[ikesau]

> After finding out that the city council was considering a housing element that would have bowed to NIMBY pressure, we sent two letters to the city, reminding it of its legal obligations under state law to approve the upzoning — and that a failure to do so would open the city up to a lawsuit.

This seems entirely reasonable to me, and I'm grateful that a group like this exists.

But I'm a YIMBY, so of course. If lobbyists were influencing my municipality from afar on the basis of laws that I disagreed with, I can imagine feeling frustrated, conspiratorial, or disenfranchised.

Maintaining a consistent commitment to liberal democracy, the legal system and due process is one of life's great challenges!

[jeffbee]

If you live in California I can assure you beyond any doubt that people from some far-away place have had outrageous levels of influence on your local housing policy. Almost the entire body of CEQA jurisprudence has been developed by two lawyers and a handful of labor union executives.

If your local building code requires an elevator that can accommodate a hospital stretcher, which is almost certainly does, that was jotted down in the building code by literally one guy from Glendale, Arizona, on the basis of a whim.

[mothballed]

My county eliminated code compliance checks (and building plan review) 2 decades ago for owner-builders and it's made things so much cheaper and easier to build. It is the only way I was able to afford a house.

We were warned by nay-sayers the county would burn down but that never came to fruition and meanwhile I've seen so many code-Nazi places in California burn down from wildfires.

It's hilarious watching the systematic destruction of the counter points when people tell me about the horrors

(1) "You wouldn't want to live in such a house, it would burn down." I already do, and have been.

(2) Your neighborhood would catch fire. I live in such a neighborhood, it didn't.

(3) Just wait long enough! It will happen eventually. Eventually you'll have bad luck! This has been going on for 20+ years.

[jeffbee]

I sympathize with your experience but the code situation for multifamily is so much worse. The original motivating reason for the multifamily code was to stop people from building them, so it's all cursed, even 100 years later. It is wall-to-wall vibes and the fixes are not coming fast enough. Recently my city decided to amend out the requirement for firefighter air replenishment systems on every floor of buildings higher than three stories because, it turns out, even though this requirement exists nationwide, literally nobody has ever needed or used the FARS. It was made up and codified by the guy who sells the system!

[epistasis]

It's also important to consider what the code is, anywho decides it, and for what reasons.

Most cities adopt a mishmash, but they take them from large private organizations that publish big books of code, and how that whole process happens is far more opaque than most standards bodies because it's so obscure. Is there evidence backing the changes? Is it vibes? Is there financial benefit for the code writers for certain choices?

This mishmash of choices by local cities also greatly reduces building efficiency, because even if I learn the fine details of my city, that doesn't guarantee I can apply my hard won code knowledge a few miles away.

Building code is important and I wouldn't go as far as saying "if you own the house you don't have to follow anything" but our current situation is also not providing much safety in the US. Code mostly exists to justify checks, not improve safety. A simpler, more uniform code, with clearer motivations and evidence would go a long way to reducing unnecessary costs.

[butvacuum]

They'll change their tune when they find out they can't sell the property.

[mothballed]

LMAO. I built the house for $60,000. Myself. And I have the construction heavy equipment to demolish it, so I can demolish it for next to nothing. It paid for itself in 3 years vs renting.

I couldn't give a shit if I have to sell it for land value (which has massively appreciated by my own development, since I did all the prospecting for water, electric, and septic -- the land was basically worthless when I bought it), on the off chance someone doesn't want a mega cheap house in cash for break even. I didn't build it as an investment, I built it to live in.

It's by escaping your mentality, which is what has poisoned the real estate problem writ large, is how I escaped the inflated property price conundrum.

[dlcarrier]

I agree that local communities are best at determining their own line when disputes arise between protecting the freedoms of one party versus another, which is a stance also held by the supreme court: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_standards

In this case though, it's not someone going to a non-local city council or school board meeting and arguing for or against some policy that is up to that local board, but it is someone pointing out a policy that has been set at the state level. Any arguments for or against that policy need to take place at the state level, because that is the only place where it can be changed.

[nerdsniper]

> If lobbyists were influencing my municipality from afar on the basis of laws that I disagreed with

Hah, they most certainly are! To such an extreme extent that I figure you'd probably reword this to something like "If I was aware of all the ways that lobbyists were influencing my municipality from afar". They are most certainly constantly and relentlessly influencing your municipality on every issue that is relevant to them.

To those downvoting, if you tell me your municipality I will provide you with evidence of corporate lobbying influencing decisions of governance at the municipal level.

https://www.govtech.com/archive/uber-encourages-voting-gets-...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dkIiLWuXBE