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New development lowers overall housing prices in the surrounding area, but forces the people who live in the affected neighborhood to relocate, either directly

New development lowers overall housing prices in the surrounding area, but forces the people who live in the affected neighborhood to relocate, either directly or because they're priced out of the neighborhood by gentrification. It's entirely rational that the people affected by this would be against it - they get no benefit and have to pay relocation expenses and uproot their lives. The beneficiaries are the new occupants, the developers, and the landlords. Which means far left NIMBYs have always been strange to me. The far left already rejects landlords and rent. The problem goes away if you remove rent from the equation, because the owner/tenants of a building get to decide whether to sell it for redevelopment, and get to capture the sale value if they do. So if there's already a solution embedded in your ideology, why go out of your way to blame the concept of development itself?

yonran 6y ago
Yes, the redevelopment of owner-occupied housing is a win-win if you believe that more supply reduces rent. Scott Wiener’s SB 50 in 2019 was exactly such a bill; it would have allowed redevelopment of owner-occupied housing into apartments, but it would not have allowed redevelopment of existing rental housing. However, Left-NIMBYs who fundamentally reject the benefits of private development will come up with any excuse (however specious) to oppose it. If you don’t think private housing has any value (or worse, if you think that new housing actively harms people), then you can always come up with excuses to prohibit it (e.g. by demanding that the government “value capture” it so that the developers won’t make any return on their investment on average). Here’s an example of an op-ed opposing SB 50 from San Francisco’s most vocal Left-NIMBYs: https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/how-the-state-can-help-cities-plan-for-density-with-affordability/ https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/how-the-state-can-help-ci...

yonran 6y ago

Yes, the redevelopment of owner-occupied housing is a win-win if you believe that more supply reduces rent. Scott Wiener’s SB 50 in 2019 was exactly such a bill; it would have allowed redevelopment of owner-occupied housing into apartments, but it would not have allowed redevelopment of existing rental housing. However, Left-NIMBYs who fundamentally reject the benefits of private development will come up with any excuse (however specious) to oppose it. If you don’t think private housing has any value (or worse, if you think that new housing actively harms people), then you can always come up with excuses to prohibit it (e.g. by demanding that the government “value capture” it so that the developers won’t make any return on their investment on average). Here’s an example of an op-ed opposing SB 50 from San Francisco’s most vocal Left-NIMBYs: https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/how-the-state-can-help-cities-plan-for-density-with-affordability/ https://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/how-the-state-can-help-ci...