To tackle highest housing costs, hawaii's gov declares YIMBY martial law

&gt; environmental groups have already denounced the proclamation&#x27;s potential to allow for high-rises in residential neighborhoods<p>That&#x27;s not an &quot;environmental group.&quot; They may call themselves that, but there&#x27;s no need for journalists to credulously repeat it. There is no &quot;environmental&quot; argument for preventing new residential buildings, even tall ones, from being built in existing urban residential neighborhoods. To protect the environment this is even necessary. I hope there are some real environmental orgs in Hawaii fighting back against greenfield development by supporting urban infill.

Is it just me or is it crazy that it takes a massive disaster for something like this to happen?<p>Maybe the disaster makes it politically acceptable now.

Is this similar to the &#x27;Builders Remedy&#x27; law in CA cities?<p>In California, if a city does not plan for the number of homes required by the state, the city has to approve any housing project as long as at least 20% of the homes are low-income or 100% of them are moderate-income.

I don&#x27;t think this would work in Melbourne, where I&#x27;m from. The land is so high priced, and developers can build anyway.<p>We need caps on normal family houses, single and double living apartments and more land released with the services such as public transport to back it up.

To tackle highest housing costs, developers are going to build luxury high rise units afforded by banks lending at the highest rates in 50 years. A sliver of affordable units will be extended to politically aligned friends and family, and of course the 50% of the workforce employed by the government.<p>There should be legislation associated with this decree that pins market prices where they ought to be in order to address affordability concerns. This would keep everyone accountable.

I wonder if this will backfire and make it a land grab for developers to build new luxury vacation homes&#x2F;resorts for the express purpose of Airbnb them out

One thing they can do to make it easier is publish approved adu plans.

Judging from the articles that get posted on here, in the US you only seem to have a choice between completely bonkers regulations that only serve entrenched interests or no regulation at all.<p>How about regulation that is actually sensible?