Recently, California homebuilders delivered to the state Legislature a healthy dose of reality. At a special hearing of the Assembly’s Select Committee on Housing Affordability (the Committee), representatives of the California Building Industry Association (CBIA) illustrated why housing in the state is so expensive.
In fact, CBIA may have made a case at the mid-August hearing why now it’s impossible to build new housing in California that’s affordable to middle-class buyers; due not to basic construction costs but to the more invisible – and insidious – expense of the local approval process.
To start with, CBIA in what was impressive, detailed testimony described some of the factors that every homebuilder must overcome in setting out to build in California. While the land developer is the one who negotiates these issues, ultimately the costs of meeting the various demands fall on the builder and, ultimately, buyers. Among these factors are CEQA, which can bring a housing development to a screeching halt, and the very costly inclusionary zoning.
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