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willzyx01 t1_j6ik79v wrote

Allow developers to build up, stop asking NIMBYs for their opinions on shadows at 5:30am.

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ClarkFable t1_j6imahc wrote

Thing is, as long as you indiscriminately raise height limits, almost all NIMBYs will benefit too, as the potential occupancy of whatever footprint they own will increase. The problem is when you make height increases a case-by-case basis, which will just lead to more corruption incentives at the zoning board and reward shady developers.

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0tanod t1_j6ivq2j wrote

I finally realized the NIMBYs will also fight their home increasing in value, because then they have to pay more in taxes when their appraisal goes up. There is no winning with them.

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IntelligentCicada363 t1_j6iwsc9 wrote

yup. they 100% do this.

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Roszo21 t1_j6kk4ip wrote

Are you surprised that elderly people on fixed incomes don't want the taxes on their home to go up?

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pipis9001 t1_j6l18uh wrote

old people don't deserve a free pass if their end game is to screw everyone over that's younger than them (and! the same age as them just POORER). we all lose

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IntelligentCicada363 t1_j6kri50 wrote

They have to pay their taxes just like I do and that isn’t an excuse to strangle the cities finances

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ThatFrenchieGuy t1_j6jerns wrote

Also when developers buy out space to put a mid/high rise in, they tend to pay 10-25% over market to get you to fuck off and go away. It's a great place to be if you own property in an area that should be denser.

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Lemonio t1_j6kphc6 wrote

I feel like priority for most NIMBYs is not wanting more people near them, not the housing value

The housing value matters if you want to move short term but most nimby probably care more about what effect there will be on day to day life if they’re planning to stay in their home for a while

Obviously NIMBYs aren’t being helpful to fellow humans, but it also seems like an understandable instinct that people in a suburban neighborhood don’t want it to become more crowded, and don’t really gain anything of value otherwise

Maybe if developers could just legally bribe neighbors with cash to get projects approved that would work to reduce resistance

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1998_2009_2016 t1_j6mwfl9 wrote

Bribing neighbors is basically what happens in Cambridge. Oh you want a big lab? Better build a park, community space, donate to the affordable housing fund … then we will approve your variance.

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ClarkFable t1_j6lekex wrote

>The housing value matters if you want to move short term but most nimby probably care more about what effect there will be on day to day life if they’re planning to stay in their home for a while

This is a fair point, and I agree that the degree to which some will be swayed by potential property value increases varies across individual's. In a way, I probably have more sympathy for a NIMBY who isn't just being greedy for money, but instead has a genuine preference for the characteristics of their neighborhood.

>Obviously NIMBYs aren’t being helpful to fellow humans, but it also seems like an understandable instinct that people in a suburban neighborhood don’t want it to become more crowded, and don’t really gain anything of value otherwise

I find this also to be compelling. In some sense I think this is why the term NIMBY is overused (or misapplied) in these discussions. Home values constitute such a large portion of most peoples wealth/savings, that what rational person is going to want to see development that will harm or lower their home value? Along the same lines, I tend to think of NIMBY as reflecting the following thought process: I want public good X, but I don't want public good x near me--i.e., I want X but not in my back yard. So if a property owner doesn't really care about increasing the housing stock (regardless of its location), are they really a NIMBY?

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Lemonio t1_j6lgwtd wrote

I mean I imagine the reason that nimbys are so common is it basically people who care more about their own interests than others which is most people

You need to either ignore them and not give them a choice, or you need to change the incentives to somehow make it worth their while, otherwise it shouldn’t be surprising that people will oppose new housing near their house

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some1saveusnow t1_j6mjsj5 wrote

Not giving people who have owned for a long time in a community a choice, and doing so across the board, is a fast track to local government hell for the legislature

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Lemonio t1_j6ml87k wrote

If you’re not taking people’s homes and just building big on empty lots and when houses are sold people might not be happy but at the end of the day if they get to complain idk how much they care

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ribi305 t1_j6muwvz wrote

I go to a fair number of these meetings in my neighborhood and the NIMBY view I hear most often is "why do we need to turn Cambridge into another New York?" A lot of old people just seem to feel that their neighborhood shouldn't need to accommodate the new people who want to live there. The problem (in my view) is that we have been adding jobs like crazy so it's become a need to add housing to begin to catch up.

Interestingly, Cambridge, Boston and the urban areas around here actually had higher population in the past ('60s), but they packed way more people into smaller housing. A lot of the reason we need more housing now is because of smaller households wanting more space per person.

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some1saveusnow t1_j6mjf6x wrote

you’re the first person I’ve seen since I’ve been on Reddit who actually gets it

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Lemonio t1_j6mkyv6 wrote

Just to be clear I do think NIMBYs are bad and we should be building a lot more housing - I was just pointing out that the NIMBY response shouldn’t be surprising because people are just following their own incentives

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senatorium t1_j6j4s2x wrote

Meanwhile, in Braintree: https://twitter.com/bycathcarlock/status/1620107100545507329

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RoaminRonin13 t1_j6l6f6b wrote

Saddest part is this Braintree development is exactly what we need to see more of - in many ways it’s the perfect project to increase housing density.

Its impact on traffic is negligible, since it’s already within the overall mall area. It has no (I think) direct residential neighbors to piss off, in terms of “context”. It doesn’t require tearing down any existing residential.

Fighting against it is amazingly idiotic.

Quincy has plenty of housing that is this density, and it’s doing just fine. Hasn’t changed anything fundamental about the city.

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rygo796 t1_j6mgtt2 wrote

That's a strange take from the Mayor. Senior housing is great for town coffers. Lots of tax revenue, little use of town resources (schools).

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RhaenyrasUncle t1_j6mtg6j wrote

Welcome to Medford.

The amount of money/nightlife that could be accrued in downtown Medford if we only kicked out all the retirees from those massive nursing homes err, uh, "residential towers" right on Riverside and by Wellington.

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hellno560 t1_j6kq62m wrote

on that note here is a link to sign up for the public meeting for bay city tomorrow at 6pm focused on housing https://www.bostonplans.org/news-calendar/calendar/2023/02/01/dorchester-bay-city-public-meeting-housing

I am not a member of the community advisory commitee but I sat through the last meeting and the advisors (whom mostly represented housing nonprofits ) just pushed for more "affordable" units. They were all in favor of the build. The developer has made a commitment to 20% affordable units out of 2,000. This would be a huge win for the city housing crisis. The problem is the developer says "putting aside concerns about the economy they could not break ground until middle of 2024.

If you are a Boston resident please consider attending the meeting, voice your approval of the project and hold the Wu administration responsible for delaying a publicly supported project for years in the middle of a housing crisis.

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RoaminRonin13 t1_j6l9mxq wrote

I think this oversimplifies it and buys into the “zoning is the problem” narrative. We could just push for rezoning that allowed for and encourages 5 story residential buildings. Those low-rise developments are going to be the main thing that brings us towards solving this problem, as they can be built slightly more affordably and make an easier argument to sell against NIMBYism.

All I’m saying is we could create the space for these buildings in our zoning, which are more easily defensible, rather than simply give up the ghost and let developers build whatever they want. “The Market” isn’t going to solve this problem, it’s perfectly fine with how expensive housing is.

You’re not wrong about the shadows thing - them fighting that project over by the Fens because it’ll cast shadows on the park at 7:30am in March or whatever is a disgrace.

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Codspear t1_j6md0j6 wrote

> “The Market” isn’t going to solve this problem, it’s perfectly fine with how expensive housing is.

The market is why Houston is cheap. It doesn’t have the senseless idiocy of zoning laws.

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taudep t1_j6mv6u7 wrote

>Add a quarter of a mil to that to get within a commuting distance of Boston that isn't going to make you regret your life decisions.

Houston also has nearly endless "free" land surrounding it and a population density of 3800 per mile, vs 14K - 15K for Boston. So on that note, Boston's already succeeding at nearly 3.5 - 4x the density of cramming people in?

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mshelikoff t1_j6iz41j wrote

In 2023, no rational person would have the idea that any developer should be permitted to build anything anywhere of any size at any price point. After local, national, and global inequality have increased for decades, no rational person would believe that local people must abandon local government control over their neighborhoods and surrender to the realization that multinational Real Estate Investment Trusts with anonymous foreign investors are the ones who should control the future of their community.

NIMBYs are selfish idiots. YIMBYs are dangerous idiots.

People with brain cells recognize that we live in a complex world where individual people will always want as much control over their lives as the systems in place will allow them to have. Some renters have opinions about shadows at 5:30 am. A fantasy-land where multi-millionaire NIMBY homeowners and multinational REITs are the only ones with power who participate in local government is a land where renters are one step away from being nothing but vermin to be controlled or exterminated.

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Flashy_Positive1657 t1_j6jfve2 wrote

What point are you trying to make here? Is this satire?

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mshelikoff t1_j6jw5fd wrote

I'll support or won't support a particular development based on its alignment with principles of intelligent urbanism or another rational urbanist school of thought. Just because the basic solution is to build more housing, that doesn't mean we have to increase inequality and decrease equitable access to opportunities to achieve that solution.

My view is that YIMBYs should be supported to the extent that they are housing justice advocates.

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dpm25 t1_j6jrqos wrote

Yimbys aren't talking about oil rigs and steel Mills. They are talking about housing.

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mshelikoff t1_j6k1jr2 wrote

I will likely agree with anyone who has obvious goals of housing justice and a rational, humane urbanism. A person with those goals might be for or against a particular housing development depending on the details and depending on the displacements of the people there now.

If you will permanently remove 5 working class long-term resident families with kids in the local public schools in order to create a tall building with 200 graduate students living in studios then I'll probably be against you. Call me a NIMBY. I won't care.

If you don't increase the rent of those 5 families much and find temporary housing for them while you build your tall building and welcome them back into your tall building when it's done and introduce them to their new neighbors then I'll probably be with you. Call me a YIMBY. I won't care.

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dpm25 t1_j6k2295 wrote

Yeah I prefer grad students sharing multi bedroom apts and homes, it's oh so much better for competing rents /s

The socialist wing of the left is so bat shit crazy on housing.

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mshelikoff t1_j6k2neu wrote

You can usually tell who is batshit crazy from their words alone. If person 1 compares A to B and person 2 pretends that person 1 was comparing A to C and then writes "/s", person 2 is batshit crazy.

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