We need blanket legislation outlawing the notion that by virtue of purchasing a plot of land one is also purchasing control over everything visible from said plot at the time of purchase.
The problem with this kind of thinking is that the denser housing is, the more its livability relies on things outside of the homeowners' direct ownership and control. So long as YIMBYs keep pushing this idea that keeping access to things like sunlight cannot be a shared act, it doesn't matter how many pretty drawings of wide sunlit boulevards of townhouses or towers in parks they produce to claim that density doesn't have to mean dark, dystopian hellscape - because the moment there's money in it, someone can just slap a big tall building right in one of those crucial empty spaces, and according to the YIMBYs the people affected would have no right to complain because they didn't personally and individually own them.
In most cases this really isn’t a problem though. The fantasy of “big tall buildings” being slapped everywhere is just that. NIMBYs are fully mobilized just to stop stuff like duplexes, townhomes, or the neighbor putting a pop-up 4th story on their existing row house, not imaginary 100-story skyscrapers going up in the middle of a suburb.
Getting rid of the idea of owning the neighbors airspace entails figuring out how to fairly allocate easements that generally don't currently exist because of legacy reasons.
Rule: you can't build more than one story higher than your neighbors.
Under this rule your property will become more valuable when your neighbor builds up, because it just got upzoned for free!
Developers a profit motived and are very aware of what sells and what doesn't. There are a million mechanisms by which we can avoid having a single story house surrounded by skyscrapers.
I used to be in favour of laxer planning regulations until I moved to Melbourne. A lassez faire approach just doesn’t work.
https://uclawreview.org/2017/11/01/drones-damages-and-proper...
We already have that, in the form of urban planning. There are professionals in charge of ensuring everyone's rights are respected by defining and upholding an urban plan and construction regulation.
Otherwise a you get is a sea of shanty towns.
A proper transit network and walkable design ensures that this doesn't become a problem.
> Plus a neighbor building a bigger building impacts my views and the light that falls on my property.
People get so hung up on this, but that's just how it goes -- cities change. Just because you bought a place doesn't mean you're entitled to the exact same view forever.
While that's true, if you don't have a proper transit network, it's a real problem. And many cities aren't in a position to build a proper transit network at the drop of a hat. Don't get me wrong, I wish they did or could efficiently build one. But sometimes you have to deal with reality as it is, not as you'd like it to be, unfortunately.
Population growth creates the tax base, density, and demand required for a successful public transportation system. Demanding that the public transport comes first is simply backwards.
Listen, I am on the same page as you - I would love for it to happen. I would vote for it. I would pay taxes for it. But the reality is that it isn't going to happen, and if you densify the city without the transit, you will have these problems.
it doesnt have to be subways -- the willamette flood plain isnt great for subways anyway. portland should continue to build out its bus service and cycling infrastructure. portland is already pretty reasonable for living without a car, it will only improve with density.
How do you expect to put together a working transit network, which is very sensitive to urban planning, if you are also argue in favour of ignoring any restriction imposed by urban planners?
In practice, handing out veto powers against construction has had disastrous results for everyone not already owning homes.
Not necessarily. Just because you add a residential tower that doesn't mean you'll get a grocery store in its ground floor. If the urban plan specifies high-density residential area then all you can expect is residential buildigs.
Traffic needs system-wide reform. No argument there. Walkable neighborhoods, bike lanes, transit, etc.
Views - you don't (normally) own the views from your property. I live on a golf course; if it gets redeveloped into condos, I'm SOL.
Light - appropriate building setbacks mitigate this.
I'm not disagreeing really, just pointing out that your concerns are mostly valid, but have solutions.
Thus you could use setbacks as firebreaks, firewalls, or say something exotic like aerogel barricades.
The goal is to make it so that views of Vancouver's mountains are reasonably accessible by anyone, not just those that purchased a north facing suite in a tall condo tower.
It's pretty much the same underlying concept as why we create public parks.
The view cones are scattered around and are usually tied to areas of heavy public pedestrian activity, such as parks.
The policy is very popular.
https://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/protecting-va...
As a counter, Seattle doesn't have much comparable. You an buy "air rights" to protect your view, but there isn't a general protection for home-owners. It's fairly common for a small home to be replaced with a newer, much taller, structure, taking neighbor's views with it.
Meanwhile south of there there's about 50+ blocks of untouched single family homes.
The view cones has been no real barrier to development and unlike SF Vancouver is building constantly.
Portland has reasonable public transport and fairly good bike/ pedestrian routes.
So does endless sprawl. Arguably larger, even.
Everyone pays in life-seconds, in money, in pollution, in reduced societal interactions.
Cities exist for a reason.
Counterpoint Bay Area. Industry hotspot, liberally allows office development, aggressively fights any new residential develpment and also freezes property taxes at the time of purchase.
Now suppose somebody could knock down your million dollar three bedroom home there, put up five condos that size on the same lot and sell them each for $750K. That'd make the property itself worth more than a million dollars, right?
On top of that in CA, if you were to hold your million dollar home, your property taxes are locked in even while the asset value increases exponentially. You can even give your house to your kid, and they will pay the tax rate you paid. If you tear out your house and build 5 new condos, suddenly you are paying market rate property tax again.
Which is why the price falls from a million dollars to $750k for the same amount of square footage. But now you have five times as much square footage on the same piece of land, which is more than the decrease in price per square foot. And still would be even if the price per unit fell to $400k.
> On top of that in CA, if you were to hold your million dollar home, your property taxes are locked in even while the asset value increases exponentially.
Which is just a facet of existing local tax law. You could get to the same place by just having very low property taxes in general.
Not really. Zoning specifies density limits but demand depends of far more factors. If you replace a mansion with a low density housing project, the reason the price will go down is not due to an increase in supply.
People don’t want to leave their homes and move away from family and friends just so a city can grow.
Life isn’t just about money.
I don’t want my city to grow any larger - higher density means lower quality of life for the people who have lived here for decades - aka my actual community.
Blaming development for your changing city seems a bit passive aggressive.
Increasing density has definite externalities. Traffic, street parking, and public spaces all get more congested. Plus a neighbor building a bigger building impacts my views and the light that falls on my property. We do need some way of balancing those concerns with development. IMHO, we've swayed too far towards one extreme. We should relax those restrictions while being cognizant that we don't swing too far back to the other extreme.