In explaining why it gave a $3.3 million Baby YIMBY grant to Philadelphia, a city that has recently tightened regulatory barriers to housing, HUD favorably cites...a broken, unfunded IZ mandate that acts as a tax on housing. Ooph. h/t @christianbrits hud.gov/sites/dfiles/C…
@christianbrits Ditto for the Seattle—a city that deserves credit for actually building housing. In a long list of recent wins, HUD oddly chooses the biggest L, another unfunded IZ program that research suggests has suppressed development in affected areas. furmancenter.org/files/publicat…
@christianbrits If they're really going to do it, sure, give Los Angeles County infrastructure money so they can allow housing. But they're prohousing? Eh. The county permits at typical coastal California bottom rates (bad) and the ADU reforms they gush over were mandated by the state.
YIMBYs are clearly divided on this. I think it's a good project with a lot of potential. Some people I respect disagree. Fair enough. But the amount of silliness floating around, some it from people who don't know basic details about the proposal, warrants a thread.
1. "This threatens valuable naturally valuable or hazardous lands."
In nearly bill California YIMBY has sponsored since 2017, we've excluded any land that might be remotely sensitive or dangerous—habitat, prime farm, flood zones, wildfire areas, etc... leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavC…
This site doesn't violate a single criteria. Green denotes a land excluded by standard environmental criteria. The lines are mostly creeks which the applicant has proposed to keep as open space. (They probably won't have a choice.)
Seven ideas for hosting a good monthly happy hour—something every serious YIMBY group should do:
1⃣ Host it on the same day/time, ideally at the same place—only move if you live in a massive fragmented city. You want this to become a habit.
2⃣ Host it at a local open bar—the point is to mingle. Weather allowing, host it at a place with outdoor space, e.g. a beer garden, to accommodate all.
3⃣ Don't waste your budget, assuming you have one, buying drinks or appetizers—better off members will voluntarily do that.
4⃣ Send out emails a week out and the day of. The day of, core members should be texting everyone a direct reminder, especially potential first timers.
5⃣ Make special efforts to get key stakeholders (electeds, planners) or potentially underrepresented folks to come out.
Wow. Kentucky State Representative Steven Doan that would implement...basically the entire YIMBY program! I'm still learning details, but this is a great model for a zoning reform omnibus bill. Let's dive in. 🧵 (h/t @robmolou) apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/24rs/hb…
Right off the bat, Section 3 forbids jurisdictions from arbitrarily mandating larger homes and apartments, which effectively place a price floor on housing. Jurisdictions must default to the building code, which is rooted in actual health and safety considerations.
Section 4 likewise preempts various design/architectural/amenity mandates (e.g. forcing the construction garages) that raise housing costs without any basis in health of safety. These can often quite onerous in exclusionary suburbs. Let homebuyers make these tradeoffs!
This generation of uninspired vector flags is going to feel so unfashionably dated, "of the 2020s" in 15 years. A sample of flags adopted in 2022:
I actually think it's the opposite problem: many amazing flags (California, South Carolina) came out of committees. A conspicuous feature of contemporary vexillology is that it selects from vast pools of public submissions subject to strict design rules.
For thousands of years, city planning focused on drawing out a street network, with water and sewer underneath, and reserving regular public spaces, and was mostly agnostic on uses or densities. One hundred years ago, that flipped.
Today, few cities have anything more detailed than an arterial plan, leaving streets and public spaces to be defined in an ad hoc, uncoordinated way, producing the hot mess that is American suburbia. As long as the rights-of-way are designed like freeways, have at it!
Abandoning the public realm, contemporary city planning now focuses all of its attention on micromanaging private development, to generally terrible results: segregating uses, rigidly controlling densities and form, counting up parking spaces, etc.