California has a poverty problem. Its poverty rate is by some measures the highest in the country. But while conservatives blame the state’s tax and social welfare structures, university researchers David Brady and Zachary Parolin pin the blame on high housing costs:
California has the highest supplemental poverty measure rate simply because of our highest-in-the-nation home prices. If housing prices in California were at the median seen across the rest of the United States, the state’s supplemental poverty measure rate would drop by nearly a third — to 11.7 percent from 17.1 percent. California would then rank 30th among the states based on 2015 data. This might not be surprising, as 29 percent of Californians spend more than half their monthly income to keep a roof over their heads.
High housing costs in this state are due to high demand, unmatched by available housing supply, particularly in our job-rich cities.
If Sacramento legislators really wanted to address poverty in the state, the single most important step they could take would be to increase housing production in these job centers to meet demand. Let’s hope the next legislative session brings some bold, meaningful solutions for this problem to the table.
The political battle over smarter land use development boils down to two sides: those like me in favor of development in existing neighborhoods to boost housing supply and limit sprawl and air pollution vs. those who protect the ‘character of their neighborhoods’ from any change. The latter are called NIMBYs — Not In My Backyard; the former are YIMBYs — Yes In My Backyard.
So what do I do when a song I like takes the NIMBY viewpoint? Death Cab For Cutie’s “Gold Rush” is explicitly about the sadness brought out by neighborhood change, with the title alluding to the profits made from redevelopment. Here’s the official “lyrics” video, complete with an infill construction site in the background:
Of course, there’s a strong metaphorical component to the song, about the ultimate disillusionment we’ll feel if we become too strongly attached to the present and to physical buildings to hold onto our memories and sense of identity.
But as much as I bash on NIMBYs as being selfish and sometimes racist, you’d have to be heartless not to respect the sadness that a resident can feel seeing the change in his or her neighborhood with redevelopment. It doesn’t mean that policy makers should always defer to those feelings, but more YIMBYs could also acknowledge the legitimate fear of (and sadness about) change in one’s hometown.
And perhaps while we’re at it, those on the NIMBY side who like to cite greed (“gold rush”) as the motivator for the YIMBY position could likewise acknowledge the legitimate concerns about poverty and the environment that underlie pro-redevelopment arguments.
A good song, after all, should help bring people of all persuasions together.
It’s not just Trump’s border taxes on solar panels that hurt the environment. The administration’s trade policies are now affecting residential infill construction, which we need to house a growing population in a sustainable manner, close to jobs and transit. As the Associated Press reports:
Trump’s tariffs on several categories of goods have prompted a trade war. Tariffs are currently just more than 20 percent on imported Canadian lumber and 25 percent on steel imported from some countries.
…
California Building Industry Association President Dan Dunmoyer said contractors tell him that the tariffs alone could add $8,000 to $10,000 to the lumber costs for a typical single-family home and about the same amount for steel products such as nails, other fasteners and wire mesh.Tariffs also are boosting the cost of appliances, drywall and solar panels, which will be required on all new homes in California starting in two years.
These border taxes make a bad situation for housing development even worse. UC Berkeley’s Terner Center is researching a report to analyze some of these economic challenges, including a dramatic labor shortage in residential construction:
All in all, together with labor shortages and bad local land use policies, these self-inflicted trade wars will significantly slow residential construction at a time when we need it the most.
My webinar presentation last week on the past, present, and future of transit and personal mobility in Los Angeles is now available on YouTube:
The webinar was the inaugural event for California Green Academy and Island Press‘s new Transformational Speaker Series. Stay tuned for more webinars in the series, which will focus on sustainable transportation and feature leading thinkers in sustainability, urban mobility, and innovative transportation.
Join me on-line this Thursday at 11am PT when I serve as the first speaker for California Green Academy and Island Press‘s new Transformational Speaker Series. The series will focus on sustainable transportation and feature leading thinkers in sustainability, urban mobility, and innovative transportation.
As the first speaker this Thursday, I’ll discuss transformational change in Los Angeles transit, which once featured the world’s largest streetcar system. The region then became the nation’s automobile capital but now is undergoing expansive light and heavy rail growth and has an emerging emphasis on multimodal mobility.
Most of my talk will be drawn from my book Railtown (UC Press, 2014). I’ll cover Los Angeles’ current transit transformation – spawned by multiple ballot measures – and the region’s overall mobility future, especially thanks to the passage of 2016’s landmark Measure M.
The inaugural webinar takes place this Thursday, July 26thy, from 11:00-12:00 PST (14:00-15:00 EST). You can stream it live (registration not required) and follow the series on Twitter and YouTube. Hope you can join in!
The Bay Area’s “Tri-Valley” region
High housing costs aren’t just pushing residents into far-flung exurbs in seek of affordable homes. Businesses, too, are locating far from city centers to take advantage of cheaper rents and lower housing costs for their employees.
The business groups Bay Area Council Economic Institute and Innovation Tri-Valley Leadership Group released a new report documenting the effect in the San Francisco Bay Area, as the San Francisco Chronicle reported:
The East Bay’s Tri-Valley region saw jobs grow 35 percent between 2006 and 2016, outpacing San Francisco and Silicon Valley, according to a new report.
During the same period, San Francisco had 31 percent job growth, Silicon Valley had 19 percent and California overall had 8 percent.
The Tri-Valley cities of Danville, Dublin, Livermore, Pleasanton and San Ramon benefited from the presence of two federal laboratories, along with less expensive housing and office costs compared to the Bay Area’s urban centers, the report said. At the same time, the Tri-Valley and the rest of the Bay Area continue grappling with low housing supply and traffic congestion.
Some of this dynamic is the natural progression of cities. As space in traditional city centers comes at a premium, employers seek to find more affordable regions in outlying areas.
But much of it is attributable to the failure of local governments in job-rich areas to allow enough housing to be built to keep pace with jobs. As a result, employers find themselves needing to go to outlying areas not just for cheaper office rents, but to meet middle class employees where they can find a relatively affordable home.
From an environmental perspective, this job sprawl means worsening traffic, air pollution, and paving over of valuable open space and agricultural land. Yet another reason to change our land use policies in job-rich urban centers to allow sufficient housing.
The City of Berkeley once had a reputation as a progressive, environmental leader. But now some members of its city council seem intent on preventing new development in this transit-rich, low-carbon city — an attitude that is both exclusionary and bad for the environment. The result is fewer transit riders and homes near jobs — and more sprawl and pollution as new residents are pushed far from the city center.
This issue is once again put to the test when the city council tonight debates whether to oppose AB 2923 (Chiu), a bill to allow BART to develop its own properties near station entrances. Berkeley is barely affected by the bill, as it would only allow new land use rules at one BART station: the parking lot at North Berkeley. Still, the NIMBY forces are out in effect for this resolution tonight.
Together with my UC Berkeley colleagues Karen Chapple and Elizabeth Deakin, along with Paulson Institute senior fellow (and Berkeley alum) Kate Gordon, I submitted a letter today asking the council to support AB 2923. Let’s hope the members support this innovative bill to allow badly needed new housing adjacent to major transit, so that others may enjoy the benefits that current Berkeley residents have.
It would not only be the right policy choice but an affirmation of the welcoming and open-minded spirit for which the city of my birth was once known.
UPDATE: The City Council approved the measure opposing AB 2923. The bill heads to the Assembly floor this week for a vote.
SB 827 (Wiener) was the big effort to solve California’s housing shortage. When the state senate killed it in committee, the senators doomed California to more small-bore proposals. Still, it’s worth reviewing what might be possible this year to at least partially address the massive housing shortage. Here are three housing bills that could make a difference:
1. SB 828 (Wiener): This is Sen. Scott Wiener’s other big housing bill this year. It greatly strengthens the state’s regional affordable housing requirements on local governments. Under the law, cities and counties are allocated a certain number of affordable housing units they’re supposed to make available in their jurisdiction, by identifying sites where this housing could be built, in theory.
But the process is largely a paper-pushing exercise, with few real world consequences for locals that don’t ensure the new housing is actually built. SB 828 would greatly tighten the requirements. Under the proposed bill:
- Local leaders can no longer use prior underproduction of housing from previous cycles to justify a lower housing allocation from the state for the current cycle.
- The state must include past under-production numbers as part of the current cycle of requirements for local governments.
- Local leaders must identify actions to accommodate 125% of their share of the regional housing need that they could not accommodate without rezoning their identified sites.
- Local leaders must make at least 100% of their share of housing be available for multifamily housing in already-developed areas.
- Local leaders must demonstrate efforts to reverse racial and wealth disparities, including by showing a high housing allocation for households located within particular communities and for all income categories.
- The state must address the historic underproduction of housing in California, particularly in coastal and metropolitan communities, by completing a comprehensive audit of unmet housing needs for each region by 2020 and add the results to each region’s next regional housing assessment following that year.
If SB 828 passes as is, cities and counties would ultimately be required to rezone a significant amount of land for new housing, particularly to accommodate lower-income residents.
2. SB 831 (Wieckowski): Accessory dwelling units (ADUs), like granny flats, promise to add a lot of new housing units without changing the built environment much. They can be added on existing parcels quite easily and sometimes within existing building envelopes. In recognition of this potential, the state passed legislation in 2016 that preempted local restrictions on these units. But since then, anti-housing local leaders have used high fees, requirements on parking replacement, and “health and safety” concerns to block these new units. SB 831 would close those loopholes that have allowed local governments to find ways to kill ADUs.
3. SB 961 (Allen): This bill is unfortunately brought to you by some of the folks who helped kill SB 827. Move LA, the pro-transit group that is ironically opposed to much transit-oriented development (including SB 827), and State Senator Ben Allen, who voted against SB 827 in its first and only committee hearing, teamed up on an otherwise promising solution to help finance affordable housing near transit.
The bill builds on last year’s AB 1568 (Bloom, 2017), which improved infrastructure finance districts for infill projects. Using the acronym NIFTI (Neighborhood Infill Finance and Transit Improvements Act), it allowed these districts to capture future increases in revenue from sources like sales and occupancy taxes to pay for infrastructure improvements up front.
SB 961 takes the NIFTI model and would apply it specifically to areas within a half-mile of a major transit stop, with requirements to dedicate much of the funds to affordable housing. It also would expand the financing tools available by allowing the districts to authorize bonds without voter approval.
So while housing advocates mourn the defeat of SB 827, this year still offers some movement to boost housing production. And in the long run, the mobilization of YIMBY groups in California and beyond promises to bring more legislation like SB 827 to the fore. All of it will be needed as the state endures this significant — and artificially created — housing shortage.
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and ensuring environmental justice should go hand in hand. After all, residents of disadvantaged communities have the most to gain from a transition to a clean energy economy — and the most to lose from climate impacts.
Yet too often climate advocates and the environmental justice (EJ) community are at odds, particularly over policies like cap and trade and efforts to site new climate-friendly development, such as clean energy facilities, rail lines, or smart growth. EJ leaders may oppose large-scale climate policies that benefit the environment overall yet fail to protect specific neighborhoods from pollution, and they may resent changes to processes that leave disadvantaged communities without a seat at the table, among other concerns.
Given the dynamics, how can attorneys incorporate climate change concerns into their practice? Is there an ethical or professional responsibility to consider and discuss with clients the climate change implications of their decisions?
Join me at lunch today starting at 11:30am at the Alameda County Witkin Law Library for a talk on these questions. More information available on-line [PDF]. The event will take place at:
Alameda County Law Library
125 12th Street
Hayward-Union City Room, 4th Floor
Oakland, CA 94607
You can purchase tickets here for $45.00, with lunch included. One hour of participatory MCLE credit is available for attorneys. Hope to see you there!
