[HN Gopher] Building a house in California is not a housing deve...
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Building a house in California is not a housing development project
[pdf]
Author : zbrozek
Score : 53 points
Date : 2022-09-08 20:56 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.courts.ca.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.courts.ca.gov)
| morepork wrote:
| Given it's a big lot, could they just build a granny flat
| somewhere on the edge, and it would become a "development" as
| it's 2 units? There's a cost obviously, but small units like that
| aren't _too_ expensive
| kazinator wrote:
| TL;DR:
|
| Some well-to-do NIMBYists who own fully detached homes wanted to
| prevent some other well-to-do from building, in their
| neighborhood, a bigger house than theirs (while butchering the
| natural landscape and harming the environment). They prevailed.
|
| The builder tried to argue that their home is a housing project,
| and so legally protected from cancellation by NIMBYists under
| some legislation known as the HAA. There was subsequently a lot
| of elaborate squabbling over the wording of the law, and whether
| plurals like "units" include projects that build one "unit". The
| legislation was found to be lacking in clear definitions of its
| terms. In the end it was decided that one home isn't a housing
| project.
|
| They set the precedent that someone building an an actual
| affordable home in all earnestness can now be stopped by
| NIMBYists, if it happens to be just one unit. If you build
| affordable housing, you must build two or more to stay within the
| protection of the HAA.
|
| It doesn't seem like a big deal since you'd think most housing
| projects subdivide an expensive property into a beehive of tiny
| cells anyway.
| YeBanKo wrote:
| This is where a direct democracy can shine. A simple proposition
| that amends AHA to explicitly include single family homes might
| put a stop to this.
| volkse wrote:
| They should apply to build a huge 5 story apartment complex on
| that lot, see how the community likes that. The county would have
| to approve that development according to that decision..
| outside1234 wrote:
| Which is great policy! We need to go up, not out.
| 09bjb wrote:
| This is how 3-story apartment complexes get approved in my town
| :)
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| seems they want just 1 house just for themselves?
|
| hardly a "development", more like a single home build
| CPLX wrote:
| It's a single fucking house on a fucking 1.76 acre lot? And these
| fucking psychopaths feel like that's too much housing? Like a
| single fucking house, on almost two acres?
| zbrozek wrote:
| The appellate court ruling upholds a Marin County superior court
| ruling that building a house is not a housing development
| project, and therefore the Housing Accountability Act does not
| apply. The stated legislative intent of the law was to remove
| barriers to building homes and was widely referred to as the
| "Anti-NIMBY" law.
|
| Now a court in one of the most-NIMBY counties in California has
| effectively gutted the law.
| r00fus wrote:
| Building a McMansion does not increase housing supply where it
| matters unless you also believe in "trickle down" economics.
| jamestimmins wrote:
| Are you assuming that a home was knocked down to build the
| mansion?
|
| Otherwise you're arguing that x + 1 == x.
| [deleted]
| jeffbee wrote:
| This has not gutted the law, as I see it. The state's interest
| in the HAA and its enforcement by HCD is exclusively in multi-
| family development, _at least_ duplexes and usually larger.
| Cities cannot include single-family developments in their
| housing elements, for example.
|
| The ability for a city to approve or deny SFHs will have no
| impact on the housing situation in the state.
| skybrian wrote:
| Was the law interpreted differently before? Have people
| previously claimed that building a single house _was_ a housing
| development covered by this law, and succeeded, or is it a new
| kind of legal argument?
| vhold wrote:
| The ruling mentions "There is little caselaw interpreting
| this statutory definition." in regard to that question. It
| mentions one case where building 8 residential units _was_ a
| "housing development project"
|
| It then goes into the fact that the law in question refers to
| a "housing development project" in one of 3 ways, 2 of which
| definitely don't apply, leaving behind the phrase
| "Residential units only", which they then point "units" is
| plural, not singular.
|
| So perhaps.. 2 residential units would have been a housing
| development project.
| AdamTReineke wrote:
| There's also some mention of the original plans calling for
| an ADU that was removed when the plan was scaled down at the
| request of the city, so the plaintiff was arguing they should
| have been covered because it was multi-unit. (If I skimmed it
| right.)
| codefreeordie wrote:
| Reading through this decision, it is clear that there is an
| overabundance of motivated reasoning here. The court very
| clearly is trying to justify its decision, not reach one based
| on the law.
|
| In particular given the amendment to the law in 2017 which
| added, among other things, these clauses:
|
| > It is the policy of the state that [the HAA] should be
| interpreted and implemented in a manner to afford the fullest
| possible weight to the interest of, and the approval and
| provision of, housing.
|
| and
|
| > despite the fact that, for decades, the Legislature has
| enacted numerous statutes intended to significantly increase
| the approval, development, and affordability of housing for all
| income levels, including this section
|
| Both of these quotations are very clearly statements of "fuck
| you courts, follow the law", which the court has summarily
| ignored, stating that _even though_ it is routine for statutes
| to be interpreted in such a manner that singular nouns include
| plurals and plural nouns include the singular, that the
| statement "only residential units" does not include building a
| residential unit and nothing else.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| > Both of these quotations are very clearly statements of
| "fuck you courts, follow the law", which the court has
| summarily ignored
|
| This is very classic for Californian courts and for Ninth
| Circuit.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Is an accurate summary of this saying that the court
| interpreted "only residential units" as construction of one
| or more residences at the same time?
| codefreeordie wrote:
| they interpreted it as specifically _more than one
| residential unit, and nothing except residential units_
| [deleted]
| walrus01 wrote:
| An interesting term I recently learned from the real estate
| industry is not just NIMBY but for the ultimate extreme of
| people who start municipal political fights against new
| development, BANANA
|
| Build
|
| Absolutely
|
| Nothing
|
| Anywhere
|
| Near
|
| Anything
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Landlords you'd figure. Less competition. Less supply.
| m00x wrote:
| I think your friend was pulling your leg. I'm married to a
| realtor and she's never heard that term. It's definitely not
| widespread.
| skybrian wrote:
| It's a joke I've heard before, probably online, but I don't
| know in what circles it's popular.
| [deleted]
| jonny_eh wrote:
| It's definitely a common term/joke in pro-housing circles.
| I've heard it as far back as 10 years ago if memory serves.
| koube wrote:
| I believe it's mostly a UK term.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIMBY#BANANA_and_CAVE
| mistrial9 wrote:
| but she is lying to you!
| walrus01 wrote:
| It is absolutely a term used in telecom related commercial
| real estate when talking about people who ABSOLUTELY FREAK
| OUT at the idea of a cellular site monopole going up on a
| 15'x15' patch of land behind some local gas station or fast
| food place, ruining the atmosphere of their _already
| extremely aesthetically pleasing_ strip mall + tract home
| suburb.
|
| The same people, of course, who have a 5-person verizon or
| tmobile LTE family plan and spend a huge proportion of
| their waking life glued to their iphone or android phone.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| If demand correlates only with population, and supply is
| constant, all those who own housing will see their value go
| up as long as the population increases.
|
| If housing is an investment it means either demand went up
| (population growth), or supply did not go up (housing wasn't
| built).
|
| I suspect that if you measure housing price adjusted for
| inflation per capita, you would get a measure of housing
| supply.
|
| The fact that house owning individuals financially gain from
| limiting housing supply is, to me, the defining feature of
| class warfare, even if people don't think they are
| participating in it.
|
| I think this is the basis for the statement "housing can
| either be affordable or an investment, but not both." Housing
| can either be in adequate supply (affordable) or limited (an
| investment).
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| You're correct, but missing a part of the picture. The cost
| of adding supply (to meet demand) goes up each year due to
| the perpetual increase in the building codes which must be
| conformed to.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| So if we assume you are correct, if we looked at an
| adjusted cost of housing graph (adjusted for
| inflation/population), its slope would change primarily
| when building code regulation goes into effect?
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Yeah that's pretty accurate. Lots of little inflection
| points every few years as new things are added.
| zajio1am wrote:
| Housing can be investment even if it is in adequate supply
| and does not raise in value (above inflation), just from
| rents / saving from not-paying rent.
| burlesona wrote:
| The idea that local municipalities get to decide, arbitrarily and
| subjectively, what is "compatible with the neighborhood," means
| that property rights do not exist. As property rights are the
| basis of free markets, it's important that we understand there is
| no free market - not even a highly regulated market - for
| construction in large swathes of the US, and nearly every
| employment center.
|
| It is perfectly fine to regulate the acceptable parameters of
| development, but they can't subjective and arbitrary. That's not
| how rule of law works.
| pessimizer wrote:
| "Free market" is a propagandistic phrase, not a meaningful one.
| Markets have rules. You're free to follow them.
| ericmay wrote:
| > The idea that local municipalities get to decide, arbitrarily
| and subjectively, what is "compatible with the neighborhood,"
| means that property rights do not exist.
|
| I have a hard time reconciling this. Because I also can't help
| but think local governments deciding what they want for their
| neighborhood is the most direct form of democracy and
| overriding that at higher levels of government seems to be not
| ideal. Given that we agree that some level of laws and
| regulations must exist, it seems that we're just adjusting our
| goal posts. If you're a property my rights absolutist then you
| have to also accept edge cases, like Trump flags and 4x4s
| tearing through someone's backyard, or someone painting their
| house in pink stripes since it's "their house". What kind of
| NIMBY are you to deny someone selling their home to someone who
| wants to open an auto repair shop? You have to accept these the
| same as you accept a new condo tower. You can't pick and choose
| here and then go back and claim "well this is reasonable and
| this other thing is not" because people can equally claim a
| condo tower isn't reasonable. In the case of particularly
| desirable places I think it's just a case of too bad, that's
| life. Nobody is entitled to live anywhere in particular at an
| affordable rate regardless of their priors. The alternative
| that you would believe this is the case means someone can
| endlessly complain that they can't live in Vancouver with a
| view of the sea for $500/month.
|
| Now on the more reasonable spectrum you can ok I'm not talking
| about all of that, I'm talking about a new high-rise in a
| downtown area. Sure, and that's more likely to actually happen
| to so I'm not sure what the problem is.
|
| "But teachers and wage workers will be priced out". Yep. And
| either wages will rise and residents will be paying $70 for a
| latte, or they won't get to have those things because of their
| anti-development NIMBY points of view and they'll either accept
| that life or they'll give in to change.
|
| At the end of the day it's all arbitrary and subjective. I
| think it's arbitrary that we build highways for cars and
| subjectively believe that it's a huge waste of money. That's
| messy democracy.
| [deleted]
| walrus01 wrote:
| > means that property rights do not exist. As property rights
| are the basis of free markets, it's important that we
| understand there is no free market
|
| Surprise! The libertarian dream of free market property rights
| and doing whatever you want doesn't really exist in many ways,
| such as, randomly chosen:
|
| a) you need a drivers license to operate a car on public roads
|
| b) if you build a new house or office building, its electrical
| wiring needs to be done by a licensed/bonded contractor and
| meets standards of your local city or county electrical
| inspection and the NEC
|
| c) if you build gas lines in the same place it also gets
| inspected and needs to meet certain standards
|
| d) that new toyota you bought from the local dealer is subject
| to a whole host of federal vehicle safety regulations before
| its manufacturer is allowed to sell in the the usa
|
| e) the entire electrical grid in your area is likely regulated
| by some state and federal level entities that have an interest
| in it not falling over on its face, like the texas-regulated
| energy grid during their major winter storm event a while back.
|
| f) the burger you ate for lunch came from a local food-
| health/safety inspected restaurant and the beef from a supplier
| that's also subject to regulations and inspection
|
| g) no, just because you own the land doesn't mean you can start
| a leather tannery or fat rendering/reduction industrial
| operation on a small scale in your suburban house's back yard,
| stinking up the neighbors.
|
| I could go on...
| function_seven wrote:
| a) Getting one is a routine process that requires objective
| standards be met, and costs nearly nothing.
|
| b) Again, these are statewide and nationwide standards that
| are not subject to local administrative bodies' whims. If
| your wiring meets standard, you're allowed to do it. You
| don't have to apply to the county and have them decide that
| the rest of the neighborhood uses Romex, so your MC armored
| cable won't "fit".
|
| c) Again, these are uniform standards. No subjectivity or
| rigourous meetings required for each installatino
|
| d) See my responses above. All manufacturers are playing on
| the same field, and don't have to get permission for every
| single aesthetic change. If Toyota decides they're offering
| fuchsia as a color option next year, then can just do that.
| So long as the clearly-defined standards are met.
|
| e) See my responses above
|
| f) But the county doesn't get to dictate which ingredients
| can be paired together. If my local hipster burger joint
| wants to offer a peanut butter and sardines burger, they can
| just do that. No government review required on how tasty it
| will be.
|
| g) Agreed! Free market ideologies are not the same as
| anarchism, but many people on seem to conflate the two. For a
| market to be free, there needs to be a minimum of information
| asymmetry and a minimum of uncertainty. All participants
| should ideally know the rules of the game as they enter. If I
| buy a property, I should have full confidence that I can
| build A or B or C, and also be clear that X, Y, or Z will be
| prohibited.
|
| A free market doesn't mean an unfettered one. It just means
| that pricing is transparent, rules are objective (and
| known!), and the so called "playing field" is level. There
| are a minimum of case-by-case decisions, or rules that favor
| one class over another.
| int_19h wrote:
| OP is not presenting a libertarian dream of _unregulated_
| markets, though. They 're merely saying that whatever
| restrictions on the acquisition and use of property exist,
| they must be predictable, and they must apply to everyone
| equally, which is impossible when there are rather arbitrary
| subjective factors such as "compatibility with the
| neighborhood" in the process.
| robocat wrote:
| It is difficult to truely own something in the ideal sense of
| the word. Most people pay a yearly fee to "own" their land. You
| cannot do whatever you want with your land i.e. you don't
| really own it, but instead you own a lifetime tradeable lease.
| When you die, the land remains.
|
| One definition of ownership I like is "can you freely destroy
| it without legal consequences?".
|
| Even "your" body: there are many laws about what you may and
| may not do with it (alive and dead).
|
| There is even a grey area for whether you own your own
| thoughts? Maybe you rationally believe you can believe whatever
| you like, but actually your thoughts bleed through
| subconsciously into your actions which can have severe
| consequences. And unless you brought yourself up without human
| contact, it is very hard to discern the boundary between your
| own beliefs and those of your society.
| tmcw wrote:
| Subjective and arbitrary is exactly how the law works.
| evr1isnxprt wrote:
| They did not decide "arbitrarily". If you read it you'd have
| read the neighborhood got involved and were calling out the
| size, ecological impact.
|
| Current residents have private property rights too. Both sides
| arguing in defense of their rights under the law is exactly how
| our "rule of law" works.
|
| Rule of law does not give you special say over these
| proceedings. Clearly for good reason; you seem keen to rush
| ahead without considering the rights of others with an
| established investment under law. When you can't you'll call
| everyone else arbitrary even though an established process and
| precedent were utilized.
| [deleted]
| gamegoblin wrote:
| I think the proposal of the Strong Towns organization is among
| the best I have seen balancing between YIMBY absolutists and
| NIMBY absolutists.
|
| The problem with NIMBY absolutists is obvious -- it becomes
| impossible to expand the housing supply in areas that need
| expansion.
|
| The problem with YIMBY absolutists is also obvious -- it's
| probably not ideal to build a 30 story condo tower in the
| middle of a neighborhood of single family homes.
|
| (Though, arguably a 30 story condo tower is better than a
| housing crisis, but the Strong Towns proposal is geared towards
| never letting a housing crisis happen in the first place)
|
| The Strong Towns compromise is that it should always be legal
| to build the next increment of housing stock relative to
| whatever is the most common in the area. Where the increments
| are defined something like: single family -> duplex/triplex ->
| row house -> low rise apartments -> mid rise apartments -> high
| rise apartments. In a neighborhood with a majority of housing
| stock at one level, it should always be legal to build the next
| level.
|
| The idea is that it allows neighborhoods to "thicken up" over a
| few decades.
| oconnore wrote:
| > it's probably not ideal to build a 30 story condo tower in
| the middle of a neighborhood of single family homes
|
| You mean because then it would be in their back yard? Or why?
| elefanten wrote:
| Because the surrounding infrastructure wasn't made for that
| density, and it takes way longer to retrofit than it does
| to throw up density, lowering the quality of life for the
| existing residents.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Isn't that a chicken and egg problem ?
|
| Perhaps you'd authorize that kind of development under
| condition of adding sime more infra to support the
| additional residents, but in itself getting a tower of
| residents doesn't look like an issue.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| You'd have to expand power grid, more water, city
| employees, build a new school, parking, roads, shopping for
| the influx of new residents, more police, more fire dept
| hires.
|
| Further, no one bought and built a 7 bedroom and 9 bath
| room home on an acre lot to live next to a few hundred
| people. It's utterly irrational and illogical.
|
| It completely denies the role of status seeking behaviour
| in our societies which is a human universal. We need
| wealthy people enjoying all the trappings of wealth and
| feel special about their status because it is them who are
| subsidizing the vast majority of the rest of the
| population. If you don't reward the golden goose, no free
| golden egg. Fight the right battle.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Not sure what you're referring to, but having a 7+
| bedroom that sits on multiple lots in a SFH neighborhood
| is a single of wealth where I'm at. The fact that it sits
| in a dense community near a city is a bonus.
|
| I've seen some really beautiful homes out in the country
| as well, but they aren't that practical unless you are
| retired.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > The idea is that it allows neighborhoods to "thicken up"
| over a few decades.
|
| Which doesn't seem a bad idea.. but where does the level of
| employment and services factor into this? If an area expands
| economically, you're going to need to expand housing options,
| regardless of what was traditionally there.. if the area does
| not produce a lot of economic activity, then allowing more
| low density housing is ostensibly not a problem.
| function_seven wrote:
| If property owners have the option to convert single family
| homes into duplexes, they can do that. Then if there's not
| enough demand for their units, they lower the rent until
| they fill the units. If demand is really high, then more
| property owners will start converting. If demand remains
| high, eventually those duplexes will be cleared out for
| some modest apartment complexes.
|
| For areas that don't have a lot of economic activity, I
| think very few homeowners will go through the expense of
| converting their properties because they won't be able to
| make the money back on rent. In those areas it would be
| more efficient to build new SFHs on vacant lots.
|
| Either way, with byzantine zoning rules out of the picture,
| the pricing and incentives to build, sell, or rent will
| match the local area much better.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| I really don't see how this would solve anything. It'd allow
| existing areas of SFH to be slowly converted into duplexes.
| It's not like suburbia is going to line up in droves to have
| their house converted into a duplex.
|
| This solves basically nothing because if there were pure
| market forces most of America's cities. would have ceased to
| be SFH long ago. Slow conversion into duplexes simultaneous
| pisses off the NIMBYs and doesn't really help add supply in
| any great deal.
|
| The evening news quote for this would be something like "if
| it were up to us, we'd build the new high rise today. But the
| city requires us to build several buildings, have people move
| in, evict them, then demolish that & start over. Something
| has to change with this process"
| georgeecollins wrote:
| >> It's not like suburbia is going to line up in droves to
| have their house converted into a duplex.
|
| That's just not true! People would do that in the
| neighborhood I live in now in Los Angeles if they could
| because it would allow you to make the same piece of real
| estate about 1.5x times as valuable.
|
| More interestingly, in Piedmont California where I grew up,
| there is a lot of controversy about this. That's an area
| that is very desirable -- great schools, pretty, close to
| San Francisco -- but also really expensive. Because its
| been a nice area for a long time many houses are on huge
| lots or even have servant's houses (!) that can be built up
| into a pretty nice house. Of course a lot of the
| neighborhood hates the idea of converting a single family
| lot into two homes even under these posh circumstances. But
| the economic incentives are powerful. I see it happening on
| my parent very fancy street.
|
| PS: One of the things that really bugs me (in my
| neighborhood and where I grew up) is when home owners argue
| about preserving the local character. I grew up in city
| where my mom and grandmother grew up. The house I grew up
| in was an adjacent piece of land that once had a single
| house. Now the neighbors would freak out if you took these
| large plots of land and built two houses on them or god
| forbid a duplex. But the truth is they haven't lived their
| that long and if they did they would know that the
| neighborhood has always been changing. I wish they could
| make peace with that.
| CPLX wrote:
| > I really don't see how this would solve anything. It'd
| allow existing areas of SFH to be slowly converted into
| duplexes.
|
| Twice as much housing is a lot more housing.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| But it isn't. You think all those SFH lots are just going
| overnight become a duplex? Why would the retired lady who
| walks her dogs and tends the garden care about building a
| duplex?
|
| Now when her kids inherit the home & sell it to a
| developer, sure it'll happen then. But that is a slow,
| generational process.
| jspaetzel wrote:
| Yeah exactly, it's a nice slow process that wouldn't piss
| people off by having too much rapid change.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| I think you need to meet some of the NIMBYs where I live.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| Moving the baseline like this would certainly help. It's
| also helpful to think about areas that are already a little
| denser than SFH. Replacing duplexes with small apartment
| buildings and medium apartment buildings with high-rises
| would have a much bigger impact and this proposal would
| make that possible as well.
|
| The part I wonder about are provisions for mixed use. At
| some point some business should be allowed. I think
| Japanese zoning has a linear system that covers this:
| https://www.rahulshankar.com/zoning-in-japan/
| kitten_mittens_ wrote:
| Ending single family zoning in Minneapolis resulted in
| something to the tune of 100 permitted duplex projects.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-happened-
| when-m...
|
| > Minneapolis had 425,336 residents as of mid-2021, the
| Census Bureau estimates, and 199,143 housing units as of
| April 2020. By my count the end of single-family zoning has
| so far allowed for the permitting of at most 97 new units
| (the above table shows numbers of buildings, not units),
| some of which haven't been built yet. If things continue at
| this pace, ending single-family zoning will have increased
| the city's housing supply by just 1% by 2040.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| I'm not trying to be sarcastic or snarky here: is this a
| serious suggestion that one hundred duplexes (net gain of
| about 100 housing units I would imagine) is a significant
| change? Or is there a unit error here?
| gamegoblin wrote:
| Minneapolis did not change the zoning sufficiently -- the
| new duplexes and triplexes nearly have to fit into the
| same footprint as the equivalent single family home. So
| you can have one big SFH or two half-sized duplexes, etc.
|
| For a single family home, the footprint can't take up
| more than 50% of the lot. For a duplex, the footprint
| can't take up more than 60% of the lot. Duplex and
| triplex projects could be made much more compelling by
| loosening these restrictions.
|
| https://minneapolis2040.com/media/1816/built-form-
| districts-...
| georgeecollins wrote:
| That's depressing. I can imagine the same thing happening
| in California because people will think of every other
| reason they can to stop you.
| gamegoblin wrote:
| Problems have solutions, predicaments have outcomes. SF has
| put themselves into a predicament.
|
| The Strong Towns approach is not really a solution for SF
| -- it's an approach to prevent the predicament from forming
| in the first place. Cities that are on the verge of
| becoming the next SF (Seattle, Portland, Austin) should
| take heed.
| mikebenfield wrote:
| NIMBY absolutists exist, and in fact are pretty common. There
| really are people who will oppose any new construction at
| all, even at the cost of destroying the livability of their
| city.
|
| But do what you describe as "YIMBY absolutists" actually
| exist? Maybe they do, but from my perspective I don't really
| see anyone arguing that everything should be buildable
| everywhere.
| kitten_mittens_ wrote:
| There's also BANANA (build absolutely nothing anywhere near
| anybody) which is perhaps a bit more tongue in cheek. It
| also sounds like the "YIMBY absolutists" mentioned in the
| GP.
| fasthands9 wrote:
| If it is economical to build a 30 story condo then you can be
| assured the area is either a very dense city or an extremely
| rich suburb. I don't think either areas deserves special
| protection.
|
| I suppose I would take the above proposal over the status quo
| if it truly eliminated local control - but otherwise seems
| like a very long time for a neighborhood to upzone. Its
| almost never going to be economical to tear down a SFH and
| build a triplex unless the SFH is in disrepair - which may be
| after 50 years from initial construction in most cases.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| "arguably a 30 story condo tower is better than a housing
| crisis"
|
| This. It means, if you don't want your precious quality of
| life messed up, be nicer to all those other people you
| normally think you don't have to give a shit about.
|
| If there wasn't a mass of people with no good jobs or
| housing, then there wouldn't be an ugly tower being built in
| your back yard. If your neighbor had his own food, he
| wouldn't need to steal yours, and you wouldn't have to live
| within your own private prison.
| walrus01 wrote:
| On the other hand if you have absolutely no zoning laws at all
| you end up with a sprawling urban agglomeration like metro
| Houston.
| bugzz wrote:
| Houston did/does have laws that are in effective zoning laws.
| Parking space requirements, setbacks, etc.
|
| Also transit systems may be required. I imagine a place with
| truly no zoning laws and a transit system would have a lot of
| development near stops
| monkpit wrote:
| Houston is a disaster. Used car dealerships inside of
| neighborhoods. Semi trucks on every conceivable road, because
| there is a factory behind the elementary school. A metroplex
| that takes hours to traverse, without accounting for traffic.
| It's the only place I've encountered completely stopped
| traffic while trying to go to the grocery store down the
| road. I lived in Houston for a few years and couldn't bear
| it.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| God forbid your city becomes like Houston. Nobody wants to
| live there, everyone's getting out of there and moving to
| California.
| ceroxylon wrote:
| Local to the area and yes, there are a lot of NIMBYs, however
| this is not the best case to illustrate the battle for affordable
| and accessible housing. This is a power couple wanting to butcher
| their slope (19 heritage trees) to build a mansion unbefitting of
| the neighborhood, and then trying to use the HDP law to force the
| county to let them do it, despite obviously not fitting the
| spirit of the law.
| hayksaakian wrote:
| For folks in the comments who didn't bother to read the first 5
| pages (the summary)
|
| The judge interpreted the HAA as only applying to units that
| expand housing beyond single family homes.
|
| The proposed project would be a 4000 square foot single family
| home in a neighborhood of roughly 1500-1600 square foot homes.
|
| Either way I think the law is absurd here, but it's actually
| having the INTENDED affect.
|
| Rather than building a luxurious single family home, the
| developer is encouraged to build a multi family home and actually
| expand the amount of housing available in the area.
|
| This seems like a "win" if your goal is to increase housing
| supply.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Next they're going to tell me that putting out my recycling isn't
| operating a recycling facility, and I was depending on that tax
| break.
| mertd wrote:
| Should I cancel my pool house "housing project"?
| int_19h wrote:
| TL;DR:
|
| "... these statutes do not resolve the meaning of the
| unhyphenated phrase "housing development project." As their broad
| definitions suggest, the phrase could use development as a verbal
| adjective and mean a project to develop housing (a housing
| "development project"). On the other hand, the phrase could use
| development as a concrete noun and mean a project to build a
| housing development (a "housing-development" project), a concept
| these statutes do not define. Under the first interpretation, a
| project to build a single home would seemingly qualify as a
| housing development project, because it is a "project undertaken
| for the purpose of development" (SS 65928) and the development
| activity consists of constructing housing. Under the second
| interpretation, the same project would seemingly not qualify as a
| housing development project, since an individual single-family
| home is not a "housing development," a term that generally refers
| to a group of housing units. ... Given the statutory context in
| which the definition of "housing development project" appears and
| the legislative history, we hold that the HAA does not apply to
| projects to build individual single-family homes."
| [deleted]
| Panzer04 wrote:
| So because your neighbours have small houses, you can't build a
| big house? What absolutely inane reasoning.
| [deleted]
| abeppu wrote:
| Under the reasoning laid out here, if you want to build one
| house, should you submit plans for a subdivision with multiple
| houses so that the HAA does apply, gain approval (and terrify the
| neighbors) and then run out of funds for construction as soon as
| the first house is completed?
| frognumber wrote:
| No, that does not follow.
|
| Law is not a computer program. It's interpreted by human
| lawyers and judges. It's not a system of rules.
|
| This sort of behavior falls under a broad set of rules about
| conspiracy, fraud, and similar. If that logic applied, I could
| apply for a permit to build an aesthetically-pleasing house,
| and run out of funds before the landscaping and exterior
| decoration were finished, and build slum housing. Fortunately,
| it doesn't work like that.
| abeppu wrote:
| Clearly, given the number of pages this dedicates to placing
| bounds on the definition of "housing development project",
| nothing is cut and dry.
|
| But I have to guess that if you were approved to build 3
| houses, and stopped after building 1, these neighbors aren't
| going submit complaints to the county to try to compel you to
| build the other 2.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| I watched a video about a guy in Hawaii who did the "lite"
| version of this. He could only get the zoning approval for
| a mansion basically, not the modest house he wanted to
| build. So he submitted plans for an absolutely massive
| mansion. Complete with a detached garage with a mother-in-
| law suite. He even gave it owns HVAC, plumbing, electrical,
| etc. All separate from the house.
|
| He built the mother in law suite, moved in, and the rest of
| the house has been "under construction" forever.
| YeBanKo wrote:
| Imo, they bent backwards to deny this development referring
| to ambiguity and trying to follow the intent. The intent of
| the law is clearly to build more housing and somehow they
| decided that this intent excludes one of the main residential
| dwelling in the USA. Seems like a conspiracy to me.
| > As originally enacted, the statutory definition provided
| that "housing development project" meant "a use consisting of
| either of the following: [P] (A) Residential units only.
| ... > This matters because unless we know the full
| meaning of "housing development project," it is difficult to
| evaluate the parties' central dispute: whether the plural
| term "residential units" includes the singular "residential
| unit."
|
| This is just bonkers.
| tims33 wrote:
| -deleted-
| mips_avatar wrote:
| I think you misread the judgement. They denied the permit to
| build the house, and the courts upheld the denial.
| _vertigo wrote:
| Am I missing something? There linked pdf is a decision
| upholding Marin County's rejection
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