Housing

Auditor cheers critics of edicts to add housing

By Richard Halstead : marinij – excerpt

Marin critics of housing mandates handed down by the state say a new report by Cali- fornia’s auditor validates their objections.

“I applaud the audit,” said Mill Valley resident Susan Kirsch, founder of Catalysts for Local Control. “It is one of the greatest contributions we’ve had to try to get accurate numbers that jurisdictions can rely on.”

The auditor’s report, re- leased last month, supports analysis by the Palo Alto-based Embarcadero Institute that the state mandates are based on inflated estimates of future housing needs, Kirsch said.

“Overall, our audit determined that the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) does not en- sure that its needs assessments are accurate and adequately supported,” wrote Michael Tilden, acting California state au- ditor, in a letter to the governor and the Legislature accompanying the report.

“I firmly believe that the auditor’s report raises enough questions that the state Legislature should look into this and possibly consider eliminating the penalties for not achieving the Regional Housing Needs Assessment mandates, especially if we might need to go back and redo them,” said Novato Council- woman Pat Eklund, a member of the California Alliance of Local Electeds, which pushed for the audit… (attached)

Comments via email:

First of all the RHNA numbers have been proven wrong after a recent state audit. What are we doing about this?

second: we all know that the problem is affordable housing not just housing.
third: Look at who benefits from the building of the housing…. developers etc. Who is buying the properties to turn around and create rentals?
fourth: local control continues to be eroded. What are we the people doing about it ?
Housing

‘Housing First’ policy needs an adjustment

Guest Commentary : calmatters – excerpt

In summary: A Sacramento homeless shelter for mothers and their children is ineligible for millions of dollars in state homeless funds because it requires its residents to stay clean and sober. Assembly Bill 2623 could change that…

California’s “Housing First” mandate, adopted in 2016, provides that “the use of alcohol or drugs in and of itself … is not a reason for eviction” from state-supported homeless shelters. I support that policy. Many of the people sleeping on our sidewalks, under freeways or on park benches are addicts. They need secure housing before they can begin to address their addiction.

Assembly Bill 2623, authored by Assembly Member Carlos Villapudua, offers a narrow but sensible exception to the state’s overly rigid Housing First policy. It would allow a housing provider to prohibit the use of alcohol or drugs in facilities where children are present and the tenant is under a court order to refrain from the use of alcohol or drugs as a condition of reunification with their child.

Incredibly and unfortunately, the Assembly Housing Committee is refusing to allow the bill even to be heard — they want to silence this problem...(more)

Housing

California State Auditor releases scathing report on RHNA process

The California Alliance of Local Electeds (CALE) has just released the following, supporting the findings of the Office of the California State Auditor. The State Auditor says the state’s “housing goals are not supported by evidence.”

Local community organizations throughout the state have been doing independent studies and arguing this for almost a decade…(more)

Housing

State demands SF figure out how to fund enough affordable housing

If their plan is inadequate, the city could lose local control and funds
If you think approving a project in San Francisco is difficult, try approving a plan encompassing 82,000 units. That’s how much the state is mandating San Francisco to build within eight years, and city planners are attempting to meet the 2031 goal while balancing the interests of marginalized communities. One major problem looms: Money.

“The resources aren’t there to get to what we are being asked to do by the state,” said Planning Director Rich Hillis at a Planning Commission meeting Thursday.

That’s a problem. Thanks to new laws, localities that fail to submit plans that meet the state’s requirements could lose local control on projects and affordable housing funding…(more)

Even the SF Planning Commissioners are feeling pinched now. Too much demand on cities to grow beyond our capacity.
Too many questions remain unanswered and we are getting tired of the constant stress and pressures. Are we to understand that not only is the city required to entitle thousands of new units of housing (This somewhat depends on property owners bringing projects to be entitled) but, cities must now pay to build the housing, or sell bonds to pay? Does this mean that to live in this state we must agree to rising taxes, housing costs, gas prices, food and utility prices? When do the voters revolt and what does that look like?
Housing

Lawsuits filed to protect single family homes from Constitutional Overreach

Join Our Neighborhood Voices to help us fight the bad bills and

Four Southern California cities filed a Lawsuit to overturn SB9 and protect the single family homes that most American families want to live in from being phased out of California by urban density zealots.

Read all about it. https://www.livablecalifornia.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/SB9-03.29.2022-RB-Lawsuit-re-SB-9.pdf
In enacting Senate Bill 9 (“SB 9”) in 2021, the State of California eviscerated a city’s local control over land use decisions and a community-tailored zoning process.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation Files Lawsuit Against Controversial Housing Bill: https://kfiam640.iheart.com/content/2021-09-23-aids-healthcare-foundation-files-lawsuit-against-controversial-housing-bill/

 

Housing

The Next California Migration

Conversations with Dr. Jorge De La Roca, Joel Kotkin, and Marshal Toplansky about the future of business in California.

Capital investments are moving out of California. Young people may come and build new businesses from scratch, but as they mature, California does not meet their needs so they move out.  Maturing people houses and car and good schools to raise children. There are some thoughts about building new cities in less crowded areas of the state and possibly some factories to keep people in the state.

In summary: Regulatory and administrative programs are the main reason many businesses prefer to expand in other states. They do not appreciate the anti-business climate in Sacramento or the constant changes in labor relations legislation either.

There is some interest in preserving existing housing and converting some under utilized commercial spaces to housing and opening up opportunities to move to the less developed non-coastal regions.

Address reality instead of denying it.

Housing

Perspective: California Cities Have Plenty of Room and There’s No Reason to Build New Ones from Scratch

by : sfstandard – excerpt

Hayden Clarkin is the CEO and founder of TransitCon and a transportation engineer who has worked on large-scale transit projects in California.

“It’s been 84 years,” an older and wiser Rose says at the end of Titanic, referring to the time that elapsed between the ship’s sinking and its rediscovery. There’s no better sentiment that embodies the state of capital-transit projects in California. This Friday, the Van Ness Ave Bus Rapid Transit in San Francisco will finally see riders board after a ribbon-cutting that’s now decades in the making…

Nathan J. Robinson’s recent Current Affairs article “Why Doesn’t California Solve Its Housing Crisis by Building Some New Cities?” does just that. It’s a cacophony of competing realities whose central aim is that “the people of California simply need to approve a plan to build some more cities, perhaps in the largely uninhabited northern third of the state.” …

Hayden Clarkin is the CEO and founder of TransitCon and a transportation engineer who has worked on large-scale transit projects in California

 

“It’s been 84 years,” an older and wiser Rose says at the end of Titanic, referring to the time that elapsed between the ship’s sinking and its rediscovery. There’s no better sentiment that embodies the state of capital-transit projects in California. This Friday, the Van Ness Ave Bus Rapid Transit in San Francisco will finally see riders board after a ribbon-cutting that’s now decades in the making.

If a project to put red paint down a street was started at the same time Gmail was created, what makes anyone think that California can meet its monumental housing needs by building new cities from scratch?

Nathan J. Robinson’s recent Current Affairs article “Why Doesn’t California Solve Its Housing Crisis by Building Some New Cities?” does just that. It’s a cacophony of competing realities whose central aim is that “the people of California simply need to approve a plan to build some more cities, perhaps in the largely uninhabited northern third of the state.”

The task is anything but simple. The fatal irony in Robinson’s conclusion is that while he laments the YIMBY (“Yes In My Backyard”) movement, he acknowledges that the state urgently needs more housing, somewhere.

I’ve visited the dense redwood forests with thousand-year-old trees some 96 feet in circumference and removing them is a non-starter in the land of CEQA and common sense. It’s probably best to build housing on the copious amounts of land already connected to the state’s transportation grid, which is primed for infill development.

Robinson’s piece reads like that of a disgruntled architectural critic, surmising that the suburban “wastelands” of many California cities can be corrected by building new ones. But while his characterizations of the suburban built environment are accurate, he doesn’t believe in actually changing them much…(more)

Housing

Catalysts Call w/Tom Campbell talking about the Common Sense Party

Zoom call with Tom Campbell
Monday, February 28, 2022
5:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Are you fed up with the top-down, one-size-fits-all housing legislation coming out of Sacramento? Are you longing for an alternative to government as usual? Want to hear about an alternative?

Join me in conversation with Tom Campbell, founder of the Common Sense Party. Tom is the former 5-term legislator in the US Congress. He represented the 15th District, which includes eastern and southwestern Alameda County as well as part of Contra Costa County.

In addition, Tom has a track record of success using . . . yes, common sense. A partial list of his service includes:

  • Two years in the CA State Senate
  • Finance Director of CA Federal Trade Commission
  • PhD in Economics, University of Chicago
  • J.D. magna cum laude, Harvard
  • White House Fellow and U.S. Supreme Court law clerk
  • Professor of law and economics, Chapman University

The Common Sense Party is committed to enabling all Californians to achieve their highest personal, educational, and economic success, and rely on fact-based decision-making in our state and local governments.

Receive the Zoom link after registering for the Monday night Catalysts Call.

Zoom “doors” will open about 4:55 for starting promptly at 5:00 pm, and the session will be recorded and posted on the Catalysts website.