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Comment by treis | Hacker News Reader

>I have a second building on my property and a separate driveway for each one are government overreach.

Increasing density has definite externalities. Traffic, street parking, and public spaces all get more congested. Plus a neighbor building a bigger building impacts my views and the light that falls on my property. We do need some way of balancing those concerns with development. IMHO, we've swayed too far towards one extreme. We should relax those restrictions while being cognizant that we don't swing too far back to the other extreme.

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> views and the light that falls on my property

We need blanket legislation outlawing the notion that by virtue of purchasing a plot of land one is also purchasing control over everything visible from said plot at the time of purchase.

Indeed. We have people who are suing their neighbors who grew large pine trees in a forested area because it disrupted someone's view. I'm not even sure if the trees in question were planted or just allowed to grow.

What you mention is a different scenario from a developer building an 8-story complex next to a 2-story SFH, and it's reasonable to think we (society) could treat them differently if we so chose.

What you are talking about has absolutely nothing to do with the article. The proposal says that there should be a maximum of 4 units (not stories) per lot plus an additional 2 units if those two units are rented out as affordable housing. The article shows that the neighborhood already has a 6 unit building with 3 stories. It's absolutely nothing new.

This is a huge reason so much of inner SE Portland doesn’t have high-rise development. Would block downtown’s view of Mt. Hood.

As a matter of fact, once upon a time, there was a Supreme Court decision limiting property owners' claim on the airspace above their land. Someone was actually trying to ban planes from flying over their house.

https://uclawreview.org/2017/11/01/drones-damages-and-proper...

El Al doesn't fly over Jewish cemeteries in Israel because religious groups put up similar complaints.

Yes, if you give people infinite control over everything visible from their houses, they can build a radio telescope and control half the universe. On the other hand, your proposal is too radical, because I feel like I have a legitimate interest in not getting boxed in by several 100-foot walls spraypainted with obscenities and built one inch away from my property line, lit with daylight-strength spotlights at all hours of the night like that one Mormon temple. There has to be a reasonable middle ground between no control and infinite control.

If you have a legitimate interest, why not buy out the block yourself and live in your own little Shangri La? Otherwise, you are asking the government to subsidize your lifestyle preferentially over that of your neighbors. Believe it or not, the people living in the apartment next door with the spotlights are your neighbors too.

If my purposely extreme example isn't extreme enough to get you to side against it, just imagine one that's even more extreme.

If your purposely extreme example wasn't enough to convince, why do you think your hypothetical "more extreme" example will?

Agreed on the "view" aspect, but what about solar? If I build a house that gets X % of its electrical energy from the PV panels I install, and then my neighbor constructs something which blocks most of the incident sunlight, how does that work?

Probably the same way it works now with trees.

So basically, we need to legally mandate that the only way for people to ensure that they have basic things like sunlight and not staring into a brick wall - or perhaps worse, having an endless parade of other people staring into their rooms and garden from the new multi-story art gallery across the street - is via sprawl that makes existing suburbia look positively compact?

The problem with this kind of thinking is that the denser housing is, the more its livability relies on things outside of the homeowners' direct ownership and control. So long as YIMBYs keep pushing this idea that keeping access to things like sunlight cannot be a shared act, it doesn't matter how many pretty drawings of wide sunlit boulevards of townhouses or towers in parks they produce to claim that density doesn't have to mean dark, dystopian hellscape - because the moment there's money in it, someone can just slap a big tall building right in one of those crucial empty spaces, and according to the YIMBYs the people affected would have no right to complain because they didn't personally and individually own them.

We just need to set the incentives in the right direction.

Rule: you can't build more than one story higher than your neighbors.

Under this rule your property will become more valuable when your neighbor builds up, because it just got upzoned for free!

The standard solution to this is called an easement, which basically means I own the air rights over your property so that I can ensure my views are unobstructed.

Getting rid of the idea of owning the neighbors airspace entails figuring out how to fairly allocate easements that generally don't currently exist because of legacy reasons.

The issue (from a government perspective) with easements as opposed to zoning is that cities won't profit (as much) off the sale of easements. Governments make a lot of money from development, and they're not about to give it up.

Have you been to NYC? Or Tokyo? Or Singapore? Have you ever lived in a dense city before? These things just don't happen.

Developers a profit motived and are very aware of what sells and what doesn't. There are a million mechanisms by which we can avoid having a single story house surrounded by skyscrapers.

Re: profit motive. The new skyscrapers owned by the developers will have views. The existing single story house won't.

Counterpoint - Melbourne CBD. Jampacked full of enormous residential towers that are cheaply/poorly designed, far too close together, offer zero amenities and that block out all sunlight.

I used to be in favour of laxer planning regulations until I moved to Melbourne. A lassez faire approach just doesn’t work.

There’s already a solution, air rights. E.g. these NYC condo owners who paid the $11 million to buy out their neighbors’ building not to build any higher. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/22/nyregion/manhattan-real-e...

In most cases this really isn’t a problem though. The fantasy of “big tall buildings” being slapped everywhere is just that. NIMBYs are fully mobilized just to stop stuff like duplexes, townhomes, or the neighbor putting a pop-up 4th story on their existing row house, not imaginary 100-story skyscrapers going up in the middle of a suburb.

> We need blanket legislation outlawing the notion that by virtue of purchasing a plot of land one is also purchasing control over everything visible from said plot at the time of purchase.

We already have that, in the form of urban planning. There are professionals in charge of ensuring everyone's rights are respected by defining and upholding an urban plan and construction regulation.

Otherwise a you get is a sea of shanty towns.

> Traffic, street parking, and public spaces all get more congested

A proper transit network and walkable design ensures that this doesn't become a problem.

> Plus a neighbor building a bigger building impacts my views and the light that falls on my property.

People get so hung up on this, but that's just how it goes -- cities change. Just because you bought a place doesn't mean you're entitled to the exact same view forever.

> A proper transit network and walkable design ensures that this doesn't become a problem.

While that's true, if you don't have a proper transit network, it's a real problem. And many cities aren't in a position to build a proper transit network at the drop of a hat. Don't get me wrong, I wish they did or could efficiently build one. But sometimes you have to deal with reality as it is, not as you'd like it to be, unfortunately.

To add to your point, even if you were willing to invest in a proper network it will take years to get going. People are set in their ways and so they won't stop driving, even the hard core supporters of the idea will drive everywhere for a while. Eventually something will cause them to try transport, but the first time they will fail to figure out how to ride and so be late to their... Eventually they will figure it out and over 10 years you can get a good ridership for the population density. Then over the next 30 years you can get density to increase to the point where there is enough population density to justify the network you needed to create to get there.

Do you think they built the MTA before they built Manhattan?

Population growth creates the tax base, density, and demand required for a successful public transportation system. Demanding that the public transport comes first is simply backwards.

They built the MTA when they still had the flexibility to do it. Portland is too developed now, too many entrenched interests, it'll never get done.

Listen, I am on the same page as you - I would love for it to happen. I would vote for it. I would pay taxes for it. But the reality is that it isn't going to happen, and if you densify the city without the transit, you will have these problems.

Maybe once we have the problems, people will accept the solution

We need to make driving suck so much that people would rather take the bus.

This but unironically.

It's not "making" driving suck, it's allowing driving to suck as a result of market forces. We could stop forcing restrictions on property owners that prevent the natural, market-driven move to mass transit as density increases.

Or make the bus suck less. Curbed bus lanes with fat fines for violators would do more to change urban America than anything else; a de facto revival of the streetcar. Why drive through the gridlock at 7mph when the bus is going 35mph right past you?

It would certainly be cheaper than anything that is rail based.

densify portland -> improve tax revenue -> improve transit. nyc certainly benefited from aristocrats and lax labor laws when building the subway, but this isnt something that is impossible for portland. trimet is already huge for a city as small as portland. improving density will only help transit services.

it doesnt have to be subways -- the willamette flood plain isnt great for subways anyway. portland should continue to build out its bus service and cycling infrastructure. portland is already pretty reasonable for living without a car, it will only improve with density.

Ah yes, stuff the area full of people so that the quality of life tanks, and then the problem can magically fix itself.

There is no "stuffing" - people move there of their own accord first. That they move there despite the inconveniences is a hint that the area is already in high demand and denying it won't make it any better. There also isn't anything magical about feedback loops.

Let me also plug biking infra. This, imo, should be an accessible alternative to balance the inefficiencies of motor vehicles (too much space for too little passengers) and rail/bus (too many passengers and dilated commute time).

in the denser parts of portland it already is!

> A proper transit network and walkable design ensures that this doesn't become a problem.

How do you expect to put together a working transit network, which is very sensitive to urban planning, if you are also argue in favour of ignoring any restriction imposed by urban planners?

Nobody is arguing in favor of ignoring any restriction imposed by urban planners.

You're literally commenting in a thread where people are complaining against building regulation that stops people from building extra houses in their backyard as they please. Worse than that, you're intentionally ignoring half the posts made though out this thread where people complain about urban plans that limit occupation density.

Those are real, but minor issues. Increased density also brings good externalities, like more services, retail etc.

In practice, handing out veto powers against construction has had disastrous results for everyone not already owning homes.

> Those are real, but minor issues. Increased density also brings good externalities, like more services, retail etc.

Not necessarily. Just because you add a residential tower that doesn't mean you'll get a grocery store in its ground floor. If the urban plan specifies high-density residential area then all you can expect is residential buildigs.

Parking strikes me as something the market will fix without a need for subsidized public parking.

Traffic needs system-wide reform. No argument there. Walkable neighborhoods, bike lanes, transit, etc.

Views - you don't (normally) own the views from your property. I live on a golf course; if it gets redeveloped into condos, I'm SOL.

Light - appropriate building setbacks mitigate this.

I'm not disagreeing really, just pointing out that your concerns are mostly valid, but have solutions.

You do own the views in numerous cities due to historical precedent, and cities cant change these laws as it would be considered unconstitutional taking.

I know some mountain and coastal areas actually do have view ordinances, but they're typically very limited (sometimes only to trees, not construction, etc). But, I don't believe that's the norm in most places.

City of Vancouver has a policy of protected public views.

The goal is to make it so that views of Vancouver's mountains are reasonably accessible by anyone, not just those that purchased a north facing suite in a tall condo tower.

It's pretty much the same underlying concept as why we create public parks.

The view cones are scattered around and are usually tied to areas of heavy public pedestrian activity, such as parks.

The policy is very popular.

https://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/protecting-va...

That's super neat, thanks for sharing.

As a counter, Seattle doesn't have much comparable. You an buy "air rights" to protect your view, but there isn't a general protection for home-owners. It's fairly common for a small home to be replaced with a newer, much taller, structure, taking neighbor's views with it.

This goes a long way toward explaining the housing affordability disaster in Vancouver.

Not at all. You can look at the map of view cones and see that there's a handful centered around the downtown.

Meanwhile south of there there's about 50+ blocks of untouched single family homes.

The view cones has been no real barrier to development and unlike SF Vancouver is building constantly.

NYC has a very complicated system of buying and selling air rights which is what I was thinking of when I wrote this.

In a city there shouldn't be set backs at all. If you want light buy a bigger lot and set yourself back. If you want a garden move out to farm country or put it on the roof (wasted space to most, as it happens I'm installing solar on my roof today, but even then most of my roof is wasted space)

Fair enough. I was thinking about the typical single-use zoning in the US, where single-family home zone is different from row-house zone. I agree that we'd be better off with urban zones not making a distinction. However, I'll gladly take small changes in that direction (allowing duplexes and ADUs) over no progress at all.

Setbacks are required in cities, otherwise many buildings wouldn't receive any natural light at ground level. Two- and three-story buildings don't really need them, the sidewalk is enough.

Also setbacks help slow the spread of fire if one building catches on fire.

That brings to mind one crank concept for bureaucratic reform of explicitly embedded purpose formatted laws to slow the spread of fire and perhaps "generally accepted solutions" added after testing to skip design approval.

Thus you could use setbacks as firebreaks, firewalls, or say something exotic like aerogel barricades.

Yeah, that's what we did buying in the burbs. Now they want to change all the zoning.

A lot of this is more the result of poor planning by the city, and shouldn't be the burden of the property owners to resolve. Congestion is largely the result of over-reliance on cars for transportation which is inefficient. Rather than put limits on how I can use my land, the city should be planning infrastructure that supports more dense use.

Portland has reasonable public transport and fairly good bike/ pedestrian routes.

> Increasing density has definite externalities.

So does endless sprawl. Arguably larger, even.

Lack of density is the ultimate externality: the increased resource consumption caused by the inefficiency of spreading everything out more has to be borne by every member of society.

Everyone pays in life-seconds, in money, in pollution, in reduced societal interactions.

Cities exist for a reason.

In the city I live in (somewhere in Europe), there are no such restrictions. Every time someone sells their house they split the terrain in two and rebuild because it's more advantageous price wise. As a result terrains got smaller and smaller, we used to have a beautiful city with old buildings, tons of trees, large gardens, a really calm and safe place to raise a family, now it looks like shit and crime has gotten out of control. Now they're building towers downtown for low income housing. Not a fun experience if you've built your life with your family there.

Areas where it is profitable to do this are areas where housing demand is increasing. Which means that anybody who owns property in such an area can sell it for more than they paid for it, move somewhere else and have the significant monetary gain to compensate them for their trouble. And the gain wouldn't exist with stricter zoning because it comes from the fact that your property is worth more when somebody can buy it and build twice as much housing on it.

> And the gain wouldn't exist with stricter zoning because it comes from the fact that your property is worth more when somebody can buy it and build twice as much housing on it.

Counterpoint Bay Area. Industry hotspot, liberally allows office development, aggressively fights any new residential develpment and also freezes property taxes at the time of purchase.

Three of those are just other ways of increasing real estate prices. They're additive, not alternative.

Now suppose somebody could knock down your million dollar three bedroom home there, put up five condos that size on the same lot and sell them each for $750K. That'd make the property itself worth more than a million dollars, right?

Isn't that the residential development they're talking about that is prohibited/restricted?

Your general point is true. I'm pointing out an alternative where zoning stays predominantly single family yet the real estate prices grow unbounded.

Prices are high because there is demand. Zoning keeps supply scarce. The reason why you can sell these condos for 750k is because of demand and scarcity. If everyone turned their million dollar home into condos, supply would increase, demand would be met, prices would fall, and suddenly you wouldn't have a million dollar home or 5 750k condos.

On top of that in CA, if you were to hold your million dollar home, your property taxes are locked in even while the asset value increases exponentially. You can even give your house to your kid, and they will pay the tax rate you paid. If you tear out your house and build 5 new condos, suddenly you are paying market rate property tax again.

> Prices are high because there is demand. Zoning keeps supply scarce.

Which is why the price falls from a million dollars to $750k for the same amount of square footage. But now you have five times as much square footage on the same piece of land, which is more than the decrease in price per square foot. And still would be even if the price per unit fell to $400k.

> On top of that in CA, if you were to hold your million dollar home, your property taxes are locked in even while the asset value increases exponentially.

Which is just a facet of existing local tax law. You could get to the same place by just having very low property taxes in general.

> Zoning keeps supply scarce.

Not really. Zoning specifies density limits but demand depends of far more factors. If you replace a mansion with a low density housing project, the reason the price will go down is not due to an increase in supply.

> move somewhere else and have the significant monetary gain to compensate them for their trouble

People don’t want to leave their homes and move away from family and friends just so a city can grow.

Life isn’t just about money.

I don’t want my city to grow any larger - higher density means lower quality of life for the people who have lived here for decades - aka my actual community.

Isn’t this really a complaint about population growth rather than development?

Blaming development for your changing city seems a bit passive aggressive.

"it's too crowded now. Nobody moves there anymore"

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