The problem with inclusionary policies and other coercive approaches to housing, such as rent control ordinances, is that while they may be politically gratifying, they divert attention from the real problem of housing in California, which is that we have way too little of it.
California boasts some of the highest wages and fastest rates of job growth in the nation but high housing costs are pushing many people out of the state, according to a trio of reports released Wednesday.
The report, from Bay Area think-tank Next 10, found only Alaska had fewer housing permits for every 100 new residents over the last decade. Between 2005 and 2015 – which includes the last couple years of the housing boom – there were only 21.5 permits issued in California for every 100 people new to the state.
For a city to sustain itself, it must provide a wide range of opportunities–not just for the affluent. The city, better seen as a metropolitan area, needs to addrss the diverse interests and preferences of its residents. And given that those interests and preferences are constantly evolving, the “over planning” mindset is untenable, even dangerous, to the future of cities that embrace it.
Rent control can have a negative impact on low-income households not living in rent-controlled units through higher growth in citywide median rents. Rents are too high because multi-family housing and the state’s housing stock have failed to expand
commensurately with the ever-growing population. The solution to this affordability problem is to expand the apartment stock in these cities, not introduce price ceilings.
A new rule designed to promote urban development and curb both car usage and greenhouse gas emissions may end up making cities less affordable and more congested, critics say.
What this means is that the suburbs as a whole are now equally, if not more diverse, than the populations living in most urban cores. They also are generally less ethnically segregated.
Home-price growth accelerated late last year, according to a report released Wednesday by the National Association of Realtors, as a lack of supply continues to drive up prices despite cooling demand. . . The five most expensive markets in the county were San Jose, Calif., where the median existing family home price was $940,000, San Francisco at $781,600 and Honolulu at $716,600. . . “Homeownership continues to be out of reach for a number of qualified buyers in the top job-producing, but costliest, parts of the country—especially on the West Coast and parts of the South,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at NAR.
After examining Piketty’s groundbreaking research, Matthew Rognlie of MIT concluded that much of the observed inequality is from redistribution of housing wealth away from the middle class. . . .Rognlie concluded that much of this was due to land regulation, and suggested the need to expand the housing supply and reexamine the land-use regulation that he associates with the loss of middle-class wealth. . . Homes represent only 9.4 percent of the wealth of the top 1 percent, but 30 percent for those in the upper 20 percent and, for the 60 percent of the population in the middle, roughly 60 percent. The decline in property ownership threatens to turn much of the middle class into a class of rental serfs, effectively wiping out the social gains of the past half-century.
In this follow up to California’s High Housing Costs, we offer additional evidence that facilitating more private housing development in the state’s coastal urban communities would help make housing more affordable for low–income Californians. Existing affordable housing programs assist only a small proportion of low–income Californians. Most low–income Californians receive little or no assistance. Expanding affordable housing programs to help these households likely would be extremely challenging and prohibitively expensive. It may be best to focus these programs on Californians with more specialized housing needs—such as homeless individuals and families or persons with significant physical and mental health challenges.
Were politicians willing to seriously address California’s housing crisis, rather than make token gestures, they’d reform CEQA and take other steps to encourage supply.
In a new study by the Chapman Center for Demographics and Policy, we found that the best cities for middle-class families tend to be located outside the largest metropolitan areas. This was based on such factors housing affordability, migration, income growth, commute times, and middle-income jobs.
In an opening to this year’s budget negotiations at the Capitol, Senate Democrats on Monday proposed a $2 billion bond to build homes for homeless people with mental illnesses.
The measure would be funded by Proposition 63, the existing, 1 percent income tax on Californians earning $1 million or more per year to pay for mental health services.
The typical San Francisco millennial can only afford to buy 135 square feet of housing, the lowest buying power in the country, according to personal finance company SmartAsset. . . San Francisco also requires discretionary review of all major projects, which adds months for new development. Other cities allow new buildings to be built if they conform to existing zoning codes. The median time from initial applications to completions ranged from 38 months to projects under 10,000 square feet to 71 months for projects over 250,000 square feet, according to Paragon.
Opponents can always make a fair argument that any proposed project warms the planet (or harms a stickleback or some other fish or species), so every project potentially can drag on through years of legal challenges. The obvious result: fewer housing projects of all sorts will be built, and those that are built will have additional costs. Many developers won’t even bother proposing such projects. People opposed to growth might be happy with that outcome, but those cheering probably already own their piece of the California dream.