By Kevin V. Nguyen : sfstandard – excerpt

California’s housing laws aren’t enforced unless someone forces the issue in the courts

With its proximity to major freeways and an expanding roster of restaurants and brand-name stores, San Mateo’s Bridgepointe Shopping Center isn’t likely to go anywhere anytime soon.

Yet, the city claims that most of the outdoor mall’s 12-acre parking lot could be redeveloped into hundreds of apartments over the next seven years.

San Mateo lists several sites like Bridgepointe that are still actively utilized by commercial tenants as critical parts of its latest housing element—a blueprint detailing how it will achieve its state-mandated housing goals. But despite skepticism from critics that those sites will transform into housing, elected officials voted last week to adopt the plan anyway…

Their celebration was short-lived. Less than 24 hours later, the city was sued in the San Mateo County Superior Court by a pro-housing activist group that accused San Mateo of skirting its duty to produce housing by forecasting construction in places that are not viable…

This lawsuit—and similar actions taken across California—have opened a new legal front in the state’s increasingly contentious housing war.

Previously, state officials have used the threat of yanking local control of development to force cities to submit their housing plans on time. Now, YIMBYs are arguing that it’s time to take accountability one step further and ensure the devised plans can feasibly lead to new homes. If the state can’t enforce follow-through—the thinking goes—then maybe the courts can…(more)

YIMBY laws and lawsuits are tearing the state apart and are forcing more communities to take drastic measures of their own. Cities are firing back with their own lawsuits and work on a citizens ballot initiative to override the state’e attack on CEQA and local jurisdiction over development decisions is under way.

Something has to change, if the Democrats continue on the path the are on, they could lose some seats in Sacramento where politicians have driven the cost of living into the stratosphere through inflationary taxes and over-spending. Newsom’s appointees at the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) killed the solar industry. Legislators trying not revive it have so far been stymied and CPUC is forcing ratepayers to pay to revive the nuclear reactor that was being phased out, while the governor brags about his green credentials.