Comment by kshacker | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kshacker | Hacker News Reader

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Most of the grassroots level opposition is because developers lie, bribe and threaten their way out of honest development. I used to live in Cupertino (left 5 years back) and you had to be there to see the heavy handed tactics. Developers will promise one thing then once the contract was signed, bit by bit they will work with the city to roll back public benefits. And then the fights amongst city council - ugly at times in social media (Nextdoor). Nextdoor may be ugly itself but sometimes it exposes the fault lines very clearly since you see the same people parroting the lines over and over, after some time you just understand their tilt without anyone having to tell you so.

And this is not just Cupertino. I read stories from Saratoga, Sunnyvale, and San Jose. Wherever you get big money, some people get corrupted, and they don't work in the interest of the society. I mention San Jose but that is an example of city so big that neighborhood complaints can be killed quite easily since mobilizing the entire city to fight in behalf of one corner is not easy, so that's where the cities end up winning - they can do whatever without worrying "much" about the residents. But smaller cities can fight back and IMO they should until they get delivered what was promised.

Why is it the responsibility of a developer to provide public benefits? That's the responsibility of the city. The developers should just be building the actual housing, which the cities by and large do not allow at all.

The benefits are essentially bribes to the citizens and planning departments.

It would be irritating if someone bribed you to be able to do something, then once they did it the check bounced!

Indeed. It's especially irritating that such bribes are necessary to get approval to build anything in the first place.

On one hand? Yes.

On the other - real estate/physical locations are the one thing that fundamentally is limited and where distance and control really, really matter for a specific outcome or circumstance to exist.

Rural Idaho, little/no competition, no need for heavy rules to avoid it turning into complete anarchy.

Manhattan? Completely different story.

And there is only one manhattan (and only one of any given spot in rural Idaho, too, but a lot of any given spots).

The way these things tend to work in the cities is heavy rules, and then you have to apply for exceptions. Often, the rules are ‘no, you can’t build without an exception’.

So then, it’s all about making a good case you need an exception. The ‘benefits to the community’ is the ‘bribe’ as to why your good case should get the exception.

It’s hard to see what the alternative is, frankly, when you look at the on the ground reality - there is rarely a rule anyone could write that wouldn’t cause massive problems if applied naively in these dense environments.

And if the people living somewhere want to reduce/avoid certain types of problems, what else are they going to do?

And someone can say ‘fuck ‘em, they don’t get to say no’ - but most people saying that will very much change their tune when they’re on the other end of the bargain.

Manhattan got the way it is today precisely because it DIDN'T use to have all of these restrictive rules prohibiting development. Indeed if those rules had been around a century or more ago, it wouldn't be the #1 city in the country. Chicago would be.

You've got it precisely backwards. The excessive rules are harmful, period, and are significantly hurting housing affordability. The lack of them is what made this city great back in the day (and it's still coasting on that inertia, though only growing more and more unaffordable over time).

The most recent dumb rule that was tacked on recently essentially made it impossible to build new hotels* (see https://therealdeal.com/new-york/2022/12/09/how-special-are-... ). Not a single hotel has been granted permission since that law passed several years back. Now add on top the AirBnb ban and we're making it significantly more expensive to visit NYC, which is hurting our tourism industry. All for completely dumb reasons. Build more hotels, build more housing, let the city thrive.

* This law was passed not because it's a good idea, but because of captured interests, namely, the existing hotel operators who didn't want further competition. It's anti-competitive, not "a good law that you need in a dense city" as you are characterizing things.

None of what you’re saying changes anything or conflicts with what I’m saying, near as I can tell?

Of course the rules are there to maintain the status quo?

Do you think they don’t know that?

The rules won’t change until long after it’s started to be unsustainable either. That’s normal.

The only people who are going to pre-emptively change the rules to make things better are the folks who are competing to be the next ‘big thing’, not the already big thing.

The already big thing is trying to not lose what they already somehow got. They’re going to be fundamentally conservative unless they’re very risk tolerant, which is rare.

New Jersey is much more friendly zoning and taxation wise than New York, for example.

I think the reference here, is to a certain amount of park land, trails, etc in a large project, and some low income housing.

Right, none of that is the responsibility of the developers to provide. That's for the city to provide.

What's going on, however, is that California has hamstrung its ability to charge its existing citizens the costs of the services they are incurring thanks to Proposition 13, hence why expensive taxes, fees, and required public improvements are levied on new development. The wealthy older people who already own property (and aren't paying much for it) are being subsidized by the younger generation, and are paying out more than their fair share.

> Most of the grassroots level opposition is because developers lie, bribe and threaten their way out of honest development. I used to live in Cupertino (left 5 years back) and you had to be there to see the heavy handed tactics. Developers will promise one thing then once the contract was signed, bit by bit they will work with the city to roll back public benefits.

I live in the state capitol of Washington. I could not agree more. What is even more galling is how open it is. Because I've done a lot with public services here, I have a lot of people on my FB feed who are involved in city politics, and several of them are close personal friends with many of the larger developers in the city. Not just socializing and meet and greets, but "We're going on vacation to Vegas together" and such. And then people wonder why our city is so "developer-friendly".

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