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What are your opinions on zoning and re-zoning? Some areas around me are being re-zoned from single-family-only properties to allowing apartment buildings. The

What are your opinions on zoning and re-zoning? Some areas around me are being re-zoned from single-family-only properties to allowing apartment buildings. The extra housing is needed, but I can’t blame the people getting mad at the change when they spent millions of dollars on a property under the existing rules having the rules changed around them.

davidw 2y ago
Nothing about zoning is supposed to be set in stone. And "change" is like squeezing a balloon. If you stop it in one way, it bulges out in other ways: unaffordable housing for instance. Change still happened, just different from allowing the physical form of buildings to change.
ryandrake 2y ago
I'm torn on this one. On one hand, you don't own the street in front of your house. It's public and anyone can park there. And that's very fair. On the other hand, I've lived in suburban neighborhoods without enough parking, and they look so run down and shitty--every street looks like Fast Eddie's Used Car Lot. If I was looking for a suburban home to move into, I would probably skip a neighborhood with streets blighted with parked cars everywhere. And definitely taking a lot that used to be zoned for a single family home and dumping a 14 family apartment on it will quickly turn a neighborhood into that street parking blight.
- potato3732842 2y ago
  So? Pay up to move somewhere where everyone else is rich enough to share your tase if you don't like it. Or move more rural and deal with those tradeoffs.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    That's exactly what I did! I would prefer to not have to up and move away from blight, but if residents vote for it, who am I to object? It's a free country.
    - potato3732842 2y ago
      At least you put your money where your mouth is.
- cool_dude85 2y ago
  That's pretty crazy, almost the opposite of my own experience. The very desirable neighborhoods where I live are the streetcar suburbs near downtown that were built before the prominence of the car. A lot of on-street parking because the lots weren't sized for driveways, but because the neighborhood is actually walkable and mixed-use it's where everyone wants to be.
- nicr_22 2y ago
  Street parking doesn't have to be horrible. Look at some of dense super expensive inner suburbs of London for examples - pretty little flower baskets hanging from beautifully painted Victorian wrought iron street lights, hewn stone gutters etc. Charming++ Poorly _maintained_ (cleaned, resurfaced, policed) streets are ugly. Streets are poorly maintained when the property tax base is insufficient. Increasing density can amortize the cost of maintaining the streetscape over more households.
- triceratops 2y ago
  Ban free street parking. Then the developer of the apartment building has to build parking. Or carfree people self-select themselves into that building.
potato3732842 2y ago
>What are your opinions on zoning and re-zoning? Burn it all! Anything that matters is already regulated at the state level if not permitted there too. Basically nothing even slightly controversial isn't permitted locally. We could just get rid of basically all zoning and it would be mostly fine. Nobody wants to put a toxic waste processing plant or strip club in a classy neighborhood anyway because those people make poor neighbors for such an operation.
triceratops 2y ago
I think you are owed two things when you buy a house: 1. The right to live in it as long as you pay your property taxes. 2. Not have its use as a residence ruined by allowing industrial or farm activity near enough that sounds or smells would affect you. Housing is housing. If someone buys up all the lots around you and builds apartments, they should have that right. The willingness to invest that much money is a signal that people need to live there. Homelessness in my town is also detrimental to my experience of living in my house.

davidw 2y ago

Nothing about zoning is supposed to be set in stone. And "change" is like squeezing a balloon. If you stop it in one way, it bulges out in other ways: unaffordable housing for instance. Change still happened, just different from allowing the physical form of buildings to change.

ryandrake 2y ago

I'm torn on this one. On one hand, you don't own the street in front of your house. It's public and anyone can park there. And that's very fair. On the other hand, I've lived in suburban neighborhoods without enough parking, and they look so run down and shitty--every street looks like Fast Eddie's Used Car Lot. If I was looking for a suburban home to move into, I would probably skip a neighborhood with streets blighted with parked cars everywhere. And definitely taking a lot that used to be zoned for a single family home and dumping a 14 family apartment on it will quickly turn a neighborhood into that street parking blight.

potato3732842 2y ago
So? Pay up to move somewhere where everyone else is rich enough to share your tase if you don't like it. Or move more rural and deal with those tradeoffs.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  That's exactly what I did! I would prefer to not have to up and move away from blight, but if residents vote for it, who am I to object? It's a free country.
  - potato3732842 2y ago
    At least you put your money where your mouth is.
cool_dude85 2y ago
That's pretty crazy, almost the opposite of my own experience. The very desirable neighborhoods where I live are the streetcar suburbs near downtown that were built before the prominence of the car. A lot of on-street parking because the lots weren't sized for driveways, but because the neighborhood is actually walkable and mixed-use it's where everyone wants to be.
nicr_22 2y ago
Street parking doesn't have to be horrible. Look at some of dense super expensive inner suburbs of London for examples - pretty little flower baskets hanging from beautifully painted Victorian wrought iron street lights, hewn stone gutters etc. Charming++ Poorly _maintained_ (cleaned, resurfaced, policed) streets are ugly. Streets are poorly maintained when the property tax base is insufficient. Increasing density can amortize the cost of maintaining the streetscape over more households.
triceratops 2y ago
Ban free street parking. Then the developer of the apartment building has to build parking. Or carfree people self-select themselves into that building.

potato3732842 2y ago

>What are your opinions on zoning and re-zoning? Burn it all! Anything that matters is already regulated at the state level if not permitted there too. Basically nothing even slightly controversial isn't permitted locally. We could just get rid of basically all zoning and it would be mostly fine. Nobody wants to put a toxic waste processing plant or strip club in a classy neighborhood anyway because those people make poor neighbors for such an operation.

triceratops 2y ago

I think you are owed two things when you buy a house: 1. The right to live in it as long as you pay your property taxes. 2. Not have its use as a residence ruined by allowing industrial or farm activity near enough that sounds or smells would affect you. Housing is housing. If someone buys up all the lots around you and builds apartments, they should have that right. The willingness to invest that much money is a signal that people need to live there. Homelessness in my town is also detrimental to my experience of living in my house.