should not be my right. What mechanism do you propose to negotiate that when people disagree? You mention legal remedies "if the chickens do cause a problem". Do you mean to say the process should be for a homeowner wait til the fracking rig is built and running AND causing actual harm BEFORE they have any right to object?
      - korethr 7y ago
        Your reply ran straight away into an absurd reading of the post's point. There are scales where it is or is not practical to do various things. You might have noticed that fracking rigs, chemical plants, hog farms, et cetera, tend to take up a large area. All the various things one can do on a parcel of land cease to be worth trying to do once that parcel of land goes below a certain size. A fracking rig is unlikely to be practical to erect and operate in a typical suburban lot.
  - tathougies 7y ago
    Yes. I would move. If my neighbors all decided to sell to these companies, I cannot help that. It is not my land. I don't believe in socialism. I would hope I would have the common sense to sell my land at that point as well, so I could cash in on the sweet moolah the developers were paying.
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    > Are you OK with someone opening hog farms all around your house? Setting up fracking rigs? Building a factory and running heavy industry? The reason people are not OK with those things next door is that they're loud and smelly etc. It should already be a basic principle that you shouldn't be allowed to invade your neighbor's property with foul sounds and smells. In practice that would de facto require such things to be in a rural area where the owner can surround it with enough empty space that it doesn't impact the neighbors -- but you don't need any zoning for that at all, because it's a restriction on what you can do to your neighbor's property, not what you can do to your own. You can't get from there to prohibiting your neighbor from building some more housing units on their own property.
- makomk 7y ago
  Which is the fundamental problem with the whole YIMBY business: solving California's housing crisis requires dense housing, which is much more severely affected by what other homeowners and land-owners do than low density housing with large plots. The only way to avoid loud music blaring from the neighbouring units all day and night, or someone building a wall right in front of all your windows and removing all daylight, or an art gallery setting up shop across the street with an endless stream of visitors looking right into your home, or any of the endless other possible issues is through collective control over what others do with their property. Making everyone personally own the land needed to stop this happening is so inefficient that anything denser than American-style suburbs is impossible. So long as this idea is a a fundamental plank of YIMBY-ism, all of the pretty claims about how high-density living doesn't have to be a dystopian hellscape are literally worthless, because every one of them relies totally on things outside the residents' control that the YIMBYs will be first in line to try and destroy.
marcell 7y ago
It’s pretty simple. If I own property, I should be allowed to build a home for myself on it, subject to relevant zoning. You, and adjacent property owner, should not be able to deny my private property use. Yet this is not the case in California.
- nradov 7y ago
  That is the case in California. If you own property zoned residential and apply for a fully compliant building permit then it will almost always be approved (although fees may be high). Developers and property owners generally only run into long delays and battles with neighbors when they request variances or zoning changes.
  - sjg007 7y ago
    It'll be approved although sometimes you get neighbors who would get upset that your house shades their lawn. Typically you want to design your house to be compatible with the neighbors and the neighborhood. Los Angeles is an exception generally which is amazing b/c you get these great wonders of architecture that appear out of nowhere. These tend to be on bigger lots though.
  - moultano 7y ago
    Oh, my sweet summer child... https://twitter.com/eean/status/1228182747149025280 https://twitter.com/eean/status/1228182747149025280 https://twitter.com/neversassylaura/status/969399493958418432 https://twitter.com/neversassylaura/status/96939949395841843... https://reason.com/2019/01/16/san-francisco-property-owner-fights-city/ https://reason.com/2019/01/16/san-francisco-property-owner-f... I could go on for days.
  - Lendal 7y ago
    This particular story is about a development which did comply with existing zoning but the neighbors try to stop it anyway, forcing local govt into a negotiation. If you look at the photo of the lot you can see why: Beautiful rolling green hills. They didn't own the lot so they didn't have any right to stop the development. Nevertheless that's human nature. That's why I chose the school bus example. You're supposed to get the part of the seat that your butt sits on, not the whole seat. But from childhood to adulthood, people just never change.

nostrademons 7y ago

There's no need to assume this. Even if you treat land & housing as a private good, you're entitled to decide what you do with your own land. You're not entitled to decide what other people do with their land. Zoning laws, development restrictions, and HOAs violate this principle - they give existing homeowners a collective power to decide what other homeowners can do with their private property. This makes housing a weird sort of public/private hybrid where you have the private right to protect yourself from change but also the public right to prevent change within your neighborhood, which biases everything towards the status quo. (Importantly, no such restriction exists on population: within the U.S. at least, nobody has the right to prevent their neighbors or fellow citizens from having kids, while they do have the right to prevent their neighbors from building more housing units. There's an inevitable mismatch between reality here...)

jbattle 7y ago
You are oversimplifying. Are you OK with someone opening hog farms all around your house? Setting up fracking rigs? Building a factory and running heavy industry?
- jschwartzi 7y ago
  And you're misrepresenting what the OP is saying. Someone opposed to HOA and zoning isn't saying that it should be okay to locate a chemical plant next door to a preschool. It's more that we as a society shouldn't let people with entrenched interests in the status quo dictate that we stay with the status quo even when it's clear how awful the status quo is. To wit if I want to raise chickens or garden in my suburban backyard that should be my right as long as the chickens don't get out or cause a ruckus. And if the chickens do cause a problem my neighbors' should be limited to seeking legal remedies and not preventing everyone from raising chickens in the future, as most chicken owners are generally responsible. That's very different from running a fracking rig and is much more like the things an HOA prevents you from doing.
  - jbattle 7y ago
    I really don't think I'm misrepresenting. I tried to take a literal but good-faith reading of what the OP wrote: > You're not entitled to decide what other people do with their land. Zoning laws, development restrictions, and HOAs violate this principle - they give existing homeowners a collective power to decide what other homeowners can do with their private property. Zoning laws and HOAs are (some of the more common mechanisms) we currently arbitrate the boundaries of what are acceptable uses for a property. You say raising chickens should be your right. You say running a fracking rig should not be my right. What mechanism do you propose to negotiate that when people disagree? You mention legal remedies "if the chickens do cause a problem". Do you mean to say the process should be for a homeowner wait til the fracking rig is built and running AND causing actual harm BEFORE they have any right to object?
    - korethr 7y ago
      Your reply ran straight away into an absurd reading of the post's point. There are scales where it is or is not practical to do various things. You might have noticed that fracking rigs, chemical plants, hog farms, et cetera, tend to take up a large area. All the various things one can do on a parcel of land cease to be worth trying to do once that parcel of land goes below a certain size. A fracking rig is unlikely to be practical to erect and operate in a typical suburban lot.
- tathougies 7y ago
  Yes. I would move. If my neighbors all decided to sell to these companies, I cannot help that. It is not my land. I don't believe in socialism. I would hope I would have the common sense to sell my land at that point as well, so I could cash in on the sweet moolah the developers were paying.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  > Are you OK with someone opening hog farms all around your house? Setting up fracking rigs? Building a factory and running heavy industry? The reason people are not OK with those things next door is that they're loud and smelly etc. It should already be a basic principle that you shouldn't be allowed to invade your neighbor's property with foul sounds and smells. In practice that would de facto require such things to be in a rural area where the owner can surround it with enough empty space that it doesn't impact the neighbors -- but you don't need any zoning for that at all, because it's a restriction on what you can do to your neighbor's property, not what you can do to your own. You can't get from there to prohibiting your neighbor from building some more housing units on their own property.
makomk 7y ago
Which is the fundamental problem with the whole YIMBY business: solving California's housing crisis requires dense housing, which is much more severely affected by what other homeowners and land-owners do than low density housing with large plots. The only way to avoid loud music blaring from the neighbouring units all day and night, or someone building a wall right in front of all your windows and removing all daylight, or an art gallery setting up shop across the street with an endless stream of visitors looking right into your home, or any of the endless other possible issues is through collective control over what others do with their property. Making everyone personally own the land needed to stop this happening is so inefficient that anything denser than American-style suburbs is impossible. So long as this idea is a a fundamental plank of YIMBY-ism, all of the pretty claims about how high-density living doesn't have to be a dystopian hellscape are literally worthless, because every one of them relies totally on things outside the residents' control that the YIMBYs will be first in line to try and destroy.

marcell 7y ago

It’s pretty simple. If I own property, I should be allowed to build a home for myself on it, subject to relevant zoning. You, and adjacent property owner, should not be able to deny my private property use. Yet this is not the case in California.

nradov 7y ago
That is the case in California. If you own property zoned residential and apply for a fully compliant building permit then it will almost always be approved (although fees may be high). Developers and property owners generally only run into long delays and battles with neighbors when they request variances or zoning changes.
- sjg007 7y ago
  It'll be approved although sometimes you get neighbors who would get upset that your house shades their lawn. Typically you want to design your house to be compatible with the neighbors and the neighborhood. Los Angeles is an exception generally which is amazing b/c you get these great wonders of architecture that appear out of nowhere. These tend to be on bigger lots though.
- moultano 7y ago
  Oh, my sweet summer child... https://twitter.com/eean/status/1228182747149025280 https://twitter.com/eean/status/1228182747149025280 https://twitter.com/neversassylaura/status/969399493958418432 https://twitter.com/neversassylaura/status/96939949395841843... https://reason.com/2019/01/16/san-francisco-property-owner-fights-city/ https://reason.com/2019/01/16/san-francisco-property-owner-f... I could go on for days.
- Lendal 7y ago
  This particular story is about a development which did comply with existing zoning but the neighbors try to stop it anyway, forcing local govt into a negotiation. If you look at the photo of the lot you can see why: Beautiful rolling green hills. They didn't own the lot so they didn't have any right to stop the development. Nevertheless that's human nature. That's why I chose the school bus example. You're supposed to get the part of the seat that your butt sits on, not the whole seat. But from childhood to adulthood, people just never change.