Archinect - News

San Francisco could axe tiny homes proposal over cost concerns and NIMBYism

2023-02-21T13:21:00-05:00

The drama over the project provides a window into just how hard it is for the city to scale up its housing and shelter system, even as a recent report from the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) estimated it would take more than 6,000 extra temporary and permanent beds to solve the crisis on the streets. It also puts into sharp relief how easily neighborhood opposition can derail a project, even when the funding and space is available — and the need is clear.

The Mission district parking lot is scheduled to become an affordable housing development with construction beginning in 2025 and the tiny homes program was expected to fill the gap. “It's always the same hand wringing,” housing advocate Sam Moss told the Chronicle. “It’s never about taking care of our homeless, it's always about how you're going to feel about what it's like to see homelessness.”

San Francisco’s desire to essentially segregate homelessness is part and parcel of previous policies such as the deeply criticized Homeward Bound bussing program enacted by Gavin Newsom during his tenure in City Hall. In total, the city has seen a decline of 15% in its homeless population since 2021. A total of 3,810 units are still projected to be needed in order to match the current demand.

Oxford's 'Shark House' owner detests its new landmark designation status

2022-04-01T13:38:00-04:00

The 25-foot tall (7.6 meter) sculpture of a shark crashing through the roof of Magnus Hanson-Heine’s house in rural Oxford, England, is now a protected landmark — and he’s not happy about it.

City Council members in Oxford voted earlier in the month to add the protest artwork to its Heritage Asset Register along with 16 other sites.

Officially named the Headington Shark, the sculpture was installed on the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki in 1986 as a powerful anti-war message lobbed against the U.S. government by American ex-pat homeowner Bill Hanson-Heine and local artist John Buckley. Hanson-Heine died in 2019 and apparently passed down his grudge against the planning body, which had for years attempted to effect last night’s removal via a series of orders that were eventually halted by Department of the Environment Minister Michael Heseltine in 1992.

“Using the planning apparatus to preserve a historical symbol of planning law defiance is absurd on the face of it,” Magnus told the AP earlier this week.

"Solar NIMBYism" is on the rise

2019-11-21T13:56:00-05:00

Renewable energy initiatives like building new wind and solar farms have multiplied as a global push to reinforce sustainability initiatives has taken off in recent years. However, despite the benefits for these necessary renewable energy plans, pushback from residents, as well as local governing agents, has grown in tandem.

Linda Poon of CityLab reports,"The U.S. now has a total of 2 million solar panels—half of which were installed in just the last three years—capable of generating nearly 70 gigawatts [...] But while the American public increasingly supports expanding green energy, they often don't want to see the actual facilities that would generate that power."

Image © Kristian Buus via/10 10 Flickr

Poon reports that in both the West and East Coast regions of the U.S, Americans remain aggressively opposed the construction of new solar farms. Maybe these "anti-solar" attitudes are focused on aesthetics? For some, yes, but also, these concerns, according to the report, also tap ...

Homeless shelter on Billionaires' Row approved by court; opposing neighbors to appeal the ruling

2019-06-13T14:41:00-04:00

The state Appellate Division’s First Judicial Department issued a ruling on Tuesday denying the West 58th Street Coalition’s motion to extend a temporary injunction to stop the opening of the homeless shelter. The city plans to open the shelter at the former Park Savoy Hotel at 158 W. 58th St. It is located on a block near an area dubbed Billionaires’ Row, which is home to a group of luxury residential skyscrapers.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the West 58th Street Coalition, the neighborhood group opposing the planned homeless shelter, would "appeal Tuesday’s ruling to the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, which would hear the case in the fall."

The shelter population in New York City is currently estimated at about 58,000 people.

This story previously on Archinect: Homeless shelter on Billionaires' Row faces new (temporary) opposition

Homeless shelter on Billionaires' Row faces new (temporary) opposition

2019-05-13T18:26:00-04:00

A judge temporarily stopped the city’s plan to open a homeless shelter in a former hotel near Billionaires’ Row, which a group of residents have been trying to derail citing fire safety concerns in the property. [...] The stay is the latest in a nearly two year battle between locals and the city over the shelter at the Park Savoy Hotel—which backs against the One57 luxury tower that has $100 million condos [...].

"Neighbors have fiercely opposed the shelter, citing possible increased criminal activity and fire safety concerns," reports Curbed NY. "But, as [Judge Alexander] Tisch noted in his April ruling, the FDNY approved the building’s Fire Protection Plan. Further, a source familiar with the plan said that there will be a 10 p.m. curfew and 24/7 security."

A case for Brooklyn YIMBYism

2018-09-12T17:09:00-04:00

At its current rate of growth, Brooklyn is about to be more populous than the entire city of Chicago. Saying “we need more housing” is a given, but no one agrees on where, how high, and for whom. And New York has been later to that discussion than San Francisco, Seattle, and Los Angeles: While the city is building housing, technically, it is nowhere near enough to meet the needs of 144,000 new Kings County residents since 2010.

Alexandra Lange takes a closer look at Brooklyn's contested 80 Flatbush mixed-use development and argues why it's good for the borough.

Not NIMBY or YIMBY, but PHIMBY

2018-04-09T01:45:00-04:00

If we are to take the housing crisis in the United States seriously, after reviewing international models, we see only one conclusion—local governments, supported by the federal government, must build a very large amount of affordable, mixed income, publicly-owned housing, initially by developing existing publicly-owned land.

The People's Policy Project (3P) has put out a report making the case for Social Housing in the United States. The authors, Ryan Cooper and Peter Gowan, also published an adapted essay in Jacobin Magazine wherein they contrast their approach with previous programs like HOPE VI: "We support a massive expansion of the publicly owned housing stock for all income groups, not evicting poor people to make way for middle-class people."

Their colleague, Matt Bruenig, penned a related editorial in the Guardian summarizing why "expanding the housing supply through this social housing approach has many benefits over private, market-led development."

San Francisco nixes funding for affordable senior housing project in wealthy neighborhood after pushback from residents

2018-03-12T17:35:00-04:00

The City quietly told developers this week that it will no longer fund a 150-unit affordable senior housing project proposed in the wealthy Forest Hill neighborhood, citing rising costs and neighborhood pushback. [...] Neighbors have also railed against the project at community meetings since 2016 when the project was first funded, claiming impoverished tenants at the affordable housing project would endanger their neighborhood.

NIMBYs in Boise find success in establishing neighborhoods as conservation districts

2017-12-13T14:12:00-05:00

In the East End, a plan for a home on Mobley Drive off Warm Springs Avenue spurred a group of neighbors to start organizing what the city calls a conservation district. The house would have been two stories and narrow, while most nearby homes are single-level ranch-style structures built in the 1950s.

A 16-year-old ordinance in Boise that allows for the establishment of conservation districts is coming back in favor as neighborhood groups have figured out they can use it to quash projects they don't like. Conservation districts are similar to historic ones in that they define development through the regulation of architectural styles, height, massing, and uses of buildings. Through their establishment, property owners decide the district’s contours and which uses, building types or design features are allowed.

In Boise, such ordinances have been used to successfully restrict massive parking lots and prevent the demolition of homes. Now, in the East End neighborhood, community members are pushing for a conservation district in order to curb the building of a two-story, 30-foot-wide home that would clash with the street's dominating midcentury architecture. A hearing was scheduled with the Planning and Zoning Commission for Monday, but the developers withdrew their application befo...

Raising taxes was the easy part

2017-11-13T18:34:00-05:00

For homeless advocates who had been glowing after November, the unanimous vote in August blocking the project by a Los Angeles City Council land use committee, headed by Mr. Huizar, was a discouraging setback. It was also a reminder that some of the toughest battles lie ahead as Los Angeles moves from the task of persuading voters to raise money for the homeless to the logistics of getting the money spent.

Adam Nagourney reports in from L.A., where homeless advocates and neighborhood activists are fighting over implementation of HHH (a $1.2 billion effort to build housing for the homeless). NIMBYs or concerned citizens? Professor Tim Iglesias responded "it will require sustained political will to manage the inevitable local opposition to building supportive housing throughout L.A".

Meanwhile, there is a revival of Hotel Hipness in the city, as "elements of the once-lost glittering age are re-emerging".

Is YIMBYism the proper antidote to NIMBYism? or should we throw these terms out altogether?

2017-05-11T19:06:00-04:00

Trauss's followers live by the neoliberal belief that deregulation and building more housing, even if it's only affordable to the richest of the rich, will trickle down and eventually make housing affordable for all. Her vision is Reagonomics "dressed up in a progressive sheep's costume," according to Becker. But Trauss's "fresh approach" to the dilemma of exploding housing costs has got conservative libertarians and lefty media outlets alike foaming at the mouth for more.

San Francisco, and the surrounding Bay Area, has long been the example around which issues of gentrification are discussed and cited. While it is far from being the only city to deal with an influx of wealth and the subsequent displacement of local residents, its role as the center of the tech boom has given the area one of brightest spotlights in regards to these questions. In a recent article put out by Truth-Out, the authors discuss the rise of a new (according to the authors) approach to solving housing crises—YIMBYism. YIMBYism stands for Yes-In-My-Backyard and is meant to designate a positive stance on development. It is an approach, as characterized by the authors, as being along the lines of trickle-down economics—the idea being that building more housing, even if it's only affordable to higher-income earners, will eventually make housing more affordable for all.

The article focuses on the conservatives running this movement claiming that they have become the "Alt-Right" of ...

A new NIMBY-ism in America's foremost mansion district

2016-12-05T16:46:00-05:00

This windswept outcropping, peering over the Atlantic, was a Gilded Age haven where the wealthy built mansions known by their names, not addresses: The Elms, Marble House and, most famous of all, The Breakers... Newport has cared deeply about appearances ever since. So when large steel beams rose high in the air between the city’s most storied thoroughfares, framing a mansion that will have an unusual, many-sided shape and a flat roof, neighborhood residents and observers were aghast.

More on the architecture of the mega-rich:

Obama calls for zoning overhaul, blames existing laws for rising inequality and unaffordable rents

2016-09-27T18:35:00-04:00

The Obama administration Monday is calling on cities and counties to rethink their zoning laws, saying that antiquated rules on construction, housing and land use are contributing to high rents and income inequality, and dragging down the U.S. economy as a whole [...] The White House published a “toolkit” of economic evidence and policy fixes to help local political leaders fight back against the NIMBYs that tend to hold sway over municipal zoning meetings.

In related news:

Why cities need to expand their idea of who is a "local"

2016-08-10T15:10:00-04:00

Part of the challenge throughout California and plenty of other communities...is that we tend to make local policy — and housing policy in particular — as if the only people who matter in a community are the ones who go to bed there at night. We don't think of people who work but don't "live" there, or who'd like to live there but can't afford to, or who once lived there but had to leave, or who could access better jobs if only they could move there, or who commute through there...

You may effectively live your life within, say, San Francisco or Washington, D.C., going to school there, working there, dropping your children at day care there, spending your money and your waking time there. But if, at the end of the day, you go sleep somewhere else, you are invisible to the process of how we decide what's right for that city.

Check out some related articles:

We Need Smarter Ideas On How To Grow Our Cities

2016-07-04T13:03:00-04:00

These days, you can find a Steve Pomerance in cities across the country — people who moved somewhere before it exploded and now worry that growth is killing the place they love. But a growing body of economic literature suggests that anti-growth sentiment, when multiplied across countless unheralded local development battles, is a major factor in creating a stagnant and less equal American economy.

Chipperfield's Jane Street Proposal Faces Vehement Opposition in NYC

2016-06-23T15:43:00-04:00

"Plans to raze a two-story parking garage at 11-19 Jane Street and build a... seven-story apartment building designed by ... David Chipperfield came in front of the Landmarks Preservation Commission" "Testimony against the development came in droves, with NIMBYs speaking against the project’s "inappropriate," "out-of-scale," "travesty" of a design."

New York Yimby has published Chipperfield's entire presentation.

Plans for West 8-designed Houston Botanic Garden met with resistance

2016-02-22T13:42:00-05:00

By the year 2020, however, America’s fourth largest city will be able to claim a “premier” botanic garden all its own in the form of Houston Botanic Garden (HBG). [...] And, as it turns out, some folks living in the neighborhoods abutting the golf course would rather not see a stunning botanic garden designed by the same Dutch landscape architecture firm behind the redevelopment of New York City's Governors Island take its place. And it’s not because they're necessarily gaga over golf.

To learn more about the Houston Botanic Garden master plan, which recently won mayoral approval, click here.

It's easier now to tear down "historic homes" in Beverly Hills than before – is this progress or folly?

2016-01-19T20:22:00-05:00

Last July, the Beverly Hills City Council voted to modify the city’s historic preservation ordinance, thereby making it easier to demolish buildings that were at one point deemed “historic.” While the City Council understands this a mark of progress—allowing more real estate money, and therefore more revenue, to flow into the city—historically minded citizens believe the modification places architecturally and historically relevant buildings onto a very slippery slope...

Related:

Homeowners fight to block access to the Hollywood sign

2015-07-08T14:07:00-04:00

The pull of the Hollywood sign has...generated anger along the winding roads in those hills as homeowners have complained of a crush of motorists clogging roads, hikers in the middle of narrow streets and smokers flicking cigarettes into flammable brush... Now some homeowners are taking their battle to court, demanding that the city close a popular path into Griffith Park used to view the famed sign until the effects on the neighborhood have been fully evaluated.

The residents of Beachwood Canyon, a very affluent neighborhood, argue that traffic to one of the only public trails leading to the iconic Hollywood sign is a public safety issue. Claiming that the city has failed to properly address environmental concerns, they've formed a group, Homeowners on Beachwood Drive United, and sued the city.

As reported by CurbedLA, this isn't the first time that the neighborhood has raged against the public access point. And, in the past, the city has gone to pretty great lengths to address their concerns, such as putting up permit-only parking and allocating a personal police patrol.

While the LA Times takes a more-neutral stance, both Curbed and LAist seem pretty confident it's a case of NIMBYism.

Help support "Relentlessly Gay Garden"

2015-06-21T12:05:00-04:00

I am starting this fundraiser so I can work to make my Home even More "relentlessly gay"

Woman criticised by Christian neighbours in Baltimore for having a 'relentlessly gay' garden is crowdfunding to make her house even gayer.

Julie Baker, 47, says she received a typed note from an anonymous resident which she believes was posted in response to the rainbow coloured fairy lights she put up in her garden.

The note read: “Dear Resident of 4900 Kenwood Ave., Your yard is becoming Relentlessly Gay! Myself and Others in the neighborhood ask that you Tone It Down. This is a Christian area and there are Children. Keep it up and I will be Forced to call the Police on You! Your kind need to have respect for GOD.”

It was signed: “A Concerned Home Owner.”

Help her make her garden even "gayer."