6 ms·

The idea that a state government can seize land-use decision-making power from local communities is anti-democratic and grossly immoral.

gjsman-1000 4y ago
If the local communities are completely incapable of even a modicum of good governance, what choice is there?
- enriquec 4y ago
  "incapable of even a modicum of good governance"? really? You can't point to a single way in which these local communities govern better than the State of California? Thats laughable - at best.
  - gjsman-1000 4y ago
    Perhaps you should re-read the article, where it shows that >90% of the local communities failed to create zoning plans that comply with state law. That's their fault - they had literally years to prepare, for a >30 year old law, and failed. The latest events are the consequences of their own ineptitude. They thought they could just get away with not zoning for new construction of any significance, which is basically a protection racket.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
bparsons 4y ago
The idea that a few angry homeowners can block someone else from having a home is anti democratic.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  Frankly, I think zoning and HOA restrictions on what you can do with land you purchased, and own, has gotten too far. Remember, the buyers own this land. And everybody agrees you shouldn't turn it into a sewage dump - but why is it any of your darned business if I want to build a deck? I'm not an idiot, I bought the land, I own the home, stop treating me like one.
  - shuckles 4y ago
    To be fair, within living memory the restrictions went as far as to say what ethnicities could buy the house. The march of progress is slow.
  - mattnewton 4y ago
    100%, we have apparently slipped so far down the slope of “well your property’s appearance affects my property value” to the point where some places are effective regulating lawn grass types like the sight of tall grass is literal seeping sewage into neighboring plots.
    - tastyfreeze 4y ago
      Grass length, allowed paint colors, and in some cases allowed models of vehicles are some of the worst HOA rules I have read about. Of course these are all backed by fines and administered by a power drunk HOA president. No thanks.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    > why is it any of your darned business if I want to build a deck? Hypothetically? Because I live downhill from you, you didn't do any mandated hydrology / runoff study for new construction, and when you moved earth to make room for your deck you turned my nice backyard into a swamp by changing the drainage layout. This is one of the reasons some new construction requires permitting, for example.
tfgg 4y ago
Why? At what level do you define "local" - country, state, city, neighbourhood, street, literally next door, just my house?
ladberg 4y ago
What gives you the right to decide what your neighbors do with their land? Would it be "democratic and moral" if I got a group of friends together who decided that your house was too big and forced you to downsize?
- BobbyJo 4y ago
  Is this a counter argument? It seems supportive of the point if anything. "Less invested but larger group of people telling a smaller group what to do".
  - ladberg 4y ago
    Yeah sorry my argument might not have been exactly clear, I'm not trying to argue either way on how local/global governance should be. I'm trying to say that less governance over property rights is better. It happens in this case that the state is in favor of less governance over property than local governments so I'm in support of the state here, but that doesn't always hold true and I'd be pro-local if the situation was reversed.
- voakbasda 4y ago
  Zoning is based on the principle that it's not your land. You are merely its steward for the short time that you are on this planet, and then someone else will become its steward. Know that time will come eventually, the rules prevent someone from causing damage that society does not want to be forced to clean up. But yeah, these rules are draconian and surpass their intended spirit, creating regulatory capture for the construction industry and preventing perfectly acceptable possibilities that the community would want. For example, I want to create a summer camp for kids here on my farm, but zoning and other over-regulation actively prevents me from building any of the needed dorms, classrooms, or kitchen/bathing facilities. Countless possibilities like this are being crushed every day. I personally have given up trying.
- Ensorceled 4y ago
  This underscores is the hilariously hypocritical nature of these arguments: "my property rights give me the right to deny others their property rights" It's very much like the "first speaker" issue with free speech "advocates"; somehow the first homeowner/speaker has greater rights than the newer homeowner/speaker. The lack of self-awareness is breathtaking sometimes.
stalfosknight 4y ago
States are unitary governments so they're not "seizing" anything. They already have the authority to override counties and municipalities.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  Right, another mistake that casual commenters make. The relationship between the city and the state is not analogous to the relationship between the state and the nation. Cities have no powers other than those granted by the state, they exist to serve the purposes of the state and to further state policies, and the state has the unilateral ability to end a city for any or no reason. If a city fails to advance state policy it has no reason to continue existing.
  - sremani 4y ago
    It is about Local-ism. You make stupid rules at city level, you feel the consequences and people who want to advocate their position can travel few blocks for them to be at least heard. Try that at State level esp. in a massive state like CA, TX, FL and NY. State bureaucracy is far removed from the people.. you are just a row in an excel sheet, if you are lucky.
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      You're not conceptually wrong, but structurally, jeffbee is quite correct: the details vary from state to state (for the exact same reason: every state has its own constitution describing how it is organized separate from the federal government) but unless that constitution says otherwise, the governmental structure of the United States is (right there in the name) a union of states, and each state has (federally-constrained) sovereignty in its borders. If the California constitution says cities have more power, then they do. But I'm pretty sure it says (like every state constitution I'm familiar with) that city power is wholly defined by state authority and if the state wants to explicitly revoke the right to zone, they can do that. (Whether or not it's a bad idea is independent of the question "Do they have the authority").
    - 4y ago
micromacrofoot 4y ago
it cuts both ways... it's also anti-democratic to leave zoning decisions up to a small pool of the top earners (i.e., land owners) who consistently make decisions that prevent other people from living there and participating there's a balance to be struck, and at the moment it seems the scale has been heavily tilted towards wealthy home-owners deciding what their neighbors can do on their own property
- ejb999 4y ago
  but it is not left up to a 'small pool of top earners', it is left to voters - if people don't vote, thats the problem that needs to be fixed.
  - HDThoreaun 4y ago
    But these communities have defined themselves so that all the voters are massively wealthy landowners. The average income in los altos hills is $400,000. That's why the state, made up of normal people needs to step in and fix the zoning situation.
  - micromacrofoot 4y ago
    a lot of times it's not even a vote — abutters and nearby busybodies will complain until they get a project shot down... people who want to live there but can't afford to have no voice zoning should be flexible and applied equally within a region (rules as determined by the voting population) but in expensive cities this is not the situation
  - sangnoir 4y ago
    Most political candidates in local politics are from the same small pool of top earners. Look up the biographies of your councilors.
johngladtj 4y ago
The idea that a local government can seize land-use decision-making power from the landowner is anti-democratic and grossly immoral.
- BobbyJo 4y ago
  "We live in a society." Realistically, your neighbors have a lot more invested in your land/home/whatever than the state government.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    Realistically, the state government is less influenced by local corruption and broken local incentives than your neighbors are.
    - BobbyJo 4y ago
      And have completely different incentives and corruption. I don't see how that's better...
  - goodpoint 4y ago
    The people denied housing due to NIMBY have way more skin in the game.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
cptskippy 4y ago
Isn't that how the US government is designed to work? When a lower authority fails to meet it's mandate, it's escalated up the chain. That's certainly how the courts work. The local government has been deemed a failure. They have repeatedly been told they need to fix zoning, and each time the local government fails differently. Now their authority has been revoked. This is very reminiscent of the political distracting and gerrymandering cases currently in flight.
sowbug 4y ago
Most of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights are dedicated to curtailing the abuses inherent in a pure democracy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority
- notch898a 4y ago
  Most of the abuses against the bill of rights I'd argue are also democratically unpopular. So how'd we get here with such prevailing winds of acts that are both unconstitutional and democratically unpopular?
vonwoodson 4y ago
Having a majority-elected government step in to restrict the property rights of individuals is literally the most democratic thing possible. That is the purpose of the US democracy: to "promote the general Welfare". You're confusing your ideas of property rights with actual US democratic ideals, which are not equal at all. In fact the idea of property rights is explicitly left out of the Declaration of Independence; where Locke would declare "Life, Liberty, and Property" as inalienable human rights, Jefferson changes "Property" to "Pursuit of Happiness". (Quite a strange distinction for a man who owned slaves!) This is because there was great debate about property and lordship in the New World. Property holders were seen as the tyrants who oppressed the colonists, and prevented the Americans from doing what they needed to do to live, in pursuit of their own profits and investments. So, the idea of a democratic government's eminent domain is absolutely the point: to keep the land available for public good and not for the sole-benefit of the few.
- wyager 4y ago
  > Having a majority-elected government step in to restrict the property rights of individuals is literally the most democratic thing possible. We need to allow the mob to steal everything - it's the most democratic social process possible!
  - squeaky-clean 4y ago
    > the mob I mean, what do you think majority vote is if not essentially the largest mob of people?

gjsman-1000 4y ago

If the local communities are completely incapable of even a modicum of good governance, what choice is there?

enriquec 4y ago
"incapable of even a modicum of good governance"? really? You can't point to a single way in which these local communities govern better than the State of California? Thats laughable - at best.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  Perhaps you should re-read the article, where it shows that >90% of the local communities failed to create zoning plans that comply with state law. That's their fault - they had literally years to prepare, for a >30 year old law, and failed. The latest events are the consequences of their own ineptitude. They thought they could just get away with not zoning for new construction of any significance, which is basically a protection racket.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

bparsons 4y ago

The idea that a few angry homeowners can block someone else from having a home is anti democratic.

gjsman-1000 4y ago
Frankly, I think zoning and HOA restrictions on what you can do with land you purchased, and own, has gotten too far. Remember, the buyers own this land. And everybody agrees you shouldn't turn it into a sewage dump - but why is it any of your darned business if I want to build a deck? I'm not an idiot, I bought the land, I own the home, stop treating me like one.
- shuckles 4y ago
  To be fair, within living memory the restrictions went as far as to say what ethnicities could buy the house. The march of progress is slow.
- mattnewton 4y ago
  100%, we have apparently slipped so far down the slope of “well your property’s appearance affects my property value” to the point where some places are effective regulating lawn grass types like the sight of tall grass is literal seeping sewage into neighboring plots.
  - tastyfreeze 4y ago
    Grass length, allowed paint colors, and in some cases allowed models of vehicles are some of the worst HOA rules I have read about. Of course these are all backed by fines and administered by a power drunk HOA president. No thanks.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  > why is it any of your darned business if I want to build a deck? Hypothetically? Because I live downhill from you, you didn't do any mandated hydrology / runoff study for new construction, and when you moved earth to make room for your deck you turned my nice backyard into a swamp by changing the drainage layout. This is one of the reasons some new construction requires permitting, for example.

tfgg 4y ago

Why? At what level do you define "local" - country, state, city, neighbourhood, street, literally next door, just my house?

ladberg 4y ago

What gives you the right to decide what your neighbors do with their land? Would it be "democratic and moral" if I got a group of friends together who decided that your house was too big and forced you to downsize?

BobbyJo 4y ago
Is this a counter argument? It seems supportive of the point if anything. "Less invested but larger group of people telling a smaller group what to do".
- ladberg 4y ago
  Yeah sorry my argument might not have been exactly clear, I'm not trying to argue either way on how local/global governance should be. I'm trying to say that less governance over property rights is better. It happens in this case that the state is in favor of less governance over property than local governments so I'm in support of the state here, but that doesn't always hold true and I'd be pro-local if the situation was reversed.
voakbasda 4y ago
Zoning is based on the principle that it's not your land. You are merely its steward for the short time that you are on this planet, and then someone else will become its steward. Know that time will come eventually, the rules prevent someone from causing damage that society does not want to be forced to clean up. But yeah, these rules are draconian and surpass their intended spirit, creating regulatory capture for the construction industry and preventing perfectly acceptable possibilities that the community would want. For example, I want to create a summer camp for kids here on my farm, but zoning and other over-regulation actively prevents me from building any of the needed dorms, classrooms, or kitchen/bathing facilities. Countless possibilities like this are being crushed every day. I personally have given up trying.
Ensorceled 4y ago
This underscores is the hilariously hypocritical nature of these arguments: "my property rights give me the right to deny others their property rights" It's very much like the "first speaker" issue with free speech "advocates"; somehow the first homeowner/speaker has greater rights than the newer homeowner/speaker. The lack of self-awareness is breathtaking sometimes.

stalfosknight 4y ago

States are unitary governments so they're not "seizing" anything. They already have the authority to override counties and municipalities.

jeffbee 4y ago
Right, another mistake that casual commenters make. The relationship between the city and the state is not analogous to the relationship between the state and the nation. Cities have no powers other than those granted by the state, they exist to serve the purposes of the state and to further state policies, and the state has the unilateral ability to end a city for any or no reason. If a city fails to advance state policy it has no reason to continue existing.
- sremani 4y ago
  It is about Local-ism. You make stupid rules at city level, you feel the consequences and people who want to advocate their position can travel few blocks for them to be at least heard. Try that at State level esp. in a massive state like CA, TX, FL and NY. State bureaucracy is far removed from the people.. you are just a row in an excel sheet, if you are lucky.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    You're not conceptually wrong, but structurally, jeffbee is quite correct: the details vary from state to state (for the exact same reason: every state has its own constitution describing how it is organized separate from the federal government) but unless that constitution says otherwise, the governmental structure of the United States is (right there in the name) a union of states, and each state has (federally-constrained) sovereignty in its borders. If the California constitution says cities have more power, then they do. But I'm pretty sure it says (like every state constitution I'm familiar with) that city power is wholly defined by state authority and if the state wants to explicitly revoke the right to zone, they can do that. (Whether or not it's a bad idea is independent of the question "Do they have the authority").
  - 4y ago

micromacrofoot 4y ago

it cuts both ways... it's also anti-democratic to leave zoning decisions up to a small pool of the top earners (i.e., land owners) who consistently make decisions that prevent other people from living there and participating there's a balance to be struck, and at the moment it seems the scale has been heavily tilted towards wealthy home-owners deciding what their neighbors can do on their own property

ejb999 4y ago
but it is not left up to a 'small pool of top earners', it is left to voters - if people don't vote, thats the problem that needs to be fixed.
- HDThoreaun 4y ago
  But these communities have defined themselves so that all the voters are massively wealthy landowners. The average income in los altos hills is $400,000. That's why the state, made up of normal people needs to step in and fix the zoning situation.
- micromacrofoot 4y ago
  a lot of times it's not even a vote — abutters and nearby busybodies will complain until they get a project shot down... people who want to live there but can't afford to have no voice zoning should be flexible and applied equally within a region (rules as determined by the voting population) but in expensive cities this is not the situation
- sangnoir 4y ago
  Most political candidates in local politics are from the same small pool of top earners. Look up the biographies of your councilors.

johngladtj 4y ago

The idea that a local government can seize land-use decision-making power from the landowner is anti-democratic and grossly immoral.

BobbyJo 4y ago
"We live in a society." Realistically, your neighbors have a lot more invested in your land/home/whatever than the state government.
- kelnos 4y ago
  Realistically, the state government is less influenced by local corruption and broken local incentives than your neighbors are.
  - BobbyJo 4y ago
    And have completely different incentives and corruption. I don't see how that's better...
- goodpoint 4y ago
  The people denied housing due to NIMBY have way more skin in the game.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

cptskippy 4y ago

Isn't that how the US government is designed to work? When a lower authority fails to meet it's mandate, it's escalated up the chain. That's certainly how the courts work. The local government has been deemed a failure. They have repeatedly been told they need to fix zoning, and each time the local government fails differently. Now their authority has been revoked. This is very reminiscent of the political distracting and gerrymandering cases currently in flight.

sowbug 4y ago

Most of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights are dedicated to curtailing the abuses inherent in a pure democracy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

notch898a 4y ago
Most of the abuses against the bill of rights I'd argue are also democratically unpopular. So how'd we get here with such prevailing winds of acts that are both unconstitutional and democratically unpopular?

vonwoodson 4y ago

Having a majority-elected government step in to restrict the property rights of individuals is literally the most democratic thing possible. That is the purpose of the US democracy: to "promote the general Welfare". You're confusing your ideas of property rights with actual US democratic ideals, which are not equal at all. In fact the idea of property rights is explicitly left out of the Declaration of Independence; where Locke would declare "Life, Liberty, and Property" as inalienable human rights, Jefferson changes "Property" to "Pursuit of Happiness". (Quite a strange distinction for a man who owned slaves!) This is because there was great debate about property and lordship in the New World. Property holders were seen as the tyrants who oppressed the colonists, and prevented the Americans from doing what they needed to do to live, in pursuit of their own profits and investments. So, the idea of a democratic government's eminent domain is absolutely the point: to keep the land available for public good and not for the sole-benefit of the few.

wyager 4y ago
> Having a majority-elected government step in to restrict the property rights of individuals is literally the most democratic thing possible. We need to allow the mob to steal everything - it's the most democratic social process possible!
- squeaky-clean 4y ago
  > the mob I mean, what do you think majority vote is if not essentially the largest mob of people?