Out of Control

An LA Times news story suggests that California legislators and Governor Schwarzenegger are finaly ready to act on getting more housing built in California. There seem to be some reasonable thoughts such as this from Tom Perata of Oakland.

We're trying to put some certainty in the development process," said Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland). "It's just too easy now to let NIMBYs drag a project out, and what you're left with is something no one really wants."

But, there are always defenders of existing regulation like these:

It's inaccurate to see CEQA as a barrier," said Caroline Farrell, attorney for the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment. "It may slow down a project, but it ensures it will be designed in a way to minimize environmental damage. It holds developers accountable."

Really? That would be news to anyone who tries to do anything innovative in California. CEQA is more about rules, than results. The main thing it does is stall or kill projects and drive costs up for California housing consumers.

Proposals are on the table for setting aside a 20 year inventory of land for new housing and the obligatory "encourage high-density projects in aging city centers and near job and transit centers."

It seems to me that how much land you dedicate for the first proposal depends on how you accomplish the second. Will this solve anything? I can just see the environmental/anti-sprawl lobby presenting their 20-year inventory - existing paring lots, brownfields, and abandoned land in ghettos around the state. Then, the building industry presents their version - pristine, cheap land on the urban fringe where the other 60-70% want to live. Isn't this essentially where we are now?

Schwarzenegger, in his recent budget message, said that every city is responsible for providing new housing for its natural population growth, and should do that "on the most efficient land-use pattern possible, minimizing impacts on valuable habitat and productive farmland."

Sounds great, but I still don't see the mechanisms which make this possible. Where are the pricing policies? Otherwise, "encourage" just means "subsidize" and that alone won't limit urban sprawl, just increase overall development.

The only housing bill introduced so far, SB 223 by Torlakson, would provide loans of up to $1 million for cities and counties to draw new plans for high-density and affordable housing in aging communities served by public transportation.

Great, more plans to do more ineffective and costly inclusionary zoning.

At least the issue is gaining attention, but everybody is really pushing the issue onto each other. I see little here, as of yet, that can have meaningful impact other than some margial benefits of modifying CEQA (which will be a political battle).