I don't think you should be blindly downvoted for this -- I think it is a totally valid question, and one that the YIMBY movement needs to find a way to answer consistently.

Personally, I would say that lots of low-density communities do remain low-density. And generally, that's because people don't want to move to them.

But if you're a small town in Northern California, one of the most desirable places in the world, saying "we want to remain low density" is basically saying "we got here first, so it's ours -- nobody else gets to have this!"

And I think that's a fundamentally wrong way for us to organize our places. Desirable communities shouldn't be able to keep out people who want to come in, just because they want to stay exclusive.

But I don't think that's a settled point, and there is a lot of nuance to basically every adjective I just used.

It seems pretty clear cut given the focus on property rights in the States that whoever got there first does get to call the shots. There are maybe some overrides like eminent domain but it seems the only non-coercive way to change this is to get your own land and make your own rules (e.g. HOAs, incorporate towns with better rules, etc).

Besides, who's to say that these desirable places are not desirable because they are low-density? It's a chicken and egg problem.

> Besides, who's to say that these desirable places are not desirable because they are low-density? It's a chicken and egg problem.

If this were true, you wouldn't need zoning, and people would just build low density because that's what everyone wants anyways.

Property rights absolutism would mean landowners can build what they want. Zoning has already moved the question of allowed building types into the realm of public policy; now we’re talking about what the policy should be.

> It seems pretty clear cut given the focus on property rights in the States that whoever got there first does get to call the shots.

If we're concerned about property rights, why can't the property owners build at a higher density? Or sell to a developer that will build at a higher density? The fact is the zoning at play _restricts_ property rights it doesn't protect them.

Anyway zoning was never static (it wasn't ordained by God after all), so changing it isn't really a big deal. People are angry and surprised of course, but the writing has been on the wall for a long time.

I am super-duper not a lawyer, so I don't have a sense of what is true and legal. I'm mostly talking about what I think should be true and legal.

At a certain point, it starts to be like "two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner" when you get some of these communities that don't want anyone else there. And that's fundamentally unfair.

I like the Strong Towns notion of "no massive changes anywhere, but lots of smaller changes everywhere", although in practice it's not always quite so smooth.

My answer comes from more of a Libertarian perspective it is quite simple. The community does not own the privately held land. If every landowner in the community opposed development, zoning would be unnecessary. If some individuals want to sell to Developers, zoning is just oppression of the minority by Democratic means.

Being part of a democracy does not mean you get to control every single action that could impact you.

The majority can also buy out someone who wants to sell to a developer. I know a neighborhood where everyone pitched in to buy land that would have been developed and ruined their view, depreciating property prices. But they put their money where their mouths were by buying the land themselves.

That's another reason that people are frustrated with Central planning. Your community might have a very strong opinion, but they're not willing to pay for it. This means that they will settle for making it illegal.

If you want low density, you're going to pay for it by not being in the center of a major hub of civilization.

Places like Gilroy and Morgan Hill will probably be mostly left alone in this, and this will probably apply downward pressure on their housing prices, making it more affordable for people to live in low density neighborhoods, while not having a 3 hour commute from the central valley.

Obviously developers could target those cities, but they would probably start with more desirable ones first.

In California, all city authority is granted to the cities by the state. The state sees overall growth and wants to provide for it. It's reasonably fair to allocate for growth in residential units in a region among all the communities in the region. The status quo of most communities in areas where people want to live refusing residential growth is clearly not working for the state, and they've been gradually increasing the pressure on local government to resolve the issue, so this is just the next step in escalation.

I personally love low density living, and I live on a 9 acre lot as a result. But, I can't keep my neighbors from subdividing their lots. Locally, my city (in WA) has places that would be better suited to higher density living and places that are not so well suited; but city council drags their feet on all new construction, so we're not meeting state growth targets here, and I suspect we'll eventually end up with something like described in this article. That would be unfortunate, IMHO, because increasing density in a desirable place to live is inevitable and I think it's better to have (expanding) pockets of high density rather than greatly mixed densities. It's easier to add 30 residences where there's municipal water and sewer than to extend municipal water and sewer 2 miles to a new project site where neighbors are on private wells and septic, which doesn't tend to work well for a 4 story condo building.

Because it's regulatory capture. We hate it when big corporations do it, small towns shouldn't be able to either. If they were to fairly pay for it, maybe we could talk, but when things like Prop 13 exist, it's clear they are not paying for it.

Housing near job centers is a scarce resource, we shouldn't put up with people hoarding housings anymore they we would put up with someone hoarding water during a drought.

I see a lot of validity in this line of thought and agree with it in principle, but in practice it has led to a lot of problems in California.

For one, California is split up into many smaller towns/cities in large metro areas, so each having their own policies leads to locally-optimal but regionally-suboptimal policies of trying to get as much commercial development as possible with as little residential development as possible. This is a direct contributor to gentrification (if you are “lucky” and able to soak up the commercial demand without increasing residential supply, you’ve created a mismatch between jobs and people in your area), ghettoisation (the people priced out of where they were before have to go somewhere), traffic (people have to commute into their jobs), and affordability (even the bad communities can’t increase housing much because they have the weakest tax base, plus all the restricted supply where jobs and taxes actually are).

The right solution to this problem is to recognize the whole local-optimization problem and make it so every municipality has to solve the problem at once, to prevent the adverse selection of solving the problem in only one municipality. Which is what the state of CA is doing.

This could also be addressed from the other side, which is a complete political non-starter, of trying to limit job growth. Obviously nobody wants to do that. But the problem by and large is not just that CA has a lot of low density communities that want to remain that way, but also that those low density communities are creating more jobs than they can house.

I agree with your premise. I just disagree that the use of authority is the solution here. I don't see any reason why the state needs to intervene. Just let the locally-optimal solutions (peacefully) compete and sort themselves out. Let there be winners and losers, and don't get in the way. Using authority to force cooperation is tyranny. We're not all on the same team. We're self-interested, in-group focused, animals and there's nothing wrong with that.

The locally-optimal solution is always to try to get as much commercial tax base as possible (since it increases the tax base without much increase in spending) and as little resident tax base as possible (since it increases spending). So I don’t really see how it will sort itself out.

When you are a bunch of small, close by municipalities all operating in essentially the same economic context (job market, etc.) the regional issues always become someone else’s problem.

From what perspective is that optimal at all? Certainly humans care about more in life than the tax revenue of their municipal government. I can't speak for you but that's not my goal in life

People generally don’t try to block offices or retail the way they try to block housing. Many of the NIMBY concerns like having to build more schools don’t apply.

I think very little of nimbyism life looks like that. People don't want change by them

> Using authority to force cooperation is tyranny.

Wow, this is an odd definition of tyranny. The elected representatives of the people of our state wrote these laws. I personally think it's fair for us to make laws that apply across our state rather than having full autonomy at the city level.

Should it not be the federal government, then, that makes all the laws? Instead of autonomy at the state level?

> I just disagree that the use of authority is the solution here.

Agreed. So why even allow the city to use its authority? Leave it to the property owner to decide.

American citizens with the freedom of movement? If you want to remain low-density go settle where California City is, I guarantee you will stay small. Santa Monica, however, is going to have to build housing.

freedom of movement != freedom over the personal property of others, or freedom from binding agreements. You can walk the streets of any neighbourhood you please. Using state authority to overrule local decisions about local matters is what I'm objecting to here.

No one is taking their personal property? The state is removing the restriction around what a developer can build on their own property.

Further, the state is doing their job. If the town next to mine enacts restrictive housing measures, then my town is likely to become more burdened by the issue. If we then enact restrictive housing, the next town over now has to deal with the effects of 2 freeriders. Why should the rest of California allow Beverly Hills and Santa Monica to saddle us with the burden of housing everyone? So the wealthy can have their enclaves?

> the rest of California

Because I don't see "California" as one entity like a sports team. I see it as various groups each competing with each other, like an ecosystem. Beverly Hills and Santa Monica just happen to be "winning" (rather arbitrarily). Using authority to punish them for (peacefully) winning is tyranny. Just let them win.

> The state is removing the restriction

That was enforced by a local democracy, for what is fundamentally local concern. The state should not be able to supersede local authority for local concerns, it's authoritarian.

This is a tragedy of the commons type thing. If every local democracy votes in favor of local concerns (no new housing), then the problem doesn't solve itself; California has a bunch of angry residents that can't find anywhere to live. Whatever you think is right or wrong, there is still an elected government at the state level, and it's not only homeowners that vote in those elections. So their hand is forced to do something given the gridlock at the local level. (If it was only Santa Monica that refused to build new housing, then this wouldn't have become a state-level issue. But every locale is making the exact same decision, because it's in their current residents' best interests. The state has to take into account the views of everyone.)

It's really convenient for you to not see California as one entity. Unfortunately for you, that's not reality and we are, in fact, part of a single entity.

> Beverly Hills and Santa Monica just happen to be "winning" (rather arbitrarily). Using authority to punish them for (peacefully) winning is tyranny. Just let them win.

The residents of those areas have been using authority to make their "wins" a fait accompli for nearly 100 years, but yeah, it's tyranny if we remove their priviliges.

> The state should not be able to supersede local authority for local concerns, it's authoritarian.

California voters elected the legislature and executive who signed off on it. If Santa Monica restricts housing, it affects neighboring cities. Please explain how it is authoritarian for the state to balance these concerns?

You genuinely don't see how a city controlling what a property owner can build on their land isn't authoritarian?

All politics is local. Every citizen of a city is also a citizen of the state. "Local" is a demarcation drawn where ever it's convenient for the speaker. A smaller group should not be able to supersede the superior authority at the larger polity's expense.

In this case, the locally-optimal choices cities are making is having deleterious effects on the quality of life of the citizens of the state as a whole. It is perfectly reasonable for the state to therefore act.

My house is worthless to me if they put a batch asphalt plant next door, as my whole purpose for my house was to raise my children in. They tried to get a variance. Luckily I come from California, so I am not adverse to raising friction and gathering a coalition and was able to get enough people to the planning meeting to keep zoning rules enforced and not allow that exception.

What is the point of your anecdote, no one is suggesting that we remove industrial zoning? This law removes specific residential housing restrictions which require single-family in areas that have enough demand that developers will build multi-tenant buildings. You can still raise your children fine in a slightly more dense neighborhood, everything will adapt.

And why should an individual not be able to build whatever they want (including apartments) on land they own? Why should local decisions override individual freedom?

Because the community's governance is granted to it by the state. Nowhere in the constitution are the rights of city councils enumerated, and states are sovereign entities.

As such, any power your local community has to govern itself is just largess from its state. When it stops governing in a way that the state approves of, there is nothing preventing the state from stepping in.

then they should enforce 1 child per family while they're at it. their kids have to live somewhere right? I live in a rural city in Utah that doesn't like building new homes yet it's a Mormon town where families are about 5 kids on average. if you want grandkids nearby then more homes need built. period.

Or people whom the community has no room for can leave. I think this comes from an axiomatic disagreement about what being born/alive entitles a person to. My view is that we are all born owning nothing, and that everything we acquire we must acquire via consensual exchange.

According to that line of thinking, older generations should also stop receiving support from welfare and social security. Let them sell their houses and leave their communities if they can't afford to acquire the goods and services they need through consensual exchange.

And yet very few will accept elderly starving in the streets en masse because their pensions were gutted or went bankrupt. And so some measure of intergenerational agreement is necessary, where each generation provides for the next.

Given that people are paying into Social Security their entire life, I imagine they'd take some offense if you took it away and said it was because the young'uns were tired of paying for them. They might be of the opinion that they did in fact fund the investment for their retirement.

This comes about from job openings in places that don't have housing, so, basically a disagreement about where people should work and live, acted out on the housing and job markets.

What is the legal standing of a "community" in American or state law?

Looking at this abstractly, buying a plot of land grants you ownership over that plot, nothing more. So on what basis should an owner of one plot be able to dictate what others can do with their own plot?

Scaling up to a community, what % of plot owners need to share an opinion for that opinion to outweigh the property rights of disagreeing plot owners?

To my knowledge, the relevant collective management levels recognized under law are municipal, state, and federal.

Where does "community" mean anything beyond being a manufactured scope of convenience for NIMBYs? They can't get the entire city to agree with them, so they draw an artificial boundary where the majority agree with them and call it a neighbourhood.

Housing is most people's largest purchase in life. Zoning is put in place to make sure that that purchase is suitable for the purpose intended so people feel comfortable making that large investment. They tried to get a variance to my local zoning to put in an asphalt plant, that would spew crap into the air my kids breath. That makes my house unsuitable to the use I purchased it for, and that the county promised it would be for via zoning, as my entire purpose was to raise kids in a healthy environment.

"Don't build an asphalt plant near residential zones" is an extremely reasonable zoning restriction. That's what zoning should be doing.

"Don't build any apartments anywhere in this city" isn't.

There should be a range of options available for people, ranging from a house with a yard and no shared walls with anyone, to mid-rise apartment buildings, and many things in between.

I think it's entirely possible for a rule that seems plausible and fair to create bad outcomes, making it a bad rule. Saying that the people of a community may vote to decide to to allow anyone else in seems fair... until too many communities do it, leading to people not having anywhere affordable to live that is reasonably close to employment opportunities.

And it's a sort of collective coordination problem, too. People can move from city to city, and if a city decides to allow lots of new housing, they'll get lots of new people, which not only increases density, but also lowers rents in other cities by a little bit, while not lowering the rents/property prices in their own city by as much as they would if inter-city migration weren't a thing.

So when a city allows more housing, it benefits other cities. It's best if every city does this -- but because the incentives are a bit messed up, most cities in California have decided to "defect" and block construction. (There are other reasons -- people with the most free time to attend city council meetings and run for positions in local government are much more likely to be landowners or landlords, so they are over-represented, while renters are under-represented).

If every city and town builds a some more housing, you can get a much more drastic increase in affordability than if only some are shouldering all the burden, without massive changes to any one place. Which is why I think it makes sense to handle this at the state level.

Well they don't have any rights over property they don't own. Why should a narrow majority or as is often the case a small but highly motivated minority have a veto over any conceivable use of your property just because it happens to be near them.

I'm not proposing allowing a chicken processing plant in a residential area, but it's no one else's business if you want to build a duplex on a lot you own.

See also: sea water desalination blocked by the CA coastal commission over the will of literally everyone else.

I think this is only applicable if said community is isolated enough. But most communities in the Bay Area (for example) are not isolated. People live in one city, work in another, on the weekends they drive out to some other cities for R&R.

If you're going down the slippery slope of libertarianism (on a strange collective/communist level), then who are the rest of us to stop an individual property owner from selling his lot to someone that wants to build 5+1 multiunit housing?

So either you go right wing and you have no right to restrict developers on land they legitimately procure

Or you go left wing and you have no right to impose (?accidentally...ish?) racist, classist, and generationalist zoning results on people.

Or you go centrist and point out that population growth, livability, and cost for practically everyone is raging out of control because of zoning laws.

Now, that's all policy reasoning on idealistic grounds, which of course matters not at all! The real political calculus is rich (landed) vs the young / middle class / poor (priced out).

Of course it's all a scale and there are infinite points along that scale. Wanting democracy at the lowest possible level doesn't preclude wanting to avoid going all the way to the "every man for himself" option. I guarantee some folks want it to be dictated at the federal level, even.

If 100% of the property owners in a low-density community wants to remain low-density then yeah, no one can do anything about it.

Otherwise it's a tyranny of the majority over the minority (of property owners) that want something not low-density.

Counterquestion:

If a landowner in a low density community wants to build high density housing on their property, why should the city be allowed to stop that?

And if an individual wants to sell his property he owns to someone to build apartments who are the rest of the community to stop him?