
California's Housing Laws Should Be Under State Control - jseliger
https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/03/californias-housing-prices-need-to-come-down/556637/
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jphelan
I think this article is spot on. I was struck when this Geneva city planner
acknowledged that they have to fight the nimby movement to keep their city's
infrastructure balanced:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUfwIPzh_MM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUfwIPzh_MM)
(from an urban infrastructure planning course on Coursera). We need someone
this objective managing our housing infrastructure at least across the whole
bay area.

If you listen to the Cupertino mayor, everything is fine as it is. According
to a recent Better Cupertion Q&A with the mayor and with city councilman,
Apple isn't really adding any new employees with their new headquarters. The
cities are the ones who keep adding office space and turning away housing!
Their denial is so upsetting, especially when you inevitably find that the
people in charge are homeowners.

We need to stop letting the foxes run the hen house!

edit: typo - new/now

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flukus
Australian chiming in: I've always found it absurd how much power local
governments have in the US, the idea of paying different amounts of tax in
different cities of the same state is alien to me. It explains so much about
the inequality too, poor schools in poor neighborhoods isn't really a thing
here, at least not to the same extent.

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DrScump
Actual title: "California's Housing Prices Need to Come Down"

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mc32
Even more damning from the sub: "Shifting control of housing decisions from
local to state oversight _could be a way_ to slow the rise of California’s
house prices".

Lot's of happy hoping for something.

Since they like to just take random stabs to hope to come up with a kind of
variable idea, here are mine:

-Repeal prop 13.

-Enact regional governmental authorities [ala PANYNJ[1]] to govern (coordinate) growth efforts.

-Break the state into at least two distinct new states (it's too big an unwieldy to server everyone well)

[1]I know the PAofNYNJ don't have a good track record, but it's better than
the record the 9 bay area counties have in coordinating growth.

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jphelan
I'm excited that you're thinking about solutions to the housing crisis :).
Unfortunately, prop 13 is basically untouchable - though it is a root cause of
misaligned incentives for homeowners. Walk down my street in Sunnyvale, and
4/5 people are elderly and can't really afford their home without prop 13.

Regional government is just what sb 828, which adds teeth to the state housing
planning (and sort of sb 827, which sets zoning state wide), will do!

I don't think breaking up CA would solve our jurisdictional issues (E.G.
Sunnyvale can't get BART if Palo Alto won't accept it, or Cupertino can't get
VTA investment if San Jose controls it) or change the local home owner
politics in the Bay Area.

I think it's pretty likely that we'll see 827 and 828 whittled down to nothing
in the senate, but it doesn't mean we should give up. The tide is turning.
Whether that happens fast enough to keep our cities viable depends on our
participation.

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masonic

      change the local home owner politics
    

Local home owners don't control local politics; the party apparatchiks do.

VTA wouldn't be so wasteful and screwed up if those "4/5 elderly" had any say
in it the past 40 years.

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lobotryas
One thing that I've, so far, never seen raised in discussions of housing in CA
is how we will make equivalent investment in infrastructure. In this case I
don't just mean roads/bridges/parks. This also includes emergency services,
schools, and even things as basic as the number of available grocery stores.

All around I see new apartments being built and I guess that's great, but I
haven't seen anywhere near as many infrastructure projects in the same time.

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r00fus
Oh come now, the "free market" fairy will solve everything! No need for any
centralized city or regional _planning_ \- that'd smack of socialism and 5
year plans.

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SllX
Dunno about the rest of California but Bay Area regional planning, which in
theory does take place already, leaves a lot to be desired. San Francisco is
simple, it is one consolidated city and county, there is no distinction
between the city and county government to be made, and it happens to be one of
the largest cities around.*

In regional planning however which tends to lump in every county and every
city (as legally defined by California law) in those counties, San Francisco
has essentially zero political power. It has one vote on matters, and the
interests of the many cities and counties around don't always squarely align
with what SF wants to do. To put it bluntly, even _if_ San Francisco were the
epitome of high governance and quality infrastructure planning, even _if_ San
Francisco had stack of workable solutions printed out on a perfect stack of
paper with absolutely stunning typography and presented and overwhelmingly
supported by quality leadership with a fully funded budget and electoral
mandate, there would be nothing SF could do to solve any of what ails the
region as a whole without the cooperation of the other cities and counties.

Homelessness in San Francisco and the larger cities? That's their problem.
Lack of housing? That's their problem. Not enough regional public transit? Not
a problem here! Everyone has a car!

So yeah, the free market fairy won't solve anything, but neither will regional
planning boards. At least the State can put pressure on local governments and
they can either react sensibly, or keep trying to push every problem back into
the urban core and just bottle it up there. When the pressure builds up, maybe
we can get the free market fairy and the socialist fairy to meetup at a bar
and hash something out. Would be nice anyway but I wouldn't hold my breath.

* I'm being incredibly generous by allowing San Jose to call itself a city, but San Francisco is essentially the biggest fish in the region.

