I bought a house in 1993 with a good view. Neighbor built house where front window viewed. Stupid me, should have thought about it but the lot was a drainage pond for a year or so after I moved in, then suddenly got filled with dirt and a house built right across my living room window.

But it is my own fault for not noticing that the drainage lot would be eventually filled in. Oh well, was a nice house to live in and I enjoyed living there. Sold in 1996.

Yeah, that sucks for you. But again - you didn't own the view, you just expected the view to be there. If you wanted to own the view, you'd have to own all the land in eyeshot.

You don’t have to own the land. A view easement would suffice.

> but the lot was a drainage pond for a year or so

That's okay. Last laugh as I'm sure they're dealing with settling/water issues (especially if there's a basement).

'Member when builders used to build around the landscape? I loved growing up with 100-year-old maples (especially around fall)

I 'member.

Now they're stacking 3x median homes right next to each other.

But the market value of that house surely reflected the value of the view. So in very real terms, you paid for that view.

You can argue that the entire market was over-valuing the property, but... that just seems kind of cold.

Cold, but probably true. There are a lot of things people pay for that they have no control over when buying homes. It's kind of a risk assessment - 'I like this aspect, but how likely is it to change?'

Property developers in the city where I live are deliberately deceptive about this.

They buy a large plot of land near the coastline, build condos on the far land side of it, and sell the condos advertising "bay views". Once the first block is sold out, they build the next one in front of it closer to the coastline, and sell more "bay views".

It's crazy how they can get away with advertising the view even if construction on a building that will block the view has already started.

> Property developers in the city where I live are deliberately deceptive about this.

You mean, you need somebody else to tell you if you're sold "view" today, it does not include guarantee nobody will ever build anything on the land between you and the "view" ever, just because otherwise you'd feel bad? You can not figure this out just from knowing you only own property rights on the small piece of land and not on anything else, and did not buy any "view" rights? Maybe if you can not figure this out, buying expensive property is not the best way to go for you, at least without consulting somebody knowledgeable in these matters. You can not expect everybody behaves in your best interest, and they certainly do not owe that to you. If you don't own the rights and the land, there's zero guarantee the view will be there tomorrow.

I'm not sure why you are so upset by my comment.

Of course I can figure out the misleading advertising from property developers, it's common knowledge and has been going on for decades. If I become interested in buying a place one day, I'll look up planning permissions around the area and judge the risk of the neighbourhood changing.

But that doesn't mean that we should accept or approve misleading advertising.

It's not even a case of "who knows what might happen here in the future" - they keep advertising the views when they themselves are building in front of it, and the basement has already been poured.

That is absurd. Almost feels like they should be forced to have a warning annotation at the bottom like they do with raw or undercooked foods on menus.

"Buying a house does not make you The God-Emperor and other people still are free to do with their properties as they like, including building on it in a way that upsets you". Yeah, probably should have that warning.

And yet you get penalized or outright refused to build up in order to get your view back...

> You can argue that the entire market was over-valuing the property, but... that just seems kind of cold.

Cold or not, it happens all the time. It surely happened in 2000s in Silicon Valley, then prices took a big dip in 2007/2008. Now they're back, but if you're assuming somehow this time it's "real", I've got some bad news - it's never real, and entire market is completely capable of overvaluing your property and then regretting it and dropping your property value by 50% or so.

Similarly, you might have thought you were getting clean air...

You may not have legal authority over everything that happens, but there's more to the land you purchase, than the dirt within the lines.

Otherwise, why does anyone pay extra for a house near a school, or in a happening city? They didn't buy the school or the city, after all.

> They didn't buy the school or the city, after all.

No, but they didn't buy the right to control the school or the city either. And if they thought they did, they were wrong and had an unrealistic sense of entitlement.

"Sense of entitlement" comments like this show that what this debate really boils down to is control, with neither the "we have had control and don't want to give it up just because you want change" side nor the "we want to take some of the control" side coming off looking all that great. I happily wash my hands of all of it.

In all fairness, the comment he was responding to literally equated a nice view to breathable air.

When a small group of people have most of the control, and they are using it in a way that hurts the majority of people, asking for a more level playing field doesn't seem like a bad thing to me.

So who does? People who don't live in the city, or attend the school?

They at least have a stake, as evidenced by ballot items pertaining to the city and their school. Or do you believe that's wrong?

Exactly: they have a stake. That shouldn't give them the right to make unilateral "no" decisions for everyone else, but that's basically what we have in SF.

I don't live in SF but it sounded like the community was making unilateral "no" decisions, which is what happens when all the stakeholders get together and agree. To which, the system is working exactly how it was designed. Does one person actually have the power to make unilateral decisions in SF?

More or less. Only a small minority of the community needs to complain, and that can delay or completely scuttle projects. The people who do complain usually do so loudly and obnoxiously, which really gets the gov't's attention for some reason.

Yes, and if the city decides to close the school, or change traffic routing, saying "but I bought a house because of it!" does not entitle you to veto those decisions.

That's a good point but I'd argue the rights of the existing residents to a good view is lesser than the right of all potential new residents for reasonably affordable housing.

You do pay for a good view - you just don't own a good view. GP's property value almost certainly went down after that other house went up blocking the view.

You did buy it if the law/zoning said it would stay that way. Hence people getting worked up when people talk about allowing big buildings where they currently aren't allowed.

Quoting eganist from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15683853:

  Sounds like the regulatory environment was an investment risk that wasn't taken
  into account.
  
  Persistence in regulations isn't some sort of right. Laws change all the time.
  Any investment made without considering the risk of the anti-NIMBY movement is
  no different from any other un-diligenced investment -- foolish.
  
  Holding an asset and concerned about the risk of diminishing property values in
  the face of shifting regulations? Unload. You'd do the same if you're seeing a
  company where you're Long run into potentially difficult headwinds.

Yeah that's totally true, but I feel strangely about it, like treating the YIMBY's as a force of nature takes the morality out of it. If I owned anything else, like a bike, then it's mine because the law says you can't take it. You can't say it's ok to take it because I foolishly didn't account for you changing the law and then taking it. You aren't a force of nature, you're changing something someone else bought.

I'm all for affordable housing and mostly side with YIMBY's, but there's something weird about changing the rules and saying "sucks for you, shoulda seen it coming."

Sometimes laws change in a way that makes something you own illegal. In those cases, sometimes you need to turn it in. Its rare, but it's something that needs to be taken into account as a risk when you buy something.

There is a case for owners getting some sort of compensation if such a thing happens. People do get damanges by a chance in laws, and generally the State should respond to those damages.

If you wanna go that route, the value created or destroyed by a change in laws never belonged to the owner in the first place, and any increase in value created due to zoning should have been recuperated via a land tax.

> , the value created or destroyed by a change in laws never belonged to the owner in the first place

That's not really true. The state can't pass a law saying your house was actually never yours and you are now trespassing get out.

Zoning is a rulebook the state invented, it has to be held accountable to some degree for it. I wouldn't call it reasonable for the state to turn the houses around you into garbage landfills and telling you 'tough luck'

The primary reason why some land is more valuable than other land is due to the government. When the government builds roads, pipelines, sewer systems, transit systems, schools, emergency services, etc., land values go up. In our system, the landowner profits from this, not the government. So if the government happens to do something that makes land values go down, why shouldn’t the landowner take the loss too? Privatize profits and socialize losses is an unsustainable modus operandi of government.

You get what is on the deed, no more, no less. When you buy land, you assume risks. Just like stocks, there are no guarantees of resale value. The government can’t revoke your ownership (outside of criminal use of property), but the government is free to do any number of things that inevitably alter what some people will pay for it. If you want to counter that risk, go buy some insurance, an easement, or all of the adjacent property. The government doesn’t owe you a dime for allowing property owners to do something with their own property that you or potential buyers of your property happen to not like.

> In our system, the landowner profits from this, not the government.

This however misses one important point. They build it using taxpayers' money. So, if I give you money and tell you "please build me a shed" and then benefit from the shed, of course I keep all the benefits - after all, this shed was built for me with my own money!

> The primary reason why some land is more valuable than other land is due to the government.

This is probably not true either. The primary reason why some land is valuable, usually, is location, location, location. It can be close to natural things or to things built by people (e.g. a house within 10min drive of Google campus is probably more valuable than a similar one which has 2hr commute to the closest source of employment). Government-built infrastructure is important too, but usually secondary - nobody would build schools or transit systems in place where nobody wants to live, and people rarely move somewhere just because of sewer and transit system.

> This however misses one important point. They build it using taxpayers' money. So, if I give you money and tell you "please build me a shed" and then benefit from the shed, of course I keep all the benefits - after all, this shed was built for me with my own money!

If we used land taxes like the georgists proposed, this would be an apt analogy. As it stands though, the property owner is paying, but so are non property owners as well as property owners that aren't benefiting from improvements. It isn't much different from a lottery: the benefits are concentrated, but the costs are diffused. Did the lottery winner pay for his payout? Sure, but so did all of the lottery losers that didn't get anything.

> This is probably not true either. The primary reason why some land is valuable, usually, is location, location, location. It can be close to natural things or to things built by people (e.g. a house within 10min drive of Google campus is probably more valuable than a similar one which has 2hr commute to the closest source of employment). Government-built infrastructure is important too, but usually secondary - nobody would build schools or transit systems in place where nobody wants to live, and people rarely move somewhere just because of sewer and transit system.

There a billions of miles of beautiful coastline in the world, but people generally build coastal homes where there are roads, and don't where there are not. There are billions of locations where google could have built their campus, but they chose a place with plentiful government funded infrastructure. They even payed more for the privilege. Why would anybody choose to live or build a business in a place where there are no roads, potable pipelined water, electrical grids, schools, sewers, emergency services. Government isn't a secondary determinant of land value, it is primary and foundational. The private markets may build upon the land values that the government created in the first place, but take the government away and everything else will go with it.

Well, if the state does not compensate me as an owner for damaging things it will do around my property, i will lobby and vote against it and thus nothing will happen.

How is that a win.

And that is exactly what has happened here in the western US, right up until the point where it caused housing prices to shoot through the roof, displacing or inflating away the earnings of millions of people who also have the right to vote.

A buy out is a way out of the problem. Thats precisely the point of compensation, reducing the animosity against it.

Privatizing profits and socializing losses always reduces animosity. It’s also a perverse incentive, and should never ever be done.

> The state can't pass a law saying your house was actually never yours

Depends on context. A state can decide to nationalize private property.

And has to compensate you for it.

In theory, in practice might be a pittance + we won't send you to jail.

So if we wanted to e.g. raise property tax, existing owners would be able to get damages for the difference?

Taxes are uncompensated damage by definition. Some people even call it..what is it?

There's a problem there, in that "Right to a View" is protected in Common Law. There is specific provisions in the application of this law (like all laws), but this is a case in point that view is and has been protected.

https://www.samuels-solicitors.co.uk/news/right-to-view

Absolutely false in the United States: https://imgur.com/a/ksWTu

Source: https://amzn.com/0873376501

And if you read your own link, it's the same in the UK.

City and Town Councils in the Bay Area decline projects based on views and other issues all the time. They just label these as "aesthetic concerns" and tell the architect to try again. Ask any builder.

The article you posted is about the UK and says the opposite of what you claim: unless there is a specific covenant for a view, it is not protected. Does this covenant thing apply to SF?

I'm guessing no, but SF does have a concept of "right to light" that blocks construction of tall structures that cast "significant" shadows on public spaces.

http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Long-shadows-crea...

>But critics argue that economic benefits don’t justify a violation of 1984’s Proposition K — the “Sunlight Ordinance” — which blocks construction of any building over 40 feet that casts an adverse shadow on Recreation and Park Department property unless the Planning Commission decides the shadow is insignificant.

>The project would throw a shadow on Portsmouth Square between 8:05 and 9:10 a.m. from late October to early February. It would shadow St. Mary’s Square, also in Chinatown, in March and September. It would also shadow Justin Herman Plaza, at the foot of Market Street, from mid-October to late February, and Union Square from early May to early August.