NIMBY No More: Gainesville, Florida, Moves to End Single-Family Zoning | Hacker News Reader

NIMBY No More: Gainesville, Florida, Moves to End Single-Family Zoning

bloomberg.com

21 pointsshaburn48 comments

I don't know enough about Gainesville to comment seriously on this particular change, and the article is light on details. But the gloss it gives is this:

> "...allow duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes to be built on land currently zoned for single-family homes"

If true, this is a pretty minor change from R1 zoning.

I live in a part of coastal California with housing prices that have been rising very fast, much faster than wages -- for a couple of decades. And the effects of strict R1 zoning mean that unless you're rich, or already own property there, you have to leave town.

Most folks can't buy a home except by going very far to the outskirts of the city. This is a serious problem for people who are starting their career.

And ultimately strict R1 zoning has an almost uncountable number of eventual knock-on consequences: clogged highways, people with super-long car commutes, more pollution, an increasing amount of money spent on roads and dispersed infrastructure that aren't really necessary or even wanted by many people. An aging population of people in SFR's that many don't really want, because it's the only mode of living.

This one really does need a re-think. (And that's how I became a YIMBY despite owning a home!)

Zoning laws have been around far longer than commutes. Most of your retired community has too.

Also, "If true, this is a pretty minor change from R1 zoning."

Totally wrong. Even if you were increasing population density 1 to 1 (substantially more so with each unit) that is a 2X, 3X, and 4X increase in population density alone.

You've been a member here since 2016, but have very low karma and this seems to be among the only threads you've ever commented on, IE: this seems to be an issue that really matters to you. Can you share more info about your background and apparent passion for this topic?

FWIW: My little rural community is one of the first in our state to pass these kind of residential density changes. It's been good for us, but I definitely see where it has been jarring in more urban areas and hasn't really had the intended impact in either type of city.

California is no longer facing a housing shortage. It has immense urban space unfilled(double digit vacancy of commercial real estate), a second collapse of the tech sector which will result in more outflows, net negative migration, and a plethora of legislation to fix yesterday's problems at the state level with a sledgehammer(so too much, too late, in the wrong direction). The Bay Area is experiencing double digit value drops in the last month and exploding listing supply. Not one of these things are indicators of a shortage. In reality they tend to snowball into collapse. California will be increasingly dependent on property taxes that will be dropping like a rock while expanding programs in housing predicated on the opposite.

Homeless problems are real and I suspect being exacerbated by misappropriated policy instead of roofs over heads (40k empty units in SF alone).

https://therealdeal.com/sanfrancisco/2022/08/12/netflix-puts...

Being a contrarian bear who has been here before requires thick skin. Additionally, the less popular the idea, the more merit. Considering the intelligence of the community, trading karma is well worth the signal.

"S.F. population fell 6.3% to lowest level since 2010" - SF Chronical https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/S-F-population-fell-6...

Ok, eventually, if all the properties flip and are maximally developed. That would take many years. And even a quadplex is different than a multi unit apartment building.

Dublin, California went from a sleepy single family residence community with low crime to half multistory condos and apartments with crime, traffic, and cost of living increases in a half a child's time in school. Their city council got "motivated" and the builders went to work. It doesn't take long and often does not go as well as Dublin has. Dublin benefited from exceptional incomes from tech, for now.

Dublin, CA has been growing strongly for 40 straight years - the population grew 72% from 1980 to 1990 (presumably when many of those sleepy single family homes were built). Looking at the most recent crime statistics (and ignoring 2020, where crimes decreased drastically because of the pandemic), total number of crimes increased by 7% from 2015-2019 while the population increased by 17%, so crimes-per-capita has actually been decreasing. If cost-of-living increases has you concerned, reducing housing number of available housing units will probably not increase affordability in any way.

Look at the minimum setbacks (5 ft. on the sides of a quadraplex, 10 ft. in front), and the 2 parking spaces allowed in front of each 4-unit building, and tell me how this will work. Also, we are already a heat island and this will dramatically increase our contribution to climate change. Also, if you think this will bring down the price of homes, I have some land in South Florida to sell you...swampland!

Wanting to have a nice place to live isn't "NIMBY", it is wanting a nice place to live.

If you want to live in a dense urban jungle, we already have lots of those in this country

Not enough by the likes of some

That's pretty much the definition of "NIMBY" - "Not in my backyard!" You want the people that might move to your neighborhood and live in denser housing to go live somewhere/anywhere else (and if that place isn't particularly nice for them, well, that's not your problem), and you want to use the law to enforce it.

"I would like to continue to have access to single family housing with a nice yard that I maintain and neighbors I don't share walls or utilities with. If there are people who want dense housing they should also have that option"

Is not remotely the same as

"I don't want to live in denser housing and I don't want it built anywhere"

Nobody has ever said "I don't want denser housing to be built anywhere" - they say "I don't want denser housing built near me, and I want the law to enforce my preference" (i.e. NIMBY). This isn't about outlawing single family housing, it's about letting economics dictate what can be built and where. If your neighbor wants to convert their house into a duplex, and two families want to live there, why should you be able to stop them?

And what are the YIMBYs doing? They're trying to use the force of "law" to go to an area owned by people who are happy and demolish their towns and give it all to the new replacement population

And if a wealthy developer wants to buy up an apartment block in Harlem and tear it all down and replace it with a gated McMansion, why should anyone be able to stop them?

Or if your neighbor wants to rent out their house as a 24/7 rave and auto shop, why should anyone be able to stop them?

At the fundamental level, this fight is about self determination how small does a cluster of people have to be before they’re not allowed to set the rules for the area they live in. Can a state ban a developer from turning a major thoroughfare into a replica of the Vegas strip if the citizens of that state don’t want it? Can a county? Can a city? Can a town? Can a neighborhood?

Do people from outside an area have a fundamental right to impose laws on an area to make that area more palatable to their sensibilities?

The obvious answer is in all of these cases, sometimes yes and sometimes no. But the fight is about where the lines are drawn. Why can’t a group of like minded people decide they want the area they live in to be exclusively single family homes on half acre lots? Why can’t a group of like minded people decide they want the area they live in to be exclusively high rises? Or exclusively low income housing? Or exclusively walkable? Or exclusively mixed use but only for local businesses and not multi state chains? What makes one persons later birth or lack of income more deserving of a home in a given area than the people who already live there?

Or to put it another way, would it be unreasonable for the people in a rural French village to decry (and want to stop) the construction of a raft of new McMansions and some massive Wal-marts. And if it’s not unreasonable, what makes their desire to have their homes and neighborhoods a certain way more legitimate than anyone else’s? Just time?

I think the answer is that they can decide all of the things that you're saying here, and they can lobby to have the government enforce those decisions, because people are allowed to do lobby the government to do whatever they want. The argument against NIMBYs isn't that they're doing something illegal, it's that they're doing something that's selfish and bad for society as a whole.

The difference between wanting denser residential zoning and wanting to build McMansions on French villages is that one has clear benefits for large numbers of people and the other very much does not. And while we shouldn't always do the thing that benefits more people - that's how you end up with oppression of minorities - the fact that people are upset with those who are doing a thing that is inherently self-serving at the expense of others doesn't seems reasonable.

> one has clear benefits for large numbers of people and the other very much does not.

Why does it benefit large numbers of others to have denser housing right here where my house is though?

There is plenty of room in the world to build denser housing for them elsewhere, while I can still have what I want. Win-Win

> the fact that people are upset with those who are doing a thing that is inherently self-serving at the expense of others doesn't seems reasonable.

What expense of others? Go live somewhere else. There are plenty of dense housing options that aren't here where my house is.

> Why does it benefit large numbers of others to have denser housing right here where my house is though?

It benefits large numbers of others to have denser housing in any highly populated area, particularly those that are desirable. If your house is in an area that can be described that way, then that's the reason it benefits large numbers of others to build denser housing right where your house is.

The problem is, obviously, when everyone adopts the same attitude you have. Then there's no "somewhere else" to build.

And hey, just like you're absolutely allowed to try to get the government to keep your area zoned as it is, others can try to get the government to loosen zoning. You don't have to like it, but they're doing the exact same thing you are - using the same processes to achieve something that's favorable to them.

> Nobody has ever said "I don't want denser housing to be built anywhere"

Conversely, plenty of people say "I don't want single family housing to be built anywhere"

And they can kiss my ass.

> If your neighbor wants to convert their house into a duplex, and two families want to live there, why should you be able to stop them?

This is such a strawman. No one is protesting duplexes. People protest against developers buying up a dozen lots and building 100 condos on the space. My neighbour going from 1 family to 2 isn't likely to affect me at all. My neighbourhood going from 12 houses to 2 condo buildings absolutely will affect me. It will completely change the nature of my surroundings in a negative (to me) manner.

We have 3, and basically everywhere else is just strip malls, Targets, and "lifestyle centers." America is a beautiful country and we're just paving it.

How terrible, a dense urban jungle, with miles and miles of quadplexes. You can barely see the sun anymore, blotted out by gigantic two-story buildings.

Yes. This is the counter argument. No strawman here.

So are two-story single family homes usually banned in these neighbourhoods? Maybe they should mandate that buildings are half inside ground so they would be even lower allowing even more light.

The YIMBYs want to move to your neighborhood, so you and your neighbors are obligated to make as much space for them as needed. Oh, you like your neighborhood how it is?

Don't worry, you'll learn to love <relying on public transport instead of cars, no parking, increased traffic, blocked out sunlight, tiny and eventually no yards, large buildings next door>. Your way of living is bad because cars and sprawl are bad and YIMBYs don't like them, they think the walkable urban mixed use neighborhoods are superior, so we're going to remove the zoning to force change. Aren't those things what you want?

No? Well you'll learn to like them, because you shouldn't have power over what your neighbor can build on their property. You say your neighborhood overwhelmingly votes to keep it that way, not just you? Actually, your neighborhood shouldn't have power to vote for this zoning either, because we know what's best for your neighborhood, not you.

This is how every argument with a YIMBY goes.

You left out morality attacks and disregarding decades of legal contracts and legislation that created the value they often want to pillage.

I intentionally left out YIMBY moral grandstanding, because it's usually a shield to hide the real reason they feel zoning should be changed: "I can't afford your neighborhood and I want to live there"

aka I want to use guilt, envy, and the legal system to extract value from your legal property.

That's just good business! If you don't like it, move.

Says the side typically on the losing side of the law and complaining to their activist friends in journalism.

We live in a highly competitive individualistic society where money and power buy all, including the ability to dip into playing zoning games using migration strategies. If people don't like that, they should move to a region which has a society more in accordance with their values.

I agree. Don't be bitter when the pendulum swings.

There's no moral grandstanding. Some people just think you shouldn't be able to be so rich. The reason you are is because the masses allow you the privilege. You might as well be graceful about it.

At least be straightforward with the reasoning, then. If the mainstream YIMBY said "I want to live in your neighborhood and I can't afford it, therefore the zoning should be changed", or "you're too rich because of zoning so I want to remove it so we are more equal," I'd have more respect.

But usually it's something about how mixed use neighborhoods are better, or how someone on minimum wage can't afford to live on their own in a very expensive neighborhood. Ok, but those probably aren't the real reasons you're advocating for change. Just be direct.

Language that straightforward is surprisingly hard to find among the YIMBY croud.

Yes anarchy and mob rule are always an option in theory.

You and your neighbors aren't obligated to make as much space for them as needed, you just shouldn't have the power to stop people that would like to make space for them. Zoning changes don't obligate someone to sell their house and build a duplex, they just let someone do that if they want to.

Zoning laws make sure a community stays as the community desires. A community bans large apartment buildings for the same reason they ban power plants; construction benefits the property owner at the detriment of adjacent property owners.

The NIMBYs don't want to let me build what I want on my own land.

Then move somewhere that does let you build it. Your local community has made a decision to disallow whatever it is you want to construct.

Can I not, as part of my local community, advocate for my right to build what I want on my land? Can the person who wants to have only low density not move somewhere else if the community decides to allow density?

Yes. But clearly that isn’t what your community wants or they would have voted to ease zoning restrictions.

More or less, yes. They declare themselves to be the only authority on how land should be used, despite not owning any or living there at all.

Having a duplex next door doesn't put you in a "dense urban jungle".

Is Paris a "dense urban jungle"? There are plenty of sustainable and practical urban forms outside of Manhattan-style high-rises.

"Most residents who showed up to Thursday evening’s meeting opposed the move, citing concerns about gentrification, property values and quality of life."

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