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SB 9 & 10 Polling: California Voters Strongly Oppose 2 Housing Bills
By Housing is a Human Right : yahoo – excerpt
In poll by David Binder Research, both bills start with strong opposition: 63% oppose SB 9 and 67% oppose SB 10, with opposition increasing to 71% for SB 9 and 75% for SB 10 after messages and endorsers
And—as Governor Newsom faces a recall election September 14th—pluralities of 46% polled say they would view the governor less favorably if he supported either of these bills.
LOS ANGELES, August 09, 2021–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Polling commissioned by Housing Is A Human Right (HHR), the housing advocacy division of AHF, on two real estate development bills now making their way through the California Legislature, suggests overwhelming voter sentiment against both bills. The poll also found that a plurality of 46% surveyed would view Governor Gavin Newsom—who faces a recall election September 14th—less favorably if he supported or signed either bill.
The two bills, California Senate Bill 9 and California Senate Bill 10, are ostensibly intended to ease the state’s housing crisis but in fact are extremely harmful. Many housing justice advocates, city governments and homeowners’ associations oppose both pieces of legislation, noting that the bills don’t provide affordable housing and homeless housing requirements, will fuel gentrification, and will take away the ability of communities of color and working-class residents to build wealth through homeownership. Instead, it is yet another multi-billion-dollar giveaway to deep-pocketed real estate interests.…(more)
A Drought So Dire That a Utah Town Pulled the Plug on Growth
Jack Healy and Sophie Kasakove : nytimes – excerpt
Groundwater and streams vital to both farmers and cities are drying up in the West, challenging the future of development.
OAKLEY, Utah — The mountain spring that pioneers used to water their hayfields and now fills people’s taps flowed reliably into the old cowboy town of Oakley for decades. So when it dwindled to a trickle in this year’s scorching drought, officials took drastic action to preserve their water: They stopped building.
During the coronavirus pandemic, the real estate market in their 1,750-person city boomed as remote workers flocked in from the West Coast and second homeowners staked weekend ranches. But those newcomers need water — water that is vanishing as a megadrought dries up reservoirs and rivers across the West.
So this spring, Oakley, about an hour’s drive east of Salt Lake City, imposed a construction moratorium on new homes that would connect to the town’s water system. It is one of the first towns in the United States to purposely stall growth for want of water in a new era of megadroughts. But it could be a harbinger of things to come in a hotter, drier West.
“Why are we building houses if we don’t have enough water?” said Wade Woolstenhulme, the mayor, who in addition to raising horses and judging rodeos has spent the past few weeks defending the building moratorium. “The right thing to do to protect people who are already here is to restrict people coming in.”… (more)
Op-Ed: The absolute wrong way to solve California’s affordable housing crisis
Opinion Christian Horvath, Olivia Valentine, Drew Boyles : latimes – excerpt
In recent years, a group of California lawmakers has been pushing for legislation to override locally approved zoning rules and permit denser development in residential neighborhoods. At the moment, a bill is rushing toward passage in the state Legislature that would dramatically and undemocratically rewrite land-use rules in California.
The bill is SB 9, written by Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego). If approved, it would effectively eliminate single-family zoning in wide swaths of California’s cities. Under its provisions, the owners of parcels currently zoned for single-family use would be allowed by right (subject to very limited environmental and other exceptions) to split their lots in two — and then to have up to two residential units on each lot.
In other words, a parcel currently zoned for only one family could soon have four families squeezed together.
These changes in the rules would be imposed on local governments but would not provide true solutions to the state’s affordable housing crisis. That’s why a bipartisan group of 120 locally elected officials from 48 cities across the state — including not just wealthy communities but also low- and middle-income communities — have signed on to this article, agreeing that adding density to neighborhoods in such a broad and haphazard manner lowers quality of life for all communities…(more)
More housing and more drought calls for more thought
Legislators promoting high-density housing need to meet up with state and local water agencies to hammer out realistic approaches to our changing reality.
Although 41 of California’s 58 counties are in drought conditions, legislators are debating bills, such as Senate Bill 9 and Senate Bill 10, that address the construction of housing to meet the state’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation.
Between 2023 and 2031, the state mandate for the nine-county Bay Area is 441,000 units, representing an expected population increase of 1,102,500. The allocation for Los Angeles County is 1,327,000 housing units to accommodate an expected population increase of 3,317,500.
The state’s propensity to accept the RHNA numbers ignores our drought conditions. Nowhere does the legislation indicate where the additional water for these units will come from, nor does it address impact on infrastructure, such as sewer lines.
Furthermore, none of these bills make mention of the California Department of Water Resources water plan through 2050.
The current version of the plan forecasts an increase of 10 million people by 2050. It also predicts multiple droughts and considers a triad of ways to deal with the state’s water needs.
First, the plan suggests the transfer of agricultural water to urban use. But what effect would that have on farm economy, food supply and prices? A good deal of agricultural land already is lying fallow due to decreased or suspended water allotments…(more)
State legislators write more anti-single family housing bills and add more threats and punishments for non-compliance
New documents that describe the growing number of threats the state is using to override the constitutional jurisdiction of local government. Share them with your city and county councils.
Forward the docs below to your City Council or neighborhood association. Use public open time during a CC meeting to distribute and talk about your concerns re: top-down mandates. Write about them in a Letter to the Editor of your local paper. Circulate them along with the video of the RHNA Town Hall.
The West’s Water Restriction Nightmare Is Just Beginning
By Dharma Noor : applenews – excerpt
Oakley, Utah placed a moratorium on any new construction projects that would tap into the city’s water system.
A small city in Utah is taking an unprecedented step to adapt to megadrought conditions in the West: halting any new construction projects that would tap into the local water. It’s the first municipal ordinance of its kind.
Last month, officials from Oakley, Utah—a city of 1,500—finalized a moratorium on new development extending through November. The ordinance prohibits the “erection, construction, re-construction or alteration of any structure” that needs new water connections.
“The city is concerned that the current drought conditions will result in critical water shortages and require further drastic curtailment measures that would be detrimental to the entire city and cause significant public harm,” it says…
Oakley is hardly alone, though. The West’s water resources have come under increasing pressure from rising temperatures tied to the climate crisis…(more)
Growing Movement To End Single-Family Housing Zones
Lseter Holt : NBC – excerpt (includes video)
California’s Bay Area, home to major tech companies, is among the most expensive housing markets in the country. There is a divide over how to address the affordable housing crisis, and whether denser housing options, which are restricted by zoning laws, could help…(more)
Invesco Backs Mynd to Spend $5 Billion on Single-Family Rentals
By Gillian Tan : bloomberg – excerpt
Funds managed by Invesco Real Estate are backing Mynd Management to spend as much as $5 billion, including debt, purchasing about 20,000 single-family rental homes in the U.S. in the next three years.
The partnership marks a “significant moment” for the single-family rental industry, Doug Brien, chief executive officer and co-founder of Mynd, said in an interview. More than half of the country’s multifamily properties are owned by institutional investors compared with an estimated ownership of 2% to 3% of single-family rentals, a gap that he expects to narrow in time.
“As traditional commercial real estate investors that invested in multifamily as their key strategy have moved into single-family rental, we’re seeing the market flooded with institutional capital,” Brien said. He acknowledged that dynamic will make it more competitive for Mynd to find properties, but touted its data-driven technology as better enabling it to make offers across the U.S…(more)
Could the rush to invest in single family homes be driven by the billions of dollars being pushed into political machines intent on up-zoning and gentrifying those neighborhoods? Easy to drive up the prices so that individual homeowners cannot afford to buy, when governments allow by-right laws to remove all obstacles from the density plans. Will the American public figure this out in time to stop it?
State housing agency says it’s ‘listening’ — but in closed sessions
By Zelda Bronstein : 48hills – excerpt
Speaking at a SPUR forum in February, former California Department of Housing and Community Development Director Ben Metcalf compared his old agency to the CIA.
The analogy came to mind on the morning of May 25, as I attended HCD’s online “listening session” for people in the Bay Area to provide “input” into an updated Statewide Housing Plan.
It’s all about manipulating the process.
“North” and “Valley” sessions had already taken place; future sessions were scheduled for the “Central Coast” (in the afternoon of May 25); for the “South” and “Tribal” (both on May 27); and for a tentative, non-regional “Make Up Session” (June 6). Each one lasts 2.5 hours and has the same agenda: a half-hour introduction and presentation from HCD staff, followed by 15 minutes of “Housekeeping and Questions;” a ten-minute break; and breakout sessions lasting 75 to 90 minutes, each with ten or fewer people…(more)
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