6 ms·

I just don't understand why cities in California won't let go of single unit zoning. Single unit is the most expensive and least efficient zoning rule. Getting

I just don't understand why cities in California won't let go of single unit zoning. Single unit is the most expensive and least efficient zoning rule. Getting rid of it would bring housing costs down. Ever visit a beautiful city like Paris, Copenhagen, Milan and wonder why we don't have that? It would be illegal to make the buildings they have under our zoning code and parking mandates!

kelvin0 4y ago
A funny, yet very well researched video on that exact same topic of Zoning nonsense. Entertaining AND informative. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfsCniN7Nsc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfsCniN7Nsc
cudgy 4y ago
Build cheaper housing farther outside of town where the land is cheaper and provide a bullet train to transport people into the expensive land areas. It might take time for the train to be built, but these areas have had decades to solve the problem while frittering away trying to build a few, token, and small small low cost housing projects. There really is no other solution for many areas like San Fran and New York … the land is simply not there and displacement of current landowners is expensive, impractical, and ineffective. They need to bite the bullet … train … or some other effectively fast transport.
colpabar 4y ago
>Getting rid of it would bring housing costs down. You answered your own question. Housing costs coming down is a good thing for people who need housing, but it's not really a good thing for people who own valuable homes, and people who own valuable homes tend to have much more political power.
- tr_user 4y ago
  Do they own valuable homes or do they own valuable land? I can see the land value increasing because it is now rezone-able and you can build multiple units worth on it.
- neura 4y ago
  I feel that's mostly true, but there may be many other similar factors. If you make "affordable" housing ("for who?" is the correct question), then you have more people that can't afford to spend as much, while pushing out the people that spend more. Someone else stated it simply as "undesirables", which I think is the quick summation of your statement and other similar reasoning. It all comes down to "I get that people need a place to live, but they can find that somewhere else" or "we've got a good thing going here (for me, the politician)".
  - ajmurmann 4y ago
    Zoning usually gets decided on on a very local level. The people who show up to community meetings tend to be older, white home owners who don't want the value of their home to go down. Fear of "undesirables" of course also likely plays a role and when I've heard it in person, even that gets wrapped in fear of that bringing down home values and schools.
    - cudgy 4y ago
      Perhaps more white owners show up in majority white neighborhoods, but what evidence is there that white owners disproportionately show up to these meetings? I assume you can provide it based on this comment.
      - ajmurmann 4y ago
        https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-06/nimbys-dominate-local-zoning-meetings https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-06/nimbys-do...
xwdv 4y ago
Keeps out undesirables.
- deathanatos 4y ago
  Yes, "undesirables", like young adults (millennials, ugh) trying to afford enough space to do society degrading things like building a home office or gasp starting a family. /s lest someone Poe's Law on this.
tablespoon 4y ago
> I just don't understand why cities in California won't let go of single unit zoning. People like to live in single family homes and live next to single family homes. > Ever visit a beautiful city like Paris, Copenhagen, Milan and wonder why we don't have that? It would be illegal to make the buildings they have under our zoning code and parking mandates! You won't get a beautiful city like those with any kind of [realistic American] zoning. It's too expensive. You'd get flimsy modern cookie-cutter buildings and maybe some brutalist concrete hulks.
- skrbjc 4y ago
  Agreed, if you look at Alameda, CA it is a town with many beautiful victorian homes. In the 70s and 80s they were tearing them down as fast as they could and building ugly apartment buildings in their place. Then they changed the laws so you couldn't tear down the old homes and now many of them are restored to their beautiful original state.
- CorrectHorseBat 4y ago
  >You won't get a beautiful city like those with any kind of zoning. It's too expensive. You'd get flimsy modern cookie-cutter buildings. Are you claiming those cities don't have zoning?
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > Are you claiming those cities don't have zoning? I'm claiming modern construction isn't very beautiful. If you drop single family zoning for something denser, you're not going to get something like those beautiful cities that were cited above. It's false advertising to suggest that denser zoning would give us another Paris (at least not the parts people are referring to when they bring it up). You'd get McMansion Hell, 4-Plex Edition or The Concrete Hulks of Shanghai (e.g. https://aurelien-marechal.com/block#1 https://aurelien-marechal.com/block#1). I suppose you could have a zoning code that mandated "building them like they used to," but that would be too expensive.
    - Maarten88 4y ago
arbor_day 4y ago
Cities don't vote, people do. I own a single family home in the Palo Alto. If I wanted to living in a city like Paris, I would. I like it here. I don't care about the price of my house, since I do not plan to sell it this decade. I care a TON about my neighborhood. I love that my neighborhood is quiet, not crowded, and has easy parking. I will vote against any proposals or elected officials who represent me that would make that worse. I get I represent NIMBY-ism, but these tradeoffs are real. I often see people strawman them like there are easy/obvious solutions to shared problems. There aren't.
- ceeplusplus 4y ago
  The easy solution is that your quality of life should not infringe on the rights of millions of people to housing that doesn't cost 90% of their monthly income to pay for. And the state is going to drag local cities kicking and screaming to where we need to go, like it or not. I make well into 6 figures a year and I can't buy a shack in Fremont because of people like you.
  - hellisothers 4y ago
    Without knowing them exactly I imagine property owners actually do have rights in this situation. Where does the right “to housing that doesn’t cost 90% of their monthly income” come from?
  - ipaddr 4y ago
    It's more afforable compared to an apartment in New York where a townhouse can set you back 15 million. Density isn't the issue demand is. You want to live in a place everyone else does. At 1.3 million on average you could buy 100a property on prime farmland or you could buy an apartment in New York or a house in Freemont. Wanting Freemont to be zoned like New York property would probably make it more popular with new hot properities and it will price you out further. The truth is there are a lot of people making more money who want housing in Freemont.
    - ceeplusplus 4y ago
skrbjc 4y ago
The article does suggest that housing density doesn't really solve the problem and that we should be more OK with letting "urban sprawl" happen. Personally, I think we need both. Let the urban areas increasingly densify and let the people who want larger single family homes move into those types of developments that are farther out of the city centers. Some people just don't want to live in apartment buildings, and as someone with a young child, I much prefer having my own home with a yard and parking space and garage for projects than living in an apartment building and parking on the street or in a garage. But when I was younger I wanted to be closer to restaurants and the like. CA should invest heavily in opening up more land for housing developments and equipping them with schools and shopping close by, with transit for commuters, while prioritizing density projects in the urban centers.
- verve_rat 4y ago
  Hopefully working from home is here to stay and gets wide spread adoption. Then we won't need to increase city density again and again. Smaller new towns with single family homes and nearby schools and shops, maybe a community co-working centre. If the population doesn't need to commute for work then the housing doesn't need to be in the city. Lots of smaller towns. Replace some of that water intensive agriculture with small towns for people to live in.
wwweston 4y ago
SB-9 / "ADUs Everywhere!" passed last year at the state level effectively makes all property legally 2-3 unit. Some people really want to live in lower-density suburban environments, though. I can't say I blame them, because the absolutely overwhelming majority of apartments/condos are strictly inferior in a number of ways. Sound transparency through walls / floors alone is a significant issue. Smells and ventilation too. And it's nice to have outside space you have access to / control over. Sure, units could be built to standards that mitigate those problems... but that costs money. > It would be illegal to make the buildings they have under our zoning code and parking mandates! More "costly" than illegal, if the LA neighborhoods I'm familiar with are any indication -- there's plenty of 3 story urban buildings with parking underneath (including one I recently moved out of), but of course that's a whole "floor" that could have been housing units, and the owner wants to recoup that with higher rents. $4250/mo for 2 bd last I checked.
mullingitover 4y ago
> I just don't understand why cities in California won't let go of single unit zoning. Give it time. The state government is hobbled and regional fiefdoms have far too much sway. That's slowly changing. The state is in the middle of planning the long-term Regional Housing Needs Assessment. Regions across the state are responsible for coughing up realistic plans to meet the growth targets. If they don't come up with realistic plans to meet those targets, not only can they lose their precious single family home zoning, they can lose their zoning privileges entirely. There are even plans in the works for local governments to have state oversight officials appointed for them to completely take over their housing policy. Get your popcorn.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bitcuration 4y ago
Unlike most places in the rest of world, California has plenty land space, there is no reason to think of California like Hong Kong, Tokyo or Mumbai, that'd be ridiculous. Obviously housing cost is the tips of iceberg, and the result of state policy, resemblance to the development path often seen in middle and south America.
wdr1 4y ago
> I just don't understand why cities in California won't let go of single unit zoning. It has. California has passed SB9. It allows up to four units to be built on a current single unit lot. https://focus.senate.ca.gov/sb9 https://focus.senate.ca.gov/sb9 https://www.homestead.is/helping-homeowners-understand-sb9 https://www.homestead.is/helping-homeowners-understand-sb9

kelvin0 4y ago

A funny, yet very well researched video on that exact same topic of Zoning nonsense. Entertaining AND informative. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfsCniN7Nsc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfsCniN7Nsc

cudgy 4y ago

Build cheaper housing farther outside of town where the land is cheaper and provide a bullet train to transport people into the expensive land areas. It might take time for the train to be built, but these areas have had decades to solve the problem while frittering away trying to build a few, token, and small small low cost housing projects. There really is no other solution for many areas like San Fran and New York … the land is simply not there and displacement of current landowners is expensive, impractical, and ineffective. They need to bite the bullet … train … or some other effectively fast transport.

colpabar 4y ago

>Getting rid of it would bring housing costs down. You answered your own question. Housing costs coming down is a good thing for people who need housing, but it's not really a good thing for people who own valuable homes, and people who own valuable homes tend to have much more political power.

tr_user 4y ago
Do they own valuable homes or do they own valuable land? I can see the land value increasing because it is now rezone-able and you can build multiple units worth on it.
neura 4y ago
I feel that's mostly true, but there may be many other similar factors. If you make "affordable" housing ("for who?" is the correct question), then you have more people that can't afford to spend as much, while pushing out the people that spend more. Someone else stated it simply as "undesirables", which I think is the quick summation of your statement and other similar reasoning. It all comes down to "I get that people need a place to live, but they can find that somewhere else" or "we've got a good thing going here (for me, the politician)".
- ajmurmann 4y ago
  Zoning usually gets decided on on a very local level. The people who show up to community meetings tend to be older, white home owners who don't want the value of their home to go down. Fear of "undesirables" of course also likely plays a role and when I've heard it in person, even that gets wrapped in fear of that bringing down home values and schools.
  - cudgy 4y ago
    Perhaps more white owners show up in majority white neighborhoods, but what evidence is there that white owners disproportionately show up to these meetings? I assume you can provide it based on this comment.
    - ajmurmann 4y ago
      https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-06/nimbys-dominate-local-zoning-meetings https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-06/nimbys-do...

xwdv 4y ago

Keeps out undesirables.

deathanatos 4y ago
Yes, "undesirables", like young adults (millennials, ugh) trying to afford enough space to do society degrading things like building a home office or gasp starting a family. /s lest someone Poe's Law on this.

tablespoon 4y ago

> I just don't understand why cities in California won't let go of single unit zoning. People like to live in single family homes and live next to single family homes. > Ever visit a beautiful city like Paris, Copenhagen, Milan and wonder why we don't have that? It would be illegal to make the buildings they have under our zoning code and parking mandates! You won't get a beautiful city like those with any kind of [realistic American] zoning. It's too expensive. You'd get flimsy modern cookie-cutter buildings and maybe some brutalist concrete hulks.

skrbjc 4y ago
Agreed, if you look at Alameda, CA it is a town with many beautiful victorian homes. In the 70s and 80s they were tearing them down as fast as they could and building ugly apartment buildings in their place. Then they changed the laws so you couldn't tear down the old homes and now many of them are restored to their beautiful original state.
CorrectHorseBat 4y ago
>You won't get a beautiful city like those with any kind of zoning. It's too expensive. You'd get flimsy modern cookie-cutter buildings. Are you claiming those cities don't have zoning?
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > Are you claiming those cities don't have zoning? I'm claiming modern construction isn't very beautiful. If you drop single family zoning for something denser, you're not going to get something like those beautiful cities that were cited above. It's false advertising to suggest that denser zoning would give us another Paris (at least not the parts people are referring to when they bring it up). You'd get McMansion Hell, 4-Plex Edition or The Concrete Hulks of Shanghai (e.g. https://aurelien-marechal.com/block#1 https://aurelien-marechal.com/block#1). I suppose you could have a zoning code that mandated "building them like they used to," but that would be too expensive.
  - Maarten88 4y ago

arbor_day 4y ago

Cities don't vote, people do. I own a single family home in the Palo Alto. If I wanted to living in a city like Paris, I would. I like it here. I don't care about the price of my house, since I do not plan to sell it this decade. I care a TON about my neighborhood. I love that my neighborhood is quiet, not crowded, and has easy parking. I will vote against any proposals or elected officials who represent me that would make that worse. I get I represent NIMBY-ism, but these tradeoffs are real. I often see people strawman them like there are easy/obvious solutions to shared problems. There aren't.

ceeplusplus 4y ago
The easy solution is that your quality of life should not infringe on the rights of millions of people to housing that doesn't cost 90% of their monthly income to pay for. And the state is going to drag local cities kicking and screaming to where we need to go, like it or not. I make well into 6 figures a year and I can't buy a shack in Fremont because of people like you.
- hellisothers 4y ago
  Without knowing them exactly I imagine property owners actually do have rights in this situation. Where does the right “to housing that doesn’t cost 90% of their monthly income” come from?
- ipaddr 4y ago
  It's more afforable compared to an apartment in New York where a townhouse can set you back 15 million. Density isn't the issue demand is. You want to live in a place everyone else does. At 1.3 million on average you could buy 100a property on prime farmland or you could buy an apartment in New York or a house in Freemont. Wanting Freemont to be zoned like New York property would probably make it more popular with new hot properities and it will price you out further. The truth is there are a lot of people making more money who want housing in Freemont.
  - ceeplusplus 4y ago

skrbjc 4y ago

The article does suggest that housing density doesn't really solve the problem and that we should be more OK with letting "urban sprawl" happen. Personally, I think we need both. Let the urban areas increasingly densify and let the people who want larger single family homes move into those types of developments that are farther out of the city centers. Some people just don't want to live in apartment buildings, and as someone with a young child, I much prefer having my own home with a yard and parking space and garage for projects than living in an apartment building and parking on the street or in a garage. But when I was younger I wanted to be closer to restaurants and the like. CA should invest heavily in opening up more land for housing developments and equipping them with schools and shopping close by, with transit for commuters, while prioritizing density projects in the urban centers.

verve_rat 4y ago
Hopefully working from home is here to stay and gets wide spread adoption. Then we won't need to increase city density again and again. Smaller new towns with single family homes and nearby schools and shops, maybe a community co-working centre. If the population doesn't need to commute for work then the housing doesn't need to be in the city. Lots of smaller towns. Replace some of that water intensive agriculture with small towns for people to live in.

wwweston 4y ago

SB-9 / "ADUs Everywhere!" passed last year at the state level effectively makes all property legally 2-3 unit. Some people really want to live in lower-density suburban environments, though. I can't say I blame them, because the absolutely overwhelming majority of apartments/condos are strictly inferior in a number of ways. Sound transparency through walls / floors alone is a significant issue. Smells and ventilation too. And it's nice to have outside space you have access to / control over. Sure, units could be built to standards that mitigate those problems... but that costs money. > It would be illegal to make the buildings they have under our zoning code and parking mandates! More "costly" than illegal, if the LA neighborhoods I'm familiar with are any indication -- there's plenty of 3 story urban buildings with parking underneath (including one I recently moved out of), but of course that's a whole "floor" that could have been housing units, and the owner wants to recoup that with higher rents. $4250/mo for 2 bd last I checked.

mullingitover 4y ago

> I just don't understand why cities in California won't let go of single unit zoning. Give it time. The state government is hobbled and regional fiefdoms have far too much sway. That's slowly changing. The state is in the middle of planning the long-term Regional Housing Needs Assessment. Regions across the state are responsible for coughing up realistic plans to meet the growth targets. If they don't come up with realistic plans to meet those targets, not only can they lose their precious single family home zoning, they can lose their zoning privileges entirely. There are even plans in the works for local governments to have state oversight officials appointed for them to completely take over their housing policy. Get your popcorn.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

bitcuration 4y ago

Unlike most places in the rest of world, California has plenty land space, there is no reason to think of California like Hong Kong, Tokyo or Mumbai, that'd be ridiculous. Obviously housing cost is the tips of iceberg, and the result of state policy, resemblance to the development path often seen in middle and south America.

wdr1 4y ago

> I just don't understand why cities in California won't let go of single unit zoning. It has. California has passed SB9. It allows up to four units to be built on a current single unit lot. https://focus.senate.ca.gov/sb9 https://focus.senate.ca.gov/sb9 https://www.homestead.is/helping-homeowners-understand-sb9 https://www.homestead.is/helping-homeowners-understand-sb9