[rkhleung]

Another cautionary tale that too many of us ignore with our virtue signaling: "I support X because it sounds good for cause Y". Unfortunately, we often don't consider system or policy resilience - how will it hold up if people intentionally abuse its rules. Sometimes it doesn't help cause Y and has other negative effects.

[theluketaylor]

I would put heritage building laws into a similar category of well-intentioned rules that can so easily be weaponized alongside overly strict environmental review.

In isolation keeping a neighbourhood character by setting rules around the paint colours and trim designs permitted seems like a benign set of laws to keep some interesting older neighbourhoods around. In practice they lock a city at a specific low density, often very close to the downtown core since the oldest development tends to be closest to the action. It can also exclude poorer residents (or even pretty well off people who can afford a $250,000 reno but not the $500,000 it'll take to satisfy the heritage committee).

I love an old victorian house, but not when there are hundreds of people living in tents next door and thousands more terrified they will have to join them because the cost of living is rapidly rising. If someone wants to pay to move that charming house to an area of lower average density, great. Otherwise it needs to come down to make way for hundreds of new units so people can actually afford the city.

[VancouverMan]

The existence of heritage designations and the related restrictions also encourage developers to completely tear down any existing, older, undesignated buildings on their properties as soon as they acquire them, even if the buildings are still usable, and the new developments may be years away.

The developers don't want to risk the buildings being designated, or even just the designation process itself being used to introduce lengthy delays and extra costs, at some point in the future.

Rather than helping to preserve older buildings, the risk of a heritage designation just speeds up the destruction of them. In the end, there are fewer older buildings, and more empty lots.

[supertrope]

Just like how the Endangered Species Act creates a perverse incentive not to report any Bald Eagle nests or even drive off any special animals. Also a rent control law that caps increases to CPI +2% results in landlords taking the maximum increase every year in response to the loss of optionality.

[rootusrootus]

> heritage building laws

We really overuse these regulations. There are a relatively few buildings that are actually historic enough to warrant saving. But in many areas we're marking any old building as historic on the thinnest of pretenses. Having grown up in a city that was ruled by the historic review board, I'm unimpressed with the results. Maybe it's nice to see what they built 100+ years ago, but being forced to live in it forever? No. People change, neighborhoods evolve, we should carefully embrace that.

[BurningFrog]

I would, as emperor, have a maximum percentage of buildings that can be protected as historic.

[Pet_Ant]

Sorry but in housing the value comes from "Location, location, location". If a neighbourhood can change into anything what kind of confidence do I have about the home that I'm buying? Things are already variable enough as is. Maybe if zoning changes had a 20 year window from being enacted to being effected. That might balance out needs.

(In case it's suggested otherwise, I live in urban high-density housing, I'm just sympathetic to the concerns of others)

[AbrahamParangi]

The answer is quite clearly that it is immoral to allow those who can afford homes from being protectionist about their assets when it comes at the expense of those who lack affordable housing.

The need for housing outweighs the desire to get a return on your investment.

[RestlessMind]

> quite clearly that it is immoral

> The need for housing

And who is the arbiter of this morality or the urgency of this need? I say it would be elections where everyone in that area gets a chance to vote and decide for themselves.

[disgruntledphd2]

Unfortunately, home owners vote at a higher rate, so this is unlikely to happen (even though it probably should).

[RestlessMind]

Why don't renters or homeless vote at a higher rate?

[ElevenLathe]

Why would we use municipal regulation as a way to give homebuyers "confidence" that their neighborhood will never change?

[lesuorac]

Circular logic?

Municipal regulation has been keeping the neighborhood the same so why not expect it will continue to?

[bombcar]

Because the homebuyers just are the municipality?

And as we're seeing here, if they can't get what they want one way they do it another way.

I've always thought the way out (besides just waiting until a neighborhood is an absolute shithole of a slum and can be redeveloped because poor people have little political power) is just to straight up bribe people. New developments have a "fee" that is directly applied in cash to other homes in the area to reduce property tax.

Everyone likes a good bribe.

[ElevenLathe]

> homebuyers just are the municipality

I think in most US states, the legal situation is actually that local governments are creations of the state. They are allowed to have their own ordinances and so on as a matter of convenience, to avoid state legislators having to bother worrying about every edge case that only comes up in one county, but they do not have a right to exist independent of the state saying that they do. There are exceptions, but municipal ordinances (and HOA rules) can be overridden by state law.

We don't /have/ to let all these little NIMBY fiefdoms exist. They exist at the pleasure of the state legislature, and therefore voters statewide, not just locally (modulo gerrymandering, a big caveat).

[bombcar]

We're seeing that play out right now in California, the state overrode local areas and the problem hasn't gone away, it's shifted to other avenues.

If you don't change hearts and minds they'll keep fighting against it via any method available.

[theluketaylor]

Study after study shows that the value of property goes up when density increases, not the other way around. People who cling to property values as a gatekeeper are actually arguing against their self-interest, usually without knowing it.

[rootusrootus]

> People who cling to property values as a gatekeeper are actually arguing against their self-interest, usually without knowing it.

That is rarely the reason, in my experience. It is merely an accusation that gets thrown around by people who want the NIMBYs to look shallow. There are usually far more specific reasons for opposing new development.

There are always just a few, however, who do want the money. So they cash in and sell out to developers, and then move to a less dense neighborhood. Eventually the whole neighborhood character does in fact change, it just takes years.

[VectorLock]

Especially for tax codes. Every tax break is a richer man's loophole.

[sharemywin]

I agree it would be way easier to have a transaction tax than tax corporate "profits"

it could be tiered like income tax.

billion$ corp buy X from a billion$ corp biggest rate.

poor person sells some food to another poor person lowest rate.

[rsynnott]

That's going to make the food that the poor person is ultimately buying from the billion dollar supermarket pretty expensive...

Supermarkets are, generally, ground zero for problems with corporate taxes on things other than profits. They're extremely low-margin, so proposed revenue and transaction taxes would generally just increase prices of everything in the supermarket by whatever the tax is.

(That's just one problem, of course, but it's a very obvious one.)

[marcosdumay]

> on things other than profits

Well, profits or VAT. Even more if you make some actually sane VAT that discounts all VAT paying expenses and all labor expenses.

I'm not sure any VAT on the world fits that description, but it is the one way to make them work as well as profit taxes, but as easy to tax as any other VAT.

[rsynnott]

Yes, fair, VAT done right would have a much lower (though still non-zero) impact than transaction taxes.

[koheripbal]

Transaction taxes have an entirely different set of loopholes.

You're not solving anything by switching the form of taxation.