Each municipality does it a little differently. Sometimes, there are just heights and setbacks. Sometimes there’s lot coverage. Sometimes there’s FAR. Sometimes there’s all of those and more, or only some of them.
Housing abundance. Urbanism. Zoning abolitionist. Accessibility Compliance expert. YIMBY. Located in Tovaangar. #OverturnEuclid
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Each municipality does it a little differently. Sometimes, there are just heights and setbacks. Sometimes there’s lot coverage. Sometimes there’s FAR. Sometimes there’s all of those and more, or only some of them.
I would argue that the very existence of zoning codes ensures US cities are suboptimal for human habitation. Geographic separation of uses to encourage car dependency, apartment bans to encourage segregation, et c.
One problem is different things being governed by different codes. For example, lot coverage by zoning codes. Floor area zoning (or economically building) Strict limits on heights are from zoning codes. Insistence on 2 stairs for all but short bldgs is the only strictly building code thing there.
youtube.com/post/UgkxXP9...
Signed, Sam Alcorn, Pasadena
@governor.ca.gov, sign SB 79! It applies to much less than a fifth of one percent of the area of the state, so if you hear anyone refer to it as "one size fits all" you know with certainty they're being disingenuous at best.
I don't even live in New York, but I will never forget the BS she pulled with congestion pricing last summer.
To say that the areas of our state around the transit stops we’ve spent billions on should be allowed to be restricted to low-density uses is utterly crazy.
Even as it was originally introduced, it never applied to a large proportion of the state. Before the area that it would apply to got whittled away amendment by amendment, it was still a tiny area.
Many of the exclusions will be difficult to map, for instance, the ones that require calculation of the existing zoned capacity of jurisdictions, what's already built in low-resource census tracts, et c.
So to call this bill "one size fits all" is _extremely_ disingenuous.
VHFHSZ = "very high fire hazard severity zone"
UTC="urban transit county"
SB 79 rough area calculations w/in ½ mile of Tier 1 without exclusions beyond UTC & VHFHZ : 0.04% of state area w/in ½ mile of Tier 2 without exclusions beyond UTC & VHFHZ : 0.2% of state area These estimates are assuredly much too high, as they only exclude 2 of the many exemptions
There were. But no longer: la.urbanize.city/post/foothil...
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Either way; just let us know. I’d like to join that.
TBF, it was already the longest light rail line on earth by a wide margin as of the completion of the Downtown Regional Connector a few years ago. This latest extension to Pomona added another 9 miles (but only a few stops).
In California, they worked into the plumbing code that waterless urinals require a water supply running to their location.
So yes, zoning does separate low-density residential zones from industrial zones, by using higher density residential as a buffer between them.
This is a common thing seen in cities all over the US: high-density residential directly adjacent to industrial zones, and then lower-density residential farther from the industrial.
But Euclid had designated a strip of that property for apartments (with no road), between the industrial zone adjacent to the railroad and the duplex zone fronting Euclid Ave.
Let’s take for example the zoning at the heart of the Euclid case: Ambler Realty wanted their whole site to be industrial, as neighboring properties along that railroad had been, and as this one ended up being developed after the case, for WWII.
It wasn’t about that, even at first. The earliest zoning ordinances in Berkeley, Los Angeles, and NYC were all about excluding certain groups of people. The “separating industry from residential” thing was a post-hoc rationalization. Nuisance laws greatly pre-dated the emergence of zoning.
Governor Newsom has a historic opportunity to fix the policy roots of California's housing crisis. Sign SB 79! www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/...
If you have a Disney+ or Hulu subscription and you haven’t cancelled it yet, please do so as soon as you can. We cannot allow our government to brazenly violate the 1st Amendment, and Disney must be made to feel the financial repercussions of bending the knee to Trump and Carr.
Which formed a chapter in this book that came out the next year, 1982: archive.org/details/reso...
This paper was published when I was an infant in 1981, many decades before Mast’s famous work: openyls.law.yale.edu/server/api/c...
What kills me about the reluctance of so many now to accept the reality of filtering and supply/demand effects on housing is that the thoughts and resistance to reality predate my 45 years on this earth.
There should be a state law mandating that there be shaded and safe sidewalks associated with both sides of every road. Not just new roads or triggered by alteration of existing roads, but that would be retroactive and proactively enforced.
Zoning was never about health and safety, not even from the very beginning of it. Never has been, never will be.
I’ve had similar situations happen to me over the years. It’s absolutely insane to have somewhere to go that should be within easy walking distance and be blocked from doing that by speeding death machines. Orienting our development around cars has utterly ruined our places.
Now it’s 2:11 end-to-end one way. cdn.beta.metro.net/wp-content/u...
My understanding is that before the recent extension, it took about 2 hours end to end one way. They switch train drivers at Union Station downtown.
This is the line right under my apartment complex. This weekend I’d like to take it all the way to Pomona and check out the new stops. I’ve taken it all the way to Long Beach and back before. One of these days, I’d like to go end to end both ways. It would have to be a most-of-the-day affair.
This would have been a good place to start 43 years ago: archive.org/details/reso...
Good intro to US pedestrian road infrastructure: youtu.be/lShDhGn5e5s?...
Indeed. It is all by choice. Other places have not chosen those things, and we don’t see the same problems in those places.
I saw Iron & Wine play with Calexico in Denver 20-21 years ago. They put on a good show.
They even held an unnecessary “community” meeting with the NIMBY neighbors that added yet more cost and delay. So what should have taken weeks (or months, at most) and not much money took years and lots of money.
I was so excited about it at first. Should have taken a few weeks to do minor repairs to the old motel and move people in. But it got hung up in permitting for a long time with the local AHJ. The nonprofit developer insisted on many changes to the building…
I’ve worked on a couple of Homekey projects, and tearing the old motel down and building new apartments from the ground up wouldn’t have taken much longer.
I have reported so many instances of tree roots uplifting sidewalks and excessive cross-slope from driveways over the years using the MyLA 3-1-1 app, but have yet to see a single one fixed as a result.
Same with the sidewalks in LA, even though they’re bound by a lawsuit settlement requiring they be fixed quickly.
bsky.app/profile/sama...
Published in 1981: openyls.law.yale.edu/server/api/c... That paper formed a chapter in this book, published the next year (1982): archive.org/details/reso...
I wrote my own: Dear Governor Newsom, Every day, when I take the train to work, which cost billions of taxpayer dollars, I pass by station after station surrounded by single-family houses and surface parking lots. This is embarrassing for the state. 1/5
On this week's Rational Security anniversary edition, @sranderson.bsky.social was joined by co-hosts emeritus @benjaminwittes.lawfaremedia.org, @shaneharris.bsky.social, @alanrozenshtein.com & @qjurecic.bsky.social to cover topics from Russia drones in Romania to non-enforcement of the TikTok ban.
megaphone.link/POLL9518986894
Put ED1 back in full force Mayor
We need an IRL ratio here.
Remember that as Governor, you represent the interests of all Californians, not just those fortunate enough to buy a house decades ago and to show up to “community” meetings at 3PM during the work week to oppose new housing near them. Please sign SB 79. Do it for all of us and our children. 5/5
I’m sure you are getting plenty of letters from citizens who care more that their neighborhoods never see any construction or new residents, and from local governments giving into those people, against the broader good that this law promises us all. 4/5
Most of all, I want a California where my child might be able to stay when she grows up. When you were running for this office years ago, you set a goal of getting millions of homes built. This bill would cover some of that. 3/5
I want a state where we aren’t forced to drive everywhere. I want a state with housing abundant enough that I’m not steadily driven broke by exorbitant rent charges each month. I want a state that makes good on its goals and promises about our climate. 2/5
I wrote my own: Dear Governor Newsom, Every day, when I take the train to work, which cost billions of taxpayer dollars, I pass by station after station surrounded by single-family houses and surface parking lots. This is embarrassing for the state. 1/5
actionnetwork.org/letters/sign...
Everyone: write a letter to @governor.ca.gov urging him to sign SB 79! We’ve been waiting for this for SEVEN YEARS. Not a day goes by when I don’t imagine what better shape this state (and nation) would be in if 827 had survived. Anti-housing forces (like Karen Bass) are asking him to veto.
And as the SB 79 definition of “heavy rail” goes by line, all stops on a line where any parts of it where cars and people cross its path should count as Tier 2, even if that particular stop is in a tunnel or freeway median.
*where I board
I just listened to an interview recently with an RF engineer, who’d worked at Commonwealth Fusion Systems before Quaise, and now is working for a different commercial fusion outfit. Gyrotrons FTW, whether injecting plasma into a tokamak or stellerator or burning a hole in the earth.
Please take A, C, F, or take a free shuttle bus…
, , ?
I think you’re right. If a line has some places where cars or people could pass in front of it, I think it would count as “light rail” per SB 79. Like with the LA Metro A line, where board it it’s in a tunnel, but there are parts where it goes on the street, like in Highland Park.
and VTA rail in Santa Clara County, which have high platform loading and are grade-separated. Obviously nothing will get published before the Gov signs the bill, but I wonder what sort of timeline we’re looking at?
By the text of SB 79, the MPOs are supposed to publish authoritative lists of which stops count as Tier 1 and Tier 2. Do you know if these will be aggregated statewide? Also interesting is what counts as “heavy rail” includes some lines that I would think of as “light rail,” e.g. LA Metro Line C…
Similar question about high- and very-high-frequency commuter rail, only there, the definition references the “system” rather than the “line.”
I ride the A Line more than the E. But it does seem like it meets some of the definition for “heavy rail” rather than “light rail” at some, but not all stops. But since the definition talks about the line having those characteristics and not the stops, I’ve been counting it as Tier 2.
And at some point, we should get authoritative maps from each MPO about which stops count as Tier 1 and Tier 2 per SB 79. In the mean time, I’ve worked up my own. The tricky part is just in LA County, where you have to sort the heavy and light rail by route, since they’re run by the same operator.
I’ve been using the statewide GIS data from CalTrans. It’s updated monthly.
I don’t think San Bernardino County would be included right now, although the stalled Metro A Line extension to Montclair would have pushed it over the threshold.
Horowitz says more people are dying from homelessness in the United States than from residential fires. We have to provide homes and make sure they are safe from fire risk.
Fire officials are sometimes making claims that people will die if we pass single stair. "A lot of reason to believe the opposite is true," says Horowitz.
Horowitz: We need to give fire safety folks the benefit of the doubt. There haven't been a lot of data to work with. That will take time to defuse. But we have to use data and look at outcomes. This can't be something where intuition is guiding fire safety.
On some streets, the crown of the street is higher than the sidewalks.
sidewalk height, so on big arterials, you might end up with just raised crosswalks at both sides, but not in the middle. Emergency services like fire trucks and ambulances could thus go through intersections without bumps, which will be a point of pushback from them.
They will need embedded pipes or similar at the edges of each street, along the street gutter, which must be sufficiently numerous to deal with drainage during heavy rain, so they don’t back up the gutter. And on a wide enough street, the crown of the street in the center of the road can approach…
Raised crosswalks solve two problems with one intervention: 1) accessibility for people on sidewalks without curb ramps and 2) traffic calming, resulting in fewer injuries and deaths
As institution after institution caves in to him, he’s emboldened to escalate — now seeking to bankrupt the NY Times for not endorsing him or giving him favorable coverage. Bending the knee to an authoritarian doesn’t make him stop. It makes him more aggressive. We must fight back. No more caving.
We need raised crosswalks at every high-injury intersection.
I haven’t seen anyone celebrating anyone’s death on here.
Published in 1981: openyls.law.yale.edu/server/api/c...
That paper forms a chapter in a book published in 1982 entitled _Resolving the Housing Crisis_: archive.org/details/reso...
Published in 1981: The Irony of Inclusionary Zoning openyls.law.yale.edu/server/api/c...
I don’t even live in NY, but I can’t forget the BS she pulled on congestion pricing in the summer of 2024.
Same here.
Walked into #YIMBYTown a few minutes late this morning was immediately greeted by the entire 600+ person crowd booing at Daryl Fairweather’s mention of Prop 13. These are definitely my people.
State reps in CA are listed with “party preference,” except for elected judges. Federal races are listed with the candidates’ parties in a more matter-of-fact way. I just now looked at an old ballot to confirm.
So if you want to know what party a candidate is associated with for a municipal race, you’ve got to do a bit of research. It’s been like that everywhere I’ve lived in CA: LA, Santa Monica, Pasadena, et c. I think it was that way when I lived in Denver years ago, too.
Some places, like here, don’t list parties of candidates for council or other municipal positions on ballots, from city up to county. Sometimes during campaigns, you’ll see advertised the endorsement of some state or local branch of the apparatus of a national party.
At-large seats should result in a more representative body than single-member districts with first-past-the-post voting. And those things are what lead us to have 2 political parties in the first place. So you’d expect many more parties.
15 city councilors is way too few for a city of LA’s size. It should be at least 50, with very strict and limited campaign finance rules (like maybe <$20/donor, no self-funding, and maybe public matching), and term limits. I’m not imagining a single change here would fix the problems.
City councils should be composed of at-large seats, for many reasons. Less corruption, more democracy, more housing. Enough with districts! LA already has neighborhood councils to provide hyper-local elected representation.
that a good way to go might be to keep one house represented according to geographic districts, and have the other house be elected entirely at large by the broad population of the state, ideally with ranked-choice voting or similar for both. #proportionalrepresentation
I’ve been thinking a lot about multi-member legislative districts and proportional representation since I was in college a quarter century ago, and it occurs to me that if we must have bicameral state legislatures (we don’t; see Nebraska),
Terner Center released a new report today entitled “The Financial Impacts of Construction Defect Liability on Housing Development in California.” It finds condo developers pay 3-4x for CGL insurance policies for similarly designed & built rental projects. ternercenter.berkeley.edu/blog/the-fin...
They also seem to love gender-affirming surgery, as long as it’s for them.
From four years ago to until they adopt a compliant housing element.
My hope is that if we must have zoning (and we emphatically don’t), that it be like Japan does it.