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Stopping people from developing land to the legally defined limit that they have lawfully purchased is NOT the right of any community. It is in fact a taking and a perversion of the rule of law.

Furthermore no one is arguing that density drives down prices. You’re arguing against a straw man here. People are pointing out correctly, and in line with all housing economists, that constraining supply raises prices.

False on both counts.

First, it's 100% the right of communities to establish - and change - zoning laws. Those can change after a property is acquired.

More importantly - this issue is not about people having zoning changed from under their noses, rather, it's about developers interested in creating different kinds of accommodation then those that have previously existed under existing rules. They knew what they were getting into when they bought the land. This is not 'zoning rug pull' kind of activity.

Second - this push is mostly about issues affordability. Cali legislation was driven by it.

"Governor Newsom Signs Legislation to Increase Affordable Housing Supply and Strengthen Accountability, Highlights Comprehensive Strategy to Tackle Housing Crisis" [1]

What you are calling a 'straw man' is literally 'the man'.

[1] https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/09/28/governor-newsom-signs-legi...

> First, it's 100% the right of communities to establish - and change - zoning laws.

That’s not the argument I’m making. I’m saying that communities have no right to arbitrarily block uses that comply with existing code. This is a rule of law issue. SF has admitted to violating state law which supersedes local law.

Again, my point is that YIMBYs are not making the claim that density per se drives down costs.

But yes arbitrarily restricting housing supply does create affordability issues. The NIMBYs of SF in the end if they win will find that they have created a museum of SF.

> First, it's 100% the right of communities to establish - and change - zoning laws

Ok, well it is also the right of the state to make laws and force these communities to change, under threat of government force.

Which is what is happening right now. There are going to be lawsuits that force communities to allow people to do what they want, with their own property.

Go win a state election if you disagree.

That "legally defined limit" is defined by zoning. So one can't say that they support maintaining existing limits and yet want existing zoning unilaterally ended.

The problem is that SF is arbitrarily denying projects that comply with existing zoning and violating state law in doing so.

Its the rate of change in prices that is hopefully moderated by building more houses.

I think you’re agreeing with me.

>If citizens moved into a community because it was 'spacious and quiet' then it's 100% their right to keep it that way

I'm not from the US, would you able to explain why this is a 'right'? Especially when, from my loose understanding of the situation, the state law seems to be on the side of those you call "outsiders"?

Because it's their home, and they literally own the land.

Irrespective of the legalities, you do realize zoning is an almost universal concept?

You do realize that you can't just waltz into some neighbourhood, and screw everyone over by building a giant skyscraper in the middle of their land? (Even if this law were supposedly upheld)

Probably over 90% of communities in the US, even those with more open zoning, wouldn't allow any arbitrary thing to be built.

Finally, it's debatable if the 'state law' is on their side, or even if it's constitutional.

A better question would be why you think you have a right to go into a quiet community and screw everyone over?

Your actions affect others. If the community doesn't want some thing, then go elsewhere. There's plenty of land.

In a place like Hong Kong, where land is very scarce, you run into a completely different set of social issues, with the poor being held to the economic wall otherwise. There's plenty of space in the US, even in Cali.

Fun fact: Houston doesn’t have zoning and somehow it works just fine. There are deep restricted communities but you know that before you buy there.

You've never lived in Houston, have you? It's a depressing concrete swamp with high cancer rates. The defining aesthetic is "strip mall" and the traffic is from Hell. The nice parts are the parts filled with rich NIMBYs, like the Rice campus and the wooded neighborhoods to the west of downtown.

Edit: I forgot to mention all the cheap housing built by profit-hawks on flood plains that was destroyed or severely damaged in Harvey.

Why include all those little personal jabs? It doesn't make me any more inclined to agree with your point of view.

>A better question would be why you think you have a right to go into a quiet community and screw everyone over?

I didn't even come close to suggesting that I should be able to go somewhere and screw people over. It almost feels like you're replying to some other comment, given how little relevance it had to my question.

Single family only zoning is not very universal. It's largely a US and Canada thing and it's a relatively recent phenomenon.

Residential in european countries allows small multifamily and small-scale business like bakeries so it would be considered mixed-use in the US/Canada.

Agreed. Same in Japan, where the basic zoning allows for triplexes with low impact businesses allowed as a percentage of the square footage, having setbacks to ensure you don't put three stories on the edge of your property blocking the neighbors sun all day. As a result they have walkable neighborhoods with character and variety.

It's disappointing that NIMBYs in the U.S. have basically forced all new construction to big single use single family housing developments on the edges of urban areas. They say they are opposed to large developers, but large developers are the only ones who can navigate the current zoning regime. As a result we car dependent housing developments with no character and no variety.

You can't build a skyscraper on someone elses land. It would be your own land. To buy the land, the community has to sell it to you.

To encumber someone else from building something on their own land - is strange and greedy. You're trying to capture the value of your neighbours land without giving them anything for it.

If you want to live in a house, surrounded by other houses then you need to buy all the surrounding land so you can decide what gets built on it.

If you allowed the density to increase, single detached "quiet" houses would become cheaper and more people would be able to live in them - because the people who want higher density but can't have it are forced into buying bigger houses at higher prices.

I don’t think the point is turning communities into NY and LA. The world is full of places that are neither single family homes only or skyscrapers only. Yet America has a weird attachment to (exclusively) single family homes and car-dependent life.

I believe that communities and small cities could be a more vibrant and livable place when they are slightly denser and more walkable.

My smallish city is 20 miles south of SF and it’s becoming more and more walkable and bikeable unlike sprawling San Jose or mansion-only Atherton.

Policies against density and development are so harmful that areas of London that were bombed in WWII are more productive today that those untouched.

If your policy makes blown up rubble more valuable, it's a bad policy.

> And FYI there's no evidence that 'density' decreases prices. The most 'dense' places in the US are the most expensive.

What is causality.

If those areas were not bombed, those businesses would have just located somewhere else.

'Productivity / Square Km' is a nonsense metric. It means nothing.

It doesn't matter what the causality of high density rent is, what matters is 'affordability' which is a stated object of the 'build out' people.

> If citizens moved into a community because it was 'spacious and quiet' then it's 100% their right to keep it that way

You and I bought our land, not the right to do whatever around. You need to come around to the fact that California is going to get a lot denser when the boomers are dead.

You need to come around to the fact that people who live in areas have the right to live they they want.

You need to come around to the fact that 'density' is a worthless metric, that has little advantage.

It's laughable that you think 'boomers' are the one's who want to live in peace and quiet, that's 99% of people. Almost anyone, were they able to move to Atherton, would not want low cost density next to them.

FYI people are leaving Cali, build better transport and it'll solve a lot of these problems.

>If citizens moved into a community because it was 'spacious and quiet' then it's 100% their right to keep it that way, and utterly bizarre that outsider should think they have the right to force some kind of change.

No, it's not. If you want the entire town to be frozen in time then you should purchase the entire town. Your right to control development ends at the property line.

It's also utterly hypocritical in the Bay Area's case because it contradicts the position taken by most of the local and state governments on immigration; they proudly proclaim their status as "sanctuary cities" where all immigrants are welcome, but at the same time they don't want anybody new (whether they're immigrant or not) moving into their neighborhoods.

The NIMBY attitude in Bay Area cities is ridiculous because it's Trumpism on a local scale. They want to prevent "outsiders" from living in their community because they perceive that they are somehow negatively impacted by other people being able to obtain affordable housing.

>The 'solution' is probably to have much better/deeper/faster integration between transport services, how in holy cow is there not a 'very fast train' that goes around the bay, out to Sac, down to Morgan Hill, and up to Santa Rosa? With great connectors?

because NIMBYs don't want it. They'll complain about the noise, or that it ruins "the view"/"the character"/etc, or that it might indirectly urbanize their town despite no new housing being constructed, or that it'll make it easier for homeless people to come in, etc.

What was interesting to watch was all the early anarcho/libertarian techies moving to the city because they couldn’t rent/buy anything in the valley and then see the jealousy of the latter anarcho/libertarians techies who were late to the party.

*IMBYism is just a function of their arrival to the orgy. Anecdotes aside, they’re not YIMBYs, they’re mostly YIYBYs. When you talk to them, talk about building towers on Valencia or Dolores. They’ll quickly pivot to what other people need to be doing in Karland.

Given that HN sees SF as a Hellscape now, we did them a favor.

It has nothing to do with 'yimby/imby/anarcho' anything.

People who live in quiet communities generally don't want their areas turning into Manhatten, that's it, it's the same everywhere.