Yimby housing bills are wildly unpopular in the state (CA), a new poll shows

mullingitover 2021-08-17 18:54:25 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> Only 12 percent of respondents said California needs more market-rate housing, and 61 percent said the state needs more affordable housing and housing for homeless people.

I don't think most people understand that if market-rate housing isn't built en masse, and there's just 'affordable housing' allowed, the result will be mostly insanely expensive housing for the vast majority and a small token effort at affordable housing. End result? Millions of people paying ~50% of their income in rent.

civilized 2021-08-17 18:59:38 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I worry that they understand too well the law of supply and demand, and prefer a small amount of designated affordable housing if it lets them salve their conscience over keeping the overall supply down, so that their own home values can continue to skyrocket.

But I don't know for sure. Someone should research this... but they would need to be very skeptical and probing, not just taking people's statements at face value.

dionidium 2021-08-17 19:17:01 +0000 UTC [ - ]

There's some truth to this, but it doesn't paint the full picture. In high-demand areas it's the land that's valuable, not the structures on the land. If Palo Alto, say, were upzoned prices wouldn't fall. Developers would love to buy that land and develop it.

That's not to say that literally every single neighborhood would benefit from upzoning, but the areas most in need of upzoning do have this property.

Yet homeowners oppose it. This suggests that their arguments against zoning are sincere. People genuinely do not want more density in their neighborhoods. It's not entirely a cynical ploy to boost home values.

mullingitover 2021-08-17 19:51:29 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> People genuinely do not want more density in their neighborhoods.

I'm happy for them. That's all well and good, but when you buy a plot of land you buy that land, you don't get controlling interest in the whole neighborhood.

These shenanigans are starting to get cracked down upon at the state level, because of course local fiefdoms are going to craft self-serving policies. In aggregate, however, they ultimately strangle the economic potential of the state. There's a great writeup of how the state of California is bringing discipline to the (lack of) statewide housing development here[1].

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/nqpc91/lets_tal...

dionidium 2021-08-17 20:44:27 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I agree entirely, as my other comments in this thread show. I just think it's useful to properly situate and understand the arguments of your opponents. There are enough liars in the world; when we can take people at their word, we should try to do that.

perl4ever 2021-08-18 01:35:36 +0000 UTC [ - ]

>In high-demand areas it's the land that's valuable, not the structures on the land

There's an old saying, tax something, get less of it. Often used to support some atavistic conservative position, it nonetheless seems relevant here.

  1. We want more affordable housing.
  2. The cost of land is a major problem.
  3. So, tax the land value mostly out of existence and don't tax the improvements at all.

It may sound crazy but why not give it a go? The key idea is that land is the one thing that you don't get less of when you tax it. Nor can you get more of it by taxing it less.

This is not my idea, it's based on economic ideas over a century old, although I wouldn't go so far as to say the only tax should be land value. Just maybe see if specifically real estate and its taxes could be unfucked in this way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

This is almost too perfect:

"One day in 1871 George went for a horseback ride and stopped to rest while overlooking San Francisco Bay. He later wrote of the revelation that he had:

I asked a passing teamster, for want of something better to say, what land was worth there. He pointed to some cows grazing so far off that they looked like mice, and said, "I don't know exactly, but there is a man over there who will sell some land for a thousand dollars an acre." Like a flash it came over me that there was the reason of advancing poverty with advancing wealth. With the growth of population, land grows in value, and the men who work it must pay more for the privilege"

kiba 2021-08-17 19:26:58 +0000 UTC [ - ]

We know what the problem is. But what is the solution?

I can't imagine locking in the price and paying homeowners the current value of their land.

credit_guy 2021-08-17 21:13:24 +0000 UTC [ - ]

  >> People genuinely do not want more density in their neighborhoods

How is that not NIMBYism ?

dionidium 2021-08-18 15:05:07 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It is NIMBYism. I'm describing NIMBYism.

reccanti 2021-08-17 19:46:24 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I think the view that we “just need more market-rate housing” is simplistic. Blindly building lots of housing doesn’t necessarily mean that people are going to move there. In Boston, for example, many of the luxury condos that have been built are being used as investment properties:

https://ips-dc.org/report-towering-excess/

I think the 61% of people who want affordable housing and homeless housing recognize these failures, which is why they want a more direct solution.

jhundal 2021-08-17 20:03:34 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The data cited on the summary page of the study does not support the conclusion that those units are unoccupied, which I think is the key question here. It does say that 64% do not claim a residential exemption on property tax, but [1] indicates that could just mean those units are rented out since the exemption only applies to owner occupied properties.

[1]: https://www.boston.gov/departments/assessing/filing-property...

geofft 2021-08-17 20:10:00 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Isn't most of the housing stock that is used as an investment property occupied, i.e., being rented out?

Also, the flip side of the argument is that not building lots of housing doesn't necessarily mean that people aren't going to move there. If you have a bunch of housing that is "not for existing Bostonians" as the page says, and it's getting rented/sold, one common reason is that your city is an attractive employment location for high-paying jobs (for Boston I'd guess tech and biotech) and so people are moving in. Not building new housing for those people doesn't immediately make your city unattractive; it just means that this crowd of people with high-paying jobs will take over your existing housing stock because they can outbid "existing Bostonians."

hindsightbias 2021-08-17 22:17:51 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Redmond (the author) would say for YIMBYs in the SF, "market rate" is synonymous with luxury. The "free market" will maximize returns, and the guy in the tent isn't their target market.

https://www.goethe.de/prj/tbp/en/bpa/exp.html

helen___keller 2021-08-17 18:58:43 +0000 UTC [ - ]

of course, most people feel like the level of density they have now is roughly the correct level density, it just needs to "be cheaper". Nevermind trillions in infrastructure spending on the assumption of low density suburban lifestyle.

I'll fight for YIMBY policy til the bitter end, but unless there's a cultural shift back towards the idea of stronger property freedoms wrt real estate, I don't see us making strides against housing costs. A lot of the modern zoning code was built to protect us from urban woes that literally do not exist anymore in this country - preventing things like noisy polluting factories next to apartment buildings in the middle of a city. We exported the factories to China and kept the zoning code as a cudgel to prevent dense housing.

dublinben 2021-08-17 19:07:53 +0000 UTC [ - ]

>urban woes

The "urban woes" that suburban zoning laws were passed to prevent were minorities, not factories. The roots of zoning and NIMBY attitudes are racial segregation.[0]

[0]https://wwnorton.com/books/The-Color-of-Law/

helen___keller 2021-08-17 19:11:12 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I agree, but there were genuinely a lot of issues with industrial revolution living (tenements, poor sanitation, pollution, etc) and preventing these is something I've seen as a pro-zoning talking point.

dionidium 2021-08-17 19:23:46 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Yes, but not just that. Euclid v. Ambler makes it clear that modern zoning is also about pathologizing apartment living. It was a direct attack on density, which it literally described as parasitic. The decision is pretty wild:

> "With particular reference to apartment houses, it is pointed out that the development of detached house sections is greatly retarded by the coming of apartment houses, which has sometimes resulted in destroying the entire section for private house purposes; that in such sections very often the apartment house is a mere parasite, constructed in order to take advantage of the open spaces and attractive surroundings created by the residential character of the district. Moreover, the coming of one apartment house is followed by others, interfering by their height and bulk with the free circulation of air and monopolizing the rays of the sun which otherwise would fall upon the smaller homes, and bringing, as their necessary accompaniments, the disturbing noises incident to increased traffic and business, and the occupation, by means of moving and parked automobiles, of larger portions of the streets, thus detracting from their safety and depriving children of the privilege of quiet and open spaces for play, enjoyed by those in more favored localities-until, finally, the residential character of the neighborhood and its desirability as a place of detached residences are utterly destroyed. Under these circumstances, apartment houses, which in a different environment would be not only entirely unobjectionable but highly desirable, come very near to being nuisances."

Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/272/365

This is all plainly nonsense. These judges don't like apartment buildings. Great. Good for them. I don't like disco or onions. But they invented a constitutional justification for their distaste from thin air and that's modern zoning.

mullingitover 2021-08-17 19:37:26 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Wow. Yeah, that's some chutzpah:

> ...in such sections very often the apartment house is a mere parasite, constructed in order to take advantage of the open spaces and attractive surroundings created by the residential character of the district.

Ironically it's the low density that's parasitizing the city because the infrastructure maintenance is far more costly than what the low density residential tax base can support.

swiley 2021-08-17 19:13:46 +0000 UTC [ - ]

>I'll fight for YIMBY policy til the bitter end

Man I'd just move if I lived somewhere like that. In fact, I did. There's infrastructure, dense housing, etc. I can select exactly what I want in the "affordability, amenities, commute" triangle and am supper happy with what I have. I also pretty much just walked in and filled out the application for my current apartment. There are condos around here that I can afford and I'm thinking about buying one soon. The trip to my parent's isn't too too long so I still visit them (and they visit me) a few times a month.

Let the NIMBYs have their crappy low density neighborhoods with half their neighbors living on their lawns. Don't be the man raging against the machine.

helen___keller 2021-08-17 19:22:52 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I did, I moved to one of the few municipalities in Greater Boston that experienced double digit percent growth in the past decade. Unfortunately, we're still a tiny fraction of the region as a whole, and there's nothing we can do about the fact that most towns in greater Boston built enough housing to grow their population by maybe 1-3% in a decade (tragically including several with access to rapid transit) - while prices doubled almost everywhere here in the same time frame.

specialist 2021-08-17 20:14:37 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> ...til the bitter end

I'm of two minds.

#1 Any progress has to done on the down low.

Consider our history. Advocacy for fairness, justice, balance always triggers a massive backlash.

Meanwhile, massive decades long investment strategy created a rich ecosystem for deeply unpopular policy agenda has resulted in a nearly complete takeover of our government and society.

Don't storm the castle. Rock, paper, scissors. There's got to be 100s of small wins which cement a lasting victory.

Neither Rome or our liberal democracy were toppled in a day. The attacks were tiny, incremental, seemingly insignificant at the time.

What are the administrative, procedural, non-threatening pro-YIMBY reforms which can be rolled out over decades, peicemeal, scattered across the land?

#2 Settle for Pyrrhic victories

Opportunity for large scale, durable reforms are rare. Maybe every 20 to 40 years. And the effort consumes the coalition advocating the reform.

As said above, any amount of progress triggers a massive reactionary backlash.

Further, the reform coalition was only held together by the shared goal. Once attained, the coalition will dissolve (or worse). Whereas the coalition of reactionaries is evergreen; their individual motivations don't matter so long as they agree on "No".

So go for broke. Maybe someone like Gov Newsom is willing to burn whatever goodwill and political capital they've accumulated in one final glorious battle to cement their legacy.

zapita 2021-08-17 20:53:07 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> Don't storm the castle. Rock, paper, scissors. There's got to be 100s of small wins which cement a lasting victory.

This is the strategy of the pro-housing coalition in the California legislature and it’s starting to pay off. San Francisco’s state senator Scott Wiener is a crucial player in that coalition. The fact that NIMBY outlets like 48hills are targeting him personally is a sign that he is delivering.

dmitrygr 2021-08-17 19:03:29 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Having lived in Chicago, having seen SF's downtown, let me tell you, urban woes are alive and well...

RNeff 2021-08-17 22:11:21 +0000 UTC [ - ]

My small town in northern SF Bay Area has two apartment complex projects totaling over 600 apartments approved and signed off. Neither project can find financing. Projects have been on hold for three or four years. Just no funding. State is demanding town build lots more dwellings. Town has approved lots of new apartments. No funding is available.

41209 2021-08-17 19:22:37 +0000 UTC [ - ]

People who actually make sure to vote, homeowners have no incentive to vote for housing bills.

Even assuming there's no increase in traffic, or any other negative side effects, you still lose tons of money as your home would appreciate at a lower rate with more housing being built.

I personally think California is too far gone

zapita 2021-08-17 20:47:58 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Some context. 48hills is not a neutral party in this debate. Their founder Tim Redmond, who wrote this article, is one of the most strident leaders of the NIMBY movement in San Francisco. Whatever insights can be gathered from this poll, I would not trust him or his publication to present them fairly or accurately.

sollewitt 2021-08-17 23:55:39 +0000 UTC [ - ]

"There were more homeowners than renters in the survey"

dionidium 2021-08-17 19:00:04 +0000 UTC [ - ]

For society to function properly and for human beings to be free, there are some things that must be treated as so fundamental that they aren't subject to a vote. We protect the right to speech, for example, not because everything everybody says is popular. We protect it because it isn't!

Housing is like this.

Basically nobody wants a bunch of new housing in their neighborhood. But society can't function if people aren't allowed to build housing. Furthermore, the rights of property holders are fundamentally abridged when they're prohibited by their neighbors from making full use of their land. The right to build housing on your own private property, therefore, can't be subject to a vote. (And, frankly, this right is outlined in the U.S. Constitution, but it's been eroded by comically bad SCOTUS decisions like Euclid v. Ambler.)

I'm a YIMBY, not because I want a bunch of new housing my neighborhood. I don't! I'm a YIMBY because I don't think my opinion about the new housing in my neighborhood is relevant, the same way I don't think I should be able to muzzle people who say things I don't like.

My position is deeply unpopular, but it's correct. And that's the whole point. That's ironically why property rights need constitutional protection. If you let people vote away their neighbor's property rights, they'll do it every time.

mchusma 2021-08-18 01:42:51 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I liked your comment. I feel the concept we need to completely destroy is that real estate is a store of wealth.

We should try for the opposite, to make housing as affordable as possible (via the free market).

The main ways to do this are abolish:

zoning,

minimum parking restrictions,

minimum unit size,

Eliminate free street parking,

Eliminate mortgage interest tax deduction and anything else designed to favor ownership over renting.

Then, after we do that:

- start building large rotating space habitats, so we can start building effectively infinite living space, and fit a trillion humans in our local area of the solar system.

helen___keller 2021-08-17 19:32:36 +0000 UTC [ - ]

On a similar note, a lot of my neighbors do things that aren't illegal that I don't like having near my duplex. One neighbor tore out their garden for a paved patio - i much preferred the garden. Another neighbor leaves an old car with no wheels on their lawn - what an eyesore.

But who am I to tell them they are not allowed to do these things? What would be next, they would tell me I'm not allowed to grill in my backyard? I'm hardly a libertarian but it amazes me that of all the absurd "rights" people fight for in this country, the right to use, develop, and maintain your house and property as you wish isn't one of them.

newbie2020 2021-08-17 20:08:57 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Ironically from my convoy with friends, it is the right wingers who are YIMBY. Go figure