That's not an "environmental group." They may call themselves that, but there's no need for journalists to credulously repeat it. There is no "environmental" argument for preventing new residential buildings, even tall ones, from being built in existing urban residential neighborhoods. To protect the environment this is even necessary. I hope there are some real environmental orgs in Hawaii fighting back against greenfield development by supporting urban infill.
In short, using environmental protection to halt projects is mostly a NIMBY farce.
Maybe the disaster makes it politically acceptable now.
In California, if a city does not plan for the number of homes required by the state, the city has to approve any housing project as long as at least 20% of the homes are low-income or 100% of them are moderate-income.
There are no California cities actually rubber stamping all housing, despite numerous cities being very far from compliance.
It does seem just at the cusp of finally being a meaningful provision, see this recent legal development involving the first court ruling on the law after an out of compliance city nevertheless denied a developer.
California Court Issues First Decision Addressing Builder’s Remedy; Decision on Related Lawsuit Pending
https://www.fbm.com/publications/california-court-issues-fir...
We need caps on normal family houses, single and double living apartments and more land released with the services such as public transport to back it up.
We tried looser regulations and got a massive fiasco of leaky buildings due to poor design, poor material choice, poor workmanship, poor auditing and inappropriate sign off.
It’ll be interesting to see how all goes for Hawaii.
Without sufficient people per unit area, you won’t have enough passengers to make the public transport work, depending on all the obvious factors like cost/quality of the public transport, proximity to housing without parking, the existence of housing without parking, etc.
I would view the existence of housing that doesn’t come with parking to be a forcing function, it on average only gets built where public transportation is viable, and once built it ensures ongoing continued demand for that transportation which keeps public transport more viable around that location.
Not a lot of housing development (even removing suburban homes where driving is basically a necessity) in Australia or New Zealand gets built without at least one parking space per dwelling be it a town house an unit or even a studio apartment… it does happen but it’s kind of rare. In large part due to the conflict between inner city real estate where public transport density is high enough to make car free living practical for normal people, is sufficiently expensive that the market selects for people who are rich and thus you’ll see apartments built where the entire first few floors are a multi story carpark squashed in under the actual living space because no one that can afford the apartments would even consider not having room to park their luxury car.
It’s sort of a vicious cycle, the cost also helps drive realestate speculation and the ongoing rise in prices and the continued cyclical rise in real estate prices year on year.
>> "At the end of the [proclamation], if there's anything close to the 50,000 new units on the market the governor predicted and the sky's not black with pollution, the waters look like they do today, that's going to provide some empirical proof that it was these [regulations] getting in the way."
I'm also curious to see what the environment will look like after most of the regulations are eliminated.
There should be legislation associated with this decree that pins market prices where they ought to be in order to address affordability concerns. This would keep everyone accountable.
How about regulation that is actually sensible?
"But what about schools?" Enrollment is declining precipitously.
"But what about traffic?" Okay, we're improving bike lanes, and putting accessible retail on the ground floor of housing for walkability. "No, not like that."
On and on.
A representative democracy is a foundation of our society. That means you get a say in decisions that affect you. If you take hyper-local decisions and remove all local agency, then that is effectively removing representation.
One of the most interesting things to happen to regulation is when the former administration required the removal of two regulations for every one that the government wished to enact. It was near paralysis.
Also the EU does not regulate urban planning at all, that's all local.
My road alone takes up around 40,000m^2 to house and transport about the same as housed in 2,2000m^2 near the local train station.
Zero parking space would be a good thing because it would indicate public transport is good enough that people don’t need their own private cars for most trips. But in practice if that’s not the case a builder is gonna be unable to sell an apartment without parking space, so they aren’t gonna build apartments like those.
And what’s wrong with 20 storey apartment buildings? And why does that preclude greenery?
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9seau_Natura_2000
These are huge: 30 000 sites and 18% of the surface of the EU.
If you don't want a high-rise to appear in your view, your best bet is to rent/buy right next to a Natura 2000 (both land and sea) wildlife protected land.
I'm typing this right now from France, rural area, with a Natura 2000 area right in front of me (I'm one of the last houses before the area starts).
And for my place in Luxembourg it's exactly the same: I picked a spot with another Natura 2000 protected area (land only) walking distance from my apartment.
I understand many want a world made of concrete only so that we can pack hundreds of billions of humans on earth... But I find the current trajectory miserable and I pick nature any day over concrete.
Wife and I decided to have one kid, we did our part to save mother earth.
And, no, you're not building a high-rise in my Natura 2000 wildlife protected area.
If a builder chose not to install locks on the doors of a new apartment complex, would that be "a good thing because it would indicate public safety is good enough that people don't need their own private locks for most areas?"
There is no incentive for them to consider these externalities at all. There is, however, an incentive to use that same space for something they can profit from - namely, additional apartments.
If 95% of people really cannot afford a home yet vote to restrict new housing starts, then maybe they prefer less housing for whatever reason. That’s not a reason to force housing upon them.
Then there's how the whole thing is decided by a city level election with like 30% turnouts, most of whom vote purely by uneducated simple creeds like "greedy developers", "more traffic", "protect home values."
On one side there's a small park with trees that has shade all day. On the other side there are no trees so it's only shaded late afternoon.
A kind of corollary of this is that people living in places where where public transport doesn't exist build a lifestyle around private vehicles (obviously). This then leads to people becoming incredulous that life without a car is possible.
Without a car how do you take your two kids to Saturday morning sports in separate far-flung suburbs? How do you cart home a weeks worth of groceries? Get to your workplace 30km away? Stop in on your fiends who live in the countryside for afternoon tea on the weekend? etc...
The answer is mostly you don't. And believe it or not, that's okay. You don't establish that sort of lifestyle to start with. You live a different lifestyle with its own compromises and benefits. Closer family, friends, and acquaintances. Nearby amenities, serendipitous meetings, smaller (or common) gardens, a closer workplace, frequent public transport, nature walks you can actually walk to from your house. And - ironically - time. So much time! People really underestimate what is possible and attainable if you don't start with the assumption that you will own a car.
The fact that 20,000km is a typical distance traveled in a year by a driver is astounding to me. That's over 50km per day. That has to be an indication of a very inefficient society. Try explaining what it's all for to a time traveler from 100 years ago.
The suburban house really is the siren song of modern civilization.
Also, we've recently purchased a place and driveway has more concrete footprint than entire house...
I had a shared driveway with my neighbor in Michigan for many years. It worked out well, especially for more efficient optimized snow shoveling. But I wouldn't say it was some kind of game changer and cure to America's housing ills.
Quick google says $200 NZD per square meter. My driveway is at least 200sqm, thats 40k...