Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
How to House People and Achieve California’s Climate Goals
gvw_calmatters
By CalMatters
Published 4 years ago on
April 11, 2021

Share

California faces a housing crisis and a climate emergency. We don’t build enough housing so we drive too frequently and too far in cars that generate most of California’s greenhouse gases.

The solution is simple and obvious: build more housing in cities where people work so we don’t have to drive so much.

Profile Image

Anna Caballero
CALmatters

 

Profile Image

Michael DeLapa,
Special to CalMatters
CALmatters

Lowering Building Costs Reduces Housing Prices

Local governments need to partner with the state and private developers to reduce building costs, which reduces housing prices. Start with making it easy to build compactly in cities where housing should go. Compact housing not only reduces vehicle miles traveled, it is less expensive because it lowers land costs per unit and improves “economies of scale” in construction.

Lowering housing costs starts with increasing housing supply. California is now 49th in the country in housing production per capita. We build fewer homes annually than we did in the 1960s.

How did we get here? The root causes are old infrastructure, conflicting laws and misaligned incentives that drive up both housing costs and emissions. Proposition 13 incentivizes local zoning less for homes and more for commercial to generate taxes. California local governments have virtual free reign over zoning, putting the interests of current residents before those of future ones.

Consequently, housing in California is costly and financially risky to build, so developers can’t and don’t – and private developers build essentially all of California’s housing.

Increasing the Housing Supply

With limited housing production, housing prices have soared, making it virtually impossible for average wage earners and young people to enter the housing market. Low wage earners end up sharing homes or moving.

Competing interests restrict supply and drive up housing costs to unprecedented levels. Local governments fiercely protect control over zoning. Neighborhood groups protect status quo zoning. Construction unions want set wages, regardless of regional markets. Social justice groups, too long excluded from the housing market, understandably argue that market rate housing must subsidize affordable housing and not displace low income residents.

California can increase housing supply within the boundaries of our 482 cities. There’s no need for sprawl in unincorporated areas. And housing needs to be reimagined to be “affordable by design”– more units in larger buildings, especially for-rent apartments and for-purchase condominiums and townhomes. The state should require local governments to approve and build more housing, use land more efficiently and simplify permitting.

The Neighborhood Homes Act

That is why state Sen. Anna Caballero, a Democrat from Salinas, authored Senate Bill 6 this year, the Neighborhood Homes Act. It makes it easier for local jurisdictions to approve residential development in commercial office and retail spaces. Communities are increasingly familiar with distressed malls plagued by vacancies. These commercial and transportation centers are ripe for new residential development.

The state should also include mandates for approval of duplexes and lot splits in residential neighborhoods and approval via “ministerial” procedures, based on objective standards. The city of Sacramento has led by allowing four-plexes by right. Other regulations also should be relaxed, including height, setback and parking requirements.

Building in cities should be as profitable as building on virgin land. One of the biggest impediments developers face is old infrastructure – sewer, water and gas lines and electric utilities that won’t support higher densities. Cities that have zoned their downtowns for higher density should be rewarded with infrastructure improvement bonds. We need incentives that encourage developers to build more affordable housing in cities – incentives like density bonuses, to allow more units if a percentage is reserved for low-income wage earners.

If California is to meet our goals for equitable greenhouse gas reduction, adapting to climate change, and building homes for all, it’s time to break down the local barriers that have favored building out rather than building up. California’s Legislature is where that needs to happen. And it can’t happen soon enough.

CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters.

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

Sale and Skubal Claim Cy Young Awards After Historic Pitching Triple Crown Seasons

DON'T MISS

What Will Happen to CNBC and MSNBC When They No Longer Have a Corporate Connection to NBC News?

DON'T MISS

Bulldogs Stack Double-Doubles Like Burgers on a Plate to Beat Prairie View

DON'T MISS

Bitcoin Is at the Doorstep of $100,000 as Post-Election Rally Rolls On

DON'T MISS

US Regulators Seek to Break Up Google, Forcing Chrome Sale as Part of Monopoly Punishment

DON'T MISS

Wall Street Climbs as Nvidia Swings, Bitcoin Rises and Alphabet Sinks

DON'T MISS

Major Storm Drops Record Rain, Downs Trees in Northern California After Devastation Further North

DON'T MISS

Police Report Reveals Assault Allegations Against Hegseth, Trump’s Pick for Defense Secretary

DON'T MISS

Republicans Target Social Sciences to Curb Ideas They Don’t Like

DON'T MISS

Gaetz Withdraws as Trump’s Pick for Attorney General

UP NEXT

Demography Drives Destiny and Right Now California Is Losing

UP NEXT

Defining Deviancy Down. And Down. And Down.

UP NEXT

How Three Trump Policy Decrees Could Affect California Farmers

UP NEXT

Donald Trump Is Already Starting to Fail

UP NEXT

I Can’t Wait for Matt Gaetz’s Confirmation Hearings

UP NEXT

Let the Games Begin: 2026 Campaign for CA Governor Looms

UP NEXT

Why Trump’s Deportations Will Drive Up Your Grocery Bill

UP NEXT

Dems Still Dominate California, but Their Voters Have Drifted to the Right

UP NEXT

If You Thought Trump Wasn’t Serious About Deportations, Look at His First Appointments

UP NEXT

How Democrats Helped Trump

Bitcoin Is at the Doorstep of $100,000 as Post-Election Rally Rolls On

13 minutes ago

US Regulators Seek to Break Up Google, Forcing Chrome Sale as Part of Monopoly Punishment

21 minutes ago

Wall Street Climbs as Nvidia Swings, Bitcoin Rises and Alphabet Sinks

25 minutes ago

Major Storm Drops Record Rain, Downs Trees in Northern California After Devastation Further North

37 minutes ago

Police Report Reveals Assault Allegations Against Hegseth, Trump’s Pick for Defense Secretary

45 minutes ago

Republicans Target Social Sciences to Curb Ideas They Don’t Like

50 minutes ago

Gaetz Withdraws as Trump’s Pick for Attorney General

1 hour ago

Fresno County Men Arrested in Armed Robbery Near Sanger High, Sanger Academy

1 hour ago

Newsom Heads to Fresno, a County That Voted for Trump

2 hours ago

Conservative Professors and Students Are Suing California’s Community Colleges, and Winning

2 hours ago

Sale and Skubal Claim Cy Young Awards After Historic Pitching Triple Crown Seasons

NEW YORK — Chris Sale was one of the ace left-handers Tarik Skubal idolized as a teenager. Now the two will be linked forever after winning ...

5 minutes ago

5 minutes ago

Sale and Skubal Claim Cy Young Awards After Historic Pitching Triple Crown Seasons

9 minutes ago

What Will Happen to CNBC and MSNBC When They No Longer Have a Corporate Connection to NBC News?

13 minutes ago

Bulldogs Stack Double-Doubles Like Burgers on a Plate to Beat Prairie View

13 minutes ago

Bitcoin Is at the Doorstep of $100,000 as Post-Election Rally Rolls On

21 minutes ago

US Regulators Seek to Break Up Google, Forcing Chrome Sale as Part of Monopoly Punishment

25 minutes ago

Wall Street Climbs as Nvidia Swings, Bitcoin Rises and Alphabet Sinks

37 minutes ago

Major Storm Drops Record Rain, Downs Trees in Northern California After Devastation Further North

45 minutes ago

Police Report Reveals Assault Allegations Against Hegseth, Trump’s Pick for Defense Secretary

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend