Hacker News Reader

Comment by afpx | Hacker News Reader

Wait, did public opinion and political thought change somewhere within the last two decades such that owning property now doesn’t give one rights over that property and rights to shared governance of the incorporated area? Sorry if that comes across as flippant, but it’s a really serious question. I kind of bought this property so that I could enjoy it for at least 30 years. It’s not my fault that it’s appreciated so much. What do you want me to do?

View on HN

Buying a property gives you the right to your property. It shouldn't give you the right to tell other people who live nearby what to do with theirs (i.e. to tell them not to redevelop it at a higher density if they so choose).

Unfortunately not the case. Ownership of your property gives you an effective fractional ownership interest in your local radius through zoning and community governance. No amount of state law is going to change that. You can keep fighting the issue (and you might have some traction in a decade or two) or move somewhere more accommodating.

Yeah, but you don't own that other property. Other people do, and they should be able to do as they please with it, so long as it meets zoning regulations.

I don't think a concept of a fractional ownership exists because, well, it's not yours.

If you really want some guarantee that your immediate radius will meet some sort of standards, it sounds like you'd want to be part of an HOA. I personally would never want to be part of one (who likes being told what to do?) but they could help protect property values from that one neighbor who could be a problem.

Neighborhoods and communities are real things. Noise, dogs, trees, etc. don't respect property lines or zoning regulations. That's the sense in which fractional ownership exists: when you are my neighbor, you necessarily invade my space. But good neighbors look out for each other.

"Everyone should maximize the income from their property up to the limit of law" is a recipe for for having no neighborhoods or communities. It's the usual fallacy of treating people as fungible commodities.

HOAs are terrible, they are inevitably staffed with busybodies. We can agree on that!

I think that’s pretense. Homeowners use zoning primarily to protect property values, not build up communities. The suburb where I live now is incredibly neighborly. There’s also a bar within walking distance and a little corner store. Part of the reason is that lots are tiny (about 1/12 of an acre) and there are few cul de sacs so you actually see people walking their dogs, etc. Today, parking, lot size, traffic management, and other regulations would make it illegal to build something like our neighborhood. The minimum lot size is like 1/4 of an acre in our county! You’re basically obligated to build suburban hellscapes where you can’t even go to a neighbor’s house without getting in a car.

Zoning is not a property right in California Law, and community governance is not purchased through home ownership. Tenants and "live in owners" have the same amounts of votes in the system, 1. What you are describing, the enfranchisement of voters in a political system through land ownership is actually feudalism.

> Zoning is not a property right in California Law

It certainly is in San Francisco at least. Well, probably not literally zoning, but regulations around it make the home owners in an area de facto owners of it in many ways.

I see the current housing crisis as a direct result of this.

And for the betterment of society, we should take away some of that power. It's clearly being abused.

You will never have as much power as those property owners without a time machine to 30-40 years ago, and in the unlikely event you become a property owner, it’s against your interests to do anything that devalues your investment (ie increasing supply).

You’re asking rational actors to make irrational decisions. The results are what you’d expect.

state law overrides local law. These battles are not going to be won by exclusionary wealthy communities willingly opening the gates, its going to be done by the state blowing the gates open. See the past year, bills like SB167 (Ability to sue for units denied at planning commision that are zoning/code compliant)sb 166 (making sure cities are up to date with their RHNA targets)and SB35 (bypassing local planning for zoning compliant projects).

It will take years, if not longer, for any challenges to work their way through the courts. By then, the next economic event will occur, driving out non-owners in the Bay Area.

As I mention in a sibling comment, you might see changes in a decade or two, but no sooner.

I am not opposed to efforts related to increasing the housing supply (although I do think it’s a fool’s errand in the Bay Area as demand is insatiable due to the tech industry and foreign money seeking a safe asset store), I’m just describing the uphill climb these endeavors face. It’s hard to fiddle with a core component of the economy (property law).

Increasing supply doesn't necessarily devalue your investment. When the large single family mansions on 5th Ave in Manhattan were slowly replaced by skyscrapers, the value of their land went up.

That would be unthinkable today though.

I don't see what the problem is. You think that if your neighbors are replaced by luxury condos that your house being one of the few single family homes on the block is going to go down in price?

Like, do you think if they bulldozed Manhattan to a big lawn that would make the price of the brownstones and single family homes actually worth more?

Your house would be millions more if your neighbors were allowed to develop to build market rate housing. People want the price per unit to go down by building more density. That means each lot will be worth more since you can replace it with more units. You own a home that's on a lot. You win financially if people are allowed to build. Think about how much a developer would offer you or your kids for your home after you don't need it if they're allowed to actually build. You'd be leaving your kids a fortune.

the problem is (1) all these old folks want to drive everywhere and fear the increase in traffic and change in their lifestyle and (2) fear the loss of exclusivity of their neighborhood when one can buy a condo for less than a SFH. IMO these concerns shouldn't inform policy.

I don't think direct property rights are in question. It's the indirect, or imaginary, rights that have developed afterward, and put into law by established locals to make it difficult to build higher density housing that's up for debate.

I don't know a whole lot about it, but in NYC they have some concept of air rights, i.e. a particular 2D plot of land also has a height limit, and somehow those can be changed by buying up two plots and adding them together. And then most everywhere is the idea of "I have a right to this particular view in that direction, and maybe also this other direction over here, you can't build a building to block that view unless you compensate me - oh but wait no I don't want to be compensated actually, I want to just be able to prevent you from building anything."

So at one time people resolved such a dispute with bribes, or threats, or murder. And then later on it was resolved with bribes and elections, where only land owners had the right to vote so renters couldn't just come in and change all the rules. Today renters can vote, and basically if your town has more politically involved renters than owners, they can change the building codes, and get more high density housing built or whatever.

Anyway, it could be worse: no one wants to live there and it depreciates.

If someone is entering your property and enjoying it at the very same time that you are in the throes of enjoyment of your rightful property then you must dial 911 with great haste!

> I kind of bought this property so that I could enjoy it for at least 30 years.

If what happens on the properties around you is critical to your enjoyment of your property, you should have bought them too.

You can't go to a fancy restaurant, order a salad, and expect to get a steak for free because it's necessary for you to properly enjoy the salad. If you really want a steak, you're going to have to pay for the steak.

I can go to a fancy restaurant and have the expectation that the person at the next table isn’t screaming at the top of their lungs and vomiting on the floor.

The restaurant example is actually perfect because a big part of what you pay for in a restaurant is not just the food. It is the service and ambience.

Edit: My home price is based on access to the subways. I don’t own the subways. We happen to live in a system where the subways are run by the government, not privately owned. But regardless, I would do everything in my power to make sure the subways stay as good as possible, partly because I use them myself all the time, and partly because my home value is tied to them.

We aren’t talking about people screaming at the top of their lungs and vomiting on the floor, but simply existing in homes.

This is demanding that the restaurant leave perfectly good floor area clear and let a line form around the block, because more tables would ruin its quiet ambiance.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com