03/29/2024

California Environmental Quality Act Lawsuits and California’s Housing Crisis

Our current urban “environment” continues to be dominated by single
family homes in neighborhoods consisting of other single-family homes. A
recent UC Berkeley study concluded that 62% of California households are
single family homes, and another 9% live in town homes or duplexes.38
Changing single family home neighborhoods by adding more
residents, more traffic, and more kids using schools and parks challenges
decades-old housing patterns. Additionally, bringing people who cannot
afford to purchase single family homes in what has become million-dollar
neighborhoods due to housing shortage challenges these patterns rooted in
race and class discrimination. The core legal structure of CEQA, which
measures “environmental” impacts against the existing setting, protects the
existing characteristics of those neighborhoods and thus perpetuates land
use practices founded in race and class discrimination.

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