16 ms·

I just experienced something similar to this and it makes me wonder if much of this is just perception. We recently dealt with an out of state builder pushing

I just experienced something similar to this and it makes me wonder if much of this is just perception. We recently dealt with an out of state builder pushing to have a property that was zoned Neighborhood Commercial to be rezoned to something more flexible so that he could build 49 town homes with 49 parking spots on 5 acres of land. Everybody opposed the rezoning and fought to defeat it. The project would have been the most dense townhome development in 4 counties. There is uniform agreement that people want commercial projects built there as zoned, but I wonder if the opposition would be classified as NIMBY?

davidw 5y ago
Without knowing more, it sounds complicated: denser infill housing is good in so many ways. Mixed use, with commercial on the ground floor and housing above is even better in many situations, but not all developers do that kind of thing. So it kind of depends on what the alternatives are and what the housing situation is like where you live. There are places where "the perfect is the enemy of the good" in terms of what gets built. Commercial is critical for '15 minute neighborhoods': https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/9/6/7-rules-for-creating-15-minute-neighborhoods https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/9/6/7-rules-for-cre... - but without the density to support local commerce, it's tough to justify it. But I don't think 15 minute neighborhoods are likely what your angry neighbors had in mind, so most likely just NIMBYism.
- milkytron 5y ago
  Where I live now is planned to be a 15 minute neighborhood. I moved into one of the first new developments of many, all residential, all within a 5-10 minute walk of a train station. There are about 1000 housing units being built, and there has been zero commercial development. It's great that they are building dwelling units here all around transit, but the only businesses that already exist are industrial, a gas station, and a dollar store. Commercial land owners have been refusing to sell to developers as they watch their land value increase. It's a real shame, but it does seem better than what existed before and the area certainly has potential.
MoosePirate 5y ago
Yes, this is what NIMBY means. "I am ok with more housing, just not by me." The specifics will vary in every case, but in every case it will be some argument on why THIS is not the right place to build more housing. For every possible value of this. Areas that don't have extremely local control over zoning do a better job of combatting this.
wubawam 5y ago
Yes lol.
opportune 5y ago
This is kind of textbook NIMBY although it is possible taking away the commercial zoning could make the area too light on commercial activity. But one of the main contributors to housing shortages is that areas have been overly permissive with commercial zoning (since they don’t have residents, city expenditure is low) which causes imbalances in the amount of jobs:people in an area. That in turn not only increases prices but increases traffic as some portion of people must be commuting from afar to fill those jobs.
- bangoimby 5y ago
  Bingo. Balance is way more important than density. It should be mandated by state law. Doesn't need to be per-city; you could have a system to trade jobs vs housing with neighboring cities or something. A major irony is that California is approaching this all wrong. The "let Scott Wiener build whatever he wants" laws are in some cases being used to make the problem worse. See: Vallco Mall redevelopment plan, more jobs than housing.
JamesBarney 5y ago
Yes. If you believe that no town homes should be built in the U.S. than you might not qualify as NIMBY. But if you believe that town homes shouldn't be built next to you that's the definition of NIMBY. Of course every instance has a long list of reasons why next to them is especially bad, character of the neighborhood, parking issues, infrastructure, etc.... But the end result of everyone fighting increased density in their neighborhood is we have a less density (bad for environment) and more expensive housing.
- Justsignedup 5y ago
  The irony is that density means more people, more homes, more availability. That means more jobs open up and makes the place more lively. More desireable. That means the house property value will go up. They are thinking "will this make the property value go down in the next 5 years"? vs "will this make the property value skyrocket in the next 10 years". We are catering to short-term gains at the expense of long-term.
  - Retric 5y ago
    That’s only true up to a tipping point when poor people move in. Parts of Detroit are a great example where poor people are diving down the value of houses around them. People essentially want to be surrounded by people of almost exactly their economic class to somewhat richer. To rich and stores they can’t afford to stay ie gentrification, to poor and you have to move ie white flight.
    - werber 5y ago
      I'm not sure what parts of Detroit you're talking about, I can't think of a single neighborhood that is struggling with that problem, blight and abandonement? Sure.
      - Retric 5y ago
        Blight is a direct result of people in the area being to poor to afford to maintain infrastructure. As to driving prices down, some houses in good condition are selling for ~25-50k which would be worth more basically anywhere else in the US.
wolverine876 5y ago
To me, the issue depends in large part on the context: What kind of area are you in? Rural? Urban? And what is the availability of housing and the economic diversity of the neighborhood? I don't think it's useful to try to determine if some loaded, politicized, pejorative term applies by definition.
iso1210 5y ago
49 parking spaces for 49 houses seems like a disaster in anywhere other than the densest of US cities. Surely most houses have at least 2 drivers? 5 Acres is 2 Hectares, so that's about 25 houses per hectare. Typical new housing estates in the UK is about 25 hours per hectare, with minimum of 3 parking spaces (including a garage if given) for a 4 bed, and 2 for a 3 bed. Even that number of spaces is too low - especially when one is a garage (which nobody uses to park their car)
- davidw 5y ago
  The real disaster (environmental and economic) is that so many places regulate parking so strictly rather than being more market-oriented and allowing people to figure out how much they want. https://www.planetizen.com/features/113459-perils-central-planning-parking https://www.planetizen.com/features/113459-perils-central-pl...
  - iso1210 5y ago
    If nobody was allowed to park on public land, that could work Certainly in the UK it's common for people to expect to own an extra 50 square foot of land for a car or two, usually abandoned to block the pavement. This impacts everyone, especially those of us who don't drive.
  - mattmcknight 5y ago
    It's not really market oriented, it's tragedy of the commons oriented, as developers will build the cheapest thing they can on the premise that new residents can use existing parking, resulting in a reduction of value for others utilizing those commons. By not having parking minimums, it allows developers to pass those costs onto surrounding residents. There are townhouse neighborhoods near me with nearly impassable streets, people crossing 4 lane roads, spreading into surrounding areas, having to walk over 1km to their home from their parking due to insufficient parking minimums. Everyone sees it is a giant problem now, but it is too late to fix. These minimums are there for a reason.
    - aggronn 5y ago
mcculley 5y ago
Congratulations, Central Planner! It sounds like individuals and markets almost won.
bradlys 5y ago
lol, that’s not even that dense. We have SFH here in the Bay Area just like that. Lots of places where people have 4000sqft lots with their relatively normal houses.
jiofih 5y ago
I had to laugh at “the most dense development”. 400sqm is absolute luxury in Europe, and plenty of space for a massive detached house with a garden and garage. A house on the high end here sits on less than 150m2 (northern europe).
- temp8964 5y ago
  Yes. But birthrate is only half in the Europe compared to the U.S.
  - jiofih 5y ago
    And what does that have to do with anything? The USA would need 3 billion citizens to rival the density of the Netherlands. Or are you implying you need a 500sqm house to raise two kids?
- lelanthran 5y ago
  > 400sqm is absolute luxury in Europe, and plenty of space for a massive detached house with a garden and garage. A house on the high end here sits on less than 150m2 (northern europe). Just how "massive" can that house be with a garden (say, 35sqm) and a garage (36sqm)? You can probably build a fine house in the remaining 330sqm, no doubt, but I'd hardly call it "massive". Maybe "generous". OTOH, it might be a point-of-view problem: I'm in South Africa, with a 700sqm building on a 2000sqm plot, in a nice area near the train/bus stop, near all amenities.
  - gambiting 5y ago
    It's definitely a point of view problem. We currently own a 90sqm, 3-bed house in the UK and it's not small by any measure here. On this street there are definitely smaller houses than this and people live here with families just fine. Also quite a wealthy area not a dump. From that point of view, 400sqm sounds positively like a mansion to me. Sure, would love that much space, but I have no idea if houses this large even exist anywhere nearby to buy, I've certainly haven't seen any.
maxsilver 5y ago
> Everybody opposed the rezoning and fought to defeat it. Why? That's kind of an important point. For example, unless this is NYC or similar, 49 townhomes is going to need a minimum of at least 110 parking spots (just to hold the occupants alone, assuming no one ever has guests ever). A realistic parking minimum should be 2.5 spots per townhouse. A lot of builders outsource their pollution to the local neighborhood, especially on infrastructure (parking, water, sewer, electrical, natgas, etc). It's a common reason to opposed development, and it's a good one. It's usually done to save cash, and it saves literally just pennies. (Parking on these projects, for example, is always less than 6% of the total cost. Cuts to sewer and electrical are less than 12% of total cost). Builders do it anyway, builders will generally build the literally shittiest thing code lets them get away with -- they'd build buildings that fall apart in the slightest breeze, if it were legal to do so. This is why zoning rules, building codes, and the large piles of regulations are so important. > The project would have been the most dense townhome development in 4 counties. Ok, that means it would likely carry the highest prices per square foot in 4 counties, which means it would immediately make that neighborhood the most expensive neighborhood in 4 counties. Could that be a reason it was opposed? Density isn't free, it's a form of financial pollution that the other residents will mostly have carry the burden of. Not everywhere is California, not everywhere gets free unlimited property tax lock-ins. If you built a luxury townhouse next to a generic house, their taxes will spike 200%+ to cover your luxury development, and all nearby rents would spike in a similar way against nearby renters. I get that California and San Francisco specifically is it's own unique terrible experience. But here in the Midwest, generally speaking, locals are pretty reasonable. You can get away with building almost anything you want, so long as you don't screw over the locals. (And I mean that quite literally, we have almost 100 new developments here in our small city, including the worlds gaudiest ugliest castle monstrosity -- zoning never stops builders ever, you can build anything you want anywhere you want, as long as you don't hurt too many people) What is actually happening in most cases, is that some sort of builder wants to screw over all residents, residents rightly complain, and then those residents get labeled "NIMBY". The only time a project gets cancelled is when it makes residents bleed so much, they push back hard. And even then, local residents only win that fight about ~40% of the time.
- Telemakhos 5y ago
jeffbee 5y ago
"Everybody" opposed it except I imagine the process did not gather the input of the fifty families who could live there.
adolph 5y ago
> I wonder if the opposition would be classified as NIMBY If a protected classification like gentrification or environmental impact can be found, then it isn't NIMBY anymore. Say for example, if the town homes projected to be priced higher than the neighborhood, there is a gentrification angle. Density often requires some environmental impact review. For example, a change in development density might have significant water runoff impacts that require a retention area large enough to make the development economically unviable. I think finding a potential habitat for an endangered species is the strongest reclassification from NIMBY because it doesn't require any change to existing structures, mostly freezes things in place and has regulation from redundant inscrutable jurisdictions and the support of outside organizations that are generally successful and seeking new cases to work on.
hellbannedguy 5y ago
The developer used a Variance to change zoning rules. Many Bay Area (I only know this market)counties will happily acccept the fee (upwards of $1000), and 99.99% of the time the Variance is not granted. I truly believe counties count on the fees for revenue. I 've noticed a slight lightening up though. Gavin Newsome made it much easier to build certain structures. He made in-law units (ADU) easier to build. What happened is wealthy people took advantage of the laws, and added extra feet to their already huge house. These ADU will not be rented out to low income, or even strangers. The wealthy found a loophole, and used it to remodel their homes. Oh yea, their is still a lot of kissing town officials ass in order to build anything. Neusome also mandated new apartments, and reasonably hosing, to be built. It is a great move. He slashed a lot of red tape. It's still a pain though. You will have town officials arguing over siding, window placement, gardens, exactly whom will be living in the ADU. NIMBY's are alive and well in my county. Just about everytime we want to build a homeless shelter; homeowners scream, and officials listen. (Towns are panicking now over homeless. The homeless camps are getting bigger, and Thurston Howell III does not like looking at them. The Supreme court gave the homeless some rights though. Cops can't just harass them to move quite as easily as they did in the past.) I have watched towns/counties harass homeowners who want to build since the 80's. (I was going to buy a cabin, and I knew the foundation would need to be replaced. Half the cabin was sitting on a redwood stump. I just wanted to put a foundation in, and it wasen't possible due to zoning.) I don't like our building system. They make the process rediculiously expensive, and complicated (remember you, tge architect, the contractor, will be going to many meetings with town offivials begging to remodel, or build. They love saying no. It's become a disensentive for middle class homeowners to remodel. I currently have one fear over new residential building. It's water in the Bay Area. This drought does not feel temporary. I woukd like to see apartment complexes build adjacent to 101, but the water shortage needs to be addressed. At this point, I only trust care about very low income, and the homeless. I have never seen so many people without a roof over their heads.
BurningFrog 5y ago
For one thing, the zoning was probably there because the local NIMBY opinion.

davidw 5y ago

Without knowing more, it sounds complicated: denser infill housing is good in so many ways. Mixed use, with commercial on the ground floor and housing above is even better in many situations, but not all developers do that kind of thing. So it kind of depends on what the alternatives are and what the housing situation is like where you live. There are places where "the perfect is the enemy of the good" in terms of what gets built. Commercial is critical for '15 minute neighborhoods': https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/9/6/7-rules-for-creating-15-minute-neighborhoods https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/9/6/7-rules-for-cre... - but without the density to support local commerce, it's tough to justify it. But I don't think 15 minute neighborhoods are likely what your angry neighbors had in mind, so most likely just NIMBYism.

milkytron 5y ago
Where I live now is planned to be a 15 minute neighborhood. I moved into one of the first new developments of many, all residential, all within a 5-10 minute walk of a train station. There are about 1000 housing units being built, and there has been zero commercial development. It's great that they are building dwelling units here all around transit, but the only businesses that already exist are industrial, a gas station, and a dollar store. Commercial land owners have been refusing to sell to developers as they watch their land value increase. It's a real shame, but it does seem better than what existed before and the area certainly has potential.

MoosePirate 5y ago

Yes, this is what NIMBY means. "I am ok with more housing, just not by me." The specifics will vary in every case, but in every case it will be some argument on why THIS is not the right place to build more housing. For every possible value of this. Areas that don't have extremely local control over zoning do a better job of combatting this.

wubawam 5y ago

Yes lol.

opportune 5y ago

This is kind of textbook NIMBY although it is possible taking away the commercial zoning could make the area too light on commercial activity. But one of the main contributors to housing shortages is that areas have been overly permissive with commercial zoning (since they don’t have residents, city expenditure is low) which causes imbalances in the amount of jobs:people in an area. That in turn not only increases prices but increases traffic as some portion of people must be commuting from afar to fill those jobs.

bangoimby 5y ago
Bingo. Balance is way more important than density. It should be mandated by state law. Doesn't need to be per-city; you could have a system to trade jobs vs housing with neighboring cities or something. A major irony is that California is approaching this all wrong. The "let Scott Wiener build whatever he wants" laws are in some cases being used to make the problem worse. See: Vallco Mall redevelopment plan, more jobs than housing.

JamesBarney 5y ago

Yes. If you believe that no town homes should be built in the U.S. than you might not qualify as NIMBY. But if you believe that town homes shouldn't be built next to you that's the definition of NIMBY. Of course every instance has a long list of reasons why next to them is especially bad, character of the neighborhood, parking issues, infrastructure, etc.... But the end result of everyone fighting increased density in their neighborhood is we have a less density (bad for environment) and more expensive housing.

Justsignedup 5y ago
The irony is that density means more people, more homes, more availability. That means more jobs open up and makes the place more lively. More desireable. That means the house property value will go up. They are thinking "will this make the property value go down in the next 5 years"? vs "will this make the property value skyrocket in the next 10 years". We are catering to short-term gains at the expense of long-term.
- Retric 5y ago
  That’s only true up to a tipping point when poor people move in. Parts of Detroit are a great example where poor people are diving down the value of houses around them. People essentially want to be surrounded by people of almost exactly their economic class to somewhat richer. To rich and stores they can’t afford to stay ie gentrification, to poor and you have to move ie white flight.
  - werber 5y ago
    I'm not sure what parts of Detroit you're talking about, I can't think of a single neighborhood that is struggling with that problem, blight and abandonement? Sure.
    - Retric 5y ago
      Blight is a direct result of people in the area being to poor to afford to maintain infrastructure. As to driving prices down, some houses in good condition are selling for ~25-50k which would be worth more basically anywhere else in the US.

wolverine876 5y ago

To me, the issue depends in large part on the context: What kind of area are you in? Rural? Urban? And what is the availability of housing and the economic diversity of the neighborhood? I don't think it's useful to try to determine if some loaded, politicized, pejorative term applies by definition.

iso1210 5y ago

49 parking spaces for 49 houses seems like a disaster in anywhere other than the densest of US cities. Surely most houses have at least 2 drivers? 5 Acres is 2 Hectares, so that's about 25 houses per hectare. Typical new housing estates in the UK is about 25 hours per hectare, with minimum of 3 parking spaces (including a garage if given) for a 4 bed, and 2 for a 3 bed. Even that number of spaces is too low - especially when one is a garage (which nobody uses to park their car)

davidw 5y ago
The real disaster (environmental and economic) is that so many places regulate parking so strictly rather than being more market-oriented and allowing people to figure out how much they want. https://www.planetizen.com/features/113459-perils-central-planning-parking https://www.planetizen.com/features/113459-perils-central-pl...
- iso1210 5y ago
  If nobody was allowed to park on public land, that could work Certainly in the UK it's common for people to expect to own an extra 50 square foot of land for a car or two, usually abandoned to block the pavement. This impacts everyone, especially those of us who don't drive.
- mattmcknight 5y ago
  It's not really market oriented, it's tragedy of the commons oriented, as developers will build the cheapest thing they can on the premise that new residents can use existing parking, resulting in a reduction of value for others utilizing those commons. By not having parking minimums, it allows developers to pass those costs onto surrounding residents. There are townhouse neighborhoods near me with nearly impassable streets, people crossing 4 lane roads, spreading into surrounding areas, having to walk over 1km to their home from their parking due to insufficient parking minimums. Everyone sees it is a giant problem now, but it is too late to fix. These minimums are there for a reason.
  - aggronn 5y ago

mcculley 5y ago

Congratulations, Central Planner! It sounds like individuals and markets almost won.

bradlys 5y ago

lol, that’s not even that dense. We have SFH here in the Bay Area just like that. Lots of places where people have 4000sqft lots with their relatively normal houses.

jiofih 5y ago

I had to laugh at “the most dense development”. 400sqm is absolute luxury in Europe, and plenty of space for a massive detached house with a garden and garage. A house on the high end here sits on less than 150m2 (northern europe).

temp8964 5y ago
Yes. But birthrate is only half in the Europe compared to the U.S.
- jiofih 5y ago
  And what does that have to do with anything? The USA would need 3 billion citizens to rival the density of the Netherlands. Or are you implying you need a 500sqm house to raise two kids?
lelanthran 5y ago
> 400sqm is absolute luxury in Europe, and plenty of space for a massive detached house with a garden and garage. A house on the high end here sits on less than 150m2 (northern europe). Just how "massive" can that house be with a garden (say, 35sqm) and a garage (36sqm)? You can probably build a fine house in the remaining 330sqm, no doubt, but I'd hardly call it "massive". Maybe "generous". OTOH, it might be a point-of-view problem: I'm in South Africa, with a 700sqm building on a 2000sqm plot, in a nice area near the train/bus stop, near all amenities.
- gambiting 5y ago
  It's definitely a point of view problem. We currently own a 90sqm, 3-bed house in the UK and it's not small by any measure here. On this street there are definitely smaller houses than this and people live here with families just fine. Also quite a wealthy area not a dump. From that point of view, 400sqm sounds positively like a mansion to me. Sure, would love that much space, but I have no idea if houses this large even exist anywhere nearby to buy, I've certainly haven't seen any.

maxsilver 5y ago

> Everybody opposed the rezoning and fought to defeat it. Why? That's kind of an important point. For example, unless this is NYC or similar, 49 townhomes is going to need a minimum of at least 110 parking spots (just to hold the occupants alone, assuming no one ever has guests ever). A realistic parking minimum should be 2.5 spots per townhouse. A lot of builders outsource their pollution to the local neighborhood, especially on infrastructure (parking, water, sewer, electrical, natgas, etc). It's a common reason to opposed development, and it's a good one. It's usually done to save cash, and it saves literally just pennies. (Parking on these projects, for example, is always less than 6% of the total cost. Cuts to sewer and electrical are less than 12% of total cost). Builders do it anyway, builders will generally build the literally shittiest thing code lets them get away with -- they'd build buildings that fall apart in the slightest breeze, if it were legal to do so. This is why zoning rules, building codes, and the large piles of regulations are so important. > The project would have been the most dense townhome development in 4 counties. Ok, that means it would likely carry the highest prices per square foot in 4 counties, which means it would immediately make that neighborhood the most expensive neighborhood in 4 counties. Could that be a reason it was opposed? Density isn't free, it's a form of financial pollution that the other residents will mostly have carry the burden of. Not everywhere is California, not everywhere gets free unlimited property tax lock-ins. If you built a luxury townhouse next to a generic house, their taxes will spike 200%+ to cover your luxury development, and all nearby rents would spike in a similar way against nearby renters. I get that California and San Francisco specifically is it's own unique terrible experience. But here in the Midwest, generally speaking, locals are pretty reasonable. You can get away with building almost anything you want, so long as you don't screw over the locals. (And I mean that quite literally, we have almost 100 new developments here in our small city, including the worlds gaudiest ugliest castle monstrosity -- zoning never stops builders ever, you can build anything you want anywhere you want, as long as you don't hurt too many people) What is actually happening in most cases, is that some sort of builder wants to screw over all residents, residents rightly complain, and then those residents get labeled "NIMBY". The only time a project gets cancelled is when it makes residents bleed so much, they push back hard. And even then, local residents only win that fight about ~40% of the time.

Telemakhos 5y ago

jeffbee 5y ago

"Everybody" opposed it except I imagine the process did not gather the input of the fifty families who could live there.

adolph 5y ago

> I wonder if the opposition would be classified as NIMBY If a protected classification like gentrification or environmental impact can be found, then it isn't NIMBY anymore. Say for example, if the town homes projected to be priced higher than the neighborhood, there is a gentrification angle. Density often requires some environmental impact review. For example, a change in development density might have significant water runoff impacts that require a retention area large enough to make the development economically unviable. I think finding a potential habitat for an endangered species is the strongest reclassification from NIMBY because it doesn't require any change to existing structures, mostly freezes things in place and has regulation from redundant inscrutable jurisdictions and the support of outside organizations that are generally successful and seeking new cases to work on.

hellbannedguy 5y ago

The developer used a Variance to change zoning rules. Many Bay Area (I only know this market)counties will happily acccept the fee (upwards of $1000), and 99.99% of the time the Variance is not granted. I truly believe counties count on the fees for revenue. I 've noticed a slight lightening up though. Gavin Newsome made it much easier to build certain structures. He made in-law units (ADU) easier to build. What happened is wealthy people took advantage of the laws, and added extra feet to their already huge house. These ADU will not be rented out to low income, or even strangers. The wealthy found a loophole, and used it to remodel their homes. Oh yea, their is still a lot of kissing town officials ass in order to build anything. Neusome also mandated new apartments, and reasonably hosing, to be built. It is a great move. He slashed a lot of red tape. It's still a pain though. You will have town officials arguing over siding, window placement, gardens, exactly whom will be living in the ADU. NIMBY's are alive and well in my county. Just about everytime we want to build a homeless shelter; homeowners scream, and officials listen. (Towns are panicking now over homeless. The homeless camps are getting bigger, and Thurston Howell III does not like looking at them. The Supreme court gave the homeless some rights though. Cops can't just harass them to move quite as easily as they did in the past.) I have watched towns/counties harass homeowners who want to build since the 80's. (I was going to buy a cabin, and I knew the foundation would need to be replaced. Half the cabin was sitting on a redwood stump. I just wanted to put a foundation in, and it wasen't possible due to zoning.) I don't like our building system. They make the process rediculiously expensive, and complicated (remember you, tge architect, the contractor, will be going to many meetings with town offivials begging to remodel, or build. They love saying no. It's become a disensentive for middle class homeowners to remodel. I currently have one fear over new residential building. It's water in the Bay Area. This drought does not feel temporary. I woukd like to see apartment complexes build adjacent to 101, but the water shortage needs to be addressed. At this point, I only trust care about very low income, and the homeless. I have never seen so many people without a roof over their heads.

BurningFrog 5y ago

For one thing, the zoning was probably there because the local NIMBY opinion.