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Gov. Jerry Brown and other state lawmakers gathered in San Francisco Friday to take aim at alleviating the state’s housing crisis.
Brown signed 15 housing-related bills into law at the Hunters View affordable housing complex at 1101 Fairfax Ave. where housing advocates and lawmakers gathered to celebrate.
Some blame the state’s housing problems on, among other things, strict regulations and Brown acknowledged that in his statements today.
“Too many goods create a bad,” Brown said of the regulations.
To achieve goals such as safety, Brown said, “We get a lot of rules. Now we need to streamline.”
State Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, whose district includes Oakland and communities in both Alameda and Contra Costa counties, and who wrote two of the bills, said at least some of the bills signed will do just that.
“What we have is a crisis in supply,” she said. According to Skinner, economists are in favor of the package of laws, though she like others acknowledged that more needs to be done.
She said the package only moves California “in the right direction.”
Housing advocates celebrated.
“We look forward to building on this momentum,” Lisa Hershey, executive director of Housing California, a group that advocates for affordable housing from the state Capitol, said.
Hershey cited what a difference housing made in the life of a mother who has since gone to college and also convinced a state lawmaker that something needed to be done about housing in California.
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf couldn’t agree more.
“Welcome to the Bay Area, ground zero of the California housing affordability crisis,” Schaaf said.
She asked lawmakers not to sit on their laurels now that they have addressed housing but to take action on housing in the next legislative session, which begins Jan. 3.
“We have more work to do,” Schaaf said.
The package of bills aims to increase the supply of housing and make it more affordable by making investments, reducing regulations, boosting construction and strengthening existing housing laws, according to the governor’s office.
The bills written by Skinner are two examples.
Senate Bill 167 requires a city council to approve housing projects if they meet existing zoning and land use requirements.
She attributed past denials of projects to neighbors who don’t want to see new housing in their neighborhoods.
Senate Bill 166 requires local governments to designate a new site for housing if for example commercial development displaces what was housing. That new housing must have the same affordability level as what was lost.
Skinner’s office said that California builders would need to construct 180,000 homes a year to keep up with the demand.
Bay Area Council spokesman Rufus Jeffris said that since the state has a deficit of about 2 million units the package of bills is just a good first step.
“This is not likely to make a huge dent in the housing shortage,” Jeffris said.
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The number one causes of non production of rentals in California is rent control. Rent control hampers investment. California basically flunks out of high school economics in this manner. I’m now doing my best with the San Jose Property Rights Initiative (Granicus Google). Politicians must be reminded they must represent the best interests of the community not their own best interests. Rentals must go high density in low rise California. Resources are scarce, they must be utilized efficiently.
George Drysdale, initiator
Lets make it so hard on developers, that they move to another state. That’s all that these laws will do. These laws are not incentives for developers to develop. These laws are more ways of control. These laws will not help much for the homeless, only raise the cost of doing business in California. Same thing with Google, you put so much restrictions on them that they will look elsewhere, even if it has to be outside Cal. Basic economics 101.
Here is what a developer can or will do.
Lower cost housing will be 1 bedroom and one bathroom. Price range around 2000/month
The middle apartment will be 1 bed, 1 kitchen and one bath. Price ~ 3500/month
The normal apartments will be regular 2 bed, 1 kitchen and 1 bath. Price ~ 5000/month
The developers take big risks and if the economy should turn south for some reason leaving empty apartments were no one can afford them, will hurt their bottom line. And if there is a chance to go below the bottom line, then the investment would be a loss. And no developer wants a project that costs money.
Same concept with gas tax increase, you increase the cost of getting goods to the market, the more the prices go up or the decrease in amount given for the same price, or both. Basic economics 101.
“Same thing with Google, you put so much restrictions on them that they will look elsewhere, even if it has to be outside Cal.”
Given all the pain they (and the other FANGS) are causing, an argument could be made that that would be a good thing for California (and bad for whichever region they pick on next). But it seems they’re nowhere near that point yet. Today they backtracked from their ultimatum:
“We apologize that this came out as a demand, when the intent was to open a conversation to address a potential issue,” Google’s vice-president of real estate David Radcliffe wrote.
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/02/google-backs-down-from-threat-to-cancel-mountain-view-housing/
@Anke
Oh yeah, all that pain these high-paying tech jobs are adding to the region. Sure helps those of us under 50 afford the sky-high rent we have to pay so you guys can have your Suburban Neighborhood Character, at least for another decade before the demographics shift and we finally overhaul things to allow high-density development.
As a local MV resident, there’s no point commenting on housing issues until mv-voice does more to kick the paid, non-local CAA trolls off.
…now let the hate from said group posing as residents begin…
These policies suggest politicians are like drug addicts. They pass policies, that restrict supply and raise prices. Then they complain about higher prices and want more polices to restrict supply. It’s a never ending addiction
Not sure the above analogy works since the drug addict never tries to limit supply. It’s all about more more more supply, never restrictions of supply, and if prices come down, even better.
First of all drug addicts are consumers not suppliers. They can’t restrict their demand for drug consumption.
A drug addict is a buyer who is addicted to out of control spending on drugs. A politician pushes policies because they are addicted to spending other people’s money. It’s a cycle like an addict because politicians can’t help themselves. They always want to increase spending.
It’s that simple
I response to george Drysdale you said: “I’m doing my best with the San Jose Property Rights Initiative (Go to Google Granicus). “
After I did some searching, I never found the “San Jose Property Rights Initiative” page. I did find a letter submitted to the City of San Jose. But it appears that there is no action being coordinated by anyone. Of course, the letter appears to be submitted anonymously, using the name “George Drysdale”, with no return address or an email.
To me submitting a letter under an apparent pseudonym greatly increases my suspicions. It also tends to be less motivating regarding the public officials.
I am going to be very happy that the Governor signed all of these laws. For every investment there is an opportunity cost in the free market. It is good that the new laws were passed especially given the case of Palmer v. City of Los Angeles. It is better because it is state wide.
Even if there is no rent controls in any city or town in California, the mandated affordable housing will in effect force rents to be reduced. Why, because more lower cost housing will be REQUIRED to be built. All cities will have to participate in the affordable housing needs. If they don’t they will forfeit the state and federal funding that follows those programs.
The developers had carrots, they were given plenty of chance to succeed in this problem, developers refused to bite the carrots. Now their getting the sticks. Unless the developers will simply refuse to build in the entire state of California. George, rent control is just one way of imposing lower rents, mandated affordable housing allocation is in fact worse than rent control, it is state wide.
This will prevent any further inflation of the non-commercial multi unit market by requiring below market units being built along with the “luxury” stock. This is in order to prevent the bubble bursting, which will be more devastating.
Oh well.
It was about time.
I just read the Mercury News, Google appears to be apologizing:
On Monday, the search giant sent a letter to the council saying it was sorry for what city officials and many in the public took as an ultimatum.
“We apologize that this came out as a demand, when the intent was to open a conversation to address a potential issue,” Google’s vice-president of real estate David Radcliffe wrote.
Google “strongly” supports having 9,850 housing units at North Bayshore, and is “committed to finding creative solutions … within the 3.6 million square feet” of office space, Radcliffe’s letter said.
“I think they heard from the public and their employees that they looked like bullies, and we’d been working on all this housing, why would they pull out now?” Siegel said Monday.
“I think we’ll basically be able to move forward in designing North Bayshore with them,” he said.
Google’s letter proposed that city fees from development of housing and parks in North Bayshore could be used to offset housing costs, particularly for affordable homes.
“The possibility of using various fees to get a better mixed-use urban neighborhood, that’s fine,” Siegel said. “What wasn’t fine was saying, ‘No topping off of the offices, no housing’ — that was the problem.”( http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/02/google-backs-down-from-threat-to-cancel-mountain-view-housing/)
WOW