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Comment by themagician | Hacker News Reader

I support the position that the people who live in that locality should determine what happens there. In a sense, I support the status quo—because that's the way it is right now. But instead we call that NIMBYism. The whole YIMBY movement is trying to move things up a few levels so that people who live outside of a building/block/neighborhood/city can determine what happens within.

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Again, how about the people who own the property should decide what happens with it?

The YIMBY movement is trying to move things down to the appropriate level.

It's literally not. The attempts to pass rezoning laws are moving up (e.g. SB 827) to the state level now because all local attempts are failing. Every time someone tries to build up outside of SOMA it fails and people cry about the NIMBYs. But NIMBY in almost all these cases is just another word for local resident. Just a few weeks ago a group called Mission YIMBY was advocating for rezoning the Sunset and Richmond. Like, how obtuse can you be?

I'm not talking about who sets the zoning laws, I'm talking about who makes decisions re: a particular property.

If you're into local control and people close to the ground making decisions, no one is closer and should know better than the literal property owner. If kicking zoning laws up to the state level helps empower property owners than it absolutely is giving more local control.

People who own property can't do whatever they want with it. That's true everywhere.

This is 100% about zoning laws. About what can be done with a particular piece of property and what can (and can not) be built.

The reality is when people buy a property, they buy a neighborhood too. That's true all around the US. You have the right to veto a liquor store popping up next door. You have a right to veto a lot of things. But naturally its a grey area. If you can get enough of your neighbors to agree, you can build a higher building too. The support needs to be there.

When someone is moving out of a property, they have very little attachment to what happens to it (other than profit) - unlike their neighbors. It makes sense the neighbors have some say.

No, it's not true all around the US. There are plenty of places where if somebody buys a property, it's theirs to do what they want within with rules set by the government. There are places in Texas, for example, that don't even have zoning laws. The interference by local communities is not a universal thing.

Texas still has deed restrictions that prevent corner stores in residential neighborhoods, density restrictions, buffering ordinances, historic preservation sites, lot size restrictions, and other things like work similar to zoning laws.

That would be a valid position if all the investment into local amenities were at local level. We all pay taxes to build a light rail line, or pave the streets, or maintain the parks, or even create enough demand for shops/restaurants on the main street of a central, single family zoned neighborhood that would never generate enough demand from locals only. The entity that creates the amenities (the city, or the state) should have a say about development around these amenities.

Another aspect of this is that upzoning will still allow locals to decide... it's not magic, the buildings don't just become skyscrapers when you upzone. The locals have to have a preference to sell to the developer who would build those. All you do with zoning is allow some locals dictate to others what they do with their land, based on semi-accidental status quo.

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