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M. Nolan Gray 🥑

@mnolangray.bsky.social

the once and future city planner // YIMBY // AICP // kentuckian in california // appalachian // #BBN // author of hit broadway musical arbitrary lines

4287 Posts22073 Follower500 Folgt
M. Nolan Gray 🥑@mnolangray.bsky.social · 23h ago

Interesting pairing of articles in the Sacramento Abridged newsletter today: homicides are at a low and clearance rates are at a high, and also, you should be really panicked about the technology driving this!

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M. Nolan Gray 🥑@mnolangray.bsky.social · 24h ago

The Napa County LAFCO just denied a desperately-needed 185-unit development, on a derelict site designated by the state as a housing opportunity site for seven years. We will be investigating how state law needs to change to avoid such circumstances. napavalleyregister.com/news/napa-co...

Planned apartments near Napa's Skyline Park hit roadblock

A controversial apartment complex planned for state land next to Skyline Park failed in its first attempt to secure sewer service.

napavalleyregister.com

Zak Yudhishthu@zyudhishthu.bsky.social · yesterday

A fond goodbye to my Avondale apartment, which breaks every part of its RS-3 zoning and could never be built today ❌ 12 units (2 unit max) ❌ 40 ft tall (30 ft max) ❌ 260 sq ft lot area/unit (2,500 min) ❌ 0 ft rear setback (35 ft min) And way above the 0.9 floor-area ratio cap

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Aaron 🏗️🚲🌲🏀@aceckhouse.bsky.social · 2d ago

Most cities are doing their best to follow the law, but some are not. The worst is probably Beverly Hills, which is trying to use a shell game to disappear nearly 3,000 homes worth of zoned capacity. HCD should have nipped this in the bud, but there's still time for them to bring down the hammer.

Beverly Hills was the first city to propose a local TOD alternative plan, which are allowed under SB 79. The core logic of those plans is straightforward: The city can move some of the zoned capacity from one place to another; the alternative plans are then reviewed and certified as compliant by the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD). But Beverly Hills is trying a shell game by which they just make that zoned capacity disappear instead. A local alternative plan under SB 79, also referred to as an “Eckhouse Plan,” must maintain the same “net zoned capacity” as the state zoning standards. Net zoned capacity is calculated by subtracting the density & floor area of existing uses from the capacity allowed by the zoning. Since the law requires cities “maintain at least the same total net zoned capacity” between SB 79 and the local alternative plan, the city should do that on both sides of the ledger: subtract existing uses from SB 79’s capacity, and from their local plan’s capacity. Instead, Beverly Hills calculated net zoned capacity from SB 79, and then compared that to the total zoned capacity of their local plan. The result: overcounting their local plan’s capacity by nearly 3,000 homes, or 15% of the total capacity. Most troublingly, HCD did not address this problem in their initial review of the city’s alternative plan. We will continue to work with HCD and other stakeholders in Beverly Hills to ensure that their final Eckhouse Plan is compliant with the letter of the law.
M. Nolan Gray 🥑@mnolangray.bsky.social · 4d ago

Southwest out here inventing new ways no make travel shittier: apparently my luggage was placed on an "earlier" flight, but actually, it was a later flight, and I'm still waiting on it 45 minites after landing. In any case, I didn't receive any sort of notification of this.

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M. Nolan Gray 🥑@mnolangray.bsky.social · 5d ago

Food desert discourse is fascinating as an extreme case of progressive policy breakdown: bad academic research, leading to bad policy papers, leading to (mostly) bad policy that wastes a lot of time/money, in response to a problem that either doesn't exist or is created by some other policy.

Stephen Jacob Smith@stephenjacobsmith.com · 7d ago

Drives me nuts hearing about "food deserts" in this NYC-owned grocery store discourse. NYC does not have food deserts. It has expensive, low-quality groceries. The first city-owned store (La Marqueta) is in the middle; every red pin in a full-service grocery store. Not a bodega, not a greengrocer.

Stephen Jacob Smith@stephenjacobsmith.com · 7d ago

Drives me nuts hearing about "food deserts" in this NYC-owned grocery store discourse. NYC does not have food deserts. It has expensive, low-quality groceries. The first city-owned store (La Marqueta) is in the middle; every red pin in a full-service grocery store. Not a bodega, not a greengrocer.

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M. Nolan Gray 🥑@mnolangray.bsky.social · 2w ago

Nah, on a per capita basis, Guatemala City must have the most high rise residential construction of any major Latin American city. There are dozens of high-rise buildings under construction within a block of we live (Zone 14), where were about to move (Zone 15), and every posh zones in between.

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Adrián@elenoam.bsky.social · last mo.

My ranking of Latin American countries based on how NIMBY/YIMBY they are: Top YIMBY: 🇵🇦 🇨🇴 🇵🇪 🇨🇱 🇧🇷 YIMBYish: 🇪🇨 🇩🇴 🇸🇻 Meh: 🇬🇹 🇨🇷 Too poor to have significant projects to NIMBY: 🇧🇴 🇵🇾 🇻🇪 🇳🇮 🇭🇳 🇨🇺 NIMBY: 🇲🇽 🇦🇷 🇺🇾 🇵🇷