How Demands for 'Local Control' Become an Excuse for NIMBYism
Conservatives' guiding principle should always be less government control, not more.
A bipartisan coalition of Not In My Back Yarders (NIMBYs) remains aghast at two of the most significant and praiseworthy new laws that California has approved in years. They are gathering signatures to qualify a statewide initiative that would overturn Senate Bills 9 and 10, which jump-start housing construction throughout the state.
S.B. 9 allows property owners to build two units in neighborhoods now zoned for single-family homes. It also allows lot splits that potentially allow four units where one house now exists. Few owners will take advantage of the rules, but it will mean—clutch your pearls time—some homeowners will have stylish new duplexes on their blocks.
S.B. 10 streamlines approval of 10-unit properties, such as small condominium projects near transit lines or on underutilized infill lots. Currently, local governments restrict duplexes and make it extremely difficult for developers to create condo developments thanks to the usual litany of state and local environmental and anti-growth regulations.
Opponents' hypocrisy is rich. These "get off my lawn" conservatives claim to be upholding the principle of local control by arguing that local government officials rather than bureaucrats in far-off Sacramento get to make development decisions. It sounds good in theory given the Jeffersonian concept that the government closest to the people governs best.
The better quotation (actually used by Henry David Thoreau but often misattributed to Thomas Jefferson) is "that government is best which governs the least." The goal—for those of us who value freedom—isn't to allow the right government functionary to control us, but to have less government control overall.
Local officials are easier to kick out of office than officials in Sacramento or Washington, D.C., but the locals can be extremely abusive. They know where we live, after all. I've reported extensively on California's defunct redevelopment agencies, and local tyrants would routinely abuse eminent domain under the guise of local control.
"Under S.B. 9, cities are required to approve these lot splits 'ministerially,' without any reviews, hearings, conditions, fees or environmental impact reports," complains my Southern California News Group colleague, Susan Shelley.
Oh, please.
Conservatives have for decades complained about the subjective nature of bureaucratic and public reviews, the evils of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and excessive fees. Now there's a law that fixes that, albeit in a limited manner, and they are grabbing their pitchforks.
S.B. 9 and S.B. 10 do not put Sacramento bureaucrats in charge of the locals. Instead, they deregulate certain development decisions, by requiring officials to approve a project "by right" provided it meets all the normal regulations. It eliminates subjectivity and defangs CEQA. Yet this greatly upsets them.
Conservatives are savvy enough to know the distinction between state laws that roll back government power and ones that exert government power. (That's why they often support pre-emption laws.) S.B. 9 and S.B. 10 do the former. This "local control" mantra is a way to sound principled when their transparent guiding principle is simply: Not in my neighborhood, you don't.
Local control is the principle when given the choice between, say, a regulatory edict from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or one from the South Coast Air Quality Management District, or a homeless program from Sacramento rather than City Hall. Conservatives' guiding principle should always be less government control, not more.
If conservatives seriously believe local control is the trump card, then they should lobby for the repeal of Proposition 13, which is a state-imposed restriction on local governments' authority to raise property taxes. I find Prop. 13 to be one of the best laws ever passed in this state. They should also oppose Republican efforts at the federal level to limit the ability of blue states to regulate the heck out of us.
Zoning laws are a creation of government regulation. Note how in older neighborhoods one finds a mish-mash of single-family homes, churches, apartments, and local stores. These often are among the most enticing neighborhoods, as anyone would attest who spends time in Old Town Orange or Pasadena.
There's nothing wrong with tract-house communities, but they didn't evolve naturally. Following World War II, the government decided to segregate single-family homes in one area, apartments in another, and shopping centers elsewhere. These new laws won't obliterate that historically unusual design, but they will loosen it up—not by edict, but by giving property owners more freedom.
As funny as it is to see conservatives upset at restrictions on CEQA and an expansion of property rights, it's even funnier to hear NIMBY liberals whine about the new laws. Even liberal cities are finding all sorts of half-baked reasons to impede these laws' implementation. They are for more affordable housing and diversity, but not around them.
Let's at least dispense with the idea that the opposition to S.B. 9 and S.B. 10 involves any principle beyond this one: Not In My Back Yard.
This column was first published in The Orange County Register.
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And fuck your duplex in my expensive neighborhood.
Conservatives acting like progressives, trying to control what you peacefully do with your own property. Bunch of karens trying to micromanage your land.
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And liberals, acting like, well liberals, can’t figure out how they ended up buying a house they can’t afford, are mad about restrictions that might force them to deal with their self-induced problem, and are looking for a bailout. Kinda like with pregnancy.
Some libertarians would like to be able to afford even a condo or to have free-market rents so as to be able to save money after paying rent. It’s the zoning communist conservatives who stand in the way of free-market affordability.
Sure they do. Is that the same problem some libertarians have, along with most liberals, with the high price of California beach-front houses?
If each beachfront house was replaced by a high-rise, then a lot more people would be able to afford beachfront property. Law of supply and demand.
Sorry to hear you can’t afford a nice place.
Since your “nice place” is dependent upon government infringement of property rights, you owe me and everyone else who is denied free-market rents. Maybe there should be a parcel tax per square foot to pay for the privilege of violating property rights to keep people out? That would not be any more anti-libertarian than the zoning regulations that infringe property rights and keep people out by force of law.
Yer funny.
The zoning restrictions are priced into the property, just like easements and other restrictions. That’s why you don’t get a dime.
You want to buy a property with encumbrances on it and then just ignore them.
The zoning restrictions are effectively a covenant that comes with the land. You knew about them when you bought. Trying to change the rules afterwards is unacceptable.
Fuck your single-family home, communist!
“Conservatives’ guiding principle should always be less government control, not more.”
What planet are you on?
The new conservative mantra is “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you”.
No it isn’t, you lying fuck.
What planet are you on?
Apparently, the one where California would be a libertarian paradise if it weren’t for all the wreckers, kulaks, and conservatives.
The home you live in is probably the biggest asset you have. Protecting the value of that asset makes a lot of sense, so restrictions on what can be built next door is a reasonable way to try to prevent something like an animal rendering plant, drug addict needle exchange, or homeless shelter moving in.
Zoning laws protect investment.
You’ve bought into the Big Democrat Lie. Homes are supposed to be homes, not investments. Thinking homes are investments is what is getting China into trouble, with millions of empty houses, even empty cities, just so they can keep building.
Homes are also an investment, but they are first and foremost homes. They should not be an excuse for bigger government. You already got a fucking mortgage interest deduction, now you want to tell your neighbor he can’t have a duplex? Fuck off.
“Based on the most recent data, a typical homeowner’s net worth was $255,000 compared to only $6,300 for the average renter,” “That’s a net worth 40 times greater.” Where on earth did you find evidence that investing in a home vs renting is democratic Big lie? Answer: No where of course. You compare communist china to market place America? Are you for real? So if I pay cash for my house, or pay off the mortgage it’s ok to tell the neighbor no duplex?
^This. Brandybuck.^
You always could tell your neighbor that they can’t build a duplex. Those encumbrances were known at purchase time.
The ONLY reason it’s the biggest asset is because of the shit-ton of subsidies and distortions that drove its price up since about WW2.
Johannes, We’re not talking about animal rendering plants – we’re talking about residential i.e. housing. How does any residential unit have any lesser or greater right to be constructed on private property in a neighborhood than another residential unit? What is it that gives the renter or condo-dweller any less of a right to be on the property next door than you have a right to be on your property? One’s property rights begin and end at one’s property line.
In a FREE market, one has no more right to have the market value of one’s property protected by coercive government intervention i.e. zoning than one has the right to have the market value of one’s stocks supported by coercive government intervention in the free-market.
How does any residential unit have any lesser or greater right to be constructed on private property in a neighborhood than another residential unit?
This conflict dates back to boarding houses in the Victorian era. Houses with one nuclear family in each house are just one step away from God. But when the kids move away – and the husband then dies – and the widow decides she wants to stay in the house and take in boarders, then it’s the slippery slope to hell.
It may start as the Sunny View Home for Fine Young Catholic Ladies. But soon enough, one of them will stop going to church, get pregnant, have an abortion, then an immigrant or someone new to town will move in, and pretty soon it will be the Camptown Races or the Darktown Strutters and everything in the neighborhood will be toast. Gotta stop that rolling stone from gathering moss while it heads into the shithole.
One cannot assume any one particular outcome it the free market. If there’s more market demand for flophouses, then flophouses will be built. If there is more market demand for luxury housing, then luxury housing will be built. If there’s more demand for single-family on quarter acre, then single-family on quarter acre will be built, keeping in mind that a quarter acre of land may not be cheap.
We’re not talking about outcomes, we’re talking about fulfilling you’re contractual obligations. The free market demands that.
What contractual obligations are imposed on a third party absent specific provisions of agency or assignment?
The encumbrances exist on the seller, and the seller passes them along to the buyer.
You’re not buying land, you’re buying land subject to preexisting encumbrances.
These aren’t encumbrances you fucking twit. They are subsidies and distortions by the zoning code that benefit the owner and enforced by the government – at the cost of those OUTSIDE the neighborhood.
You knew about the zoning in your city before you bought your home, whether it is “in the neighborhood” or somewhere else. Because you knew about the zoning, it is priced into your purchase price. If you don’t like it, buy somewhere else.
I’ma free market, encumbrances and easements that come with a property need to be insured by the people purchasing the property. If you buy in a single family zoned neighborhood, you must comply with that restriction IN A FREE MARKET.
No. The two parties to a contract must PAY for imposing obligations upon third parties. They cannot simply unilaterally impose a burden on third parties. This is the same intergenerational burden that we are constantly imposing on the future. Not by right but precisely because we don’t give them standing to correct those unpaid impositions. So that WE can force them to give us subsidies from the public trough.
R1 zoning is, almost without exception everywhere in the US/Canada, subsidized by all other land use zones in a municipality. Because of the low density. Maintenance of roads, water, sewer drainage, utilities, education, police, fire, etc are all costs that are highly correlated with area covered. In R1 zones, those costs are not remotely covered by prop taxes generated from that land area/value. Meaning – everyone else has to either pay higher prop tax rates to cover those costs or new tax bases on others (esp income) have to be mined to cover those costs or we just head the path of growth Ponzi schemes using cash accounting, debt rollover, not doing maintenance of anything, expecting frequent harvests from the state/federal free-money tree.
If R1 zones actually paid their own freight – including the NIMBYism that results, that would be fine. But the reverse is what happens. Those are precisely the folks who expect (and have the electoral power to receive) higher and higher subsidies and distortions.
The buyer and seller aren’t imposing anything on anybody. The encumbrances (including zoning) preexist on all properties and every buyer agrees to abide by them.
The question of zoning and infrastructure are separate: you can have single family zoning without any city services or roads. Several of the homes I have owned have had no city services. Many cities also have special assessments to cover infrastructure. Cities do the math on all this.
In any case, just as single family home owners know what city and zoning they buy into, so do owners of other properties. If you think a city is subsidizing single family homes too much, don’t buy there. If you do, you must live up to the obligations you assumed when you bought.
The question of zoning and infrastructure are separate: you can have single family zoning without any city services or roads. Several of the homes I have owned have had no city services. Many cities also have special assessments to cover infrastructure. Cities do the math on all this.
Zoning and infrastructure are not separate. You pretty clearly are talking only about homeowner associations. And those almost without exception dump a ton of infrastructure liabilities on surrounding government entities (whether county or muni or state). Cities (and certainly not counties or states) do NOT do the math on this because they all – without exception – use cash accounting rather than accrual/liability accounting.
You are in cloud cuckoo land. Seriously I don’t know whether you are constructing an alternative backwards reality in order to support a pre existing ideology. Are you a Mises caucus type?
Your experience buying and selling real estate doesn’t provide one whit of knowledge about public finance.
What it does is provide an affirmation of the quote – It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his income depends on him not understanding it.
And no Mises caucus libertarian is not classical liberal. Nihilist maybe but my question was more about argument tactics. Now answered.
And that road needs to be repaired and maintained long before the debt to build it is paid back.
Plus, it ain’t just roads. Memphis has been covering most of the sewer costs for its suburbs in MS for 40 years. Now those sewers need repair and those burbs want to pretend that that sewer infrastructure is a function of volume rather than acreage. So Memphis is telling them to go to hell and those burbs will have a big sewer problem in one year. If the burb was in TN, then those burbs would be bailed out via a bond rollover instead.
Another rant about single family zoning.
Gee, if voiding single structure restrictions to allow duplexes and granny flats is more freedom, then why not fourplexes? Multi-story apartment blocks? Mixed residential and commercial? Open pit mining?
No one is talking about open pit mining here except you. Nothing wrong with fourplexes. Jeepers.
That’s just your opinion. And my opinion thinks open pit mines are great. Tell us where you live so I can buy the property next to yours. No restrictions, right? You will not complain, right?
The libertarian case for central control because locals are making the wrong decisions.
At core, the rant is about money and debt and public finance. Single-family zoning is only one brick in what becomes an inflexible pathway that leads to mega projects that can only be ultimately financed by government debt since the debt can’t be paid back. R1 zoning requires huge distances to the nearest errands which requires cars, public land set aside for non-prop-tax roads which requires some alternative tax base. Since the development debts can’t actually be paid, it requires the tax base to be skewed towards subsidizing debt and punishing equity. The combo of that and mega (read federal money and state managed) projects undermines any alternative development model that is smaller scale but sustainable and delivers true ROI.
Ultimately this isn’t about some moralizing value judgement. Absent some Ponzi scheme to keep rolling over (and socializing at a higher level) debt, this development model will go broke. The only question is how long will cities keep kicking the can and when will they realize how deep in the hole they are.
Georgists understand this. As do any classical economists who still understand land. A newish nonprofit called strongtowns.org understands it and wrote an article about Why your city has no money. But mostly we don’t get it and don’t care and will keep kicking the can.
Georgists? We already pay land value taxes.
The reason towns have no money is because they water it.
What R1 zoning requires is irrelevant. What matters is that people buy homes in a neighborhood given the zoning restrictions that exist there.
No one is answering you about the zoning restrictions that exist when you buy a house because they can’t and still have a point of their own.
We do not pay land value taxes. We pay PROPERTY taxes.
Our property taxes include taxes on the land value. On top of that, we a also pay taxes on improvements. Property tax assessments list that separately.
Property taxes are NOT simply some additive tax where ‘land’ is separate from ‘improvements’.
Property taxes are essentially a form of tax assessment fraud. Where ‘improvements’ are continually repriced upwards via some imputed replacement value that is supposedly incorporated in market prices even though ALL improvements deteriorate and decline in value. The reason they are repriced upwards is so that depreciation on those improvements can constantly increase and thus create a stream of future tax deductions for ‘expenses’ that are neither incurred nor accrued. Land does NOT depreciate. Therefore, by every non-fraudulent rule of accounting, it should not generate depreciation deductions.
If you don’t understand this – well it isn’t supposed to be obvious because it is basically a form of tax assessment fraud that benefits those wealthy enough to have their taxes done by accountants and lawyers who DO understand the fraud and who are hired to maximize the benefit for their clients. A tax system fraud because the cost of it is incurred by everyone else who doesn’t have lawyers and accountants do their taxes.
Investor-owned residential properties certainly drive up the price of owner-occupied residential property. But that’s not commercial property in zoning terms. And zoning terms is not tax return terminology. There’s a real pointlessness to discussion in these comments.
Are you seriously saying that R1 zoning requires LESS road mileage to the nearby commercial zones where they go do errands? Or maybe they don’t need roads because Amazon
Ah, changing goalposts again, I see.
We’re discussing your claim that single family neighborhoods are “subsidized” by the taxpayers in other kinds of neighborhoods.
That claim is wrong. The high taxes single family homeowners pay, plus the separate connection and utility charges, more than pay for the costs single family homes impose on towns and cities.
See, here you did it again:
I didn’t use the term “commercial property”. I talked about “commercial entities owning real estate”.
> Few owners will take advantage of the rules, but it will mean—clutch your pearls time—some homeowners will have stylish new duplexes on their blocks.
There are some of these stylish duplexes several blocks down from me in a very single family home area. So what? They are not out of place, not detracting from anyone. Similarly my rural hometown has some nice duplexes. Better than yet another mobile home park. Better than an apartment complex. Have a home with a lawn. Good stuff.
I know why progressives hate this stuff, but why do conservatives hate it too? Is it because they secretly desire control over everyone’s lives?
Arguing for more local control is a distraction. Decentralized government is a tactic to reduce the overall size of government, but it should not be the actual goal. The goal must be smaller government, even at the local level. Especially at the local level where big government affects people most directly.
Government should not be breaking kneecaps, but I see too many conservatives arguing that state and local governments that should be doing the kneecap breaking instead. Sorry, no government at any level should be breaking kneecaps!
No one is talking about breaking kneecaps.
Be patient.
Nimbyism is a choice to live where there are limits to protect one property and health. that is the ultimate libertarian choice to deny that choice is not libertarian. anything else is anarchy and the world has tried that literal feuds between not just kingdoms but even between individual households life was not good in the unrestricted past
So if I have an easement over my neighbor’s backyard, you want to abolish that too?
In any case, if you abolish zoning, it will just be replaced by CCRs.
What’s Greenhut’s address?
Let him try to prove he isn’t a piece of shit hypocrite.
I was going to make a wisecrack about it being conservative to use zoning to keep the neighborhood from going over to the darkies, but I couldn’t because as a property owner I absolutely hate government telling me what I can or can’t do with my land.
And?
I hate to break it to the rag, but people have a right to organize their communities as they see fit.
Not if they contradict the values of their betters!
Try “whites only” and see how that works.
Now see, a good libertarian magazine would argue that free association means that some neighborhoods would be allowed to disallow people based on whatever.
But neither Greenhut, nor reason, will do that.
No, because that would be abhorrent to all decent people.
Then decent people would go live somewhere else and the neighborhood would be a shithole with no property value.
Many indecent people are quite well off.
Such communities already exist.
One’s property rights end at one’s property line. One can bar someone from one’s own property, but not from the neighborhood.
That is wrong. Your property rights are whatever you get under the purchase agreement. That usually includes both other people having the rights to do something in your land and vice versa.
There is a school of thought that states, municipalities, school districts, and even neighborhoods can have “rights”. They can’t. Only individuals have rights.
Yes, libertarians believe that people can have ethnically themed neighborhoods. Black activists are telling us that these are a good thing. De facto, they exist for many ethnicities.
Not if it violates property rights. One’s property rights end at one’s property line.
So HOAs are unconstitutional in your view?
No. Not if it’s all private property. HOAs typically arise when created by private developers on a tract of private property.
You don’t need an HOA to have private covenants and restrictions for a group of parcels. And many HOAs are on property that want developed by a single developer.
No, that is incorrect. You may have easements, covenants, and other restrictions.
No, they don’t. They don’t have the right to institute slavery, expropriate the kulaks or generally cheat and steal. It’s none of your business what I do with my property unless it violates your property rights. By “organize their communities” you mean “coerce their neighbors”.
What “conservative” are you actually referencing? All I see is you declaring resistance to these proposals as conservative actions without evidence and the one person you do call out is a journalist so I’m just going to assume they’re as conservative as Jennifer Rubin.
That was my question too, how many conservatives are left in California anyway. Can’t be enough to make a difference.
And, it’s worth noting that these “conservatives” were the ones that were there for the enacting of these laws in the first place. It’s pretty plainly clear that it’s a fight between crazy far left CA progressives and absurdly far left CA progressives and Greenhut’s just using the label “Conservative” as a thought-terminating derogatory term.
If you go far enough to the left, everyone’s ‘conservative.’
The real question here is the tension between smaller government and subsidiarity. This is a discussion worth having, and it’s not obvious to me that higher level government fiat necessarily should trump local control just because we may like the outcome.
This whole thing is such a mess of regulations, with new regulations layered on top of other regulations, buttressed by regulations in a regulatory framework of regulations, I really can’t even get a read on how this will actually turn out if implemented.
But you’re clear that it’s CA Conservative’s fault, right?
Go away Greenhut
So, click a link to find out who these “conservatives” are that Greenhut is talking about. Sure enough, like an utter douchebag, Greenhut has cited himself and, sure enough, in the article he cited, he’s no clearer on who these “conservatives” are or what makes them “conservative” other than he doesn’t agree with them on this issue.
Central control is always more dangerous than 50 or 100 or whatever versions of local control. It’s a lot easier to just move away from local authorities who are over-zealous. Sure you can use the power ring for good, but the temptation for someone else (or you after you get used to wielding power) to use it for evil is too great.
The article needs a disclaimer, “No actual Conservatives were interviewed, cited, or even named, let alone vetted, in this piece.”
So, wait, these are the long-standing CA progressives who voted for and enacted the laws that made housing development the complex, befuddled mess that it is. And now that the inevitable work to undo their mess starts and they’re opposed, we aren’t talking about a disagreement between extremist CA liberals and crazy CA liberals but, suddenly, one group becomes conservatives? It’s clear that the use of the word ‘conservative’ in this manner is derogative, and is strongly indicative of subversion. Like ‘conservative’ is just being tossed around like a derogatory scapegoat, used to obfuscate nuance. It’s much more apparent if you use other such terms historically used in this fashion:
ConservativesWreckers and kulaks have for decades complained about the subjective nature of bureaucratic and public reviews, the evils of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and excessive fees. Now there’s a law that fixes that, albeit in a limited manner, and they are grabbing their pitchforks.ConservativesThe Jews have for decades complained about the subjective nature of bureaucratic and public reviews, the evils of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and excessive fees. Now there’s a law that fixes that, albeit in a limited manner, and they are grabbing their pitchforks.ConservativesNiggers have for decades complained about the subjective nature of bureaucratic and public reviews, the evils of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and excessive fees. Now there’s a law that fixes that, albeit in a limited manner, and they are grabbing their pitchforks.Are they grabbing their pitchforks because they have a legitimate complaint, elected people to fix the issue and got a band-aid as a compromise? Are they grabbing their pitchforks because slightly less capricious and excessive is still capricious and excessive? Are they actually libertarians grabbing a pitchfork and going to die on the hill of ending the CEQA? Are they grabbing their pitchforks because they’re CA liberals who just hate other CA liberals? Who gives a shit? They’re
KulaksJewsNiggersConservatives!The article needs a disclaimer, “No actual Conservatives were interviewed, cited, or even named, let alone vetted, in this piece.”
Indeed, the author first call them “[a] bipartisan coalition” and then proceeds to label them all conservatives. Reason is turning into Salon.
Conservatives’ guiding principle should always be less government control, not more.
As is being demonstrated for the entire citizenry to observe…
The right has gone COMPLETELY hypocrites….
From media dictation.
To pregnant woman dictation.
To ( Nimbyism )…
They seem to have joined the LEFT and their Gov-God horsewhipping practices. Who will stand for the U.S. Constitution ensuring Individual Liberty and Justice for all???
While I agree a lot of zoning is onerous, it’s still better handled at the local level, where people can have more of a say and understand the effects that increased development can have. Is the state of California going to build the infrastructure required to meet the increased demand everywhere, or is that going to be left to the local government to handle? And yeah, I know, “Muh Roadz!”. But the reality is that most local infrastructure is built and maintained by local government, and unless/until that changes that’s where decisions are better made.
Take where I live as an example. It’s zoned for single family on lots no smaller than two acres. That may seem onerous, until you realize I live on a road that 90% of is only 1.5 lanes wide, with thick trees on both sides of the road on the side of a hill. People that live here know that when you see a car coming the other direction you need to pull off to the side if you can and let the other car pass. If all of the sudden some developer decided to build a bunch of higher density housing the road would need to be widened or else it would take forever just to drive down the road. The cost to widen the road would be excessive and the people that live here would be stuck with the bill.
Another example actually just came up near where my brother lives. A developer was trying to get some farmland rezoned to build apartments. While the road there is two paved lanes, there’s no stoplights, just 2 and 4 way stops. An apartment complex would require several stoplights in the area and probably some turn lanes. There’s existing sewer and water that was not built to handle an apartment complex, so all of that would need to be torn up and rebuilt. And again, the people that live there now would pay to have their front yards torn up.
So yeah, in theory, people should be free to do what they want with their own property, but the way our current system is set up it’s not always that simple.
I would add that there’s a bit of libertarian failing here as well. We frequently project “Law repealed. Problem solved.”, dust off our hands and walk away. Per your example(s), yeah, if you just repeal the law and walk away, that creates a problem where, down the line, you’re going to have to deal with all the same over-officious jackasses putting in stoplights at every intersection for 20 mi. I certainly agree that “You don’t have a plan.” isn’t an argument against a bad status quo but, at the same time, blindly advancing to the next bad status quo and damning the consequences is a hallmark of progressivism.
Let’s say X buys a nice house in a nice neighborhood for $500,000. Along comes Steven Greenhut, with his “Zoning laws are evil!” attitude, and, a few years down the road, while X’s house is still nice, the neighborhood isn’t so nice anymore. Sucks to be X, right?
And conservatives are supposed to like this?!
As-if it’s governments job to SUBSIDIZE anyone’s investments.. U just as well be pitching communism so all houses can be a sh*t-hole in a sh*tty neighborhood which ironically is exactly what ur pushing for. If you want to control an entire area BUY (PAY FOR IT) the entire neighborhood instead of packing around 3rd party Gov-Guns to do your selfish criminal mentality for you.
Conforming with zoning laws isn’t “communism”.
If California doesn’t allow single family zoning, you will likely see a lot more neighborhoods adopt CCRs. That ends up being less flexible and more restrictive, but it’s fine by me.
Kinda (not really) weird that his solution to the failings of massive government overreach is massive private real estate developer overreach (which actually already has a heavy hand in this specific situation). You’d think even communists would support a proliferation of smaller literal communes managed directly by The People who live there but, hey, I’m a free market guy, what do I know?
“Massive private real estate developer overreach” — doesn’t pack Gov-Gun threats.. So it’s value must be established by the people willing to pay for it instead of Gov-Gun packing [WE] mobsters trying to TAKE it by pointing Guns…
Yes; CCR and HOA would work a LOT better than politicians with Gun threats.
I’m perfectly happy with transforming all city zoning restrictions on existing properties into CC&Rs.
The net effect of that will be that only home owners covered by the CC&Rs will be able to vote on changes; neither voters, nor the city, nor the state will be able to impose changes then. I think that’s a good thing. But the effect is the opposite of what you advocate.
“Massive private real estate developer overreach” — doesn’t pack Gov-Gun threats.
You’d better go tell Susette Kelo.
Calls for local control are never about maximizing liberty. They are about who gets to be the tyrant.
How about CC&Rs and HOAs? Do you reject them too or do you allow them?
We could translate all zoning restrictions into per-neighborhood CC&Rs; no more government involvement. How about it?
CC&Rs would depend on the specifics.
HOAs are tyranical local control at it’s absolute worst. They ought to be illegal.
Prohibiting voluntary private associations and replacing them with government? You’re a communist.
I’m fine with peeling back and reforming zoning laws in piecemeal, very slowly. These laws seem to do that.
You can yell NIMBY all you want, but if you radically change the laws in a way that torpedos peoples’ property value you’re effectively stealing their property. It was bought under the pretense that it and the surrounding property could only be used for certain things.