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cat botherer posted:With this stuff, it's best to focus on the second derivative or higher if you want to remain optimistic. That's why I exclusively look at the third derivative, jerk.
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Sep 5, 2023 15:49
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Gee, why oh why is there a cost of living crisis in America? https://m.startribune.com/minneapolis-cannot-proceed-with-2040-plan-court-rules/600302266/?clmob=y&c=n&clmob=y&c=n quote:Minneapolis cannot proceed with 2040 Plan, court rules Won’t someone think of the single family homes  with all these apartment buildings everywhere how will communities of color ever be able to buy a home???
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Sep 7, 2023 01:05
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Combed Thunderclap posted:Gee, why oh why is there a cost of living crisis in America? We must protect the environment by making everyone have a 1-hour car commute!
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Sep 7, 2023 01:18
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It sure seems like environmental regulations are regularly weaponized against proposals for urbanization or alternate transportation infrastructure, stalling them out for ages at huge expense, yet car infrastructure just gets insta-approved without anyone bringing spurious suits. Urbanists really should be copying that play against road and highway construction, if only to call sufficient attention to get the process changed.
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Sep 7, 2023 01:33
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I'd be interested to know more about the details of the environmental regs or effects being argued in this perverse way. It seems like something that could be preempted with careful standards design.
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Sep 7, 2023 01:53
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Discendo Vox posted:I'd be interested to know more about the details of the environmental regs or effects being argued in this perverse way. It seems like something that could be preempted with careful standards design. I work in environmental compliance (archaeology/NHPA Section 106 specifically). One of the most common misconceptions is that the law prevents environmental (or, in my specific case, historical property) damage, but in fact the law generally only requires that the government consider the effects of its actions on the environment. Ultimately, the NHPA, NEPA, and their state equivalents don't typically care if you actually harm the human environment at the end of the process as long as you've put the work in to figure out what impact you're going to have. The problem arises because often project proponents try to avoid considering particular impacts using things like creative crafting of project alternatives or insufficient scoping. A well-planned, properly-executed process is mostly immune to NEPA/NHPA legislation, but ironically the more a project proponents tries to avoid environmental review, the more vulnerable they become to costly litigation. There may well be process reforms that could improve the system -- you won't find many environmental compliance specialists who think the process is perfect -- but many of the horror stories are because project proponents tried to circumvent the process, rather than because of the process itself.
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Sep 7, 2023 02:02
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Quorum posted:I work in environmental compliance (archaeology/NHPA Section 106 specifically). One of the most common misconceptions is that the law prevents environmental (or, in my specific case, historical property) damage, but in fact the law generally only requires that the government consider the effects of its actions on the environment. Ultimately, the NHPA, NEPA, and their state equivalents don't typically care if you actually harm the human environment at the end of the process as long as you've put the work in to figure out what impact you're going to have. The problem arises because often project proponents try to avoid considering particular impacts using things like creative crafting of project alternatives or insufficient scoping. A well-planned, properly-executed process is mostly immune to NEPA/NHPA legislation, but ironically the more a project proponents tries to avoid environmental review, the more vulnerable they become to costly litigation. I dunno, this really seems like a case of "what a system does is what it's designed to do." And this system really seems designed to shut down any sort of positive movement in favor of freeways, parking lots, and single-family bullshit. tl;dr: 
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Sep 7, 2023 02:34
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Discendo Vox posted:I'd be interested to know more about the details of the environmental regs or effects being argued in this perverse way. It seems like something that could be preempted with careful standards design. Here's the findings of the court if you're interested in this specific instance. I haven't read through the entirety of it, but have been following along with news articles over the past few years. It sounds like a huge part of this was the lawsuit demanded a full environmental review with the assumption of a full build-out of the zoning that 2040 allows. Which, in this instance, is having 3+ units on every single residential lot in this city. I'm not sure why the Hennepin County judge is entertaining this assumption, since there is 0% chance of no single family homes existing. Granted, this judge got into his position by being appointed by one of the worse governors we've had in recent history (Pawlenty), so my theory is this is just a lovely judge. There's a decent chance I'm missing key pieces of information. But I don't understand legal speak very well and don't want to read 46 pages of it. I just hope that the city appeals to the state court and they pick up the case and allows us to continue using the 2040 plan while that process plays out.
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Sep 7, 2023 03:06
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Quorum posted:I work in environmental compliance (archaeology/NHPA Section 106 specifically). One of the most common misconceptions is that the law prevents environmental (or, in my specific case, historical property) damage, but in fact the law generally only requires that the government consider the effects of its actions on the environment. Ultimately, the NHPA, NEPA, and their state equivalents don't typically care if you actually harm the human environment at the end of the process as long as you've put the work in to figure out what impact you're going to have. The problem arises because often project proponents try to avoid considering particular impacts using things like creative crafting of project alternatives or insufficient scoping. A well-planned, properly-executed process is mostly immune to NEPA/NHPA legislation, but ironically the more a project proponents tries to avoid environmental review, the more vulnerable they become to costly litigation. This is more or less exactly why Minneapolis ended up here. The city spent 3 years poorly arguing that environmental review would be difficult because it was too broad in scope and had no specific projects on which they could estimate impacts. It also did a bad job presenting evidence to dispute the actual claims being made in the suit. The judge in this instance ruled the city must present something on the aggregate environmental effects from the plan and put a stay on the new plan while that happens. This effectively reverted the city to the previous 2030 plan, which has much less permissive land use regulations. Higher state courts upheld the finding that municipal plans are subject to environmental review, but wanted clarification on why reverting to the 2030 plan was the appropriate fix. The small silver lining is that the judge is at least open to allowing the 2040 plan if the city actually performs a review, which finally started this year. When the city appeals, it is entirely possible a higher court will find that reverting to the 2030 plan is not the appropriate fix and some other solution is better. Regardless, as others have noted the city being forced to perform environmental review opens yet another avenue for groups to sue again in the future. It’s a process win for NIMBYs, even if in the end 2040 goes through. Swing State Victim fucked around with this message at 03:39 on Sep 7, 2023 |
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Sep 7, 2023 03:21
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The specifics of the environmental review under contestation is what I'm interested in. From my review of the holding, the full buildout framing of the analysis is patently disingenuous, but the city should have performed any kind of rationale other than economic for the environmental impact (assuming the judge's characterization that the city didn't do so is correct, which I am not confident of). At root, though, the MERA language (not the official code, but this appears up to date compared with it) might be the problem- I'm having trouble telling whether it could allow densification, because it seems to privilege any kind of individual enjoyment impairment claim against something like the aggregate climate or other benefits of densification. And, of course, the densification benefits are harder to argue when you have to deal with the ludicrous full buildout scenario. edit: okay gently caress this judge, the litanization on page 10 is making it obvious they're not serious. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Sep 7, 2023 |
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Sep 7, 2023 03:50
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Discendo Vox posted:And, of course, the densification benefits are harder to argue when you have to deal with the ludicrous full buildout scenario. Well, yeah. Seems a lot like the pilot projects to allow alcohol in parks here. If you argued against it with "yeah? Well what if every single person in the park drank a handle of vodka, what then???" it would be impossible to ever do anything. With a liberalization of regulations, you should not have to argue against the worst possible result if it's factually unlikely to occur.
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Sep 7, 2023 05:42
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Can we apply their argument to the suburbs? What if every single family home had 3+ cars and drove each one over 12,000 miles a year?! Or what if every single family home was 2,500+sq/ft and spent 24/7 running AC or heating?! Better bulldoze every single one for the sake of the environment. 
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Sep 7, 2023 11:12
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Cugel the Clever posted:It sure seems like environmental regulations are regularly weaponized against proposals for urbanization or alternate transportation infrastructure, stalling them out for ages at huge expense, yet car infrastructure just gets insta-approved without anyone bringing spurious suits. Urbanists really should be copying that play against road and highway construction, if only to call sufficient attention to get the process changed. people who want more apartment buildings and less sprawl are too poor to afford public interest lawyers' legal fees. that's the problem with laws enforced by private parties paying lawyers, like every state's environmental review laws. Quorum posted:...but many of the horror stories are because project proponents tried to circumvent the process, rather than because of the process itself. Is it really possible that every freeway department and sprawl county planning commission studied and considered every environmental impact perfectly while transit agencies and infill city planning commission manage to never complete a study accurately? gtfo. it's that rich people, their environmental lawyers, and the judges who consider the cases are all homeowning carbrains.
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Sep 7, 2023 14:30
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Greg12 posted:Is it really possible that every freeway department and sprawl county planning commission studied and considered every environmental impact perfectly while transit agencies and infill city planning commission manage to never complete a study accurately? There are more factors at play as well (developer-funded suburban subdivision projects often don't trigger environmental review because they don't involve federal or state money, for example, unlike something along the lines of installing a high speed rail system), but I think you're right to identify one of the core flaws of American environmental review laws: they ultimately rely on expensive private legal action to enforce them, which disproportionately tilts the manner of their enforcement towards entities with the resources to bring them. That's why some procedurally-rotten projects might sail through with nary a peep while others (and maybe ones with fewer flaws) might get bogged down. That's also, I'd argue, why agencies and proponents persist in trying to cut corners and avoid doing higher level reviews in the first place: there's a good chance they won't get called out on it, and the projected cost savings up front is a very compelling political incentive.
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Sep 7, 2023 15:39
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New Jersey is suing the feds over congestion pricing using the lack of an EIS covering parts of New Jersey right now or something.
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Sep 7, 2023 17:19
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Quorum posted:There are more factors at play as well (developer-funded suburban subdivision projects often don't trigger environmental review because they don't involve federal or state money, for example, unlike something along the lines of installing a high speed rail system), but I think you're right to identify one of the core flaws of American environmental review laws: they ultimately rely on expensive private legal action to enforce them, which disproportionately tilts the manner of their enforcement towards entities with the resources to bring them. That's why some procedurally-rotten projects might sail through with nary a peep while others (and maybe ones with fewer flaws) might get bogged down. That's also, I'd argue, why agencies and proponents persist in trying to cut corners and avoid doing higher level reviews in the first place: there's a good chance they won't get called out on it, and the projected cost savings up front is a very compelling political incentive. Also time and term limits. I dunno how long a review takes, but if it makes a project span two terms it makes it harder. "Council Member Leonard J. Crabs spent the whole term and budget on environmental reviews!!!"
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Sep 7, 2023 18:50
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Quorum posted:There are more factors at play as well (developer-funded suburban subdivision projects often don't trigger environmental review because they don't involve federal or state money, for example, unlike something along the lines of installing a high speed rail system), but I think you're right to identify one of the core flaws of American environmental review laws: they ultimately rely on expensive private legal action to enforce them, which disproportionately tilts the manner of their enforcement towards entities with the resources to bring them. That's why some procedurally-rotten projects might sail through with nary a peep while others (and maybe ones with fewer flaws) might get bogged down. That's also, I'd argue, why agencies and proponents persist in trying to cut corners and avoid doing higher level reviews in the first place: there's a good chance they won't get called out on it, and the projected cost savings up front is a very compelling political incentive. Ham Equity posted:I dunno, this really seems like a case of "what a system does is what it's designed to do." And this system really seems designed to shut down any sort of positive movement in favor of freeways, parking lots, and single-family bullshit.
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Sep 7, 2023 19:02
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Ok, sure, but it helps to understand why things work, or don't work, in the specific ways they do-- for one thing, it's definitely not because the laws were advocated for or written by folks who loved and adored suburban sprawl. If anything, we would understand many of them today as anti-sprawl! The US created most of its environmental regulation edifice in the late 1960s and early 1970s, amidst an atmosphere of progressive suspicion towards the motives and effects of large-scale government projects. That suspicion had reasonable roots: it grew in part out of backlash to the ways that the construction of the interstate highway system had divided and destroyed communities, particularly poor Black communities, and disrupted ecosystems. It also reflected a growing understanding at the time that government was (and still is) doing a piss-poor job of actually reflecting the desires and serving the needs of all communities. The result was a set of laws, including NEPA (and eventually its state-level equivalents, including the Minnesota law at issue here) which served not to regulate all environmental impacts, but specifically to regulate government action, theoretically forcing everyone involved in a project like an interstate to stop and consider the effects of their actions before proceeding. So it's all very well to say "what a system does is what it's designed to do," but that's worse than useless if you stop your analysis there, because it suggests all you have to do is just get some better people to write better laws. But the implementation, the incentive structures you create, and the unforeseen ways that society will change in the future can all break a system or redirect it to new ends much faster than you'd expect, and it's worth thinking about how to mitigate that.
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Sep 7, 2023 19:43
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https://twitter.com/realEstateTrent/status/1704147987868307868 It's a very long tweet, but he actually has a point. The typical stroad (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroad https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/3/1/whats-a-stroad-and-why-does-it-matter), is such a miserable experience for anyone who's not a car addict that it won't get enough business to support a store without masses of parking. Unless they change the stroad into a proper street or a proper road, any retail on it actually needs masses of wasteful parking space, because the terrible stroad design demands it.
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Sep 20, 2023 17:16
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golden bubble posted:https://twitter.com/realEstateTrent/status/1704147987868307868 Imagine if the people who live in the apartments also used shops, cafes and bars that are near their home. Imagine if there was some way to travel to and from said apartments / shops without a car. The whole point is that people don’t need to travel across a city to the official shopping & restaurant zone all the time, and the neighbourhoods are actually livable and walkable, because there is some retail nearby. Yes stroads are obviously bad and should be smashed to bits, but the homes literally on top of the retail provide the customers.
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Sep 20, 2023 17:32
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golden bubble posted:https://twitter.com/realEstateTrent/status/1704147987868307868 No one thinks building an isolated mixed-use building on a zero-density car-focused commercial stroad with no parking is going to be successful. It requires an actual plan to work. There are tons of communities which are already very walkable, and where mixed-use buildings are somewhat controversial due to vacancies, that do end up getting good use out of the ground floor commercial. I live in a neighborhood like that in Chicago. Keeping the neighborhood walkable, with a medium density mixed-use road every half mile, is an actual concern. The issue about housing developers not understanding retail space is also an issue, and makes it harder for condos.
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Sep 20, 2023 17:42
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Cities often will do the absolute minimum but you need an actual plan for a walkable city, not a cargo cult. Apple's building a huge new building in LA right next to a train station and most of their space will be completely private and internally facing, and they have an entire block.
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Sep 20, 2023 17:51
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My building has ground-floor retail and restaurants and I shop at them almost literally once a day, and sometimes multiple times per day (it's a grocery store and a Canadian Tire, any time you need pretty much anything, it's right there). Not the restaurant though, it's not very good in my opinion. If it were, say, a shawarma joint instead of a Vegan Superfood Woo Emporium, I'd be there all the time. A block or two away there are some other ground-floor retail options and restaurants, and I visit those regularly too. Parking is available underground as well as a few spots on the street (I'd get rid of them and replace them with a bike lane, ideally), but I would say that the vast majority of customers to these places do not drive there. I'd say that kind of pessimism is a failure of imagination, but it's actually worse than that because it's sheer ignorance of what already exists in cities all over the world, and how great it actually is. You know how awesome it is to never have to do a full grocery shop for a week at a time because you're always 4 minutes away from picking up whatever you need? That's true luxury.
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Sep 20, 2023 17:51
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Also, you can still get decent density with single family homes if you do away with parking minimums and setbacks. I have a pretty typical rowhome in Philly. My street is .2 km long (about .12 of a mile or a 3 minute leisurely walk). I have 32 lots per side on the street. Maybe 4-5 of which are vacant. That's 64 lots with both sides. If we assume 60 are in use and house an average of 2 people per home that's 120 people on that street, or about what you'd expect to live in a normal midrise apartment complex. This is a pretty normal density for my area. I can walk 10 minutes and within that time reach a train station, two major bus lines, 2 grocery stores, doctor offices, dentists, corner stores, laundrymats, daycare centers, and bars, and restaurants. There are also a few 3 over 1 apartment complexes going up within walking distance that will be adding more shopping to the area. And this is with a majority of the people in the area living in single family homes, whether they rent or own them.
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Sep 20, 2023 20:03
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I didn’t look at that thread but another thing to consider is that retail space in the US is insanely overbuilt. We have much more commercial sq ft per capita than comparable countries, so it can be hard to fill space even if it would make sense for there to be a store there
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Sep 20, 2023 21:29
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Because of sprawl and strip malls sure, but in a more urbanist setting it shouldn't be too hard to fill retail spots on major streets at least. It's true that if you don't have parking then yes you need foot (or bike) traffic, that's obvious enough. And foot traffic is what you should be able to get with decent design for the building and neighborhood.
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Sep 20, 2023 22:04
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No one would say that a small strip mall surrounded by a neighbourhood of 400 houses couldn’t possibly exist and sustain itself, but somehow when those dwellings are organized into high-rises it’s just unthinkable lol.
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Sep 20, 2023 22:35
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That said I'm not sure it really makes sense to mandate that every apartment block have ground level retail. That seems like it would probably be too much retail; even somewhere like Tokyo you're not gonna find retail at the ground floor of every single aparment/condo building. Along major streets though, sure.
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Sep 20, 2023 22:50
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My sister in law lives in S. Korea and in her complex there are about 6 high rise apartment buildings and an entire retail center, including movie theater. The retail part is still a separate building but it’s only a short walk down the sidewalk and some stairs (or an elevator) because all of this is built on the side of a hill. The high rise apartments and the retail center share the same underground parking garage (the parking for visitors is separated from the parking for residents). The point is, retail does not literally need to be on the first floor of residential buildings but it should be close enough that walking to it is easy. Also subterranean parking. nelson fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Sep 20, 2023 |
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Sep 20, 2023 23:15
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Had a lengthy discussion with a former coworker years ago where he just couldn't fathom the concept that a downtown Starbucks would be better with a residential high-rise on top than as a standalone building with a drive-thru. Suburb brain is real.
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Sep 20, 2023 23:17
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Cicero posted:That said I'm not sure it really makes sense to mandate that every apartment block have ground level retail. That seems like it would probably be too much retail; even somewhere like Tokyo you're not gonna find retail at the ground floor of every single aparment/condo building. Along major streets though, sure. Maybe not every single building but some of them for sure. Lack of this mix-use is something that I dislike about the area I live in, I have to walk for at least 10 minutes before I get to anything that's not residential. That's porbably not bad by NA subub standards but it makes the area completely dead and not even worth going outside unless you're actually going somewhere else. This is something both new and old commie residential developments generally lack. The older ones at least had a bunch of other useful facilities mixed in and not just endless apartment blocks. So here there's a bunch of sports fields, kindergartens, schools, and a doctor's office. But otherwise nothing going on, after exploring street view for a bit, the only business I could see on the ground floor is a... custom bathroom designer? I'm sure it's great but not something that could liven up the area for local residents like a cafe or a bakery.  poo poo like that woks great in the olderer downtowns so it's a bummer these developmetns are so lifeless.
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Sep 20, 2023 23:19
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mobby_6kl posted:Maybe not every single building but some of them for sure. Lack of this mix-use is something that I dislike about the area I live in, I have to walk for at least 10 minutes before I get to anything that's not residential. That's porbably not bad by NA subub standards but it makes the area completely dead and not even worth going outside unless you're actually going somewhere else. I did grow up in a west German "commie block" style settlement. And there is a boring outer ring of pure residential mid-rises surrounding an inner main road with mixed use mid-rises and pure facilities like parks and schools and Aldi. And the train station.
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Sep 20, 2023 23:43
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I mean we literally have whole-rear end strip malls with just retail and stuff, and no one complains that it's too much retail space. Let's just forbid that without building residential on top!
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Sep 20, 2023 23:45
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Cicero posted:That said I'm not sure it really makes sense to mandate that every apartment block have ground level retail. That seems like it would probably be too much retail; even somewhere like Tokyo you're not gonna find retail at the ground floor of every single aparment/condo building. Along major streets though, sure. Tokyo even on major streets, its more like 10 floors of apartments, next to 10 floors of retail. It's a bit of a mindbender when you go as an American because you're so trained to imagine the only retail you need to know is the first floor but there's plenty of good stores top to bottom.
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Sep 21, 2023 00:09
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Reminder: huge portions of North America has retail complexes that are literally taller than all surrounding residential buildings, and they're just for retail! I think if you eliminated those sorts of things, you could easily fill every single multi-family building with retail on the ground floor and have demand.
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Sep 21, 2023 00:10
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PT6A posted:I mean we literally have whole-rear end strip malls with just retail and stuff, and no one complains that it's too much retail space. Let's just forbid that without building residential on top!
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Sep 21, 2023 01:37
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Cugel the Clever posted:But, when all those residents drive down to the retail space at the base of their buildings, where will they park?? You see, the neat thing about Tokyo's land use especially is a lot of the train stations are built with retail on top. Little mini-malls that are super conveniently placed and which the (private) train operators can charge rent on (and get some pretty good rates too since there's huge traffic going to/from the station)
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Sep 21, 2023 02:18
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Nitrousoxide posted:You see, the neat thing about Tokyo's land use especially is a lot of the train stations are built with retail on top. Little mini-malls that are super conveniently placed and which the (private) train operators can charge rent on (and get some pretty good rates too since there's huge traffic going to/from the station) Some of the best places I ate in Tokyo were like 3 levels underground at a train station
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Sep 21, 2023 03:09
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I am curious about the stacked infra aspect of Japanese construction, and particularly how it squares with the other policy I've heard is practiced in Japan; building lifespans that end in rebuild.
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Sep 21, 2023 03:37
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I will say that zoning rules mandating retail on the first floor of an apartment building are probably unnecessary, though. No one wants to live on the ground floor of an apartment building; just remove the restriction on mixed-use and it will naturally happen.
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Sep 21, 2023 04:24
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