Quote:
Originally Posted by badrunner
Are homeowners in Cupertino clamoring to subdivide their lots or build multifamily housing so that their properties would be worth more?
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Even if only 10% of homeowners in Cupertino want to, why should the remainder be able to block them from doing so?
I mean - I hate doing this, because I sound like a libertarian - but what gives your neighbor the right to tell you want to do with your property?
Quote:
Originally Posted by badrunner
What's funny is how every proposed solution to recalcitrant homeowners exercising local, bottom-up regulatory control involves some type of heavy handed, top-down government initiative to overrule local control for the "greater good" of society at large.
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Every solution? Absolutely not. You can go the Japanese model and have nationwide zoning. Or you could go the Houston model and have minimal zoning.
Once again, if zoning existed a century earlier, literally no U.S. cities would have ever been built. Virtually every mixed-use, urban neighborhood in the U.S. is a legacy of the pre-zoning era, because development by consensus (which is effectively what is required in the U.S.) is an unworkable process.
In my own city, I have seen multi-million dollar projects which have been defeated - which had widespread community support, and passed all zoning variance hearings - because a single rich person with deep pockets took it to court and the judge found the city granted the variances in an improper way. In one case it wasn't even a resident - it was an absentee landlord who lived in NYC.