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Comment by emh68 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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