Hacker News Reader

Comment by raldi | Hacker News Reader

In San Francisco, I think the real story is what YIMBYs are looking to do on the 2018 ballot: An initiative (https://yimbyaction.org/prop/) to allow affordable housing and teacher housing to be built "by right" -- which is wonky terminology for "The architect will be told the rules (zoning, etc) in advance, and as long as they design something that complies with all of them, a permit will be issued easy peasy".

Under current law, even if you abide by all the rules that were stated in advance, you still have to wait years and might be denied in the end anyway.

The reason I think this is such a key move is that until now, the landlords and homeowners who reap all the benefits from the status quo have somehow been able to dupe the housing have-nots who suffer from it (low-income renters, etc) into thinking that blocking housing construction will somehow keep their rents low or stem evictions. But anyone who stands against this measure won't be able to pretend they're doing so in the interest of the less-fortunate. They'll have to admit that they're really just looking to protect their view / parking space / skyrocketing property values.

View on HN

    They'll have to admit that they're really just looking to protect their view

I dunno, if I bought the most expensive thing I'll ever buy in my life and part of what I paid for was a good view, I'd be pretty choked if someone put a big building up and took that away.

It's a fair point, which is why it's probably a good idea to try to work it out with the property owner rather that appeal to the government to put him in a vice.

In dense urban areas, increasingly the property owner is a complex series of foreign tax shelters that probably doesn't even resolve to a real human being (or group of them) in any human-discoverable way.

Your comment begins, “I dunno”, but nothing that follows contradicts anything I said.

I guess part of the counter argument is that you did not, in fact, pay for a good view. You may have thought you paid for a good view, and the person who sold to you may have told you you were getting a good view... but, since you didn't buy the land between you and what you were viewing, you weren't buying that view. You were just lucky to get it.

Similarly, you might have thought you were getting clean air...

You may not have legal authority over everything that happens, but there's more to the land you purchase, than the dirt within the lines.

Otherwise, why does anyone pay extra for a house near a school, or in a happening city? They didn't buy the school or the city, after all.

> They didn't buy the school or the city, after all.

No, but they didn't buy the right to control the school or the city either. And if they thought they did, they were wrong and had an unrealistic sense of entitlement.

"Sense of entitlement" comments like this show that what this debate really boils down to is control, with neither the "we have had control and don't want to give it up just because you want change" side nor the "we want to take some of the control" side coming off looking all that great. I happily wash my hands of all of it.

In all fairness, the comment he was responding to literally equated a nice view to breathable air.

When a small group of people have most of the control, and they are using it in a way that hurts the majority of people, asking for a more level playing field doesn't seem like a bad thing to me.

So who does? People who don't live in the city, or attend the school?

They at least have a stake, as evidenced by ballot items pertaining to the city and their school. Or do you believe that's wrong?

Exactly: they have a stake. That shouldn't give them the right to make unilateral "no" decisions for everyone else, but that's basically what we have in SF.

I don't live in SF but it sounded like the community was making unilateral "no" decisions, which is what happens when all the stakeholders get together and agree. To which, the system is working exactly how it was designed. Does one person actually have the power to make unilateral decisions in SF?

More or less. Only a small minority of the community needs to complain, and that can delay or completely scuttle projects. The people who do complain usually do so loudly and obnoxiously, which really gets the gov't's attention for some reason.

Yes, and if the city decides to close the school, or change traffic routing, saying "but I bought a house because of it!" does not entitle you to veto those decisions.

There's a problem there, in that "Right to a View" is protected in Common Law. There is specific provisions in the application of this law (like all laws), but this is a case in point that view is and has been protected.

https://www.samuels-solicitors.co.uk/news/right-to-view

Absolutely false in the United States: https://imgur.com/a/ksWTu

Source: https://amzn.com/0873376501

And if you read your own link, it's the same in the UK.

City and Town Councils in the Bay Area decline projects based on views and other issues all the time. They just label these as "aesthetic concerns" and tell the architect to try again. Ask any builder.

The article you posted is about the UK and says the opposite of what you claim: unless there is a specific covenant for a view, it is not protected. Does this covenant thing apply to SF?

I'm guessing no, but SF does have a concept of "right to light" that blocks construction of tall structures that cast "significant" shadows on public spaces.

http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Long-shadows-crea...

>But critics argue that economic benefits don’t justify a violation of 1984’s Proposition K — the “Sunlight Ordinance” — which blocks construction of any building over 40 feet that casts an adverse shadow on Recreation and Park Department property unless the Planning Commission decides the shadow is insignificant.

>The project would throw a shadow on Portsmouth Square between 8:05 and 9:10 a.m. from late October to early February. It would shadow St. Mary’s Square, also in Chinatown, in March and September. It would also shadow Justin Herman Plaza, at the foot of Market Street, from mid-October to late February, and Union Square from early May to early August.

I bought a house in 1993 with a good view. Neighbor built house where front window viewed. Stupid me, should have thought about it but the lot was a drainage pond for a year or so after I moved in, then suddenly got filled with dirt and a house built right across my living room window.

But it is my own fault for not noticing that the drainage lot would be eventually filled in. Oh well, was a nice house to live in and I enjoyed living there. Sold in 1996.

Yeah, that sucks for you. But again - you didn't own the view, you just expected the view to be there. If you wanted to own the view, you'd have to own all the land in eyeshot.

You don’t have to own the land. A view easement would suffice.

> but the lot was a drainage pond for a year or so

That's okay. Last laugh as I'm sure they're dealing with settling/water issues (especially if there's a basement).

'Member when builders used to build around the landscape? I loved growing up with 100-year-old maples (especially around fall)

I 'member.

Now they're stacking 3x median homes right next to each other.

But the market value of that house surely reflected the value of the view. So in very real terms, you paid for that view.

You can argue that the entire market was over-valuing the property, but... that just seems kind of cold.

Cold, but probably true. There are a lot of things people pay for that they have no control over when buying homes. It's kind of a risk assessment - 'I like this aspect, but how likely is it to change?'

Property developers in the city where I live are deliberately deceptive about this.

They buy a large plot of land near the coastline, build condos on the far land side of it, and sell the condos advertising "bay views". Once the first block is sold out, they build the next one in front of it closer to the coastline, and sell more "bay views".

It's crazy how they can get away with advertising the view even if construction on a building that will block the view has already started.

And yet you get penalized or outright refused to build up in order to get your view back...

That is absurd. Almost feels like they should be forced to have a warning annotation at the bottom like they do with raw or undercooked foods on menus.

"Buying a house does not make you The God-Emperor and other people still are free to do with their properties as they like, including building on it in a way that upsets you". Yeah, probably should have that warning.

> Property developers in the city where I live are deliberately deceptive about this.

You mean, you need somebody else to tell you if you're sold "view" today, it does not include guarantee nobody will ever build anything on the land between you and the "view" ever, just because otherwise you'd feel bad? You can not figure this out just from knowing you only own property rights on the small piece of land and not on anything else, and did not buy any "view" rights? Maybe if you can not figure this out, buying expensive property is not the best way to go for you, at least without consulting somebody knowledgeable in these matters. You can not expect everybody behaves in your best interest, and they certainly do not owe that to you. If you don't own the rights and the land, there's zero guarantee the view will be there tomorrow.

I'm not sure why you are so upset by my comment.

Of course I can figure out the misleading advertising from property developers, it's common knowledge and has been going on for decades. If I become interested in buying a place one day, I'll look up planning permissions around the area and judge the risk of the neighbourhood changing.

But that doesn't mean that we should accept or approve misleading advertising.

It's not even a case of "who knows what might happen here in the future" - they keep advertising the views when they themselves are building in front of it, and the basement has already been poured.

> You can argue that the entire market was over-valuing the property, but... that just seems kind of cold.

Cold or not, it happens all the time. It surely happened in 2000s in Silicon Valley, then prices took a big dip in 2007/2008. Now they're back, but if you're assuming somehow this time it's "real", I've got some bad news - it's never real, and entire market is completely capable of overvaluing your property and then regretting it and dropping your property value by 50% or so.

You did buy it if the law/zoning said it would stay that way. Hence people getting worked up when people talk about allowing big buildings where they currently aren't allowed.

Quoting eganist from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15683853:

  Sounds like the regulatory environment was an investment risk that wasn't taken
  into account.
  
  Persistence in regulations isn't some sort of right. Laws change all the time.
  Any investment made without considering the risk of the anti-NIMBY movement is
  no different from any other un-diligenced investment -- foolish.
  
  Holding an asset and concerned about the risk of diminishing property values in
  the face of shifting regulations? Unload. You'd do the same if you're seeing a
  company where you're Long run into potentially difficult headwinds.

There is a case for owners getting some sort of compensation if such a thing happens. People do get damanges by a chance in laws, and generally the State should respond to those damages.

If you wanna go that route, the value created or destroyed by a change in laws never belonged to the owner in the first place, and any increase in value created due to zoning should have been recuperated via a land tax.

> , the value created or destroyed by a change in laws never belonged to the owner in the first place

That's not really true. The state can't pass a law saying your house was actually never yours and you are now trespassing get out.

Zoning is a rulebook the state invented, it has to be held accountable to some degree for it. I wouldn't call it reasonable for the state to turn the houses around you into garbage landfills and telling you 'tough luck'

> The state can't pass a law saying your house was actually never yours

Depends on context. A state can decide to nationalize private property.

And has to compensate you for it.

In theory, in practice might be a pittance + we won't send you to jail.

The primary reason why some land is more valuable than other land is due to the government. When the government builds roads, pipelines, sewer systems, transit systems, schools, emergency services, etc., land values go up. In our system, the landowner profits from this, not the government. So if the government happens to do something that makes land values go down, why shouldn’t the landowner take the loss too? Privatize profits and socialize losses is an unsustainable modus operandi of government.

You get what is on the deed, no more, no less. When you buy land, you assume risks. Just like stocks, there are no guarantees of resale value. The government can’t revoke your ownership (outside of criminal use of property), but the government is free to do any number of things that inevitably alter what some people will pay for it. If you want to counter that risk, go buy some insurance, an easement, or all of the adjacent property. The government doesn’t owe you a dime for allowing property owners to do something with their own property that you or potential buyers of your property happen to not like.

Well, if the state does not compensate me as an owner for damaging things it will do around my property, i will lobby and vote against it and thus nothing will happen.

How is that a win.

And that is exactly what has happened here in the western US, right up until the point where it caused housing prices to shoot through the roof, displacing or inflating away the earnings of millions of people who also have the right to vote.

A buy out is a way out of the problem. Thats precisely the point of compensation, reducing the animosity against it.

Privatizing profits and socializing losses always reduces animosity. It’s also a perverse incentive, and should never ever be done.

> In our system, the landowner profits from this, not the government.

This however misses one important point. They build it using taxpayers' money. So, if I give you money and tell you "please build me a shed" and then benefit from the shed, of course I keep all the benefits - after all, this shed was built for me with my own money!

> The primary reason why some land is more valuable than other land is due to the government.

This is probably not true either. The primary reason why some land is valuable, usually, is location, location, location. It can be close to natural things or to things built by people (e.g. a house within 10min drive of Google campus is probably more valuable than a similar one which has 2hr commute to the closest source of employment). Government-built infrastructure is important too, but usually secondary - nobody would build schools or transit systems in place where nobody wants to live, and people rarely move somewhere just because of sewer and transit system.

> This however misses one important point. They build it using taxpayers' money. So, if I give you money and tell you "please build me a shed" and then benefit from the shed, of course I keep all the benefits - after all, this shed was built for me with my own money!

If we used land taxes like the georgists proposed, this would be an apt analogy. As it stands though, the property owner is paying, but so are non property owners as well as property owners that aren't benefiting from improvements. It isn't much different from a lottery: the benefits are concentrated, but the costs are diffused. Did the lottery winner pay for his payout? Sure, but so did all of the lottery losers that didn't get anything.

> This is probably not true either. The primary reason why some land is valuable, usually, is location, location, location. It can be close to natural things or to things built by people (e.g. a house within 10min drive of Google campus is probably more valuable than a similar one which has 2hr commute to the closest source of employment). Government-built infrastructure is important too, but usually secondary - nobody would build schools or transit systems in place where nobody wants to live, and people rarely move somewhere just because of sewer and transit system.

There a billions of miles of beautiful coastline in the world, but people generally build coastal homes where there are roads, and don't where there are not. There are billions of locations where google could have built their campus, but they chose a place with plentiful government funded infrastructure. They even payed more for the privilege. Why would anybody choose to live or build a business in a place where there are no roads, potable pipelined water, electrical grids, schools, sewers, emergency services. Government isn't a secondary determinant of land value, it is primary and foundational. The private markets may build upon the land values that the government created in the first place, but take the government away and everything else will go with it.

So if we wanted to e.g. raise property tax, existing owners would be able to get damages for the difference?

Taxes are uncompensated damage by definition. Some people even call it..what is it?

Yeah that's totally true, but I feel strangely about it, like treating the YIMBY's as a force of nature takes the morality out of it. If I owned anything else, like a bike, then it's mine because the law says you can't take it. You can't say it's ok to take it because I foolishly didn't account for you changing the law and then taking it. You aren't a force of nature, you're changing something someone else bought.

I'm all for affordable housing and mostly side with YIMBY's, but there's something weird about changing the rules and saying "sucks for you, shoulda seen it coming."

Sometimes laws change in a way that makes something you own illegal. In those cases, sometimes you need to turn it in. Its rare, but it's something that needs to be taken into account as a risk when you buy something.

You do pay for a good view - you just don't own a good view. GP's property value almost certainly went down after that other house went up blocking the view.

That's a good point but I'd argue the rights of the existing residents to a good view is lesser than the right of all potential new residents for reasonably affordable housing.

Did you really buy the entire cone of land/air that provides that view? If so, you have nothing to worry about.

I wouldn't expect you to be pleased about it, but you would have purchased a parcel of land, not the right to freeze the world in stasis in the vicinity of your land.

Yea, but it’s a terrible at convincing anyone but you.

Then buy all the land between your place whatever it is you want a view of. Otherwise, why should you expect other's to lose out just for your own view?

If I invested a bunch of money in some company, and the company tanked, I'd be pissed off too. That doesn't mean I'm entitled to compensation for taking a risk that didn't pay off.

I'm not saying I don't sympathize with people who lose their nice view. That sucks, and I'd be sad if it happened to me. The disconnect comes at the point where you think your right to a nice view trumps hundreds of other people's right to affordable housing.

You should have bought the air rights for your view then...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_rights

Totally understandable, but that doesn't mean the government should restrict others right to build on their property. Especially in a city, you should expect changes in the surroundings.

Why limit to affordable & teacher housing. Seems unfair and might not effect the current cost of living for those getting market rate housing....aka the tax payers.

Because if you're putting something on the ballot, you've got to make the beneficiaries extra-sympathetic. Hopefully this will be extended after the initial proposition passes.

Because it would allow the opposition to trick housing-have-nots into opposing it, under the false rhetoric of, “You’re just looking for a blank check to build luxury bro frathouse towers for tech millionaires”.

If rational arguments about market-rate housing worked on the San Francisco electorate, the bad housing situation would never have developed there.

It seems like a lot of the problem is that, if you tell developers that they can build any housing they want, they'll mostly build high-end apartments because they can make more money off those. If you want affordable housing to exist in sufficient quantity, you have to incentivize it in some way.

You can pass rent controls as a separate measure. But I think adding high-end apartments will still open up some of the regular apartments and lower prices.

High-end apartments is still more housing. People moving into the high-end apartments will leave some other, perhaps cheaper apartments free.

In sf generally 15-30% of units built in a high end apartment building need to be affordable units.

So why restrict the measure for teacher and affordable income housing.

This measure could end up creating a ghetto.

Yes, production increases when incentivized by high prices. That’s the core of how markets are in any way useful.

The only meaningful difference between luxury and affordable housing is whether it’s allocated to the highest bidder or randomly among low bidders.

The website says "teachers and working families." Seems to me that that working families catches a decent chunk of the population. Single people will still benefit because with increased supply in another area will reduce the demand for regular apartments.

The specific language of the initiative is supposed to come out next week. I believe the teacher part is going to be defined as strictly referring to housing built on SFUSD-owned land and designated for teachers, and the working families part is going to be tied to income bands.

They tried, it got too much resistance. There are essentially two anti-housing groups:

1. People who have a vested interest in inflating housing prices, e.g. because they own property

2. People who seriously, genuinely believe that more market-rate housing won't help affordability

Targeting just affordable & teacher housing swings group (2), which combined with the YIMBYs is (hopefully) enough to get policy passed.

> Under current law, even if you abide by all the rules that were stated in advance, you still have to wait years and might be denied in the end anyway.

The reverse would be nice as well and would remove a lot of corruption at the local level.

> The architect will be told the rules (zoning, etc) in advance, and as long as they design something that complies with all of them, a permit will be issued easy peasy"

This should be always the case, it is very sad one has to struggle and take extraordinary measures to make it so.

> the landlords and homeowners who reap all the benefits from the status quo have somehow been able to dupe the housing have-nots who suffer from it

And by that you mean the people who worked and saved to invest in something wisely to have that take out from under them? I cannot stand people who think home owners and landlords as evil people just because people who come after them cannot have it easy. It was never easy for anyone. It's not the have and have not's, it's the market and hardwork, sure some people are born into wealth but most the time it's just hard work.

When did I say they were evil? My point is that yes, they're acting in their own self-interest (which is fine), but crucially, they've somehow convinced the housing-have-nots that artificially restricting the supply of new housing is somehow in their interest, too.

I think this proposition will break that spell, and in a democracy, when the housing-haves vote their self-interest, and the have-nots vote theirs, the latter will win in a landslide.

It comes across like people complaining that there are no pensions anymore and its unfair.... If you don't like the circumstances whose fault is it for staying in those circumstances?? The bay is tiny land locked piece of land, its never going to be good/better. It's a bunch of smart people making poor decisions.

It is the fault of the politicians for not changing the laws, and for us not pushing for these laws to be changed.

But let's fix that. Let's do the right thing and get rid of these ridiculous barriers to entry for building affordable housing.

> If you don't like the circumstances whose fault is it for staying in those circumstances??

Are you suggesting that I leave my home, my job, my social life, etc rather than trying to affect changes in policy?

If its having such an abject effect on your life? Why would you stay? You obviously had the skills to put yourself into such a position, you have the skills to get yourself into a much better position.

> If its having such an abject effect on your life? Why would you stay? You obviously had the skills to put yourself into such a position, you have the skills to get yourself into a much better position.

Because we believe we can effect change. I don't want to screw anyone over but home prices MUST come down regardless of how many second and third mortgages go underwater. What can we do to get you to support new construction?

https://youtu.be/dcbjWGj3jBk

Are you saying people should just run away from whatever problem they have? Why can't people fix things? Policies are just things people have agreed to. They're just words on paper. People can write new words on paper.

> Are you saying people should just run away from whatever problem they have?

People are complaining about moving to an expensive part of town and finding that it's actually expensive. That's not a problem, just poor judgment.

Just like that time when you bought property thinking you could control all of your adjacent surroundings through zoning policy, only to find out that you didn’t get that in the deed. Super foolish.

> It comes across like people complaining that there are no pensions anymore and its unfair....

Firstly, we can and should renegotiate not only outrageous pension plans but also outrageous public salary. Or we can just let the local government go bankrupt if the unions won't blink. Maybe we need compensation caps in public office. Sorry for going off-topic but I just wanted to address your premise because it is not solid at all.

Only if we take your “right” to low building heights as sacrosanct.

> the people who worked and saved to invest in something wisely to have that take out from under them

Sounds like the regulatory environment was an investment risk that wasn't taken into account.

Persistence in regulations isn't some sort of right. Laws change all the time. Any investment made without considering the risk of the anti-NIMBY movement is no different from any other un-diligenced investment -- foolish.

Holding an asset and concerned about the risk of diminishing property values in the face of shifting regulations? Unload. You'd do the same if you're seeing a company where you're Long run into potentially difficult headwinds.

> And by that you mean the people who worked and saved to invest in something wisely to have that take out from under them?

How is dumping your savings into a single asset "wise investment"? The idea that housing should be a good investment is ludicrous on its face when you consider its potential volatility, constant upkeep, and lack of liquidity. I'm not sure why it continues to be promoted, and I think people should be disabused of it. Not only so they make better investment decisions, but so that housing speculation is less of driving force in real estate costs.

What you're suggesting is that we allow putting barriers to new development to artificially keep this asset class valuable for its owners. Why does this make sense for housing but not for stocks or mutual funds?

>I'm not sure why it continues to be promoted, and I think people should be disabused of it.

Same goes for any IPO, or any investment in a startup, etc... Or is it?

Im advocating not changing the game because the new players find the rules unfair.

If housing is a business like every other, then why can't the rules change? The rules change for other businesses all the time: from tax changes; new laws; new technology; changes in interest rates; investment climate; etc. The rules are always changing, and businesses have to adapt. Why would housing be immune from change?

You say it's all hard work.. then why be afraid of opening the market to more competition? They can put in some hard work at maintaining their position... like every other business in existence.

I think you've missed his point a bit. If I invested in a cigarette company and then a state decides that smoking can't happen within 5 meters of an eating area and this will affect cigarette sales I don't have a right to stop this law just because my investment might be hurt.

Same with Herbalife, it's considered a pyramid scheme and a scam by many people. Maybe one day the US government says they have to shut down because some new law passses targeting them. In my world, I don't think they should be allowed to stay open just because some investors might be hurt.

Property carries a risk just like any other investment and just because property was scarce at one point doesn't mean it needs to be forever. If the bay continues to have skyrocketing rents and no construction then eventually people will leave and the owner's investments will go to shit anyway.

You mistake the term investment to mean solely a financial context here.

There's a thing as investing in stability, investing in the ability to modify things as you please, investing in not having to answer to a landlord, investing in having a place for your dog or children...

Your desire to change the rules to favor your taking that same block of land for yourself doesn't seem inherently any more holy than their desire to keep the rules as they are today. And when it comes to setting policy based on the whims of 20-something-newcomers, some potential downsides increasingly start to poke out. Let's put a pause on YIMBY-ism, let's fix the NYC and SF Bay Area transit systems to properly serve the density that's already there, first!

That's a bit dismissive way to put it. "The whims of 20-something newcomers". A lot of of these people are people who grew up and went to high school here but as the article says anecdotally that 2 of 400 high school graduates from one class are in the same area, the rest having been forced to abandon their native home because of housing rules preventing construction.

Also the word "whim" is just as dismissive to a group of people who are organizing, lobbying, petitioning, etc to get the right to build apartment buildings so they have a place to live and sleep and raise children. It's not a bunch of millennial google employees who just showed up and casually decided they want to buy a house.

But it's so easy to turn this into a "entitled millennials" story instead of discussing a real housing crisis that has been developing for the last 50 years due to restrictive building codes that favor the wealthy I suppose.

No one is trying to eminent-domain your land. If you own a place, you’re not going to lose it unless you choose to sell.

I own a house and stocks. I can live in my house. And it allows me to grow tomatoes. They are both good investments for different and overlapping reasons.

It's not a perfect analogy, but I typically say that people are born short a house. That is, your first house is merely covering your short position and is therefore not an investment.

> it was never easy for anyone

Are you familiar with the property tax structure in San Francisco? It's wacky in a way that causes old homeowners to have vastly different rates from new homeowners, in a way that is frankly ridiculous. It is vastly easier (more affordable) for existing landowners.

The OPs bit that you quoted is accurate. The laws in the bay area surrounding taxation, eviction, and construction significantly disadvantage anyone that isn't generationally entrenched. We're not talking about stealing people's land via eminent domain or anything similarly draconian... old owners and new owners are not on a financially level playing field, and that should change.

Even a cursory amount of research should leave you with the impression that bay area housing is not regulated in a way that allows normal market forces to play out, so saying "it's the market and hard work" is disingenuous.

Nobody, on any side of the debate, is advocating that people who own houses have their homes taken away.

Just the approval of housing developments that radically changes their neighborhood and communuty. Good thing those things don't influence a person's housing choices or property values.

The lack of new housing is radically changing the neighborhood and community. Neighborhood and community come from people, not buildings.

How do you think it got there in the first place?

"I cannot stand people who think home owners and landlords as evil people just because people who come after them cannot have it easy."

They're not evil, they're just selfish, and making life harder and more expensive for the rest of us.

A person selling a good is protective of the value of the good they're selling. Selfish bastards. If I'm renting high-end apartments why would I want developments that make them or the area less attractive?

You don't want them, but what you want is entirely irrelevant. This isn't a discussion about what existing landlords do with their own property, it's about not letting them block the new housing that they have absolutely no stake in and that benefits everyone else in the city.

If it really benefited everyone we wouldn't be having this discussion and if landlords had nothing at stake they wouldn't be weighing in on the debate.

Just because someone doesn't have a financial stake in the literal plot of land doesn't mean that they aren't affected by new developments. Mediating disputes involving negative externalities is exactly the government's job.

Except that it does benefit everyone, which is why the Yimby movement is gaining traction at the rate it is. It just wasn't as clear-cut and financially painful to the average person until a few years ago which is why it took so long to correct.

It's not really a Yimby movement though, this is more of a YIYBY

Everyone wants to see more housing built in other people's backyards -- NIMBYs and YIMBYs alike.

What sets YIMBYs apart is that, in addition to this, they also support building more housing in their own backyards, too.

Indeed - and a country made of single family homes has catastrophic externalities via its car dependence. Exclusivity in cities with economic opportunity denies it to all but the already-privileged and widens the gap. Housing scarcity hurts the poor and burdens local social services.

Beyond the hyperlocal level (like, block level) the externalities lens says build, build, build.

> they're just selfish,

This is a case of the pot calling the kettle black

It's pretty ironic to throw around words like "invest", "market", and "hardwork" while making an argument that the government should prohibit new development to protect your property value.

Is it really that surprising that the value of a house is more than the literal plot of land it sits on? The neighborhood, the community, public spaces, small businesses, the school district, transportation options.

Yes, and all of these things change. You didn't buy the right to freeze time.

> And by that you mean the people who worked and saved to invest in something wisely to have that take out from under them?

If you purchased real estate on the understanding that no new buildings would ever be built near your land, you did not invest wisely, and it's no one's responsibility to protect you from the consequences of your lack of foresight.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com