Wherever home prices are high and supply of new homes is low, you often find cities that are all too willing to listen to their NIMBY constituents about how any new development hurts “neighborhood character.” What if other situations were like this, where popular consensus and/or the loudest voices were given as much sway as the actual written rules? Imagine a middle school teacher asking her classroom for input on how to grade a new student’s homework.
“We don’t like the font she used,” says one boy. “Or the color,” says another. “Her essay is longer than mine, and therefore may devalue my grade” adds another girl…“She’s being too greedy by trying for an A+!”…”She should scale back and go for a C-, to be better aligned with classroom characteristics!”…
One can imagine the mediocrity this grading by popular consensus would produce. Yet that’s the mentality driving modern land use politics, where plain jane projects must satisfy all possible parties–or not get built at all.
Nga Pham is a newbie home builder in the Bay Area that focuses on market-rate, multi-generational designs. She loves reading about interesting case law.