California’s housing crisis is a multi-front guerrilla war.
California’s housing crisis is a multi-front guerrilla war, pitting those who want to lower legal and political barriers to construction against those who see new developments as threats to the environment and/or the ambience of their neighborhoods. The conflict is waged in the Legislature, in the state housing bureaucracy, in city councils, in the courts and, increasingly, at the ballot box. Every new offensive assault by pro-housing forces meets stout resistance by defenders of the status quo and over time, it’s been something of a stalemate. Housing construction remains well below the levels needed to close the gap between supply and demand, resulting in ever-rising rents and home prices, ever-increasing angst for Californians priced out of the market and an adverse effect on the economy as workers migrate to more affordable communities elsewhere. The Housing Crisis Act of 2019 was a major thrust by the pro-housing faction. Senate Bill 330 was aimed at blocking local government policies, such as restrictive zoning, caps on building permits or unworkable design standards that limit new housing developments. Not surprisingly, the legislation was opposed by local government officials as undermining their historic power to shape the tenor of their communities through controls on land use.
