<story><title>San Francisco Is Requiring Solar Panels on All New Buildings</title><url>https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/san-francisco-require-solar-panels-buildings</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mturmon</author><text>I&amp;#x27;d say this is more of a city planning office problem than a &amp;quot;paternalistic California&amp;quot; problem.&lt;p&gt;The plastic bag ban caused much gnashing of teeth, but it was a basic instance of market failure (nobody pays for the externalities of bag pollution), and people have adapted fine since the ban took effect.&lt;p&gt;You see the kind of standards worship that you described in the LA city planning office as well as SF.  There will be swearing up and down that this requirement is in place for a solid reason, and then in 5 years the requirement disappears.&lt;p&gt;Runoff from buildings is my favorite example: a few years ago, you had to ensure rainwater runoff from new structures was conveyed to the street.  By pumping it uphill if necessary.  You signed a document promising to maintain the pump in perpetuity.  (Reason: your runoff could damage nearby properties.)  Now, you &lt;i&gt;can&amp;#x27;t&lt;/i&gt; pump runoff to the street, you have to sequester some on-site.  (Reason: drought, plus, city can&amp;#x27;t treat all that water itself.)&lt;p&gt;Another instance of this is installation of crosswalks.  One year, the city refuses to put in new crosswalks because &amp;quot;it will encourage unsafe crossings&amp;quot;.  Next year, city is putting in new crosswalks all over because it will encourage pedestrian activity, make citizens healthier, etc.</text></item><item><author>eldavido</author><text>Partner is an architect in SF (works on 2nd St.)&lt;p&gt;She&amp;#x27;s currently dealing with two overlapping regulations, one from the state, the other from the city:
(1) All electrical outlets must be placed less than 18 inches from the edge of a countertop, to make them accessible to people in wheelchairs&lt;p&gt;(2) A countertop must have an outlet every 18 inches, or less.&lt;p&gt;They&amp;#x27;re getting held up in permitting because there is a no constructible L-shaped countertop that satisfies both of these constraints. The best part, nobody on either side seems to care much, they&amp;#x27;re &amp;quot;just doing their job&amp;quot;...and housing isn&amp;#x27;t getting built.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not sure what to make of this, other than that it&amp;#x27;s the newest brilliant &amp;quot;innovation&amp;quot; from the place that banned happy meal toys, and outlawed plastic bags.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>SilasX</author><text>&amp;gt;The plastic bag ban caused much gnashing of teeth, but it was a basic instance of market failure (nobody pays for the externalities of bag pollution), and people have adapted fine since the ban took effect.&lt;p&gt;But the ban caused much, much more damage than needed to remedy the externality.  If mispricing were the problem being solved, they could slap an appropriate tax on the stores&amp;#x27; bags, and then stores would pay it, fold it into prices, implement policies to discourage too many bags, roll their eyes, and move on.&lt;p&gt;Instead, the bag law means they must &lt;i&gt;explicitly&lt;/i&gt; charge the customer for bags; they can&amp;#x27;t just absorb it into prices (as every store did before).&lt;p&gt;(And I don&amp;#x27;t know if you&amp;#x27;ve ever worked as a cashier, but adding another step to every transaction gets old really quick, and holding up a line so someone can dig for a dime because they forgot to ask for one the first time around is ridiculous.)&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, ten cents is (by any reasonable back-of-the-envelope measure) far more than the magnitude of the externality, and it&amp;#x27;s not put into a fund to remedy the externaliites, nor can I get the ten cents back when I redeem it and thereby prove that it&amp;#x27;s not going into some bird&amp;#x27;s lungs.&lt;p&gt;This is just like most hastily-considered conservation policies: penny-wise and pound foolish.  I&amp;#x27;m likewise hounded to cut back on showers, despite them producing far more economic value than uses of water that are basically value-destructive (growing alfalfa) and which get a free pass.  Similarly, I get paid &lt;i&gt;nothing&lt;/i&gt; for having an ultra-low-carbon lifestyle, while people get large government subsidies to make their already-wasteful lifestyle a little less so.&lt;p&gt;Yes, it sucks when externalities aren&amp;#x27;t priced in.  But we shouldn&amp;#x27;t use that justification as carte blanche to overcharge for the wrong ones.</text></comment>
<story><title>San Francisco Is Requiring Solar Panels on All New Buildings</title><url>https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/san-francisco-require-solar-panels-buildings</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mturmon</author><text>I&amp;#x27;d say this is more of a city planning office problem than a &amp;quot;paternalistic California&amp;quot; problem.&lt;p&gt;The plastic bag ban caused much gnashing of teeth, but it was a basic instance of market failure (nobody pays for the externalities of bag pollution), and people have adapted fine since the ban took effect.&lt;p&gt;You see the kind of standards worship that you described in the LA city planning office as well as SF.  There will be swearing up and down that this requirement is in place for a solid reason, and then in 5 years the requirement disappears.&lt;p&gt;Runoff from buildings is my favorite example: a few years ago, you had to ensure rainwater runoff from new structures was conveyed to the street.  By pumping it uphill if necessary.  You signed a document promising to maintain the pump in perpetuity.  (Reason: your runoff could damage nearby properties.)  Now, you &lt;i&gt;can&amp;#x27;t&lt;/i&gt; pump runoff to the street, you have to sequester some on-site.  (Reason: drought, plus, city can&amp;#x27;t treat all that water itself.)&lt;p&gt;Another instance of this is installation of crosswalks.  One year, the city refuses to put in new crosswalks because &amp;quot;it will encourage unsafe crossings&amp;quot;.  Next year, city is putting in new crosswalks all over because it will encourage pedestrian activity, make citizens healthier, etc.</text></item><item><author>eldavido</author><text>Partner is an architect in SF (works on 2nd St.)&lt;p&gt;She&amp;#x27;s currently dealing with two overlapping regulations, one from the state, the other from the city:
(1) All electrical outlets must be placed less than 18 inches from the edge of a countertop, to make them accessible to people in wheelchairs&lt;p&gt;(2) A countertop must have an outlet every 18 inches, or less.&lt;p&gt;They&amp;#x27;re getting held up in permitting because there is a no constructible L-shaped countertop that satisfies both of these constraints. The best part, nobody on either side seems to care much, they&amp;#x27;re &amp;quot;just doing their job&amp;quot;...and housing isn&amp;#x27;t getting built.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not sure what to make of this, other than that it&amp;#x27;s the newest brilliant &amp;quot;innovation&amp;quot; from the place that banned happy meal toys, and outlawed plastic bags.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>swombat</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s almost as if the &amp;quot;city council&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;government&amp;quot; is an entity composed of multiple people who are human and have conflicting agendas, visions, opinions, dreams, etc (sometimes within a single person) and so end up acting in a way that reflects their contradictions and human biases...</text></comment>