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Comment by helen___keller | Hacker News Reader

> When local zoning authorities require ground-floor retail in new developments, but the local vacancy rate for such space is over (say) 5%, then the developer receives a "lease put option" - allowing him to rent that retail space to the zoning municipality at (say) 80% of the then-current local rental rates for similar spaces. If the municipality fails to pay up, it loses its zoning authority.

I see what you’re getting at but for all of americas zoning woes, I don’t think the answer is to make a patchwork of laws that say “if current zoning causes a bad outcome, cover their losses or lose your zoning authority”

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Trying to understand what you are going for here. In my experience in 2 separate cities, lack of ground floor retail leads to barren neighborhoods of luxury condos that aren’t in walking distance of anything meaningful. And frequently, the ground floor retail that is put in is priced unreasonably so as to stay vacant. But you think that we should encourage everyone to overprice so as to increase the put option value? And you like the idea of vacant space?

they're building these ground floor retail everywhere here.

the only useful one is a grocer that sources labor from volunteers for discounts on food.

the rest appear empty or have bars /(also empty) or some other useless high expense niche purpose.

it's definitely a situation that zoning alone won't fix. I'm definitely in a food desert and the closest grocer is a coop that probably doesn't support low cost food options.

there's no capitalism or market based fixes here. you need to actually get your hands dirty if you want to improve quality of life

zoning and business laws prevent market based solutions, so we don't know that there aren't market fixes. The retail space prices are so absurd because there was only a limited part of the city where you can do retail. Go to 'third world countries' and there are plenty of groceries in neighborhoods as well as street vendors that are illegal in the US.

You’re right, if we have this authority we could just radically relax zoning laws in the first place. Most of the things people are using zoning for, like not living near noise or pollution are already directly regulated, and directly regulating the bad thing works better anyways.

I don't think zoning laws need relaxation... just a radical overhaul towards walkable more dense cities :)

I think it is interesting in concept.

It would basically hold the government and public accountable for the negative externalities of zoning decisions.

This is obviously attractive if you already think free use of private property is the natural state.

Eg if the state says you can't live in or rent your property, they should compensate you for the value they get.

Obviously, I think it would be ripe for corruption

As a landlord, I could rent to a tenant for $2k/mo with all the risks and wear/tear from that lease - or I could hijack the rent to $20k/mo, let the property sit empty for the predetermined time, and then force-feed the lease to the city.

No, you couldn't, your list price near comes into it the way it was written up

How does a valid range of list prices get determined?

In the parent post, they said:

>80% of the then-current local rental rates for similar spaces.

That is to say, you benchmark it. If someone across the street is renting their place for $1000, and the city says you cant rent yours, they would have to pay you $800 to keep it empty.

Benchmarking sounds complicated, but is extremely common. My city reassesses my property value using benchmarks every year to determine property taxes. Of course, they use totally unrealistic numbers, and I have to call them out on it, and then they back down because they are indefensible.

it'd just buy more regulatory capture.

zoning is not driving high density problems. it's capitalism and the fear of "socialism"

I assume you are trolling?

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