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Sam Alcorn

@samalcorn.bsky.social

1.1K followers 1.1K following 1.7K posts

Housing abundance. Urbanism. Zoning abolitionist. Accessibility Compliance expert. YIMBY. Located in Tovaangar. #OverturnEuclid

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Sam Alcorn @samalcorn.bsky.social · 11d

I've made some T-shirts. Buy them! www.etsy.com/shop/SamAlco...

www.etsy.com

Sam Alcorn @samalcorn.bsky.social · 2h

@governor.ca.gov, are you signing SB 79 today? If you want to let the clock run out until the buzzer rings, that’s fine too. Just don’t veto it.

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Sam Alcorn @samalcorn.bsky.social · 10h

I keep on seeing that in TV show sets, especially sitcoms. Like, why don’t they ever talk about how they came into so much money? You’d think that would be a huge part of the characters’ backstories.

Sam Alcorn @samalcorn.bsky.social · 11h

www.etsy.com/listing/4381...

i.etsystatic.com/62169507/r/i...

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Sam Alcorn @samalcorn.bsky.social · 22h

This is what shows up on the HUD website now, even when you type the exact URL of a specific document you’re looking for, and that used to be there:

A pop-up banner the whole width of the screen on HUD.gov, where most documents are now removed, reading,
“The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government. HUD will use available resources to help Americans in need.”

Reposted by Sam Alcorn

Owen @oweninvan.bsky.social · 1d

These types of dense, walkable apartments are illegal near much of California's mass transit infrastructure.

Tell Governor Newsom to sign SB79

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Reposted by Sam Alcorn

Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 1d

Aren’t the real estate agents supposed to want more real estate? Like isn’t selling it how they make money?

Nashville Scene @nashvillescene.com · 1d

A petition seeking to remove District 20 Metro Councilmember Rollin Horton from office has been filed by Lauren Magli, a local real estate agent who was outspoken in her opposition of Horton’s rezoning legislation.

Petition Seeks to Remove Councilmember Rollin Horton From Office

Recall filing cites The Nations rezoning plan as reason for District 20 councilmember’s proposed ousting

www.nashvillescene.com

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Sam Alcorn @samalcorn.bsky.social · 1d

Regular reminder to Democratic legislators and executives: Not touching exclusionary residential zoning is exactly what the MAGA Playbook (aka Project 2025) calls for on page 511.
@governor.ca.gov, please sign SB 79!

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Sam Alcorn @samalcorn.bsky.social · 2d

Using the parcel boundaries from the County Assessor’s map, they could be combined so that the fields from the points are attached to the shapes, like other cities.

Sam Alcorn @samalcorn.bsky.social · 2d

The one to look at has SB6B in the title, and is just the points, without the parcel boundaries. SB6A is for HE sites, but the candidate sites for rezoning are in SB6B.

Sam Alcorn @samalcorn.bsky.social · 2d

The parcels with rezoning information from the Housing Element are missing for the City of LA in the files I linked from HCD (they’re there for surrounding cities, but not for LA). But points are there. One of the fields in those shapefile is jurisdiction, so it could be filtered to just LA.

Sam Alcorn @samalcorn.bsky.social · 2d

Here are a bunch of shapefiles from HCD. The Housing Element Site Inventories are on there, as well as rezoning sites:
services8.arcgis.com/a4GMqC2tQHvY...

Folder: /

services8.arcgis.com

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Sam Alcorn @samalcorn.bsky.social · 2d

I’m nerdy enough that I’ve got a locally-stored shapefile of HE sites statewide. HCD compiles them from all the municipalities’ HEs.

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Reposted by Sam Alcorn

Chris Elmendorf @cselmendorf.bsky.social · 2d

Cross-posting at @volts.wtf's request, threadreaderapp.com/thread/19748...

Thread by @CSElmendorf on Thread Reader App

@CSElmendorf: I wrote a long 🧵 yesterday on my puzzlement about the chatter that @GavinNewsom or his advisors might think it'd be politically prudent to veto SB 79. Today I'll explain why I don't thin...

threadreaderapp.com

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Sam Alcorn @samalcorn.bsky.social · 2d

@stephenjacobsmith.com, was this thinking adopted by the building codes in any country aside from the US?

Here’s a link to the source of this excerpt:

books.google.com/books/about/...

Proceedings of the National Housing Association

books.google.com

Sam Alcorn @samalcorn.bsky.social · 2d

This thinking led to the creation of the “Residential” Building Code. For so many years, I’d wondered about why there were two building codes: a simpler and less restrictive code for SFDs (also called SFRs in many US places) and duplexes, and a more restrictive one for everything else.

It was upon that theory that our new housing law in New York State was drafted. And the easiest and quickest way to penalize the apartment house is not through requiring larger open spaces, because I think that would be un-constitutional, but through the fireproofing requirements.
If we require multiple dwellings to be fireproof, and thus increase the cost of construction; if we require stairs to be fireproofed, even where there are only three families; if we require fire-escapes and a host of other things, all dealing with fire protection, we are on safe grounds, because that can be justified as a legitimate exercise of the police power.
We can show the necessity of these extra precautions where many families live in a dwelling, and at the same time we

have made it difficult to build apartment houses. I recommend that method to the conference. In our laws let most of our fire provisions relate solely to multiple dwellings,
Digitized by Google

CITIES OF HOMES
218
and allow our private houses and two-family houses to be built with almost no fire protection whatever.

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Sam Alcorn @samalcorn.bsky.social · 2d

As brought to my attention by a Strong Towns article by @dpherriges.bsky.social and posts by @dereksagehorn.bsky.social, this is Lawrence Veiller talking about the idea behind using the building code to incentivize single-family houses and discourage apartment buildings, from 1913:

MR. LAWRENCE VEILLER, Secretary, National Housing As-
sociation, New York City:
Digitized by Google

212 NATIONAL HOUSING ASSOCIATION
we can answer that we must be sure that we want to keep them out. If we put it to a vote in any one of your cities, I think we would find it very difficult to get a vote against an apartment house. I am not for it —don't misunderstand me — but I do recognize that it provides a very convenient way of living, and because of the servant question, which Mr. Davis alluded to, a great many people prefer it. Per-sonally, I think it indicates a very bad tendency and will have a very bad effect on American life and upon our political and social conditions.
I don't think you can have
proper homes in an apartment house of the highest type.

The question is, " How are we going to stop it?" I think there is a way; at least, I have tried it and I think it is going to work. In framing our laws to regulate the construction of dwellings of all kinds, do everything possible in our laws to encourage the construction of private dwellings and even two-family dwellings, because the two-family house is the next least objectionable type, and penalize so far as we can in our statute, the multiple dwelling of any kind, whether it is flat, apartment house or tenement house.

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Sam Alcorn @samalcorn.bsky.social · 2d

Poof!

Sam Alcorn @samalcorn.bsky.social · 3d

@timmiller.bsky.social, I bet you might like my hats:
www.etsy.com/shop/SamAlco...

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Sam Alcorn @samalcorn.bsky.social · 3d

www.etsy.com/shop/SamAlco...

www.etsy.com

Sam Alcorn @samalcorn.bsky.social · 3d

If you order it now, this shirt should arrive in time for the No Kings protests coming up. It's available in a bunch of different colors, in a full range of sizes.
www.etsy.com/listing/4381...

www.etsy.com

Sam Alcorn @samalcorn.bsky.social · 3d

It's available in red or blue, with white embroidered text. On the front, it says MAKE AMERICA 1970s CHILE. On one side, it reads, "Is this what you thought you were voting for?" On the other side, it says, "Because this is what you voted for."

Sam Alcorn @samalcorn.bsky.social · 3d

New hat released for sale:
www.etsy.com/listing/4380...

www.etsy.com

Sam Alcorn @samalcorn.bsky.social · 3d

New T-shirt design just dropped:
www.etsy.com/listing/4381...

www.etsy.com

Sam Alcorn @samalcorn.bsky.social · 3d

Please read a bill before you claim it would or wouldn’t do something. The text is publicly available, so any factually incorrect claims about what it does or doesn’t contain are easily refutable.

Sam Alcorn @samalcorn.bsky.social · 3d

…any form of rent or price control through a public entity’s valid exercise of its police power.

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