Comment by cogman10
19 days ago
Here's where I come out and maybe others end up in the same scenario.
I think it's definitely a good thing to build up more high density housing. I've got no complaints there.
However, a major problem we are having locally is that while that local housing is being built like gangbusters, the infrastructure to support that housing, such as the roads and public transport, hasn't been upgraded in tandem. 10 years ago, I could drive to work in 20 minutes. Today during rush hour it's a 40 to 60 minute affair. It's start/stop traffic through the neighborhood because there's no buses, interstate, etc to service the area where all the growth is happening.
It also doesn't help that promised projects, like new parks, have been stuck in limbo for the last 15 years with more than a few proposals to try and turn that land into new housing developments.
What I'm saying is housing is important and nice, but we actually need public utilities to be upgraded and to grow with the housing increase. It's untenable to add 10,000 housing units into an area originally designed to service 1000.
>because there's no buses, interstate, etc to service the area where all the growth is happening.
right, it'd be great if that stuff could be built to support the housing before the housing gets built. but you can't do that either without people having a fit about wasting money building a road to nowhere, or buses just being for homeless people. the NIMBYism doesn't just apply to housing, it applies to building literally anything. often because people think they can block new housing development by opposing the infrastructure that might support it.
nothing about YIMBY is about opposing infrastructure development. we need to build all the things that humans need to exist - housing, infrastructure, recreation, businesses. build it all.
"we shouldn't build any housing until there's a highway" is just another variant of "i support housing, just not here". opposing housing because there's no bus route is still opposing housing. those are fixable problems.
> those are fixable problems.
They are fixable problems that very clearly are not being fixed here.
I might have a different attitude if new bus routes or highways were being built in response to the new housing that's gone in, but like I've said, we've failed to build infrastructure for the massive expansion we've seen in the last 10 years.
Why should I think it's a good thing to build another 1000 units of housing when none of the infrastructure is able to handle the current population? It's not a case of "busses to nowhere" it's a case of "we are filled to the gill and they want to add even more people".
My kid's school, for example, has started paving over the playground and installing trailers in order to accommodate the kids coming in. Instead of building a new school for all the new housing, we have exactly the same schools and school buildings that we had when I first moved here.
And I should say, we have even more housing planned and in construction right now all around me. That's all been approved yet I've not heard or seen a peep about adding another school, bus, etc.
That's why I have a hard time seeing it as NIMBY.
When the new people are actually living in the area and paying property taxes, then there will be enough money to build new schools, pave roads, etc. There's a delay in other words.
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> However, a major problem we are having locally is that while that local housing is being built like gangbusters, the infrastructure to support that housing, such as the roads and public transport, hasn't been upgraded in tandem.
The correct response is not to shutdown building more housing. It's for you to get involved and petition your local government to build the infrastructure that you desire.
IMO, people need affordable housing more than you need a short commute. If you don't like that, do something to improve conditions.
I don't know were you're from but in California that is not the focus of YIMBY advocacy. The entire focus of the California RHNA process is to allocate development capacity in proportion to the existing infrastructure of a place.
Idaho, where a lot of the Californians are fleeing to.
How does Idaho's libertarian self-image coexist with whining about the traffic?
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The best method of insuring that is charging developers impact fees, which are then used to perform the upgrades you describe. Impact fees are also the primary target of the very weathy and powerful realty lobby groups -- they will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on political campaigns to elect people who will then save them tens of thousands of dollars by removing impact fees. If you ever wonder why most city councils are composed of developers, this is why.
This works when the developers are doing large redevelopments - it works great in suburbs where the developers are converting farmland, for example, because the total number of projects is low.
But when the "developers" are people replacing single-family homes with duplexes, etc, it gets harder to manage.