3 ms·

I'm a pretty big fan of high density housing, and in theory I like the idea of "if you own the land do what you want with it" but I saw the extreme end of this

I'm a pretty big fan of high density housing, and in theory I like the idea of "if you own the land do what you want with it" but I saw the extreme end of this in a neighborhood where I lived. See for yourself (Google Street View below, do a 360 around the block) Some thoughts: - 12story building next to 1story bungalow - no mandate on 12story building to create parking per unit, so the entire block is flooded with cars trying to find places to park (also, this is the city, so many homes have no garage, you rely on street parking) - tons of circling cars looking for parking all the time - school not planned for the neighborhood. Sure, you built a 12story x 4unit = 48unit apartment, but there are no places in the school for the ~50 additional kids who suddenly appear. Yes you are guaranteed a seat in a school, but that could be 8 schools away and your kids can be in different schools depending on grade overflow levels - giant garbage trucks (building-sized) coming and going into your otherwise quiet neighborhod - giant A/C units pumping air for the whole building next to a 1story home https://www.google.com/maps/@40.5783519,-73.9617788,3a,75y,37.97h,92.71t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sOLsnSAudNTedkivsZ0OMrg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DOLsnSAudNTedkivsZ0OMrg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D174.0317%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@40.5783519,-73.9617788,3a,75y,3...

someguydave 6y ago
The free market could solve the school and road and parking problems too.
- baq 6y ago
  Please elaborate.
- thedevelopnik 6y ago
  Oh do go on about how the free market will effectively solve public externalities.
- kanox 6y ago
  Not really, this seems like a textbook example of a property developer dumping negative externalities on the surrounding neighborhood.
  - someguydave 6y ago
    If the public schools were disbanded and parents could purchase appropriate schooling for each child then public schools would not be “dumped on”.
yohannparis 6y ago
The developer will pay fees to manage garbage collection and school size increase when getting a permit. This is a city issue not a density problem. Parking on the street is not a right but a public good. Everyone share, this has nothing to do with land owned per citizen. Raise the price of street parking. Again Parking is not a right, it's a commodity, and people should pay a market price for it.
- TuringNYC 6y ago
  >> The developer will pay fees to manage garbage collection and school size increase when getting a permit. This is a city issue not a density problem. This map is from NYC. The neither the developer nor the permit increases the school size, the school is the same size it has been for decades. Totally agree this is a city issue. I think the core problem is that everything needs to go in lockstep -- agreeing to, say, free-for-all zoning but handwaving all other problems as things the "market will solve" doesnt work because the solution doesnt come for years, or decades. For this to work, it all needs to happen synchronously. It clearly didn't, as evidenced by NYC's public school registration waiting lists. A great solution I saw (same city) was when the developer built a public school for lease in the bottom floors of the high-rise to accommodate the influx of families. This is very, very rare in NYC though. Usually its a move-fast-and-break-things approach. I also agree paid parking would solve the problem. But saying it "should" happen without joining it to zoning changes achieves nothing -- it just waves away the problem with a theoretically perfect solution. The zoning change would have been a great thing if it came with a long series of simultaneous changes in other policies from school size to paid parking. This reminds me of a story from an acquaintance who was a dairy farmer. The jurisdiction passed a referendum mandating all eggs farmed would be free-range eggs. This tripled costs and raised the break-even price of eggs. The jurisdiction did not include on the referendum a restriction against importing non-free-range eggs. After the law went into effect, most voters who happily voted for the restriction continued to purchase inexpensive non-free-range imported eggs. My friend's egg farm went bankrupt. This could have been solved with a synchronous policy.
troydavis 6y ago
Your experiences make sense with such an extreme difference in uses. That said, in another comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23723331#23724541 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23723331#23724541), cesarb made this point well: > Abolishing single family zoning does not imply abolishing all zoning. One can concurrently believe that some zoning is reasonable (or at least that some zoning is much less likely to have unintended effects), and also that single-family is unnecessary. As an easy example, in most jurisdictions single-family excludes duplexes and triplexes. Those don't have any of the problems you described. SFH zoning is unique because it's so prescriptive about the allowed uses, it covers a huge percentage of residential land (https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/amid-seattles-rapid-growth-most-new-housing-restricted-to-a-few-areas/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/amid-seatt...), and it has a 75 year head start (current zoning is not what anyone would create anew today). High impact and little room to adapt to the actual market. (Parking is its own challenge: https://www.vox.com/2014/6/27/5849280/why-free-parking-is-bad-for-everyone https://www.vox.com/2014/6/27/5849280/why-free-parking-is-ba.... The root cause is that it's dramatically underpriced, so people have started to treat an extreme subsidy like a right.)

someguydave 6y ago

The free market could solve the school and road and parking problems too.

baq 6y ago
Please elaborate.
thedevelopnik 6y ago
Oh do go on about how the free market will effectively solve public externalities.
kanox 6y ago
Not really, this seems like a textbook example of a property developer dumping negative externalities on the surrounding neighborhood.
- someguydave 6y ago
  If the public schools were disbanded and parents could purchase appropriate schooling for each child then public schools would not be “dumped on”.

yohannparis 6y ago

The developer will pay fees to manage garbage collection and school size increase when getting a permit. This is a city issue not a density problem. Parking on the street is not a right but a public good. Everyone share, this has nothing to do with land owned per citizen. Raise the price of street parking. Again Parking is not a right, it's a commodity, and people should pay a market price for it.

TuringNYC 6y ago
>> The developer will pay fees to manage garbage collection and school size increase when getting a permit. This is a city issue not a density problem. This map is from NYC. The neither the developer nor the permit increases the school size, the school is the same size it has been for decades. Totally agree this is a city issue. I think the core problem is that everything needs to go in lockstep -- agreeing to, say, free-for-all zoning but handwaving all other problems as things the "market will solve" doesnt work because the solution doesnt come for years, or decades. For this to work, it all needs to happen synchronously. It clearly didn't, as evidenced by NYC's public school registration waiting lists. A great solution I saw (same city) was when the developer built a public school for lease in the bottom floors of the high-rise to accommodate the influx of families. This is very, very rare in NYC though. Usually its a move-fast-and-break-things approach. I also agree paid parking would solve the problem. But saying it "should" happen without joining it to zoning changes achieves nothing -- it just waves away the problem with a theoretically perfect solution. The zoning change would have been a great thing if it came with a long series of simultaneous changes in other policies from school size to paid parking. This reminds me of a story from an acquaintance who was a dairy farmer. The jurisdiction passed a referendum mandating all eggs farmed would be free-range eggs. This tripled costs and raised the break-even price of eggs. The jurisdiction did not include on the referendum a restriction against importing non-free-range eggs. After the law went into effect, most voters who happily voted for the restriction continued to purchase inexpensive non-free-range imported eggs. My friend's egg farm went bankrupt. This could have been solved with a synchronous policy.

troydavis 6y ago

Your experiences make sense with such an extreme difference in uses. That said, in another comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23723331#23724541 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23723331#23724541), cesarb made this point well: > Abolishing single family zoning does not imply abolishing all zoning. One can concurrently believe that some zoning is reasonable (or at least that some zoning is much less likely to have unintended effects), and also that single-family is unnecessary. As an easy example, in most jurisdictions single-family excludes duplexes and triplexes. Those don't have any of the problems you described. SFH zoning is unique because it's so prescriptive about the allowed uses, it covers a huge percentage of residential land (https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/amid-seattles-rapid-growth-most-new-housing-restricted-to-a-few-areas/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/amid-seatt...), and it has a 75 year head start (current zoning is not what anyone would create anew today). High impact and little room to adapt to the actual market. (Parking is its own challenge: https://www.vox.com/2014/6/27/5849280/why-free-parking-is-bad-for-everyone https://www.vox.com/2014/6/27/5849280/why-free-parking-is-ba.... The root cause is that it's dramatically underpriced, so people have started to treat an extreme subsidy like a right.)