hbp_burnerphone t1_j5b42gn wrote
there's so much in the way of building normal stuff in our state. some places require building parking lots, others require environmental review. i was raised about as "leftist" as it gets but this is a forest-for-the-trees situation: the people who put onerous restrictions on development imagine they are fighting for "the people" but what "the people" want is $500/mo rent.
We ended SROs, "boarding houses" and most forms of tenements, but offered no replacements. Single people trying to work and save money in the city should have a no-frills place to live -- they did 100 years ago.
Elsewhere in the state, barriers to new construction are often based on local appeals to "character" and environmental issues. The local appeals are almost always made by transplants to rural areas who moved there for the peace and quiet -- those should be ignored.
Environmental review is complicated, as it is very important but also takes WAY too long. A Hochul plan for development that streamlines that bureaucracy would be welcome
ken81987 OP t1_j5b8e9a wrote
>the people who put onerous restrictions on development imagine they are fighting for "the people" but what "the people" want is $500/mo rent.
It's a quagmire. We need more housing, but people who are well below affording market rates know that no matter what is built, the situation is too far gone to help them. So it ends up being in their interest to just avoid more changes in general.
According_Surround_7 t1_j5cc9yx wrote
This is fine as long as those people don't have children because those children will have nowhere to live
Pool_Shark t1_j5fd4zu wrote
Population in NY is shrinking they’ll be okay
CactusBoyScout t1_j5dnr9z wrote
> We ended SROs, “boarding houses” and most forms of tenements, but offered no replacements.
This is huge and so often overlooked. SROs used to number in the hundreds of thousands in NYC and most major US cities.
They were cheap and helped keep people off the street. But we banned them slowly and just expected people to find larger, more expensive homes. And without any support.
People like to say “no one should have to live like that” but it’s better than nothing.
Rottimer t1_j5c2wcb wrote
I’m the end, it almost always comes down to money. If I own a house on a tree lined street with other houses, I’m not going to be very happy seeing those trees come down, a large building goes up that now obscures the view I used to have - and I may have to deal with months or years of construction and the negative things that come with that. During the process and even after it, the value of my home drops substantially.
That’s often why people vote and protest against these things. The money. Even in Manhattan - if I have a view of the River and a sky scraper is built across the street and I now have the view of someone’s window and get less light - obviously the value of the apartment goes down - so I might find reasons to oppose that skyscraper from going up.
That’s not to say it doesn’t need to happen. But development should probably be encouraged in underutilized previously commercial areas (like what DUMBO was 30 years ago, before places where you can expect opposition.
CactusBoyScout t1_j5dmxn7 wrote
Yep. There’s a parking lot in the Seaport area that’s been locked in lawsuits with neighbors for decades all trying to stop the parking lot from becoming housing.
Why? It would block rich people’s views and lower their condo’s value.
I like what California is doing. Every city must submit a plan for building enough new housing accommodate population growth. And if they fail to do it, the state takes over and rubber stamps housing permits as fast as they come in.
ctindel t1_j5ie0hk wrote
If they’re that rich why don’t they just buy the parking lot and put it to rest. Other buildings have purchased air rights of neighboring buildings to prevent taller buildings from blocking the view.
09-24-11 t1_j5guaoh wrote
This is how I see it as well. While I don’t “feel bad” for people losing their property value I 100% understand why those people are NIMBY and fight against development.
signal_tower_product t1_j5gmmgo wrote
We shouldn’t need to require parking spots
phoenixmatrix t1_j5b50vl wrote
>barriers to new construction are often based on local appeals to "character" and environmental issues
I don't know about NYS, but in most places I lived, appeals took that form because its almost part of an unwritten protocol, and are rarely the real reasons.
While there's obviously a lot of NYMBYism for selfish and wrong reasons, developers also tend to be greedy and don't give a fuck about people they impact, and there's almost always something REALLY wrong/illegal/fucked up with every new project proposal. In an attempt to get that shit sorted out, you also open the floor to idiots who will bitch about anything and everything.
I lived somewhere where they builder across the street (in another state) wanted to make a mix used building where the commercial portion would be used by chemical labs. When reading the specs, we realized the fumes from that lab were going to be highly toxic, in large volume, shit on every environmental laws ever written, and we were downwind from it. The only venue we had to appeal was in community reviews. The same meetings where the arguments were being drowned out in NYMBYs bitching about "character" and YIMBYs saying anyone against it was a selfish NYMBY. That was rough.
Just one example, but almost every project review i've been directly or indirectly involved in (which was quite a few) had something like that going on.
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