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Ideally NIMBYs wouldn’t have an incentive to block housing construction because while the total number of houses goes up making the average house cheaper, the l

Ideally NIMBYs wouldn’t have an incentive to block housing construction because while the total number of houses goes up making the average house cheaper, the land itself gets more valuable due to the increased density/development/amenities; so those same homeowners can sell their lots for bug bucks. I guess this misalignment of incentives is a problem of zoning, permitting, and taxation distorting things?

LastTrain 1y ago
Some of us are old enough to remember upzoning by its old moniker urban renewal and the damage that was done in its name.
- amanaplanacanal 1y ago
  Not exactly the same thing. Upzoning allows the owner to build more than one residence on what was a single family property. This might include removing an existing home to build a duplex or triplex, dividing a house into a duplex, or building an accessory dwelling unit on the property. Urban renewal was typically the government using eminent domain to raze whole neighborhoods to build low income apartment buildings or some such. This also might include using the "Tower in a park" architecture that was all the rage at the time, but a terrible urban form.
  - LastTrain 1y ago
    Sure, but by the time upzoning makes it through city council and all the compromises are made it looks a hell of a lot like urban renewal. What else do you call allowing the removal of two historic structures from a city block to make way for another five over two?
    - presentation 1y ago
      Another five over one (which is what I think you mean) is not the same as a whole neighborhood getting razed and replaced with towers in the park. By the way, the whole point of streamlining permitting and zoning processes are to get rid of the unreasonable watering down of every proposal because as you state the end result is worse for everyone, aesthetics included. Also it isn’t just about historic structures, there’s situation like that San Francisco Mission District strip-mall-esque laundromat steps from the BART station, that can’t be replaced because NIMBYs are afraid of “changing the neighborhood character.” If crap architecture like that ends up in the same historic bucket then whoever is declaring 80% of every city as being “historic” has done a disservice to anyone who wants to actually protect historic architecture by diluting the name for their anti-change cause.
- thechao 1y ago
  While I hate the current housing gridlock, these laws represent a classic Chesterton fence. They were enacted precisely because "upzoning" fell heaviest on the poor, minorities, the elderly, and other functionally disenfranchised people. Since I like sortition, here's a goofy idea... eminent domain should be of two sorts: adverse and voluntary. Voluntary is bought-and-done. Adverse means we pick some other property in a different part of the jurisdiction, at random, and also adversely posses it. To drive the point home, I'd bias the selection to be directly proportional to value, ie, the more valuable, the more likely to be selected. The lock up in the adverse possession should be no less than, say, 25 years, or the lockup on the original possession, whichever is longer.
jerlam 1y ago
Not all NIMBYs are the same. The ones I'm more familiar with are less concerned about land value and have little incentive to sell their homes. They are older, often retired, and prefer that nothing ever change around them due to simple conservatism. An area doesn't need increased density or amenities for land values to go up. Here in the SF Bay Area, land values have exploded yet many neighborhoods have not changed in decades.

LastTrain 1y ago

Some of us are old enough to remember upzoning by its old moniker urban renewal and the damage that was done in its name.

amanaplanacanal 1y ago
Not exactly the same thing. Upzoning allows the owner to build more than one residence on what was a single family property. This might include removing an existing home to build a duplex or triplex, dividing a house into a duplex, or building an accessory dwelling unit on the property. Urban renewal was typically the government using eminent domain to raze whole neighborhoods to build low income apartment buildings or some such. This also might include using the "Tower in a park" architecture that was all the rage at the time, but a terrible urban form.
- LastTrain 1y ago
  Sure, but by the time upzoning makes it through city council and all the compromises are made it looks a hell of a lot like urban renewal. What else do you call allowing the removal of two historic structures from a city block to make way for another five over two?
  - presentation 1y ago
    Another five over one (which is what I think you mean) is not the same as a whole neighborhood getting razed and replaced with towers in the park. By the way, the whole point of streamlining permitting and zoning processes are to get rid of the unreasonable watering down of every proposal because as you state the end result is worse for everyone, aesthetics included. Also it isn’t just about historic structures, there’s situation like that San Francisco Mission District strip-mall-esque laundromat steps from the BART station, that can’t be replaced because NIMBYs are afraid of “changing the neighborhood character.” If crap architecture like that ends up in the same historic bucket then whoever is declaring 80% of every city as being “historic” has done a disservice to anyone who wants to actually protect historic architecture by diluting the name for their anti-change cause.
thechao 1y ago
While I hate the current housing gridlock, these laws represent a classic Chesterton fence. They were enacted precisely because "upzoning" fell heaviest on the poor, minorities, the elderly, and other functionally disenfranchised people. Since I like sortition, here's a goofy idea... eminent domain should be of two sorts: adverse and voluntary. Voluntary is bought-and-done. Adverse means we pick some other property in a different part of the jurisdiction, at random, and also adversely posses it. To drive the point home, I'd bias the selection to be directly proportional to value, ie, the more valuable, the more likely to be selected. The lock up in the adverse possession should be no less than, say, 25 years, or the lockup on the original possession, whichever is longer.

jerlam 1y ago

Not all NIMBYs are the same. The ones I'm more familiar with are less concerned about land value and have little incentive to sell their homes. They are older, often retired, and prefer that nothing ever change around them due to simple conservatism. An area doesn't need increased density or amenities for land values to go up. Here in the SF Bay Area, land values have exploded yet many neighborhoods have not changed in decades.