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Comment by econonut | Hacker News Reader

Yes, gas stoves are an unfortunate victim of climate policies enacted at the local level as city governments aim to ban all natural gas appliances in new construction in their misguided attempt to save the planet. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty they can do, but banning gas stoves is a ridiculous overstep.

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I think it's not just about saving the planet. The gases and combustion are also a contaminant for human health. Especially children.

I don't have a beef with California for mandating this. I do prefer gas stoves. I can get over it.

Cities are able to take this action because they know they have no intention of building anything ever again, so the impact to actual residents and voters is zero. I should know: my city of Berkeley was the first to ban them. It is pure greenwashing.

The final insult is single-family home construction and remodel can elect to use gas if they want.

That's fine for your city, but sucks for those of us living in the midwest. I can't speak for every city, but our growing city likes to model its policies after CA policies, so we get thousands of newly built electric-only homes & apartments.

Well, if your city adopts every dumb idea from Berkeley, that's on you guys. I thought everyone knew we are nuts.

>but our growing city likes to model its policies after CA policies

Who elects your city leaders? This is your own fault. If your city liked to model its policies after Russian policies, or Saudi Arabian policies, would that be those countries' fault?

It's hard for a regulation like this to be retroactive. There are a lot of gas stoves in use. It's not feasible to replace them all, for various reasons. So, restricting to new construction makes sense.

Most bay area cities need to build more than they are, but I know that new construction in Berkeley is not zero. One of the last times I was there, I saw some new apartments going up.

> Cities are able to take this action because they know they have no intention of building anything ever again,

California cities don’t, since their choice now is between “approve enough new housing voluntarily” or “lose the ability to reject new housing entirely”.

Builder's remedy expansion under the Housing Crisis Act of 2019 has changed the landscape fundamentally.

Get back to me as soon as any "builder's remedy" project breaks ground.

If the threat of using the builder's remedy successfully gets cities to change behavior, isn't that working correctly despite no "builder's remedy project breaking ground"?

I'd imagine also that these things take years. First for the law to take effect, since that can't be immediate, and then for any enforcement of it to go through the courts.

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