Hacker News Reader

Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

> So it's just a matter of some space and noise barriers.

And guess what's often hotly contested. Noise barriers tend to draw complaints because they ruin the sightline, are either ugly from the start or end up being "decorated" not by good art but quick throw tags. And landlords are often too much penny-pinchers to install decent windows unless you legally require them to, which is often impossible for already constructed buildings. The landlords don't have to live with the noise after all, and in overheated housing markets people are forced to live in what they can get.

View on HN

This is my major problem as a renter in the US. The minimum code really is too minimum. The city ordinances also enforce high limits on walls in ways that preserve a baby boomer childhood era view of suburbs.

It'd suck less if it felt like E.G. noise and environmental pollution ordinances were ever enforced. (Break up those parties and stop people from doing trash burns / crappy fires during burn bans which are pretty much always...)

If we relaxed our zoning, your low quality apartment would be much cheaper, and you would be able to afford something better.

I do strongly agree about specific kinds of relaxing.

  * Clear and concise approvals process
  * No more NIMBY BS
  * Impact based assessment (similar to Japans)
  * Possibly goals to encourage desired types of use (but not hard LIMIT beyond disallowed!)

While at the same time, the quality of built items should be increased. That is the minimum code should reflect a value that produces a good quality of life for those in the buildings at a reasonable expenditure of resources over the lifetime of the building.

Generally, deregulation in housing would lead directly to improved quality. Right now, almost all new housing is built to minimum building code, because we are so supply constrained that there's no incentive to differentiate.

If you allow anyone to build (aka if you let people build on their land even if they're next to houses), you create space for quality differentiation in the market.

Note: land use code and building code are almost always different parts of law. You can simply delete land use code without having any impact on building quality.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com