27 ms·

Berkeley may get rid of single-family zoning

243 points by jseliger 6y ago

cft 6y ago
Unanimous vote was also practiced in the Soviet Communist Party
- maedla 6y ago
  Eating meals was also practiced in the Soviet Communist Party
endisneigh 6y ago
It's never made any sense that any county in the USA has mandatory single-family zoning. If a community wants to keep things sparsely populated they should have to purchase land and houses at market rate to do so. As surrounding areas become more and more popular it would become more and more expensive to do so. That's how it should be. If voting was mandatory in the USA this would've been fixed centuries ago.
- dtwest 6y ago
  While I agree with the general sentiment, increasing city density takes careful planning. If a neighborhood doesn't invest in the necessary public services such as transportation and education, more density can be a problem. So the entire community who pays for these services should have some say in what happens. That said, I'm still pro growth as long as we plan accordingly.
  - duxup 6y ago
    Agreed. Unwavering the weave takes some care if you want to do it right ... do it wrong and I suspect you get even more opposition / problems.
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    Berkeley's population has been static for more than 70 years. In the meantime we've built a freeway and a subway with three underground stations. Also the number of _jobs_ in Berkeley has more than doubled. It is high time the city grew its population in order to benefit from these infrastructure investments.
- runako 6y ago
  The purpose of single-family voting is not to maintain sparse density, it's to keep the city white: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26252258 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26252258 > If voting was mandatory in the USA this would've been fixed centuries ago. Those negatively affected by policies like this have only been able to vote for about 50 years.
  - jacob2484 6y ago
    Sigh... not everything is about race - folks may prefer live in a less developed, single-home community no matter the color of their neighbors.
    - shuckles 6y ago
      Single family zoning is about what you are forced to build, not about what people choose to live in. In fact, if the demand for detached SFHs was as real as you suggest, there would be no downside to zoning for multi-family; nobody would prefer to build it! Also, ultimately, the history of single family zoning is definitely all about race.
    - caturopath 6y ago
      Not everything is about race, but American suburbanism is. I'm not saying that everyone who lives in the burbs is making a choice about race, but that is 100% how we got here.
    - danans 6y ago
      Folks may prefer that, but the original policy in Berkeley was put in place 100 years ago specifically in response to the perceived threat of the African American influx. In highly developed urban/suburban areas today all over the country (not bucolic hamlets that people imagine), this zoning policy (along with others like large minimum lot sizes) effectively function as a demographic and economic sieve.
    - omginternets 6y ago
      To add to this, some things can be tinted with racism while also being motivated by other -- sometimes even legitimate -- things. It's easy to throw out the baby with the bathwater. It takes effort to throw away the bad and keep the good. As stated in another thread: it's not a bad idea to prevent apartments from being built such that they overlook a single-family dwelling's back-yard. EDIT: in all fairness, I should point out that others seem to know something about the historical origins of zoning policy that I do not. It's possible that I'm underestimating the degree to which racism played a role in shaping the legal landscape. Nevertheless, I can imagine a handful of legitimate reasons for single-family zoning...
- jeffbee 6y ago
  Voting is how we got here. A city or any entity can adopt exclusionary policies based on the votes of the people who already live there, which obviously excludes the people to be excluded. What we need is the next higher level of government to set basic ground rules. There should be a state right-to-build law that automatically permits a moderate level of density. There shouldn't be any place within incorporated cities of California you can't build a four-family dwelling on a 4000-square-foot lot.
  - endisneigh 6y ago
    You are right, however if voting were mandatory nationwide the situation you're describing wouldn't happen. If 1000 people live in California and 100 of those people live in Berkeley, even if all 100 people in Berkeley agree with something, if the majority of Californians disagree it would and should override what the Berkeleyians want. If voting is mandatory there's no situation in which a majority decision is actually suboptimal, unless you believe that a minority should somehow be able to override a majority. The way democracy is implemented in this country is effectively rule of the minority over the majority - the catch is the minority just has to draw arbitrary boundaries surrounding their decisions. You can already see this if you just look at the Bay Area - how can it be so difficult to build if polls show the majority of people support it? Turns out the minority (homeowners) have more power than the majority (renters) in the Bay Area.
    - jeffbee 6y ago
      Basically you are saying that California cities should not have planning authority. I happen to agree but that's not on the table.
      - endisneigh 6y ago
        It's not about California specifically - in general the majority should always have to ability to reject the decision of a smaller body by pure simple majority. To believe otherwise is basically to not believe in democracy. To some extent this is already possible, but with gerrymandering and non-mandatory voting the obvious solution to this problem for the minority is just to suppress votes - hence mandatory voting.
- ed312 6y ago
  You literally just need a thin majority of people in a community to force through zoning changes. Maybe people actually prefer to both live in and live around SFH-style development?
- Lammy 6y ago
  It never made any sense to me either until I learned that there was effectively no black population to speak of in the Bay Area until World War Ⅱ and the Second Great Migration, but now I just see it as a form of easily-deniable economic segregation: https://i.imgur.com/Ke7GP1Q.png https://i.imgur.com/Ke7GP1Q.png See also: the "freeway revolts"
- dalbasal 6y ago
  Neither extreme is viable. OOH, interest groups exist and restrictive zoning can cause illogical cityscapes with way too little housing. OOH, no planning, no zoning and laissez faire dynamics don't really get you to a logical metropolis either. Both tend to fail at density. High density cities need as much investment in difficult infrastructure as they do in real estate. A lot of successful examples in the world at large are pretty highly planned. I'd also note that most are guided to some extent by national-level agendas. A purely local agenda isn't generally going to select fast change. All sorts of vested interest to the contrary. Property scarcity, but also other things. More people usually want their towns to stay the same. IMO, there really is no way around the need for competent, well intentioned decision making... on average. There's also now way around a need for intention. What's the actual goal for Berkeley? Where do they want to be in 30 years.
  - ars 6y ago
    And what if your goal is low density? Your post assume the density is a positive goal. I disagree, I think it's a miserable way to live. Let people live how they want, and keep voting very local. Each city can have different density levels and housing styles. You want density? Move somewhere dense, and vote that way, I have no issue with it. I'll move to low density areas and vote that way, and I expect you not to have an issue with that either.
    - endisneigh 6y ago
      I disagree - if you want low density and the area is popular you should have to pay for the privilege. People can live however they want in this world, just not for free.
      - frongpik 6y ago
        The US in general is a low density country and is a popular destination. Does it mean it should pay to whoever expressed the desire to immigrate to the US?
    - dalbasal 6y ago
- caturopath 6y ago
  Your argument seems to be against all zoning of intensity, possibly against all zoning period, and doesn't address the fact that living in a rowhouse across the street from a high-rise building or factory can suck. Certainly, R1 zoning is a scourge: low-intensity should never mean "large lot, huge setback, short house, one door". Certainly, also, a land value tax that is allowed to grow with actual value should charge folks based on what they're taking from society by living somewhere (or whatever other use), to make single-family homes and parking lots and the like pay their fair share if they are going to exist. But I still think you might be making too sweeping of a statement in this post.
  - endisneigh 6y ago
    My argument is not about zoning at all - it's about democracy and the will of a population. In your example, if the majority of the people don't want the factory or high-rise building to be there, it won't be there. And if they do, who are you, or I to say otherwise? You either believe majority rules, or not. I happen to believe the former, but I do see many comments or believe the latter.
    - whimsicalism 6y ago
      > You either believe majority rules, or not Coming up with a procedure to translate the opinions of people into actions by the state is not a yes/no question. There's the nuance of direct vs. representative, appointees, how things are structured. You can't boil down political philosophy to an "either/or" on democracy.
  - Schiendelman 6y ago
    Zoning period only exists to stop people of particular races from moving into neighborhoods. All the other things we see as benefits of zoning came later, in order to justify that original reason. And most of the things we assume zoning is protecting us from are misunderstandings. "A rowhouse across the street from a high rise building or factory" is not something government has any constitutional basis to regulate on its own; all that comes from a court case that was pretty explicitly to keep black people away from white people.
- u678u 6y ago
  It makes a lot of sense if you like living in a neighborhood with single family housing. I live in an apartment, but if I had a house I'd hate for an apartment building to be built next door overlooking my yard. In most of the country private gated communities with HOAs are getting a big percentage of new housing. Keeping neighborhoods consistent is one of the reasons. I can't find a good link easily but wikipedia says 40% of all new housing in California is gated communities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gated_community#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gated_community#United_States
- jonahx 6y ago
  Honest question: Is the argument that, as a developer, I should be able to construct a large building with 1-person apartments the size of prison cells, say, if there is a market for that? Should the only limit be restrictions imposed by fire safety policy or similar?
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    These are called SROs and their demolition in SF is among one of the many causes of the current visible homelessness.
  - spiralx 6y ago
    No, building codes are a separate issue from land-use restrictions. Apartments must still meet whatever standards exist which can include minimum facilities, size and number of floors. Although at the limit such standards can be effectively the same as simply banning apartments outright, so there is crossover.
- jdeibele 6y ago
  Before we moved to our current house, a house a couple of blocks away was a meth lab, there was an accidental fire, and the fire department let it burn to the ground. My next door neighbor bought the property and had to go before the local neighborhood association to get their approval for building 4 houses on the acre of property. They were not happy with the idea of trading 1 for 4 until he showed them that one alternative was putting 28 townhomes on there instead. Then they got on board with his plan. As I understand it, the city would not have allowed a single home to have been built on the property. 4 was the absolute minimum. This is Portland, Oregon and things are pretty different here compared to a lot of other places.
danans 6y ago
What the article didn't originally mention is that Berkeley was the first city in the country to adopt single family zoning 100 years ago, in response to the large migration of African Americans to the West Coast. Other cities of the country, seeing the opportunity to enforce segregation through zoning, followed suit, and today we live in the consequences. Density advocates can only hope that 100 years later the counter trend also spreads as successfully. EDIT: updated comment to reflect updated article content.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- kleiba 6y ago
  With the article doesn't mention is that Berkeley was the first city in the country to adopt single family zoning 100 years ago You mean except in the headline?
  - Lammy 6y ago
    The headline doesn't say why restrictive zoning was favored by so many.
    - jamiequint 6y ago
      well ackshually
  - danans 6y ago
    My bad. I italicized the wrong phrase. Fixed.
    - kleiba 6y ago
      Cool. Should I change my answer from "in the headline" to "in the 3rd sentence" then?
      - danans 6y ago
jeffbee 6y ago
Note that the city did nothing of the kind. They adopted a resolution stating their intent to reform the zoning code by the end of next year, a non-binding and thoroughly unambitious bit of foot-dragging.
- lacker 6y ago
  Ah, that's a good point. Much better coverage of this issue is available from Berkeleyside: https://www.berkeleyside.com/2021/02/17/berkeley-may-get-rid-of-single-family-zoning-as-a-way-to-correct-the-arc-of-its-ugly-housing-history https://www.berkeleyside.com/2021/02/17/berkeley-may-get-rid... This resolution "could start a process", great. It seems like only a small part of a political battle around whether and how to add more housing in Berkeley. Particularly interesting to me is that CA Senate Bill 828 passed somewhat quietly but is going to force many cities across California to increase housing density.
  - dang 6y ago
    We've changed the URL to that from https://www.ktvu.com/news/berkeley-ends-more-than-100-year-old-single-family-zoning-policy https://www.ktvu.com/news/berkeley-ends-more-than-100-year-o.... Thanks!
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- 0xB31B1B 6y ago
  eh, this isn't a good read of what happened. Zoning reform needs to go through a lot of reviews like CEQA, and there are places where people can sue to slow it down. It is happening, this is just the legal process by which it happens.
  - clairity 6y ago
    zoning reforms are subject to ceqa, at a legislative level? zoning variances on a per project basis certainly are, but reforms? in any case, one thing to keep in mind in any housing discussion is that uncertainty in its many forms is what principally drives up development costs. ceqa is one tool deployed as a weapon to increase project uncertainty, and ultimately drive up development costs. complex permitting/regualtory regimes and overly prescriptive (vs. descriptive) building codes (and their review processes) are more sources of uncertainty, risk, and untimately cost. p.s. - "4+1 by right" is my housing mantra.
lacker 6y ago
It'll be interesting to see how much of an effect this has. Construction in Berkeley is still extremely difficult. Neighbors have many ways to oppose new construction, and something as simple as adding an extra room to a house can end up requiring multiple city council votes. Still, I'm excited to see things moving in the right direction. Berkeley is fundamentally a university town with one of the best public universities in the world, so making it affordable to live in Berkeley is providing a great opportunity to many people.
- sep_field 6y ago
  time to confiscate the houses of the rich and give them to the poor.
  - cft 6y ago
    These comments are better for Reddit. HN is not yet a political platform
    - sep_field 6y ago
      "start ups" are inherently a political topic -- the culture of them promotes hypercapitalism.
      - castlecrasher2 6y ago
        Every topic is inherently political/religious to cultists.
        sep_field 6y ago
        oh, how silly of me! of course, poisoning the planet and selling out peoples privacy to line the pockets of vultures isn't political at all! gosh what was I thinking.
        dang 6y ago
jedberg 6y ago
I mean, this is good progress, but very little of Berkeley was zoned single family anymore anyway. Basically just up in the hills. Everything near campus was already multi-family, and if it wasn't the city council would approve a zoning change for anyone who asked. https://www.cityofberkeley.info/gisportal/ https://www.cityofberkeley.info/gisportal/
- lacker 6y ago
  According to this map, 49% of Berkeley residential areas are single-family zoned: https://www.berkeleyside.com/2021/02/17/berkeley-may-get-rid-of-single-family-zoning-as-a-way-to-correct-the-arc-of-its-ugly-housing-history https://www.berkeleyside.com/2021/02/17/berkeley-may-get-rid... But yeah I think in practice the bigger question is whether Berkeley will streamline the process for replacing single-family houses with apartment buildings. AFAICT that is technically permitted but the approval process rejects the vast majority of applications.
  - jedberg 6y ago
    Right, but you wouldn't build apartments in most of the pink area anyway, because it's all up in the hills. The part of the city that anyone would want to build multi-family on is, for the most part, already zoned for it.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  The supposed reforms should also loosen regulations in R-1A and R-2 zones, which are much larger. The press coverage of this is garbage. Read the actual resolution. https://www.berkeleyside.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Item-29-Supp-Droste-1.pdf https://www.berkeleyside.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Item...
- shuckles 6y ago
  In practice, reforms like this are more impactful when combined with density bonuses and ministerial approvals for housing proposals if the city is behind targets. Both of those are already in play in California.
supernova87a 6y ago
Yes, but this is still only one of about 10 other factors that prevent the region or city from having enough housing, or affordable housing (and I don't mean in the public government-run housing sense). Maybe Berkeley should also try to address the other unending issues that they keep up to prevent any meaningful change, if they really mean it: -- Endless and convoluted environmental + city approvals processes that corrupt any transparent application for development and favor those who have money to navigate it -- Picking and choosing special interest / special case neighborhoods or people to try to protect, to the detriment of everyone else wanting to live there -- Rent control -- The extremely backwards property tax policies that favor existing landowners over anyone new, young, poor (though this admittedly is California's problem, not just one city or county) and make everything else attempted bandaids -- and misguided bandaids, at that -- to fix the system.
- 1MoreThing 6y ago
  > neighborhoods or people to try to protect, to the detriment of everyone else wanting to live there Wait, you have a problem with a city government trying to serve the people who actually live in a neighborhood rather than potential new residents? That's the whole point of a city government. To serve the people living in the city.
  - supernova87a 6y ago
    I don't believe that "we got here first" is the principle by which I (or many others) want to live.
  - davidw 6y ago
    Did you read the origins of their zoning code? "Protecting" the city by attempting to limit Black people to certain areas. Not a great look. A lot of zoning code is based on similar ideas, even if most people are not dumb enough to say the quiet part out loud these days. You do still hear it on occasion: Bend, Oregon, where I live, passed a similar change a few years back, which was then superseded by Oregon's HB 2001, which effectively eliminates exclusionary zoning in our cities. At the local hearing for the Bend rule, there was a woman who was really upset that "renters" might be able to live in her neighborhood. They're dirty, messy, and "don't care about where they live", according to her testimony. It's economic segregation, plain and simple.
Lammy 6y ago
That's great, but how can we undo the 100 years of segregation that this policy contributed to? Prop 13 makes it even worse by incentivizing the people who can afford homes to pass them down to their children, both enshrining the existing segregation and locking the disenfranchised out of that method of building generational wealth: http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?bayarea http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?bayarea
- jedberg 6y ago
  Luckily prop 19 will help solve this. As of I want to say last week, you can no longer keep the tax basis on an inherited property unless it becomes your primary residence upon inheritance. But I agree, Prop 13 definitely helps maintain generational wealth, but luckily much less so now.
  - shuckles 6y ago
    My understanding is Prop 19 is can be evaded by trusts. Even without hiding ownership, an inheritor could live in the property for a year after inheriting (or claim to — enforcement seems difficult), lock in the old tax basis, and then move out. In particular, the lower tax basis is fixed as long as you live in the property for a year; it’s not permanently contingent on living in the property.
    - yonran 6y ago
      > My understanding is Prop 19 is easily evaded by trusts No, trusts do not evade Proposition 19 (although some people scrambled to transfer to children with a trust before Feb 15 to avoid Proposition 19’s new terms). Under Proposition 13/RTC 60, the assessor always looks through the trust to see the beneficial owner at any time. LLCs may be useful though to preserve up to 49% of the discount on transfer as described in this article: https://www.pe.com/2021/01/15/prop-19-whats-next-for-homeowners-and-their-children/ https://www.pe.com/2021/01/15/prop-19-whats-next-for-homeown.... > Even without hiding ownership, an inheritor could easily live in the property for a year after inheriting (or claim to —— enforcement seems difficult), lock in the old tax basis, and then move out No, the Board of Equalization’s guidance is to remove the parent-child exclusion as soon as the child stops qualifying for the homeowner’s exemption. According to the Board of Equalization letter to assessors from 2021-01-08, “at the time the family home is no longer the primary residence of a transferee, the change in ownership exclusion that applied at the initial transfer of the family home is lost.” https://www.boe.ca.gov/meetings/pdf/2021/011421-M1a1-Legal-Analysis.pdf https://www.boe.ca.gov/meetings/pdf/2021/011421-M1a1-Legal-A...
hardtke 6y ago
This change will have zero practical effect. The economics of fourplexes and smaller multifamily units do not work. After purchasing the lot and tearing down or modifying an existing building, the costs are upwards of $750K per unit, well above the market value of the units. The only hope is that some of the new factory fabricated housing can reduce the costs to make these sorts of buildings feasible. Construction is the one industry where we've seen literally zero productive gains in the last 50 years, and that has become the limiting factor on affordability.
- km3r 6y ago
  So why is construction so expensive in bay area? 5000 sq ft McMansions can be built for under 300k elsewhere. Do we have too much regulation? Local labor is too expensive? Too much permitting? A difficult environment to build in (inc. earthquakes)? I also disagree that the economics of fourplexes don't work. If they didn't work at all no one would build them. In addition, just opening up the option for them to be built should not cause any issues, even if it wasn't wildly successful in bring more units to the market.
  - djrogers 6y ago
    > Do we have too much regulation? Local labor is too expensive? Too much permitting? A difficult environment to build in (inc. earthquakes)? Yes. Yes. Yes. And no, not really a factor.
- jahewson 6y ago
  This is spot on, as we’ve seen in SF the high cost of construction, due to high labor costs (driven by the high cost of living - catch 22) means that the only way to build without losing money is to build commercial, high-density or luxury property.
- plorkyeran 6y ago
  $750k is not well above the market value of fourplex units in Berkeley. They're selling for $800-900k these days.
qppo 6y ago
Fat chance of this changing anything. Berkeley is liberalism run amok. Unless you already own property in one of the shrinking "nice" parts it's not that nice of a place to live, and loosely committing to allowing multifamily zoning is not going to change that. I'll bet money that even if the commitment turns into law in 2022, it will still cost north of $1,000,000 to actually construct or convert a multifamily property due to ridiculous permitting costs that you can't see up front.
- davidw 6y ago
  Single family zoning is par for the course in most of the US, and it's not a particularly partisan issue. California just got bad before a lot of other places: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/business/economy/california-housing-crisis.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/business/economy/californ... Some places, like Houston, do a bit better through a combination of no official zoning and massive sprawl, but by and large, California isn't too far off the rest of the country.
williesleg 6y ago
Pack em in!
tqi 6y ago
Yeah whatever, I'll believe it when I see it. UC Berkeley announced plans for student housing 3 years ago, I still see scare mongering signs warning about "transient residents." Doesn't matter what the zoning says, these people will find a way to block anything: “They thought they were going to get away with doing their soil samples,” Bates said, referring to UC Berkeley. “We’re saying, ‘No, you cannot get away with it. This is going to be more costly than you know.’” [1] [1] https://www.berkeleyside.com/2021/01/30/protesters-tear-down-fences-at-berkeley-rally-to-save-peoples-park https://www.berkeleyside.com/2021/01/30/protesters-tear-down...
- rbanffy 6y ago
  > these ppl will find a way to block anything We need people who place the interests of the overall population above their own.
omginternets 6y ago
>Opponents of single-family zoning say it was used to exclude people of color from moving into certain neighborhoods. I really wish they would include a similar line about proponents of the policy. If you're going to change something, you should at least understand why it was put into place to begin with, and what purpose it serves today. Chances are I'm going to agree with this change, but this is still biased reporting of the worst kind.
- 0xB31B1B 6y ago
  Proponents of single family zoning in berekely in 1916 were explicitly racist. It was a way for them to exclude black people from town, and at the time housing segregation by race was both legal and common. This is quite well known.
  - Veen 6y ago
    > Proponents of single family zoning in berekely in 1916 were explicitly racist Yes, but it isn't 1916; it's 2021. Are proponents of single family zoning in 2021 motivated by racism (explicit or otherwise)?
    - altacc 6y ago
      Probably not directly, but it has that effect by proxy and the initial segregationist motivation is still in force. It's 2021 but the divides in wealth, living standards, outcomes, etc... still echo the racial divisions of the past. Hundreds of years of societal conditioning will take hundreds of years to fully revert. The zoning laws also have a similar effect on those who are priced out by wealth & income, regardless of race, leading to rich enclaves & poor ghettos. These are harmful to society as a whole, which benefits from heterogeneity.
    - TulliusCicero 6y ago
      No, it's probably classism instead. Mandating that people rent or own a minimum amount of land means that you can keep poorer sorts out of the neighborhood, which also means their kids don't go to your schools. It's gated communities, enforced by the government. And proponents want to act like it's morally acceptable because...democracy, or something? As if the fact that people democratically voted on something always means they're right.
pkdpic_y9k 6y ago
Pave the Bay 2021 --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reber_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reber_Plan
xwdv 6y ago
What can they do to bring in more people of color?
onepointsixC 6y ago
Is zoning purely the domain of local governments? I don't see how we can realistically tackle climate change without a serious push to build extremely energy efficient high density housing. But sadly it seems that would have a snowball chance in hell in many areas with NIMBYism. Would the Federal gov be able to do something about that?
- clairity 6y ago
  no, again, the state is the canonical unit of government in the united states of america. states can delegate zoning to localities, termed "local control", but it can also revoke it and madate zoning (or not) at a state level. the federal government is not an umbrella organization, but rather an interstitial one with limited, delegated powers from the collective states. the feds can regulate pollution generally because it's an interstate (and global) concern, but can't reach into states to coerce zoning directly.
  - throwawaysea 6y ago
    It can certainly do so if Congress passes laws to give it that power, as long as it isn't unconstitutional. And that constitutionality can also be changed through amendments. Similarly within states, the power given to the state can be modified over time. I'm not sure that the states are the "canonical" model as much as the principle that America tries to provide locality of decision making as much as possible, so that people can live how they want based on their own local values, culture, etc.
    - clairity 6y ago
      no, it can’t. congress could try but it would be quickly challenged and ultimately found unconstitutional. states are the canonical units of government by design. an amendment might work in limited ways, but that’s also a much harder road (e.g., equal rights act).
mercutio2 6y ago
The Berkeleyside link [0] seems vastly more informative. [0] https://www.berkeleyside.com/2021/02/17/berkeley-may-get-rid-of-single-family-zoning-as-a-way-to-correct-the-arc-of-its-ugly-housing-history https://www.berkeleyside.com/2021/02/17/berkeley-may-get-rid...
samstave 6y ago
When I lived in Alameda, I was trying to develop a tiny home commnunity, working with some manufacturers of high quality tiny homes... I hit roadblocks when I spoke to the city of alameda regarding their zoning laws, which required a certain square footage for any given home. IIRC it was >2,000SF per lot for a single home. Further, if one was to build a shared infrastructure system (power, sewer, water, internet) upon which multiple building could be erected - It needed to have a single uniform entrance. So you couldnt build multiple building with their own discreet entrance as that would count as "multi building" and violates the zoning law. There were some on the city council at the time (2013) that were trying to get this changed but it never happened - the Alameda City Council is rather corrupt for various reasons... But the zoning law precluded anyone from doing anything progressive.
zetazzed 6y ago
Yes, this resolution is just symbolic. However, more concrete legislation to allow quadplexes in the vast majority of the city is coming soon. Our councilmember, Lori Droste, has been the champion for both initiatives. Following her on Twitter is a good way to stay up to date on these issues: https://twitter.com/loridroste https://twitter.com/loridroste
abeppu 6y ago
Does the fact that this was unanimous imply that this was more about signaling than about achieving some real-world impact? Presumably if they can get unanimous agreement today then there was some point in the past when they could have passed the same resolution but with a mere majority, right? And if you really think it's important to remove these constraints in a region and state with a really serious housing problem, you'd want to pass it as soon as was feasible?
subsaharancoder 6y ago
When I moved stateside I lived in Berkeley for a year, it's overpriced (rent and daycare are ridiculously expensive!!), overrated, overrun with homeless people (anything below 6th street) and the coup de grace has to be the incessant virtue signaling with houses competing for who has the most "social justice" billboards and signs..Glad I moved away..
TedShiller 6y ago
Terrible idea
orasis 6y ago
“thanks to new proposals to scrap historically racist single-family zoning and legalize the widespread construction of fourplexes.” Is anyone else tired of this type of lazy advocacy that labels something as “racist” in an attempt to support their agenda?
- claudiulodro 6y ago
  OK but historically the policies were rooted in racism if you continue reading: > The city was the first in the nation to enact single-family zoning, in 1916, which had the effect of pushing nonwhite people to more crowded, impoverished neighborhoods in the south and west. Berkeley also used racist covenants to restrict who could live where – Claremont’s inclusion of “pure Caucasian blood”-residents, for instance – and with redlining maps that praised exclusive neighborhoods like the Elmwood for their lack of “Negros” and “foreign-born” inhabitants. (These maps, which banks used to deny loans for residents of nonwhite neighborhoods, have to this day been linked to premature births and low-weight babies.)
_ah 6y ago
I always liked the idea of budget-based taxation, similar to the way that condos do special assessments: 1. Decide how much money the state needs in taxes to fund the various pieces of infrastructure (roads, schools, etc). 2. Value everyone's property. Divide up the tax proportionally based on property value. If your house is worth twice as much as your neighbor, you should pay twice as much tax. The interesting thing about this approach is that it creates a stable tax income rate for the state and mostly eliminates market fluctuations. Did the economy boom? Ok great, your house is now worth 50% more but so is your neighbor's house, so the ratio is the same and you pay the same tax as the prior year. Same mechanism works in reverse during a crash. With this method, the tax paid directly relates to the budget. Spending too much? It's not the economy's fault, it's yours: maybe try voting for different initiatives (or representatives) next time. This also aligns the incentives for older residents. If an area is economically static you should expect city budgets (and taxes) to increase roughly in line with inflation. If the area grows and develops and becomes a much more interesting place to live, it's no longer the same city. You have the option to pay for those increased services or you can move... similar to the way that you'll pay more rent if the landlord remodels your apartment building. But in fact, the effect is moderated: a house built in 1930 will probably be less valuable than new 2021 construction so the hold-out retiree should see taxes that increase at a rate less than the average.
chmod600 6y ago
Are they opening up new land for development? If not, how does this have any practical effect?
- hinkley 6y ago
  Removal of single family zoning and the enforcement of urban growth boundaries are usually characterized as being complementary techniques, rather than counterproductive.
  - chmod600 6y ago
    But what does it actually change? The single-family houses are already there.
    - hinkley 6y ago
      One interpretation is that it's not actually doing anything at all, which I agree is stupid/frustrating/nonsensical/favorite adjective. The other interpretation is that it is a blanket zoning change of all existing single family lots. Which creates a whole set of emotions for a different group of people but is no longer, and least to me, nonsensical. Or there's a subtler middle play, where one can no longer subdivide a lot into two single family lots. You can build single family houses on multi-use plots (I live in one, elsewhere), but you can't stop someone from knocking it right down again and putting up a denser structure.

243 points by jseliger 6y ago

cft 6y ago

Unanimous vote was also practiced in the Soviet Communist Party

maedla 6y ago
Eating meals was also practiced in the Soviet Communist Party

endisneigh 6y ago

It's never made any sense that any county in the USA has mandatory single-family zoning. If a community wants to keep things sparsely populated they should have to purchase land and houses at market rate to do so. As surrounding areas become more and more popular it would become more and more expensive to do so. That's how it should be. If voting was mandatory in the USA this would've been fixed centuries ago.

dtwest 6y ago
While I agree with the general sentiment, increasing city density takes careful planning. If a neighborhood doesn't invest in the necessary public services such as transportation and education, more density can be a problem. So the entire community who pays for these services should have some say in what happens. That said, I'm still pro growth as long as we plan accordingly.
- duxup 6y ago
  Agreed. Unwavering the weave takes some care if you want to do it right ... do it wrong and I suspect you get even more opposition / problems.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  Berkeley's population has been static for more than 70 years. In the meantime we've built a freeway and a subway with three underground stations. Also the number of _jobs_ in Berkeley has more than doubled. It is high time the city grew its population in order to benefit from these infrastructure investments.
runako 6y ago
The purpose of single-family voting is not to maintain sparse density, it's to keep the city white: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26252258 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26252258 > If voting was mandatory in the USA this would've been fixed centuries ago. Those negatively affected by policies like this have only been able to vote for about 50 years.
- jacob2484 6y ago
  Sigh... not everything is about race - folks may prefer live in a less developed, single-home community no matter the color of their neighbors.
  - shuckles 6y ago
    Single family zoning is about what you are forced to build, not about what people choose to live in. In fact, if the demand for detached SFHs was as real as you suggest, there would be no downside to zoning for multi-family; nobody would prefer to build it! Also, ultimately, the history of single family zoning is definitely all about race.
  - caturopath 6y ago
    Not everything is about race, but American suburbanism is. I'm not saying that everyone who lives in the burbs is making a choice about race, but that is 100% how we got here.
  - danans 6y ago
    Folks may prefer that, but the original policy in Berkeley was put in place 100 years ago specifically in response to the perceived threat of the African American influx. In highly developed urban/suburban areas today all over the country (not bucolic hamlets that people imagine), this zoning policy (along with others like large minimum lot sizes) effectively function as a demographic and economic sieve.
  - omginternets 6y ago
    To add to this, some things can be tinted with racism while also being motivated by other -- sometimes even legitimate -- things. It's easy to throw out the baby with the bathwater. It takes effort to throw away the bad and keep the good. As stated in another thread: it's not a bad idea to prevent apartments from being built such that they overlook a single-family dwelling's back-yard. EDIT: in all fairness, I should point out that others seem to know something about the historical origins of zoning policy that I do not. It's possible that I'm underestimating the degree to which racism played a role in shaping the legal landscape. Nevertheless, I can imagine a handful of legitimate reasons for single-family zoning...
jeffbee 6y ago
Voting is how we got here. A city or any entity can adopt exclusionary policies based on the votes of the people who already live there, which obviously excludes the people to be excluded. What we need is the next higher level of government to set basic ground rules. There should be a state right-to-build law that automatically permits a moderate level of density. There shouldn't be any place within incorporated cities of California you can't build a four-family dwelling on a 4000-square-foot lot.
- endisneigh 6y ago
  You are right, however if voting were mandatory nationwide the situation you're describing wouldn't happen. If 1000 people live in California and 100 of those people live in Berkeley, even if all 100 people in Berkeley agree with something, if the majority of Californians disagree it would and should override what the Berkeleyians want. If voting is mandatory there's no situation in which a majority decision is actually suboptimal, unless you believe that a minority should somehow be able to override a majority. The way democracy is implemented in this country is effectively rule of the minority over the majority - the catch is the minority just has to draw arbitrary boundaries surrounding their decisions. You can already see this if you just look at the Bay Area - how can it be so difficult to build if polls show the majority of people support it? Turns out the minority (homeowners) have more power than the majority (renters) in the Bay Area.
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    Basically you are saying that California cities should not have planning authority. I happen to agree but that's not on the table.
    - endisneigh 6y ago
      It's not about California specifically - in general the majority should always have to ability to reject the decision of a smaller body by pure simple majority. To believe otherwise is basically to not believe in democracy. To some extent this is already possible, but with gerrymandering and non-mandatory voting the obvious solution to this problem for the minority is just to suppress votes - hence mandatory voting.
ed312 6y ago
You literally just need a thin majority of people in a community to force through zoning changes. Maybe people actually prefer to both live in and live around SFH-style development?
Lammy 6y ago
It never made any sense to me either until I learned that there was effectively no black population to speak of in the Bay Area until World War Ⅱ and the Second Great Migration, but now I just see it as a form of easily-deniable economic segregation: https://i.imgur.com/Ke7GP1Q.png https://i.imgur.com/Ke7GP1Q.png See also: the "freeway revolts"
dalbasal 6y ago
Neither extreme is viable. OOH, interest groups exist and restrictive zoning can cause illogical cityscapes with way too little housing. OOH, no planning, no zoning and laissez faire dynamics don't really get you to a logical metropolis either. Both tend to fail at density. High density cities need as much investment in difficult infrastructure as they do in real estate. A lot of successful examples in the world at large are pretty highly planned. I'd also note that most are guided to some extent by national-level agendas. A purely local agenda isn't generally going to select fast change. All sorts of vested interest to the contrary. Property scarcity, but also other things. More people usually want their towns to stay the same. IMO, there really is no way around the need for competent, well intentioned decision making... on average. There's also now way around a need for intention. What's the actual goal for Berkeley? Where do they want to be in 30 years.
- ars 6y ago
  And what if your goal is low density? Your post assume the density is a positive goal. I disagree, I think it's a miserable way to live. Let people live how they want, and keep voting very local. Each city can have different density levels and housing styles. You want density? Move somewhere dense, and vote that way, I have no issue with it. I'll move to low density areas and vote that way, and I expect you not to have an issue with that either.
  - endisneigh 6y ago
    I disagree - if you want low density and the area is popular you should have to pay for the privilege. People can live however they want in this world, just not for free.
    - frongpik 6y ago
      The US in general is a low density country and is a popular destination. Does it mean it should pay to whoever expressed the desire to immigrate to the US?
  - dalbasal 6y ago
caturopath 6y ago
Your argument seems to be against all zoning of intensity, possibly against all zoning period, and doesn't address the fact that living in a rowhouse across the street from a high-rise building or factory can suck. Certainly, R1 zoning is a scourge: low-intensity should never mean "large lot, huge setback, short house, one door". Certainly, also, a land value tax that is allowed to grow with actual value should charge folks based on what they're taking from society by living somewhere (or whatever other use), to make single-family homes and parking lots and the like pay their fair share if they are going to exist. But I still think you might be making too sweeping of a statement in this post.
- endisneigh 6y ago
  My argument is not about zoning at all - it's about democracy and the will of a population. In your example, if the majority of the people don't want the factory or high-rise building to be there, it won't be there. And if they do, who are you, or I to say otherwise? You either believe majority rules, or not. I happen to believe the former, but I do see many comments or believe the latter.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    > You either believe majority rules, or not Coming up with a procedure to translate the opinions of people into actions by the state is not a yes/no question. There's the nuance of direct vs. representative, appointees, how things are structured. You can't boil down political philosophy to an "either/or" on democracy.
- Schiendelman 6y ago
  Zoning period only exists to stop people of particular races from moving into neighborhoods. All the other things we see as benefits of zoning came later, in order to justify that original reason. And most of the things we assume zoning is protecting us from are misunderstandings. "A rowhouse across the street from a high rise building or factory" is not something government has any constitutional basis to regulate on its own; all that comes from a court case that was pretty explicitly to keep black people away from white people.
u678u 6y ago
It makes a lot of sense if you like living in a neighborhood with single family housing. I live in an apartment, but if I had a house I'd hate for an apartment building to be built next door overlooking my yard. In most of the country private gated communities with HOAs are getting a big percentage of new housing. Keeping neighborhoods consistent is one of the reasons. I can't find a good link easily but wikipedia says 40% of all new housing in California is gated communities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gated_community#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gated_community#United_States
jonahx 6y ago
Honest question: Is the argument that, as a developer, I should be able to construct a large building with 1-person apartments the size of prison cells, say, if there is a market for that? Should the only limit be restrictions imposed by fire safety policy or similar?
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  These are called SROs and their demolition in SF is among one of the many causes of the current visible homelessness.
- spiralx 6y ago
  No, building codes are a separate issue from land-use restrictions. Apartments must still meet whatever standards exist which can include minimum facilities, size and number of floors. Although at the limit such standards can be effectively the same as simply banning apartments outright, so there is crossover.
jdeibele 6y ago
Before we moved to our current house, a house a couple of blocks away was a meth lab, there was an accidental fire, and the fire department let it burn to the ground. My next door neighbor bought the property and had to go before the local neighborhood association to get their approval for building 4 houses on the acre of property. They were not happy with the idea of trading 1 for 4 until he showed them that one alternative was putting 28 townhomes on there instead. Then they got on board with his plan. As I understand it, the city would not have allowed a single home to have been built on the property. 4 was the absolute minimum. This is Portland, Oregon and things are pretty different here compared to a lot of other places.

danans 6y ago

What the article didn't originally mention is that Berkeley was the first city in the country to adopt single family zoning 100 years ago, in response to the large migration of African Americans to the West Coast. Other cities of the country, seeing the opportunity to enforce segregation through zoning, followed suit, and today we live in the consequences. Density advocates can only hope that 100 years later the counter trend also spreads as successfully. EDIT: updated comment to reflect updated article content.

deleted 6y ago
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kleiba 6y ago
With the article doesn't mention is that Berkeley was the first city in the country to adopt single family zoning 100 years ago You mean except in the headline?
- Lammy 6y ago
  The headline doesn't say why restrictive zoning was favored by so many.
  - jamiequint 6y ago
    well ackshually
- danans 6y ago
  My bad. I italicized the wrong phrase. Fixed.
  - kleiba 6y ago
    Cool. Should I change my answer from "in the headline" to "in the 3rd sentence" then?
    - danans 6y ago

jeffbee 6y ago

Note that the city did nothing of the kind. They adopted a resolution stating their intent to reform the zoning code by the end of next year, a non-binding and thoroughly unambitious bit of foot-dragging.

lacker 6y ago
Ah, that's a good point. Much better coverage of this issue is available from Berkeleyside: https://www.berkeleyside.com/2021/02/17/berkeley-may-get-rid-of-single-family-zoning-as-a-way-to-correct-the-arc-of-its-ugly-housing-history https://www.berkeleyside.com/2021/02/17/berkeley-may-get-rid... This resolution "could start a process", great. It seems like only a small part of a political battle around whether and how to add more housing in Berkeley. Particularly interesting to me is that CA Senate Bill 828 passed somewhat quietly but is going to force many cities across California to increase housing density.
- dang 6y ago
  We've changed the URL to that from https://www.ktvu.com/news/berkeley-ends-more-than-100-year-old-single-family-zoning-policy https://www.ktvu.com/news/berkeley-ends-more-than-100-year-o.... Thanks!
deleted 6y ago
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0xB31B1B 6y ago
eh, this isn't a good read of what happened. Zoning reform needs to go through a lot of reviews like CEQA, and there are places where people can sue to slow it down. It is happening, this is just the legal process by which it happens.
- clairity 6y ago
  zoning reforms are subject to ceqa, at a legislative level? zoning variances on a per project basis certainly are, but reforms? in any case, one thing to keep in mind in any housing discussion is that uncertainty in its many forms is what principally drives up development costs. ceqa is one tool deployed as a weapon to increase project uncertainty, and ultimately drive up development costs. complex permitting/regualtory regimes and overly prescriptive (vs. descriptive) building codes (and their review processes) are more sources of uncertainty, risk, and untimately cost. p.s. - "4+1 by right" is my housing mantra.

lacker 6y ago

It'll be interesting to see how much of an effect this has. Construction in Berkeley is still extremely difficult. Neighbors have many ways to oppose new construction, and something as simple as adding an extra room to a house can end up requiring multiple city council votes. Still, I'm excited to see things moving in the right direction. Berkeley is fundamentally a university town with one of the best public universities in the world, so making it affordable to live in Berkeley is providing a great opportunity to many people.

sep_field 6y ago
time to confiscate the houses of the rich and give them to the poor.
- cft 6y ago
  These comments are better for Reddit. HN is not yet a political platform
  - sep_field 6y ago
    "start ups" are inherently a political topic -- the culture of them promotes hypercapitalism.
    - castlecrasher2 6y ago
      Every topic is inherently political/religious to cultists.
      - sep_field 6y ago
        oh, how silly of me! of course, poisoning the planet and selling out peoples privacy to line the pockets of vultures isn't political at all! gosh what was I thinking.
        dang 6y ago

jedberg 6y ago

I mean, this is good progress, but very little of Berkeley was zoned single family anymore anyway. Basically just up in the hills. Everything near campus was already multi-family, and if it wasn't the city council would approve a zoning change for anyone who asked. https://www.cityofberkeley.info/gisportal/ https://www.cityofberkeley.info/gisportal/

lacker 6y ago
According to this map, 49% of Berkeley residential areas are single-family zoned: https://www.berkeleyside.com/2021/02/17/berkeley-may-get-rid-of-single-family-zoning-as-a-way-to-correct-the-arc-of-its-ugly-housing-history https://www.berkeleyside.com/2021/02/17/berkeley-may-get-rid... But yeah I think in practice the bigger question is whether Berkeley will streamline the process for replacing single-family houses with apartment buildings. AFAICT that is technically permitted but the approval process rejects the vast majority of applications.
- jedberg 6y ago
  Right, but you wouldn't build apartments in most of the pink area anyway, because it's all up in the hills. The part of the city that anyone would want to build multi-family on is, for the most part, already zoned for it.
jeffbee 6y ago
The supposed reforms should also loosen regulations in R-1A and R-2 zones, which are much larger. The press coverage of this is garbage. Read the actual resolution. https://www.berkeleyside.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Item-29-Supp-Droste-1.pdf https://www.berkeleyside.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Item...
shuckles 6y ago
In practice, reforms like this are more impactful when combined with density bonuses and ministerial approvals for housing proposals if the city is behind targets. Both of those are already in play in California.

supernova87a 6y ago

Yes, but this is still only one of about 10 other factors that prevent the region or city from having enough housing, or affordable housing (and I don't mean in the public government-run housing sense). Maybe Berkeley should also try to address the other unending issues that they keep up to prevent any meaningful change, if they really mean it: -- Endless and convoluted environmental + city approvals processes that corrupt any transparent application for development and favor those who have money to navigate it -- Picking and choosing special interest / special case neighborhoods or people to try to protect, to the detriment of everyone else wanting to live there -- Rent control -- The extremely backwards property tax policies that favor existing landowners over anyone new, young, poor (though this admittedly is California's problem, not just one city or county) and make everything else attempted bandaids -- and misguided bandaids, at that -- to fix the system.

1MoreThing 6y ago
> neighborhoods or people to try to protect, to the detriment of everyone else wanting to live there Wait, you have a problem with a city government trying to serve the people who actually live in a neighborhood rather than potential new residents? That's the whole point of a city government. To serve the people living in the city.
- supernova87a 6y ago
  I don't believe that "we got here first" is the principle by which I (or many others) want to live.
- davidw 6y ago
  Did you read the origins of their zoning code? "Protecting" the city by attempting to limit Black people to certain areas. Not a great look. A lot of zoning code is based on similar ideas, even if most people are not dumb enough to say the quiet part out loud these days. You do still hear it on occasion: Bend, Oregon, where I live, passed a similar change a few years back, which was then superseded by Oregon's HB 2001, which effectively eliminates exclusionary zoning in our cities. At the local hearing for the Bend rule, there was a woman who was really upset that "renters" might be able to live in her neighborhood. They're dirty, messy, and "don't care about where they live", according to her testimony. It's economic segregation, plain and simple.

Lammy 6y ago

That's great, but how can we undo the 100 years of segregation that this policy contributed to? Prop 13 makes it even worse by incentivizing the people who can afford homes to pass them down to their children, both enshrining the existing segregation and locking the disenfranchised out of that method of building generational wealth: http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?bayarea http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?bayarea

jedberg 6y ago
Luckily prop 19 will help solve this. As of I want to say last week, you can no longer keep the tax basis on an inherited property unless it becomes your primary residence upon inheritance. But I agree, Prop 13 definitely helps maintain generational wealth, but luckily much less so now.
- shuckles 6y ago
  My understanding is Prop 19 is can be evaded by trusts. Even without hiding ownership, an inheritor could live in the property for a year after inheriting (or claim to — enforcement seems difficult), lock in the old tax basis, and then move out. In particular, the lower tax basis is fixed as long as you live in the property for a year; it’s not permanently contingent on living in the property.
  - yonran 6y ago
    > My understanding is Prop 19 is easily evaded by trusts No, trusts do not evade Proposition 19 (although some people scrambled to transfer to children with a trust before Feb 15 to avoid Proposition 19’s new terms). Under Proposition 13/RTC 60, the assessor always looks through the trust to see the beneficial owner at any time. LLCs may be useful though to preserve up to 49% of the discount on transfer as described in this article: https://www.pe.com/2021/01/15/prop-19-whats-next-for-homeowners-and-their-children/ https://www.pe.com/2021/01/15/prop-19-whats-next-for-homeown.... > Even without hiding ownership, an inheritor could easily live in the property for a year after inheriting (or claim to —— enforcement seems difficult), lock in the old tax basis, and then move out No, the Board of Equalization’s guidance is to remove the parent-child exclusion as soon as the child stops qualifying for the homeowner’s exemption. According to the Board of Equalization letter to assessors from 2021-01-08, “at the time the family home is no longer the primary residence of a transferee, the change in ownership exclusion that applied at the initial transfer of the family home is lost.” https://www.boe.ca.gov/meetings/pdf/2021/011421-M1a1-Legal-Analysis.pdf https://www.boe.ca.gov/meetings/pdf/2021/011421-M1a1-Legal-A...

hardtke 6y ago

This change will have zero practical effect. The economics of fourplexes and smaller multifamily units do not work. After purchasing the lot and tearing down or modifying an existing building, the costs are upwards of $750K per unit, well above the market value of the units. The only hope is that some of the new factory fabricated housing can reduce the costs to make these sorts of buildings feasible. Construction is the one industry where we've seen literally zero productive gains in the last 50 years, and that has become the limiting factor on affordability.

km3r 6y ago
So why is construction so expensive in bay area? 5000 sq ft McMansions can be built for under 300k elsewhere. Do we have too much regulation? Local labor is too expensive? Too much permitting? A difficult environment to build in (inc. earthquakes)? I also disagree that the economics of fourplexes don't work. If they didn't work at all no one would build them. In addition, just opening up the option for them to be built should not cause any issues, even if it wasn't wildly successful in bring more units to the market.
- djrogers 6y ago
  > Do we have too much regulation? Local labor is too expensive? Too much permitting? A difficult environment to build in (inc. earthquakes)? Yes. Yes. Yes. And no, not really a factor.
jahewson 6y ago
This is spot on, as we’ve seen in SF the high cost of construction, due to high labor costs (driven by the high cost of living - catch 22) means that the only way to build without losing money is to build commercial, high-density or luxury property.
plorkyeran 6y ago
$750k is not well above the market value of fourplex units in Berkeley. They're selling for $800-900k these days.

qppo 6y ago

Fat chance of this changing anything. Berkeley is liberalism run amok. Unless you already own property in one of the shrinking "nice" parts it's not that nice of a place to live, and loosely committing to allowing multifamily zoning is not going to change that. I'll bet money that even if the commitment turns into law in 2022, it will still cost north of $1,000,000 to actually construct or convert a multifamily property due to ridiculous permitting costs that you can't see up front.

davidw 6y ago
Single family zoning is par for the course in most of the US, and it's not a particularly partisan issue. California just got bad before a lot of other places: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/business/economy/california-housing-crisis.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/business/economy/californ... Some places, like Houston, do a bit better through a combination of no official zoning and massive sprawl, but by and large, California isn't too far off the rest of the country.

williesleg 6y ago

Pack em in!

tqi 6y ago

Yeah whatever, I'll believe it when I see it. UC Berkeley announced plans for student housing 3 years ago, I still see scare mongering signs warning about "transient residents." Doesn't matter what the zoning says, these people will find a way to block anything: “They thought they were going to get away with doing their soil samples,” Bates said, referring to UC Berkeley. “We’re saying, ‘No, you cannot get away with it. This is going to be more costly than you know.’” [1] [1] https://www.berkeleyside.com/2021/01/30/protesters-tear-down-fences-at-berkeley-rally-to-save-peoples-park https://www.berkeleyside.com/2021/01/30/protesters-tear-down...

rbanffy 6y ago
> these ppl will find a way to block anything We need people who place the interests of the overall population above their own.

omginternets 6y ago

>Opponents of single-family zoning say it was used to exclude people of color from moving into certain neighborhoods. I really wish they would include a similar line about proponents of the policy. If you're going to change something, you should at least understand why it was put into place to begin with, and what purpose it serves today. Chances are I'm going to agree with this change, but this is still biased reporting of the worst kind.

0xB31B1B 6y ago
Proponents of single family zoning in berekely in 1916 were explicitly racist. It was a way for them to exclude black people from town, and at the time housing segregation by race was both legal and common. This is quite well known.
- Veen 6y ago
  > Proponents of single family zoning in berekely in 1916 were explicitly racist Yes, but it isn't 1916; it's 2021. Are proponents of single family zoning in 2021 motivated by racism (explicit or otherwise)?
  - altacc 6y ago
    Probably not directly, but it has that effect by proxy and the initial segregationist motivation is still in force. It's 2021 but the divides in wealth, living standards, outcomes, etc... still echo the racial divisions of the past. Hundreds of years of societal conditioning will take hundreds of years to fully revert. The zoning laws also have a similar effect on those who are priced out by wealth & income, regardless of race, leading to rich enclaves & poor ghettos. These are harmful to society as a whole, which benefits from heterogeneity.
  - TulliusCicero 6y ago
    No, it's probably classism instead. Mandating that people rent or own a minimum amount of land means that you can keep poorer sorts out of the neighborhood, which also means their kids don't go to your schools. It's gated communities, enforced by the government. And proponents want to act like it's morally acceptable because...democracy, or something? As if the fact that people democratically voted on something always means they're right.

pkdpic_y9k 6y ago

Pave the Bay 2021 --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reber_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reber_Plan

xwdv 6y ago

What can they do to bring in more people of color?

onepointsixC 6y ago

Is zoning purely the domain of local governments? I don't see how we can realistically tackle climate change without a serious push to build extremely energy efficient high density housing. But sadly it seems that would have a snowball chance in hell in many areas with NIMBYism. Would the Federal gov be able to do something about that?

clairity 6y ago
no, again, the state is the canonical unit of government in the united states of america. states can delegate zoning to localities, termed "local control", but it can also revoke it and madate zoning (or not) at a state level. the federal government is not an umbrella organization, but rather an interstitial one with limited, delegated powers from the collective states. the feds can regulate pollution generally because it's an interstate (and global) concern, but can't reach into states to coerce zoning directly.
- throwawaysea 6y ago
  It can certainly do so if Congress passes laws to give it that power, as long as it isn't unconstitutional. And that constitutionality can also be changed through amendments. Similarly within states, the power given to the state can be modified over time. I'm not sure that the states are the "canonical" model as much as the principle that America tries to provide locality of decision making as much as possible, so that people can live how they want based on their own local values, culture, etc.
  - clairity 6y ago
    no, it can’t. congress could try but it would be quickly challenged and ultimately found unconstitutional. states are the canonical units of government by design. an amendment might work in limited ways, but that’s also a much harder road (e.g., equal rights act).

mercutio2 6y ago

The Berkeleyside link [0] seems vastly more informative. [0] https://www.berkeleyside.com/2021/02/17/berkeley-may-get-rid-of-single-family-zoning-as-a-way-to-correct-the-arc-of-its-ugly-housing-history https://www.berkeleyside.com/2021/02/17/berkeley-may-get-rid...

samstave 6y ago

When I lived in Alameda, I was trying to develop a tiny home commnunity, working with some manufacturers of high quality tiny homes... I hit roadblocks when I spoke to the city of alameda regarding their zoning laws, which required a certain square footage for any given home. IIRC it was >2,000SF per lot for a single home. Further, if one was to build a shared infrastructure system (power, sewer, water, internet) upon which multiple building could be erected - It needed to have a single uniform entrance. So you couldnt build multiple building with their own discreet entrance as that would count as "multi building" and violates the zoning law. There were some on the city council at the time (2013) that were trying to get this changed but it never happened - the Alameda City Council is rather corrupt for various reasons... But the zoning law precluded anyone from doing anything progressive.

zetazzed 6y ago

Yes, this resolution is just symbolic. However, more concrete legislation to allow quadplexes in the vast majority of the city is coming soon. Our councilmember, Lori Droste, has been the champion for both initiatives. Following her on Twitter is a good way to stay up to date on these issues: https://twitter.com/loridroste https://twitter.com/loridroste

abeppu 6y ago

Does the fact that this was unanimous imply that this was more about signaling than about achieving some real-world impact? Presumably if they can get unanimous agreement today then there was some point in the past when they could have passed the same resolution but with a mere majority, right? And if you really think it's important to remove these constraints in a region and state with a really serious housing problem, you'd want to pass it as soon as was feasible?

subsaharancoder 6y ago

When I moved stateside I lived in Berkeley for a year, it's overpriced (rent and daycare are ridiculously expensive!!), overrated, overrun with homeless people (anything below 6th street) and the coup de grace has to be the incessant virtue signaling with houses competing for who has the most "social justice" billboards and signs..Glad I moved away..

TedShiller 6y ago

Terrible idea

orasis 6y ago

“thanks to new proposals to scrap historically racist single-family zoning and legalize the widespread construction of fourplexes.” Is anyone else tired of this type of lazy advocacy that labels something as “racist” in an attempt to support their agenda?

claudiulodro 6y ago
OK but historically the policies were rooted in racism if you continue reading: > The city was the first in the nation to enact single-family zoning, in 1916, which had the effect of pushing nonwhite people to more crowded, impoverished neighborhoods in the south and west. Berkeley also used racist covenants to restrict who could live where – Claremont’s inclusion of “pure Caucasian blood”-residents, for instance – and with redlining maps that praised exclusive neighborhoods like the Elmwood for their lack of “Negros” and “foreign-born” inhabitants. (These maps, which banks used to deny loans for residents of nonwhite neighborhoods, have to this day been linked to premature births and low-weight babies.)

_ah 6y ago

I always liked the idea of budget-based taxation, similar to the way that condos do special assessments: 1. Decide how much money the state needs in taxes to fund the various pieces of infrastructure (roads, schools, etc). 2. Value everyone's property. Divide up the tax proportionally based on property value. If your house is worth twice as much as your neighbor, you should pay twice as much tax. The interesting thing about this approach is that it creates a stable tax income rate for the state and mostly eliminates market fluctuations. Did the economy boom? Ok great, your house is now worth 50% more but so is your neighbor's house, so the ratio is the same and you pay the same tax as the prior year. Same mechanism works in reverse during a crash. With this method, the tax paid directly relates to the budget. Spending too much? It's not the economy's fault, it's yours: maybe try voting for different initiatives (or representatives) next time. This also aligns the incentives for older residents. If an area is economically static you should expect city budgets (and taxes) to increase roughly in line with inflation. If the area grows and develops and becomes a much more interesting place to live, it's no longer the same city. You have the option to pay for those increased services or you can move... similar to the way that you'll pay more rent if the landlord remodels your apartment building. But in fact, the effect is moderated: a house built in 1930 will probably be less valuable than new 2021 construction so the hold-out retiree should see taxes that increase at a rate less than the average.

chmod600 6y ago

Are they opening up new land for development? If not, how does this have any practical effect?

hinkley 6y ago
Removal of single family zoning and the enforcement of urban growth boundaries are usually characterized as being complementary techniques, rather than counterproductive.
- chmod600 6y ago
  But what does it actually change? The single-family houses are already there.
  - hinkley 6y ago
    One interpretation is that it's not actually doing anything at all, which I agree is stupid/frustrating/nonsensical/favorite adjective. The other interpretation is that it is a blanket zoning change of all existing single family lots. Which creates a whole set of emotions for a different group of people but is no longer, and least to me, nonsensical. Or there's a subtler middle play, where one can no longer subdivide a lot into two single family lots. You can build single family houses on multi-use plots (I live in one, elsewhere), but you can't stop someone from knocking it right down again and putting up a denser structure.