Comments by "Nunya Bidness" (@nunyabidness3075) on "City Beautiful"
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Overall a good video, but very misleading for a few reasons.
1. Houston does almost nothing to enforce deed restrictions. The only regular activity they do is to force HOA sign off before issuing a permit. If there is not an active HOA, the owner can almost always move ahead with no problem. There are many deed restricted communities with no active HOA. My friend built his store in one despite the restrictions. The city/county/state treated him as if he wasn’t violating any deed restrictions. They harassed him all sorts of stupid, bureaucratic ways, but ignored the covenants on file.
2. HOA’s vary greatly in what they allow. Only members have input. Changes are VERY, VERY hard to make. Many HOAs have almost no actual power to enforce restrictions or even collect dues. They have no license for violence. Almost all these HOAs have for leverage is the ability to stop the permitting process and collect liens at closings. That’s it.
3. Lack of a zoning ordnance means the owner, and thus the market, decides most land use. Zoning commissions can, and do, make even bigger mistakes than the market. They steal millions from land owners all the time. They are often corrupt. They favor developers unless and until citizens organize, and then mob tyranny takes over. If you are not trying to build a sky scraper or dangerous industrial site in Houston, you are pretty good to go. If you are doing something really obnoxious, you will need lawyers, but otherwise, you are fine. Good neighbors have only to fear bad neighbors, not the government.
4. Housing prices are affected by zoning, or lack of it. What’s different about Austin versus other Texas cities is that only they ever really tried to control growth of their city using land use restrictions. It’s a danger putting all your government types in one city along with your biggest university, they think they can run things even though they are the two types of people least able to run anything without creating more problems than they solve.
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This is a great example of why our country is sick of experts. Instead of giving a clean, objective education on the subject, the gentleman mixes in a lot of opinion and policy before the audience (voter) is ready. No one seems to be an actual scientist or educator anymore. They are all like teenagers who want to control the facts on which the decision should be made as to whether to buy them a fancy SUV. Seems to me, much of his description of the problem is contradicted by traveling through Europe which is certainly dense like he seems to think we should be, but which is built in areas he seems to think result in problems. I guess some of those thousand year old structures just got lucky?
Seems to me, much of the conclusions are also based on policy decisions and are decidedly statist. Planners should decide who builds what where, and of course, they will, and should, do so based on his proscription. The reality is they haven’t and never will. Even if a perfect and omniscient planner makes recommendations, it’s likely a corrupt and imperfect politician, an ambitious developer, and other people with career incentives will interfere. This country was built on a different plan, and maybe that ought to be reconsidered as new policy. If people want to build or buy in fire prone areas, let them. Perhaps we spend money on informing people, and then let fear of the consequences do the regulating?
After all, those California wildfires are also fueled by poor land management in public lands and on private property where fire prevention is poorly regulated. The virtually state run power companies are prevented from properly cutting around their lines. Leap frog development is enforced by allowing home owners and even renters to prevent anyone around them from developing and ruining their view, neighborhood character, or environment. They’d likely be better off with a quarter or less of their regulation.
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@infantebenji They might be emotional, but they are usually being clear. They have valid concerns. I’d be interested in reading this study, though I doubt it proves anything or is at all correct. Most modern studies are the opposite of correct.
At any rate, there’s ways to add density, and commercial, while being sensitive to the situation. Of course, that requires understanding the situation, which most of the SFH haters seem incapable of doing. Remember, not every SFH owner is a grumpy old white racist who bought his house for $50,000, did nothing to care for it or his neighborhood, and is now waiting to sell it for $1 million. It could be a minority widow who bought her dream house yesterday for $1 million and strangely doesn’t want to spend the next year having a zero lot line, 4 story apartment block built 8’ from her craftsman bungalow which was supposed to be in a cute little neighborhood full of same with build lines and other restrictions. The fact that it’s going to be a halfway house for the mentally challenged built with taxpayer money is not adding to her comfort.
Or, maybe she isn’t interested in sharing her morning coffee with the drive through customers for the new coffee shop.
Do you have any compassion for our historic home buyer?
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@infantebenji Okay, first, you changed sides. You are claiming the R1 is being used to maximize home values but also it’s ineffective because you said allowing apartments would raise values more. (Btw, if you cannot cite a study, it’s not fair to claim the results. You might be wrong, and likely are because the press very often gets studies wrong. Read for yourself). We could agree on dislike of zoning, but we don’t. You are confused. You either want zoning or you do not. I don’t, but I also don’t like government breaking promises and abruptly changing the rules. It’s rarely the best solution, and can create lots of victims. It’s happened to me before, and I’m fighting a change right now that could cost me a LOT.
Now, there’s another way to protect neighborhoods, and you don’t seem to like it either, but you are about to contradict yourself again. The people in their neighborhood can form an HOA and agree to how they will all limit their own property usage for mutual benefit. Why shouldn’t they be able to do that?
Finally, moving is very stressful and expensive. People should only be expected to move for their own reasons, and ought to be compensated for the trouble if forced to do so. Have you never owned a home?
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@bobafett1280 I’m in a deed restricted development right now. It’s an inactive HOA. Zero fees. Also, zero services and not much protection if a builder or owner or government causes trouble. If there’s an issue, we vote to activate, elect officers, and go to work. The highest fees I’ve paid an HOA were $180 a month which got us excellent security services and garage trash service and some protection against bad construction. We looked at a home in a “bad HOA”. The homes were not that well kept, there was way too much security and there was a huge fee to pay for landscaping common areas. Clearly, there were issues. I didn’t even have to look at the covenants.
Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for developers to write covenants that allow them to pay themselves for maintenance and hard for the buyers to end that arrangement. Club houses, pools, and golf courses can be sources of trouble.
An HOA where my mom lived banded with others to reduce a big freeway expansion, and got the city to put the road below grade to reduce noise.
The press loves a bad HOA story, but often there are bad residents or other actors that an HOA is your only real protection against. It just takes some diligence to watch out for bad deals just like watching out when dealing with companies and even government offices. Stories about HOA’s taking homes are always reported. Every HOA I was in simply waited for the home to sell and collected at closing, even if it took years. You never read about that.
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@Ben-jq5oo Great idea, Ben. So your solution is to bankrupt millions of people whose big mistake was doing EXACTLY what their government, parents, friends, and financial advisors told them to do so that a bunch of whiny twenty somethings can afford what they think boomers all magically got at a cheaper price? (Which will not be the result, by the way).
I’ve had this convo dozens of times. No, Boomers did NOT all get a 3 bedroom, 2,000 sq foot home with all the modern goodies and qualities in the most desirable, established neighborhoods when they had the same knowledge base, skill base, and work experience of today’s infantile under 30 crowd. Also, they were married with 2 incomes and much less debt. Most of them left high school better ready to work than kids today leave college, too.
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