Wednesday, May 6, 2015
Immigration in Marin County: The Fight for Equality
2-minute documentary about immigration in Marin with Martin Steinman, David Escobar (Aide to Supervisor Steve Kinsey), Veda Florez, and Laurie Joyce -- by Kate Iida, Charlotte Heyworth, and Case Donnellan
produced by Marin Students
Zoning: A Response to the Critics that Call us NIMBYS for defending our Community from Unwanted Development
Zoning: A Response to the Critics
BRADLEY C. KARKKAINEN[*]
Copyright © 1994 Journal of Land Use; Environmental Law
I. INTRODUCTION
In November 1993 voters in Houston narrowly rejected a referendum to establish zoning in that city.[1] This was the third time in a half-century that Houston voters had rejected zoning. Thus Houston remains the only major city in the United States without zoning.
To zoning's supporters, Houston represents an unenlightened backwater that has stubbornly resisted the tide of twentieth century land use regulation. To zoning's critics, Houston stands as a lonely beacon of economic rationality, or at least a living laboratory in which alternatives to zoning can be fairly tested.[2]
Extensive academic literature critical of zoning has accumulated in the last twenty years, beginning with Bernard Siegan's landmark 1970 study lauding Houston's non-zoning approach,[3] and followed shortly thereafter by Robert Ellickson's broader theoretical critique of zoning.
[4] Subsequent academic literature has been almost as uniformly critical of zoning[5] as public policy has been uniformly in favor of it. Although few academic defenders of zoning have stepped forward, governmental decision-makers have proceeded with zoning apace, apparently untroubled by the academic on slaught. By some estimates, 9,000 municipalities, large and small, in every region of the country and representing at least 90% of the nation's population, have zoning schemes in place.[6]The closeness of last November's vote, and Houston's status as the only major holdout against zoning, can give little cheer to zoning's critics. No trend toward abolishing zoning appears on the horizon, and indeed, non-zoning in Houston hangs by a thread.
Why is this? How do we account for the fact that this nearly universal feature of local government enjoys such disrepute in academia? Are local governments simply in the grip of irrationality? Have local officials hoodwinked the public on a massive scale? Or have the academic critics somehow missed the mark?
This article argues that the academic critiques of zoning, though based on insights that have some validity, are often overstated. They simply prove less than their authors think they prove. In particular, this article argues that in some circumstances, such as in mature neighborhoods in large urban centers, zoning can be a rational and justifiable public policy response to very real problems and can be made to work at least as well as any of the alternatives the critics propose.[7] The analysis of this article is descriptive in part, illustrating zoning at its best, in rather limited circumstances.[8] Yet principally this article is normative, discussing zoning as it might be made to work, in a way that is justifiable and that meets many of the objections offered by its critics. Therefore, the purpose of this article is not to offer a general defense of zoning. Its task is the more modest one of showing that many of the critiques, despite the broad claims of their authors, should not be taken as general indictments of zoning, but rather as indicators of particular dysfunctions that must be addressed if zoning is to work effectively.
II. TRADITIONAL JUSTIFICATIONS FOR ZONING
Initially, the question of why we even have zoning must be addressed. Zoning's proponents traditionally have offered two rationales, neither of which stands up to close scrutiny. First, zoning advocates suggest that zoning is necessary to protect or enhance property values,[9] particularly the values of residential properties (and especially single-family homes).[10] On this analysis, zoning serves principally to protect property owners from the negative externalities of new developments. Without zoning (or some compa rable system of land use regulation), residential property owners would face plummeting property values if a development with significant negative externalities—a junkyard or brick factory, for example—moved in next door. Moreover, the mere prospect that such a development could move in would tend to depress the value of residential property. The solution is to divide the municipality into zones so that industries are sited near other industries, commercial enterprises near other commercial enterprises, and residential properties with other residential properties.[11] This rationale has some intuitive appeal, based on the real or imagined horrors of entirely unregulated development.
A significant problem with the property values rationale for zoning, however, is that such a rationale
ZONING: A REPLY TO THE CRITICS
To zoning's supporters, Houston represents an unenlightened backwater that has stubbornly resisted the tide of twentieth century land use regulation. To zoning's critics, Houston stands as a lonely beacon of economic rationality, or at least a living laboratory in which alternatives to zoning can be fairly tested.[2]
Extensive academic literature critical of zoning has accumulated in the last twenty years, beginning with Bernard Siegan's landmark 1970 study lauding Houston's non-zoning approach,[3] and followed shortly thereafter by Robert Ellickson's broader theoretical critique of zoning.
[4] Subsequent academic literature has been almost as uniformly critical of zoning[5] as public policy has been uniformly in favor of it. Although few academic defenders of zoning have stepped forward, governmental decision-makers have proceeded with zoning apace, apparently untroubled by the academic on slaught. By some estimates, 9,000 municipalities, large and small, in every region of the country and representing at least 90% of the nation's population, have zoning schemes in place.[6]The closeness of last November's vote, and Houston's status as the only major holdout against zoning, can give little cheer to zoning's critics. No trend toward abolishing zoning appears on the horizon, and indeed, non-zoning in Houston hangs by a thread.
Why is this? How do we account for the fact that this nearly universal feature of local government enjoys such disrepute in academia? Are local governments simply in the grip of irrationality? Have local officials hoodwinked the public on a massive scale? Or have the academic critics somehow missed the mark?
This article argues that the academic critiques of zoning, though based on insights that have some validity, are often overstated. They simply prove less than their authors think they prove. In particular, this article argues that in some circumstances, such as in mature neighborhoods in large urban centers, zoning can be a rational and justifiable public policy response to very real problems and can be made to work at least as well as any of the alternatives the critics propose.[7] The analysis of this article is descriptive in part, illustrating zoning at its best, in rather limited circumstances.[8] Yet principally this article is normative, discussing zoning as it might be made to work, in a way that is justifiable and that meets many of the objections offered by its critics. Therefore, the purpose of this article is not to offer a general defense of zoning. Its task is the more modest one of showing that many of the critiques, despite the broad claims of their authors, should not be taken as general indictments of zoning, but rather as indicators of particular dysfunctions that must be addressed if zoning is to work effectively.
A significant problem with the property values rationale for zoning, however, is that such a rationale
McClintock Amendment saves Water for People during Drought
House of Representatives Adopts McClintock Amendment to Stop Federal Agencies from Purchasing Scarce California Water for Fish
May 1, 2015
Washington, D.C. – The House of Representatives today adopted an amendment by Congressman Tom McClintock to forbid federal agencies from buying up scarce water during California’s catastrophic drought in order to release it into rivers to meet environmental requirements. The amendment was subsequently adopted today as part of the Fiscal Year 2016 Energy and Water Appropriations Act. The amendment was adopted on a vote of 226 – 9, and final passage of the Appropriations Act on a vote of 230 –7.
Presenting the amendment to the House during debate yesterday, McClintock noted that despite extreme drought conditions, the Bureau of Reclamation has continued to release tens of thousands of acre feet of water because of environmental mandates. “These purchases have exacerbated an already perilous scarcity of water while at the same time forcing the price of remaining water supplies even higher,” he said.
Pointing to recent releases from the New Melones Dam, McClintock noted, “In order to benefit a handful of steelhead trout, the Bureau sacrificed enough water to meet the annual needs of a human population of 300,000. At $700 per acre foot, the cost of this exercise amounted to $21 million.” McClintock charged, “This makes a mockery of the sacrifices made by Californians who are stretching every drop of water in their homes.”
The Congressman’s House floor remarks in support of the measure are attached:
###
House Chambers, Washington, D.C.
Mr. Chairman.
Hydrologists tell us California is facing the worst drought in 1,200 years. With the rain season officially over, our snow pack is just 3% of normal and many reservoirs are already drawn down perilously. Californians are now threatened with draconian fines if they take too long in the shower.
This amendment forbids the Bureau of Reclamation from purchasing scarce water in California in the midst of this catastrophic drought for the purpose of dumping it into rivers to adjust water temperatures to nudge baby fish to swim to the ocean.
As ridiculous as this sounds, that's exactly what the Bureau of Reclamation has been doing throughout this drought. It is using money taken from family’s taxes in order to purchase water that's desperately needed by these same families and then literally dumping it down the drain in front of them. This exacerbates an already perilous scarcity of water, while forcing the price of our remaining supplies even higher. It also makes a mockery of the sacrifices that every Californian is making to stretch every drop of water in their homes and it undermines the moral authority of the government to demand further conservation from the people when it is squandering water so outrageously itself.
We don't know exactly how much the Bureau is spending for this purpose because they don't account for how their purchased water is used. This measure would forbid them from wasting any of our water on such frivolities as adjusting water temperatures.
Now this sounds harsh for the fish. Let's remember that in a drought like this one, there would be no water in our rivers, there would be no fish. The dams make it possible to save the water from wet years so that we can get through the dry years. That doesn't work if we open flood gates in an extreme drought like this to make the fish happy.
This month, the bureau of reclamation released nearly 30,000 acre-feet of water from the New Melones Dam in my district for that purpose. That's enough water to meet the annual residential needs of a population of nearly 300,000 human beings—for the express purpose of encouraging the offspring of some 29 steelhead trout to swim toward the ocean, which, by the way, they tend to do anyway. And to add insult to injury, almost all of these smolts will be eaten by predators before they reach the ocean.
So let me put this again and quite bluntly. In order to benefit a handful of steelhead trout, the Bureau sacrificed enough water to meet the annual needs of a human population of 300,000. At $700 per acre-foot, the cost of this exercise amounted to $21 million.
This is the lunacy of the environmental left and the policies they've imposed on our state and our country. It needs to stop now. And to the extent we can do so through the power of the purse, we must.
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Moving 'up' isn't as easy as you might think
Moving 'up' isn't as easy as you might think
This is a thoughtful ;piece on the challenges of low income people assimilating into middle income communities first published on National Public Radio Marketplace. The reporter Krissy Clark is doing a piece on affordable housing in Marin. Highly Recommended listening.
Monday, May 4, 2015
External Cost The dangers of calling everything pollution
External Cost
The dangers of calling everything pollution
Pollution is a growth business. All over America, intellectuals and policy makers are busy discovering, or inventing, new toxic spillovers in desperate need of stringent regulation. Consider a few recent examples:
■ In Portland, Oregon, the problem is aesthetic pollution--specifically, ugly houses. As City Commissioner Charlie Hales wrote in response to a letter from the Portland Metropolitan Association of Realtors, "Nearly every day, I or someone in my office hears a complaint from a citizen about the poor quality of design of new construction....I want to encourage you and your members and your colleagues in the development industry to propose something--anything--that will put a stop to the ugly and stupid houses that we see going up."
To control Portland's architectural pollution, the city council recently voted to regulate the facades of new houses. Windows and doors must take up at least 15 percent of any new house's front. The garage cannot occupy more than half the facade and cannot stick out unless it is less than 40 percent; smaller garages can protrude only six feet. These rules represent a compromise from a proposal that would have also regulated trims, siding types, and roof pitches.
■ In his much-touted book, Luxury Fever, economist Robert Frank revives the anti-consumption arguments of Thorstein Veblen and John Kenneth Galbraith, with a new twist: He declares the purchase of increasingly nice goods a form of pollution--a "negative externality," as economists put it. If you see that your neighbor has a fancy barbecue grill, argues Frank, you'll want one too, and you'll make yourself miserable working to get the money to keep up with the Joneses. That you might just think the grill is really cool, that owning one might give you genuine pleasure, is beyond Frank's ken; all he can see is destructive one-upsmanship. "The same arguments that have persuaded economists that effluent taxes are the best way to curb excessive pollution suggest that consumption taxes are the best way to curb conspicuous consumption," he writes.
Frank acknowledges Milton Friedman's argument that consumers know better than bureaucrats how best to spend their money. But, he says, "even Friedman concedes that at least some decisions are not best left in the hands of individuals--again, the most commonly cited examples being those with respect to activities that generate pollution. Yet ordinary consumption spending is often precisely analogous to activities that generate pollution. When some job seekers buy custom-tailored interview suits, they harm other job seekers in the same way that motorists harm others when they disconnect the catalytic converters on their cars."
■ In an August Weekly Standard cover story called "The Case for Censorship," political scientist David Lowenthal invokes the pollution analogy to justify government controls on the mass media: "As a nation we are concerned about pollution, about pure air and water, about the prevention and cure of disease in all its forms. Is there no such thing as moral pollution?"
The Lowenthal article attracted attention because it advocated full-blown, prior-restraint censorship. But the "cultural pollution" metaphor has been buzzing around Washington for some time. At May Senate hearings on media violence, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kans.) and Bill Bennett both used the term, and Rowell Huesmann, a University of Michigan psychology and communications professor, drew a Frank-style analogy. He declared that media "producers can ignore what economists might call negative externalities" and called for a tax to offset the profitability of violent programming "much as you might do the same to encourage pollution controls, or other kinds of environmental controls."
Everyone, it seems, has learned one lesson from Economics 101: Some activities have negative spillovers whose full costs aren't borne by the beneficiaries. As Paul Samuelson put it in my old econ textbook (1976 edition, emphasis in the original), "Wherever there are externalities, a strong case can be made for supplanting complete individualism by some kind of group action....The reader can think of countless other externalities where sound economics would suggest some limitations on individual freedom in the interest of all." Samuelson had no idea how big "countless" could become. His book is silent on garage doors, fancy barbecue grills, and action movies.
The current rage for externality arguments may seem like a victory for economic reasoning--at least people are taking the idea of markets into account--but it actually has little to do with the economic world of trade and tradeoffs. The appeal of the externality claim to anti-market ideologues is that it has absolutely no stopping point. It sees anything that affects anything else as fair game for regulation; any side effect can be called "pollution." Since every action affects people other than the actor, anything someone doesn't like can qualify. The old adage that "your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins" suddenly applies to a world of noses that put Pinocchio to shame.
All this economistic blabber about externalities conveniently ignores one of the central scholarly insights about spillovers and their regulation. Even Frank, with his showy 21 pages of tightly spaced bibliographical references, manages to omit the most cited paper in all of economic literature, an article directly relevant to his topic. That is a telling oversight.
The paper in question, Nobel laureate Ronald Coase's 1960 article, "The Problem of Social Cost," begins with a shocking observation: "Externalities" are reciprocal. They aren't a matter of physical invasion, with good guys and bad guys, but of unpriced impacts of any sort. We may recognize that an action inflicts a spillover harm, but stopping that action inflicts a different spillover harm.
If I build an ugly house, your aesthetic sensibilities may be offended. But if, to keep the neighborhood to your taste, you stop me from building my house, I lose the benefit of living in it. If I buy a cool barbecue grill, you may feel pressure to do likewise. But if you keep me from buying the grill, or take my money in a consumption tax, I'm hurt by your efforts. The same is true for classic externalities: If a steel mill pollutes the air, it harms those who breathe the pollution. But to shut down the mill (or require controls that increase its costs) harms those who buy and sell steel. In all these cases, an externality exists either way, regardless of who has to bear the costs of adjustment. (There are other aspects to Coase's paper, including, famously, the important issue of transaction costs.)
To deal with externalities, therefore, Coase argues for putting the burden where the cost is least. In a Coasian world, people who don't like other people's garages avert their eyes. People who do not approve of violent movies do not buy tickets for them and, perhaps, do not socialize with others who do. People who covet other people's nice possessions get therapy or religion. In a Coasian world, you cannot simply yell "externality" and get the government to stamp out anything that offends you. You cannot declare that conjectural, unquantified costs, such as aesthetic considerations, are infinite, but real, private market costs, such as more expensive houses, don't count. The burden of proof for regulation is not infinite, but it is high.
By contrast, one reason for regulating stationary sources of gross air pollution, such as steel mills circa 1969, is that such regulation offers large benefits at relatively low costs. It would be extremely difficult for individuals to avoid inhaling the dirty air, compared to the relative ease with which the factory could install smokestack scrubbers or use cleaner coal.
Coase's reasoning is obviously not an absolutist argument for freedom of action. As Frank notes, even strong libertarians usually make exceptions for some sorts of externalities. By clarifying the issues, Coase's utilitarian insight helps separate serious spillovers from mere excuses for bossing people around.
There are certainly other arguments against the infinitely elastic notion of externalities, which, as a theoretical matter, is a prescription for totalitarian control. But Coase's insight explains in a nutshell why peaceful social life, in which all actions are necessarily interconnected, must include a large measure of tolerance--and why spouting economic jargon is no substitute for thinking clearly.
Grady Ranch Is All Wrong (A Smart Growth Advocate's take on Grady Ranch)
Grady Ranch Is All Wrong
DECEMBER 6, 2012 10 COMMENTS
A great place for some infill development. Photo by Skywalker Properties.
George Lucas’s great foray into affordable housing is wrong for Marin, wrong for affordable housing, and wrong for the people that would live there. The Grady Ranch development plan needs to be scrapped.
After the collapse of LucasFilm’s Grady Ranch studio proposal, then-owner George Lucas promised to build affordable housing on the site instead. Many observers, including me, saw it as payback to the Lucas Valley anti-development crowd that killed the studio project, but few thought George was serious.
Yet Lucas and his partners at the Marin Community Foundation are charging ahead with 200-300 units of affordable housing anyway. While it does present an opportunity to build affordable homes, the site couldn’t be worse.
Grady Ranch is located out on Lucas Valley Road, far from any downtown, commercial center, or regular transit line. It’s right at the edge of the North San Rafael sprawl line – a car-oriented area even where it’s already built up.
Lucas Valley Road itself is essentially a limited-access rural highway, with cars speeding along at 50 miles per hour. There’s no development on the south side, and the north side only has entrances to the neighborhoods. No buildings actually front the road. Yet, it’s the only access to the Highway 101 transit trunk line, to nearly any commercial or shopping areas, or between neighborhoods.
Development here would be bad by any measure. Car-centric sprawl fills our roads with more traffic, generates more demand for parking, and forces residents to play Russian roulette every time they want to get milk. It takes retail activity away from our town centers, weakening the unique Marin character embodied in downtowns.
The infrastructure, too, is inefficient. Grady Ranch would need to be covered by police service, fire service, sewage, water, electricity, and some modicum of transit, but those costs are based on geography, not population. Serving a square mile with 300 homes is a lot more expensive per home than a square mile with 1,000.
Yet the fact that this will be affordable housing makes the project even more egregious. Driving is expensive, with depreciation, gas, maintenance, insurance, and parking costs all eating up scads of money. On a population level, you can add in the cost of pollution, as well as injuries and deaths in crashes. A home in Grady Ranch would be affordable, but the cost of actually living there would be quite high.
The nonprofit aspect of the project would mean no taxes could be raised to cover its infrastructure and services. Building affordable housing in a mixed area means they’re covered by preexisting services. Though usage is more intense, there is typically enough spare capacity to take on more residents. Building something beyond current development means new infrastructure and services need to be built specifically for that project but without any existing residents to pay for it. It would be a massive and ongoing drain on county coffers.
This is the worst possible place for affordable housing. Grady Ranch, if it’s not going to be a film studio, needs to remain as open space. An affordable housing project out at the exurban edge of Marin cannot be affordable because car-centric development is fundamentally unaffordable.
I respect the efforts of George Lucas and Marin Community Foundation to find a place for the low-income to live, but Grady Ranch is not it. Lucas and MCF need to look at urban infill sites and focus on building up in those areas that are transit-accessible and walkable, places that are actually affordable. Replicating the discredited drive-‘til-you-qualify dynamic in Marin is not the answer; it’s just recreating the problem.
[Editors Note: The Greater Marin is a blog published by David Edmunson from Washington D.C. who spent his formative years in Marin and considers it his family home. While I seldom agree with his point of view about the desirability of urbanizing Marin, I find his analysis and honesty compelling. Essentially we are in agreement with many things such as the desirability of walkable, bikable, communities. We simply disagree at the degree and manner which this Smart Growth utopia shall emerge. He favors efficiency of central planning. I favor market forces that allow individual choice and freedom. I read his blog regularly because it is full of fresh ideas and good writing.]
Sunday, May 3, 2015
The Truth for Journalists and Citizens of the FREE society
“The simple step of a courageous individual
is not to take part in the lie.
One word of truth outweighs the world.”
— Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Saturday, May 2, 2015
Study finds S.F.’s ethnic diversity dwindling
Study finds S.F.’s ethnic diversity dwindling
By C.W. Nevius
April 24, 2015
Ethnic diversity is in San Francisco’s DNA. Isn’t it?
 |
| Diversity and choice are delicious. But when choices are forced, the outcomes only serve the few. |
Walk down virtually any street in the city and you’ll not only see a wide range of people of color, but chances are good that you’ll hear any number of non-English languages. This is a city that is proud of its diversity and has done what it can to encourage it.
To take it further, the organization projects that by 2040, there will be more white residents in San Francisco than people of color. That’s a big change from today, when 42 percent of the city’s residents are white.But a recent study says that if trends continue, San Francisco is headed in the opposite direction. In fact, the report from PolicyLink, a research and advocacy organization in conjunction with a University of Southern California program, says the white population in San Francisco is on a steady increase.
That’s striking because the study also predicts that in the same time period, the four adjoining counties (Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo and Marin) will become more than 50 percent diverse — which reflects the census projection that the United States will be a majority people-of-color nation by 2044.
So is San Francisco headed for a time when it becomes an affluent, white enclave surrounded by an ethnically diverse population?
“I saw that in the report, and it was definitely eyebrow raising,” says Fred Blackwell, CEO of the San Francisco Foundation, a community advocacy organization. “We may be entering into a kind of community crisis.”
Bucking a trend
What’s really striking is to look at a demographic map from 1980. Back then, San Francisco was an island of diversity, surrounded by white-majority counties. The PolicyLink projection for 2040 reverses that: The four other counties will have a majority of citizens of color, while San Francisco will be an island where more than half the residents are white.
Sarah Treuhaft, a PolicyLink director, admits that projecting trends 25 years in the future can be tricky. But by becoming more white, San Francisco is definitely bucking the national trend
“You don’t see that in many places,” she said. “We looked at all the counties in the country, and in only 25 did the people of color decline.”
But Egon Terplan, regional planning director for the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, says there’s no reason to panic.
“Lots of things can happen over time,” Terplan said. “There’s a lot we can do with policy.”
Treuhaft doesn’t disagree. What she does point out, however, is the trend among younger residents.
“You can see the future by looking at the demographics of the youth population,” she said. In 1990, whites 18 and under were 22 percent of the youth population. Today, they are 33 percent.
Meanwhile, Asians under 18 are a significant part of the youth population — over 30 percent. But instead of increasing, that number is gradually sliding down: It was 36 percent in 1990, and 32 percent in 2007.
You will not be surprised to hear that the major cause of the demographic changes is affordability. Not only are housing costs rising, but wages have plateaued.
Blackwell says his group has been tracking the trend.
“You have people who have grown up in a specific area in San Francisco and have a very strong connection with those communities,” he said. “They want to make them stronger, so they work in nonprofits or as a teacher. What they end up with are salaries that don’t allow them to live in a community they care so much about. It’s kind of heartbreaking.”
'Concerning’
Meanwhile, the African American population continues to decline. In 1970, San Francisco was 13 percent black. Now it is 8 percent, and PolicyLink predicts it will be just 5 percent by 2040.Unfortunately, we’re still waiting for that awesome plan that finds a way to fund housing for the lower-middle class, which in San Francisco can mean families earning $50,000-$75,000.
A less diverse city “is not necessarily a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Blackwell said. “But it is concerning.”
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| "San Francisco is so much better since Plan Bay Area. Thank you for all of the new Smart Growth housing " |
[Editor's Note: Plan Bay Area is displacing communities of all races and ethnicity through crony development policies. We think planning should be about the existing communities, not displacing communities for an imagined future. Every community is a home to someone. We should respect rights to live free without being forced from our community we love.]
Friday, May 1, 2015
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