gorgeYIMBY.bsky.social
@gorgeyimby.bsky.social
Advocating for housing of all sizes and shapes in the Columbia River Gorge. Serving Hood River and Wasco counties in Oregon and Skamania and Klickitat counties in Washington.
Folks are so f*up when it comes building housing.
California YIMBY@cayimby.bsky.social · 4w ago4 cities vote in November on ballot measures that would shrink housing capacity or require elections for projects. Success could trigger the "builder's remedy," letting developers bypass zoning entirely if plans fall out of state compliance. therealdeal.com/san-francisc...
It's wild that cities like Bend and Bellingham have done this, but plenty of big cities have not
Catie Gould@citizen-cate.bsky.social · 4w agoI’m getting news that Bellingham has permanantly repealed their parking minimums. Their initial pilot years ago paved the way for much bigger reforms. Great leadership and organizing through and through. 🍾
A 100-home Columbus apartment building needed 100 parking spots in 1954. By 2022, the same building needed 150, with no clear reason why. Rules like that make housing pricier to build. Since 2019, 14 states have passed 34 laws cutting parking minimums. stateline.org/2026/07/08/t...
Why are so many people preoccupied with defending “socialism” and “communism” right now when we have decades of experience demonstrating that the definitions of the words are absolutely immaterial to those using them as an attack?
Last night folks were complaining about 167. We remember when 167 was a reprieve.
David Welton@davidwelton.bsky.social · last mo.I don't think I saw numbers this high even during the 2020 fires. Holy crap. Poor Prineville
Living in a smaller city that cannot solve all the west coast housing crisis on its own, it's really important to see reforms happening all over. They won't all happen at the same time, but it's good to momentum behind what we're all working towards
The Urbanist@theurbanist.org · last mo.A 5-4 Seattle City Council vote yesterday means city-level appeals that have delayed significant citywide zoning changes in the past will be extinguished. Conventional appeal options to Superior Court or the state growth hearings board will remain. Story: www.theurbanist.org/seattle-coun...
Multiple conversations with different reporters: "why are housing prices so out of control in Oregon?" "we've got problems but actually, this is something Oregon is doing well at, here are the numbers" "huh OK well that's not a story I can tell. Nobody would care" Frustrating!
Infill development produces the lowest wildfire risk. Leapfrog development in isolated areas produces the largest land footprint at the lowest density. Where you build matters as much as how much you build. cayimby.org/blog/the-imp...
The Impact of Land Use Planning on Wildfire Risk: A Study in Southern California - California YIMBY
Over the past three decades, most new homes in California have been built in or near the wildland-urban interface (WUI). As catastrophic fires in the WUI grow worse with climate change, effective…
cayimby.org
Every city that thinks that "people being able to walk" is as important as "people being able to drive" ought to do this
The Conversation U.S.@us.theconversation.com · 2mo agoShould homeowners have to repair the sidewalk in front of their house? Denver's new approach makes sidewalks a government responsibility, offering a model for cities nationwide. theconversation.com/why-denver-s...
Nice graphic showing where ACU's fit in the continuum of businesses. We should re-legalize them! From www.planning.org/zoningpracti...
An enormous problem here in Oregon as well. There were some reforms proposed in this past session but they never made it to the floor. Condos are important cogs that fit the needs of many different types of buyers and we simply haven’t been building them for years.
California YIMBY@cayimby.bsky.social · 2mo agoFormer Stockton mayor Michael Tubbs: Homeownership used to be a part of the California dream, but a flawed 2002 defect law made starter homes too costly to insure & build. So builders developed rentals instead. AB 1903 fixes that, so condos get built again. www.golden-state.org/one-law-is-k...
U.S. building codes accumulate rules without cost-benefit analysis, favor industry incumbents, and create cost gaps other countries don't have — a basic elevator costs $158K in NYC vs. $36K in Switzerland. cayimby.org/blog/shining...
Shining a Light on the Black Box of Building Codes - California YIMBY
Modern building codes are designed to ensure the safety and comfort of the residents of new buildings. By regulating issues such as building materials, fire safety, stairway design, and other common…
cayimby.org
A couple of small cities in these parts could benefit from this concept.
Brent Toderian@brenttoderian.bsky.social · 2mo agoOne of the most successful pedestrian streets in the world, the Strøget in Copenhagen, was filled with cars until a 2 year pedestrianization pilot project in 1962. The opposition argued “no cars means no business,” but the street has been a massive retail success, the city’s busiest shopping street.
Our position has long been that if drivers had to pay the full cost of their impact on the transportation system we’d have great transit and bike infrastructure. This is another example of the same. Also great videos!
Matthew Lewis -- living in the era of cults and consequences@mateosfo.bsky.social · 2mo agoThis is amazing work by @justineunderhill.bsky.social: "It turns out when people have to pay the true cost of suburban sprawl themselves, they don't think it's worth it." www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1G3...
seems like a reasonable set of recommendations to me www.oregon.gov/gov/Document...
A lot of people assume that the housing market circa 1975-2005, when urban housing was cheap even without new development thanks to rapid sprawl and white flight, is the natural state of the world and not an historically anomalous period shaped by housing and transportation policy choices.
Boy we see this as a huge opportunity to create vibrant, desirable downtowns, even in small cities, throughout the gorge. “But where will people drive!?!” Jeez . . .
Brent Toderian@brenttoderian.bsky.social · 3mo ago“In Toderian’s view, the dividing line between cities that succeed and those that stagnate isn’t geography, wealth or even size—it’s mindset. Some places embrace experimentation, risk…Others default to caution, delay, and a reflexive belief that change is impossible.” momentummag.com/urban-truth-...
Ditto here
California YIMBY@cayimby.bsky.social · 3mo agoCalifornia's construction defect liability amounts to $18,300 per condo unit — 3-4x more than for rental apartments. 80-85% of condo projects get sued, so developers build rentals instead, and for-sale middle housing disappears. cayimby.org/blog/the-leg...
Six-story #SingleStair is coming to New Jersey thanks to @mikiesherrill.bsky.social ! Now New Jersey, Texas, Colorado, and Washington have lapped Oregon on a common-sense reform to building more housing for more people.
Central NJ Yimby 🏗️🚲🚇🇺🇸@princetonyimby.bsky.social · 3mo ago"It’s a big reason why housing is so expensive in NJ. A patchwork of state laws, agency rules, zoning and building codes and permitting stipulations make it nearly impossible to build naturally affordable homes" Good stuff from @katiebrennan.bsky.social... www.njspotlightnews.org/2026/06/op-e...
Per @kaerdmann: when construction can't keep up with demand, housing prices decouple from incomes. Coastal cities got there through zoning restrictions. Post-2008 mortgage rules dragged inland cities like Atlanta into the same spiral. kevinerdmann.substack.com/p/facets-of-...
Facets of the Housing Crisis, A Series: Part 3
The other cities
kevinerdmann.substack.com
Remember, if our solutions for homelessness don’t start with more housing, we don’t really want to solve homelessness. And if you think building public/social housing costs too much, it costs much more public money to leave people unhoused. #UrbanTruth
Buckle up. This is a huge issue here and the state is not the insurance of last resort.
Urban Land Rent 🇸🇴🚰@urbanlandrent.bsky.social · 3mo agoCalifornia’s elected officials are delusional in thinking they can force insurance companies to insure the uninsurable. You can pass any law you want, but if a house is worth $750k and climate models predict it will almost certainly burn within 20 years what rates would YOU charge them?
I see @merkley.senate.gov is back with the slopulism about 'the investors took your housing' and it's so frustrating, because he's a good Senator who a lot of people trust. This explains the reality of investors: www.thebulwark.com/p/everyones-...
Everyone’s Favorite Slopulist Scapegoat
Trump and populist Dems have linked arms to “fix” the housing crisis.
thebulwark.com
A new @pewresearch.org study finds that infill housing near jobs, stores, and transit costs governments ~$21,000 less per home to serve, cuts long term infrastructure maintenance costs in half, and generates 13% more in annual property tax revenue per acre than sprawl.
We played a part in making that happen. And locally we’re seeing plenty of the signs Bend was exhibiting 15 years ago.
Tina Kotek@tinakotek.bsky.social · 3mo agoThank you to the Bend Bulletin for highlighting our progress in reducing homelessness in Central Oregon. Let’s keep going! bendbulletin.com/2026/05/22/e...
Ten years ago we would joke about how cool this would be . . . joking because we never thought it would happen.
Sightline Institute@sightline.org · 3mo agoA report from the Center for Land Economics modeled a land value tax in #Spokane and found that taxing land rather than buildings would encourage homebuilding and discourage land speculation. #WALeg could make it happen and let cities return community-created land value back to the public.
It is disheartening to see one party hang its hat on the addiction/illness=homelessness trope. Even if they’re correct and it’s something they could “fix” where are these people going to live after they’re “healthy”?
California YIMBY@cayimby.bsky.social · 3mo agoThe Bay Area's homelessness crisis isn't driven by drugs or mental illness; the region is average on both. It's driven by rent. Every Bay Area county ranks in the top 1% nationally, leaving no margin for error when life goes wrong. www.mercurynews.com/2026/05/21/b...
Some claim homebuilders just stop building before prices fall, so supply won’t cut prices. Auckland shows the way out of this trap: if you make homes cheaper to build (for example by letting people share land, pipes & roofs with each other) construction continues right on through lower prices.
Kent Lundberg@kentlundberg.bsky.social · 3mo agoBuilding through a house price correction. You love to see it.
