I think the "mercenary" bit is (aside from being exaggerated) not really the point. My view on this is that if you want to live in a dense, urban area, you should have to pay a premium to live in a single family home, because SFHs are incredibly inefficient uses of land in that kind of environment. Suburbs, sure, SFHs all over, and that's expected. But not in a city.
The goal of less restrictive zoning like this is that we see more in-law units and 2-, 3-, and 4-plexes cropping up all over (some/many of these replacing existing single family homes). While that may increase the cost of SFHs, the average cost of homes in general will go down, because you'll have greater supply to meet demand. And they don't have to be "tiny apartments", either.
I do think this is a bit overblown; it's not like I see SF's Outer Sunset converting any significant amount of housing stock to duplexes and 4-plexes any time soon (or ever), and I expect residents will (unfortunately) still have other non-zoning-related tools at their disposal to fight development plans they don't like.
A UC Berkeley study (referenced and quoted elsewhere on this post) expects this measure to only increase the statewide housing stock by around 700k units. That's not nothing, but if they expected a significant number of SFHs to get torn down and replaced by multi-unit buildings, that number would be a good order of magnitude higher.
The goal of less restrictive zoning like this is that we see more in-law units and 2-, 3-, and 4-plexes cropping up all over (some/many of these replacing existing single family homes). While that may increase the cost of SFHs, the average cost of homes in general will go down, because you'll have greater supply to meet demand. And they don't have to be "tiny apartments", either.
I do think this is a bit overblown; it's not like I see SF's Outer Sunset converting any significant amount of housing stock to duplexes and 4-plexes any time soon (or ever), and I expect residents will (unfortunately) still have other non-zoning-related tools at their disposal to fight development plans they don't like.
A UC Berkeley study (referenced and quoted elsewhere on this post) expects this measure to only increase the statewide housing stock by around 700k units. That's not nothing, but if they expected a significant number of SFHs to get torn down and replaced by multi-unit buildings, that number would be a good order of magnitude higher.