Does any city have a well functioning design review process or are they all captured by incumbents to slow down development?
> Meanwhile, a bill moving forward in the legislature introduced by Representative Amy Walen (D-48, Bellevue) would ban design review for housing projects statewide.
I have this bookmarked to contact my reps and senator to join as co-sponsors.[1]
[1]: https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=1026&Year=2023...
Dogwhistle for NIMBYs though it may be, something akin to "neighborhood character" is a legitimate thing that residents benefit from (including and perhaps especially lower-income residents who would otherwise be priced out), and its loss is absolutely an externalized cost in terms of qualify of day-to-day life. Green spaces, shade trees, etc. are nontrivial in their importance to residents, and the importance of deliberately preserving or expanding those features actually increases as density increases, because otherwise they will be lost and possibly gone forever.
So I don't think it makes sense to be an absolutist about design review. But there do need to be some checks in place to prevent abuse by incumbent property owners. I don't know what those would look like, but I also know that a treeless street walled in with apartment buildings and no local shops or other amenities makes for a sad shitty neighborhood. Housing equity needs to be about the complete lifestyle, not just about making more physical square feet that humans can theoretically inhabit. Otherwise we're just repeating a denser version of the same development mistakes that gave us stroads and suburban sprawl.
Of course, "existing condo sues other condos" isn't quite the same thing. The loss of the view is legitimately an externality, but here I think it comes down to a question of whether the current owners are entitled to their view, or if it was always a temporary benefit that would exist only until other condos were built.
They just want to do it without spending money.
Design review can slow things down, sure, but they eventually do get built. These buildings will be around for 100+ years, taking a year to get the design right for everyone isn't the end of the world.
And there are a bunch of easy things we could do to get more housing made, with fewer drawbacks like rushing out massive towers, like allowing duplexes or fourplexes in single-family neighborhoods.
This is such a middle of the road, easy, low-drawback compromise that I can't believe it's not happened already.
There are empty lots around the corner from me, and I hope they build as much housing on them as possible.
This argument actually does your argument a disservice. And I agree with your argument.
I've talked with plenty of NIMBYs in my neiborhood when an apartment building was going through approval. They aren't racists. And in fact they are often people of color. Their concerns aren't with poor people either. They tend to mention things like parking, traffic, density, character. Instead of immediately calling them racists, I think it's better to take them at their word and build and argument against it from there.
"I don't mind people being poor, so long as they don't drive on the same roads I do, and there aren't too many of them, and they don't in any way change the status quo as it existed the moment I finished unpacking my moving boxes."
Call it whatever you want, but a focus on property values is always a push for higher economic brackets, never lower.
Oh did you mean work well for the general public?
Though it was recently restructured, the BRA's long history of corruption is extremely well-documented and publicized. I'm not sure what would compel someone to leave a comment like this without taking two seconds to google it. Cynically slinging mud, maybe?
For example, projects compliant with zoning in New York can be built as-of-right and all review processes are administrative (e.g. fire code compliance)
In the course of attending those, I usually got to sit through 3-5 others each time. All of the discussions seemed quite reasonable and almost all were approved as proposed or with only minor changes. When an abutter is making obviously nonsense arguments, they get to say their piece and then the project is approved; when there are genuine concerns about the proposed variance, the design board seems to help the applicant reach a state that balances applicant’s desire to use their property and whatever the underlying reason for the rule they’re seeking relief from is.
For those who've never been, Cambridge is one of the densest cities in the entire US -- ~122,400 people over 6.4 square miles of land -- even though it's predominantly three story tenements throughout, and still maintains a 1950s Americana "Main Street USA" running through the core of the city.
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Though a fair number of the Boston "suburban cities" (save Brookline) have been re-reviewing their zoning and review processes. They all know they're landlocked and out of room with regulations that prevented further building what was already there. It's been nice to see that become increasingly relaxed to allow things to get done.
Edit: I reminded myself elsewhere that SF is also pretty bad as this goes.
The end result is often much more livable than the endless suburban hellsprawl that we get here.
Yet somehow everything ends up paved over with a high rise on it eventually, like it or not.
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/city-repor...
I'd like to know what definition you're using for "everything" here because the vast majority of residential land is zoned exclusively for single-family homes and indeed that's mostly what gets built.
So high density housing can't be build because there is no transit, and high capacity transit can't be built because there is no high density housing.
Edit: I'm referring to LA. My impression is SF is small enough that this isn't a big issue.
Less than 2000 feet from the geographical center of town, I live in a fully detached single family home with a huge backyard. My Walkscore of 35 equates to the nearest full line supermarket being a solid mile away, mostly flat, the nearest corner store is 0.8 miles away with 364 feet of elevation changes, too.
:30 minutes between runs of the bus means that all of my neighbors and I tend to drive everywhere. Trust me, this is not ideal.
SF doesn't need high speed metro. Cheap options like BRT, trams & separated bike/scooter lanes solve most of its variable demand. In SF, the transit vs housing conundrum is trivial. Build transit, and remove height restrictions in a 1000-ft radius in each stops location.
LA is harder to remedy. The city is so catastrophically designed, that any fix will bleed money before it ever stabilizes. At the same time, LA's housing isn't as expensive as SF. So, they could start with focusing on public transportation exclusively. (BRT + park-n-rides seem perfect for LA) and worrying about the zoning later.
I guess all people deal in the same tired cliches. I am not exception.
> Yet somehow everything ends up paved over with a high rise on it eventually, like it or not.
Also this is just false.