> environmental groups have already denounced the proclamation's potential to allow for high-rises in residential neighborhoods
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.
Environmentalism is a big coalition, not just one focused on climate change. There’s a lot of people who oppose “the concrete jungle.” Most existing environmental laws, dating to the 1970s, are geared to them, not the more recent (or recently understood) problem of climate change.
Environmental Impact Studies have been used to halt a wide number of projects that could be hugely beneficial to society, from green energy and nuclear, to multi-unit dwellings and mass transit. There is an entire industry of attorneys who specializes in suing to stop projects like this, and in some cases, if they win they an get their fees paid for by the state under "environmental justice" laws.
In short, using environmental protection to halt projects is mostly a NIMBY farce.
It's because in a 10 years someone is going to notice that "somehow" the current governor of Hawaii became a billionaire, along with 10 project developers. Probably this will happen when one of the buildings collapses taking 100 children directly to ~2 meters below the surface ...
Is this similar to the 'Builders Remedy' law in CA cities?
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.
The builder's remedy circumvents the need for a city to approve or "rubber stamp" anything.
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
I don't think this would work in Melbourne, where I'm from.
The land is so high priced, and developers can build anyway.
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.
Same with Auckland, but we need higher intensity, not more land. Public transport that’s useful seems very unlikely here.
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.
The effectiveness of public transport is significantly affected by the population density.
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.
> ...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.
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.
The marketing message around the suburban lifestyle has been sold as as the “American dream” or the “Australian dream” for more than a half century… its a profitable social manipulation that benefits politicians, land owners and all the businesses involved in house construction… it’s not that the end result is evil, it’s just pushed as an aspirational ideal that everyone should strive for when there are downsides for society at large when it comes to things like infrastructure maintenance and other costs shared by state/local governments…
Weird thing my partner noticed - the obsession to have your own driveway. Two adjacent lots, two driveways costing tens of thousands right next to each other. Some lots I've seen have multiple bridges right next to each other. What a waste.
Also, we've recently purchased a place and driveway has more concrete footprint than entire house...
The average driveway costs around $5k and the average home cost in the USA is now $416. So while it could be possible to shave off half of that 1.2% cost and save 0.6% it would come with needing some kind of easement or shared arrangement with your neighbor (who could change and who you may or may not be on good terms with). You also couldn't leave your vehicle or a visiting vehicle in the middle of the driveway since you'd be blocking someone else.
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.
Transit in the USA is provided publicly, so supply lags demand by a decade or so. Your apartment with no parking forcing function is going to create a bunch of annoyed tenants during that time, it’s a more risky project too build out.
>> "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.
To tackle highest housing costs, developers are going to build luxury high rise units afforded by banks lending at the highest rates in 50 years. A sliver of affordable units will be extended to politically aligned friends and family, and of course the 50% of the workforce employed by the government.
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.
I wonder if this will backfire and make it a land grab for developers to build new luxury vacation homes/resorts for the express purpose of Airbnb them out
Judging from the articles that get posted on here, in the US you only seem to have a choice between completely bonkers regulations that only serve entrenched interests or no regulation at all.
Every NIMBY thinks they have just the right amount of "sensible" regulation.
"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."
My experience is different. Local people care about things like schools and traffic in a way that those outside the immediate area don’t. A local example: the state of NJ built a small bridge over a creek a few year back that now allows drivers going through the Holland Tunnel into NYC to use Jersey City as a shortcut when traffic on the highway is bad. Now you basically can’t go outside during rush hour. It’s terrible. Does anyone from the state care? No. Why would they?
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.
My experience is also different. When owning a home is wildly out of reach for the incomes of 95% of people in the area, and they complain about it, they still also complain every time new housing goes up that would lower costs. They say they hate traffic but then complain about bike lanes that would encourage less traffic. They say the primary education is full, when 2/5 schools are closing and enrollment is declining into an upside down pyramid because people can't afford enough housing to feel comfortable raising kids.
It sounds like we’re experiencing the same things then. The only difference is that I accept the choices of others, even if I disagree with them, whereas you believe you know better and would like to force your beliefs on others.
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.
Yes, this is the standard NIMBY first argument that of course leads to the prisoners' dilemma due to uncoordinated policy. Every locale wants less housing near them, so they go upscale and put the housing "somewhere else." But because everyone does that, everyone is worse off than coordinating, because you left it to each locale independently. (and the NIMBY argument is of course, state level bad, county level bad, city level good, land holder bad...) These people are forcing not-housing on my plot of land. That sure seems to be "force your beliefs on others."
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."
The problem with regulation is the process as it is extremely drawn out, and creates dozens of opportunities for anyone, even someone with zero standing, to sue and stop it.
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.
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.
That's what I was thinking of. If you turn off all regulation you'll end with 20 story apartment buildings with zero parking space, zero greenery and accessible only by a tiny narrow road that's always clogged.
If everyone lived in 20 story apartment buildings there's be massive amounts of space no longer used for low density housing that could be freed up for parks etc.
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.
Why do you think people will build houses with no street space? Anyways it’s not like street space will suddenly be turned over from the govt to private builders, but even if it was private land why wouldn’t they build land with enough space in it?
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?
Why would a private developer's decision not to include parking, be interpreted as some kind of metric for the sufficiency of public transport in the 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.
at least people would get to live close to where they need to and not commute for hours a day and they might actually be able to afford to live in places. Fundamentally this always seemed like a problem where some people pretty much park their head in the sand and go "well i don't care about others, as long as my space is protected".
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.