Somehow I think the balance of power will tilt towards NIMBY. The wealthy just won't put up with it. Even Cher (reliably liberal) says it's not sustainable.
Taking backyard literally, this is exactly the opposite of what is happening. NIMBYs are concerned far beyond their property line. If someone owns land, they shouldn't be blocked from increasing density by someone who doesn't own that land.
It’s simply true by definition that everyone who wants to alter zoning rules - no matter how - is telling other people what should be in their backyard. To suggest otherwise is intellectually dishonest. Your drive to change building rules mostly affects other people.
...but that’s also how our system of government works, so just own it already.
What the OP is pointing out is the doublespeak nature of “YIMBY” as a rallying cry. Just be honest about what you want: unless you truly only care about what you can do with your property, what you really want is for other people to stop fighting development in their backyard, too.
Trying to frame this as a drive for personal choice misses the point of the debate: the other side doesn’t care what you do in your backyard, but they sure as hell don’t want it affecting theirs.
(Nothing I’m saying here is advocating for a side in this argument. If you’re downvoting me reflexively because you think I’m being “NIMBY”, you’re blinded by ideology.)
I do not think that is distinct to YIMBYs. I am forced to live with the externalities of high housing prices (3400 for a 900 sq.ft 2 bed room), lower freedom to utilize personal property (land), high homeless population, and cities you need a car to live in. Both ways will have externalities. I do not think I was dishonest about why anyone would oppose this.
I own property in another city and it is bat shit to me that you can not build freely on your land. The people filing lawsuits about their view or forcing environmental impact studies (when it doesn't matter) need to get smacked back to their property lines. If they don't like it, they can buy the land they want to control. If they don't have enough money for that, tough.
Once again: you’re arguing against something that I’m not saying. In fact, you’re making my point: the changes you want to make affect other people. That’s why they disagree with you.
The “YIMBY movement” starts with a terrible, condescending name that implicitly mocks the other side. It’s as if the GOP changed it’s name to the “anti-libtard party”.
Why should the people with the money and power listen to you when you position yourselves only as opposition to a cartoon version of what they believe?
Also: every city in the world restricts what you can do with property you own. You can’t build a radioactive waste site in your backyard, or a pork rendering plant in your garage. Get over it.
I don't want to build a pork farm, I want some higher density housing so that I pay less in rent. This isn't an extreme thing.
I am also a rich person and have heard some very dumb excuses as to why my colleagues' neighborhoods should stay zoned single family. From traffic to character. In the end, people are just preserving their home values at the expense of others and it is not a sustainable system. That motivation is misguided though, their million dollar plot of land is still going to be worth a million dollars with a duplex on it.
If I'm a homeowner/landowner who wants to build a condo complex on my land to profit from increased demand, zoning laws don't allow me to. On my own land. YIMBY seems accurate to me.
I can build those things on land zoned for those things, as long as I pass safety regulations, pay taxes and registration fees etc. The neighboring foundry can't say "Don't let them build a more efficient foundry next door because it'll change the character of this industrial park." (or if they can, that's a terrible place to do business)
For what it's worth I'm a homeowner and landlord who is strongly in favor of building more housing to bring down the cost of housing. It's not in my immediate economic best interest to see lower rents, but it's what our city needs.
(I own a two-family house in Somerville MA, and we rent out the first floor unit and part of our unit as well.)
You have a point, but I think the idea behind the "My" part is that this group has made a commitment that housing is so important that they're willing to be less picky even about things in their own backyard, in recognition of the seriousness of the problem.
So I’m for more building in the Bay Area and in SF. I’m for a denser SF, denser downtowns and business districts of the many Bay Area cities.
...But, you have s point. Some activists want to steamroll any and everyone. They want to go into residential neighborhoods and remake them into SoMa or Van Ness; they're often not saying, yes build in my SoMa, The Mission BkYd, no, they're saying, hey you over there with the yard, we wanna build over there! There are lots of areas prime for infill. You don’t have to go disturbing traditionally single-family-home neighborhoods and reshape them into your image.
I'm saying don't force people to change the char of their neighborhoods. If it's dense now, don't try to make it into single-family-homes. If it's single-family-homes, don't try to turn it into multi-family-housing units.
People only say that when things go their way, otherwise the claim all kinds of things. Tyranny of majority or it was the boomers' fault, or homeowners interests, among other things.
I'd say that's mostly reasonable, with some exceptions. Some BaRT stations are hemmed in in tight places and it would make things horrible. But overall, generally for a plurality of stations 6-10 in the city, 4-8 in the 'burbs.
If you want to have more people in the same area then the density has to increase somewhere. You can’t increase the number of households without somewhere becoming more dense then it was.
While I have friends who have had to leave the Bay Area because of high rents, I also have (non tech, multi-generational local) friends who have the vast majority of their wealth tied up in their (or their parents) house here.
I don’t love how some members of the YC community (often independently wealthy tech types) seem to suggest that this latter group need to sacrifice themselves by supporting policies that would effectively undermine the only thing that is allowing them to stay in the Bay Area.
I realize that the YIMBY crowd fervently believe that eventually, at some point, their policies will benefit both groups, but in the meanwhile the house prices here are stagnating and predicted to fall next 12 months which is already causing anxiety. Simply dismissing this group as NIMBYs who don’t want to look at high rises so badly misses the point that I’m not surprised they are failing in their mission
>I also have (non tech, multi-generational local) friends who have the vast majority of their wealth tied up in their (or their parents) house here. ... I don’t love how some members of the YC community (often independently wealthy tech types) seem to suggest that this latter group need to sacrifice themselves by supporting policies that would effectively undermine the only thing that is allowing them to stay in the Bay Area.
If they already own a house in the bay area, why would falling housing prices affect their ability to stay here?
Because few people own their house outright, and the equity in their house is their only form of financial cushion or retirement savings. In many cases, the kind of house price drop agitated for would bankrupt and evict them, with no way of buying into the market again despite the average lower prices.
Those scenarios seem few and far between. If it is a family home that has been owned for at least a decade in the bay area, then it has increased in value dramatically since it was bought, and no matter what kind of mortgage they have, they will have plenty of equity. If it was bought recently, then they probably don't have HELOCs or other instruments that would put them at risk, so the market value should be irrelevant to their financial situation.
I can't see how a market price decrease of a house that one owns, or has a mortgage on, could bankrupt someone or cause them to be evicted. The worst thing that could happen is for they homeowner to go "underwater", but even then, as long as they continue to pay their monthly mortgage payments, they get to keep their house.
Keeping in mind that these are not tech types with the associated salaries, you can’t see how a market price decrease could bankrupt or evict someone? Mkay
How does the market price falling for someone's house lead to them getting evicted? It's not going to make their mortgage payments go up, nor their taxes. I guess if they stop paying their mortgage because it's underwater, the bank would eventually evict them, but if they can afford the mortgage they could just keep paying it, the price will likely grow in the future as land values go up with increased density.
There is some short term risk that if someone needs to sell their house for some reason, they will get less money for it. Home equity loans won't give you as much money at that time either. But neither of these factors should cause evictions.
We're not talking about repealing Prop 13 in this discussion (which is another law which many YIMBYs want repealed, but if areas were up-zoned at least there would be one path to relieve the pressure on housing availability).
No, I don’t see it. But I’m open to the idea that I am missing something.
Maybe they have an ARM mortgage, and are planning to refinance just before the adjustable period begins, and are worried they won’t be able to get new financing if the home value is significantly lower than the remaining principle? That would be easily solved by refinancing now into a fixed mortgage, but maybe they can’t afford the increased monthly payment that would cause?
That’s the only scenario I can think of, and it seems unlikely to affect many Bay Area homeowners, given the incredible rise in prices recently.
If you understand how a market price decrease would cause a homeowner to be evicted, please explain it.
I am actually in favor of building more housing. But I think that doing so will (on top of prices already being projected to fall) put further downward pressure on house prices.
To think that this is a rosy story for everyone with no losers is a fairy tale.
I believe that the already squeezed, non-tech, middle class of the Bay Area will suffer at the expense of new, younger tech workforce (and incidentally play into the hand of the actually wealthy tech leaders who are some of the biggest proponents). If you choose not believe that, then please provide a historical example of where deflationary pressure on house prices have been a boon for the existing working/middle class that own houses anywhere.
I realize that this is not a popular opinion among the HN crowd, which obviously skews young and tech, but it certainly is the opinion/anxiety that I hear expressed on the ground in the Bay Area among non-tech families. Are they delusional and should simply welcome lower house prices? Are their wealth and security something that must be sacrificed for the greater good? Maybe.
But I am very suspicious of some of the tech leader pushing this. It’s obviously great for them if they can pay their employees less because rent is lower.
> I am actually in favor of building more housing. But I think that doing so will (on top of prices already being projected to fall) put further downward pressure on house prices.
> To think that this is a rosy story for everyone with no losers is a fairy tale.
> I believe that the already squeezed, non-tech, middle class of the Bay Area will suffer at the expense of new, younger tech workforce (and incidentally play into the hand of the actually wealthy tech leaders who are some of the biggest proponents). If you choose not believe that, then please provide a historical example of where deflationary pressure on house prices have been a boon for the existing working/middle class that own houses anywhere.
I never said that a decrease in housing prices would be good for non-tech homeowners. I just contested your claim that it would lead to them being evicted.
I don't think anybody is missing the point. California property owners have voted in a system of laws to hijack the development regulations and tax code to enrich themselves at the expense of everybody else. The question is what will happen as more and more people realize just how inequitable the system is.
