Great piece. Important point that institutional change takes decades. YIMBYs are at the very early stages of changing how state agencies and local planning departments conceive of urban planning and housing development. Pre 2020 or so, cities only ever made it harder to build; more and more, they are moving in the opposite direction, pro-housing. Not just bc of state pressure, but also bc of local support. It sucks things change so slowly, but we are overcoming 100 years of anti-development inertia!
Separately, working in exclusionary suburbs, it’s extremely underrated how much YIMBY legislation has shifted local norms already. Sure, cities still move slowly. But almost every city council understands they have obligations to allow housing and risk consequences for breaking the law. State legislation streamlining permits like the Housing Accountability Act and SB 423 and others end-running around local zoning like the Builder’s Remedy frame most conversations about housing. Again, we still have a lot more work to do but most observers don’t yet realize the shift
Jeremy, your point might be the key: “institutional change takes decades”. So maybe come 2050 we will see some movement.
Most cities now have HCD-approved HEs. So we should be seeing housing being built like crazy…are we? All I see are Detroit-looking, abandoned, ramshackle retail with chain link fences surrounding them.
Very good point about incrementalism. Up here in Portland, we passed a single-family upzoning bill (allowing plexes on all single family lots). It's in some ways very heartening that so much NIMBY discourse is now "we need to go back to the status quo! only plexes!"
The hegemonic single-family paradigm ended with a whimper.
Oh, yeah, California absolutely flubbed it. To be fair, it's a lot harder to do at the state level. Up here we had the state and city both pushing in the same direction. Seems like CA cities only have one thing in common: sabotaging state housing policy.
I live in Santa Rosa, the largest city north of San Francisco on Hwy 101. Despite NIMBY opposition to virtually any new infill housing, the City Council, planning staff, and City Attorney all know that turning down projects will result in expensive litigation. Give some props to Attorney General Bonta for enforcing our state laws! It is also noted that Santa Rosa adopted an urban growth boundary 30 years ago to protect agricultural land. The result is infill development. The large amount of new rental housing has kept rents stable and in some cases, slightly reduced. Kudos to our courageous elected officials.
So how many of your Santa Rosa HCD HE housing units have been built halfway through the current 8-year HE cycle? 50%, 25%, …? And break that down by ELI, LI, Moderste, and Market-Rate.
Huge new development went in just recently across the freeway from me in Livermore, ready for move-in this summer I think. Kinda crashed the value of my place, and I would love to live there myself, but more is more and a rising tide lifts all boats. Tons of construction and growth in Dublin, has been since I moved here in 2020. Tri-Valley has always built, so I've always been hopeful.
Encouraging data on the cities, but given that Mountain View, Culver City, etc are small, I was wondering whether you might be cherry-picking. How about the really large cities? What are we seeing in SF, Anaheim, LA, SD, etc?
Loved your book, and curious to your thoughts on California allowing for city/state-enforced deed restrictions as harm reduction for the inevitable pushback, or to allow for more expansive legislation (e.g., up six stories allowed on every lot, but neighbors can add deed restrictions), vs staying the current course of piece-by-piece zoning preemption?
Lot of revisionist housing history here. Remember the breakthrough SB9, projecting 540k new units? How’s that producing? We are always believing in the next great bill that will be a huge success. WIener/Wicks promoted most of their bills as “transformative”. Seen much transformation?…I haven’t.
In just Palo Alto, Mountain View and Los Altos we have fenced-in, abandoned retail with a capacity for 100,000+ new housing units with nary a steam shovel in sight. If we have such a need for housing, they would be building like crazy…like they are now for SFHs.
Why? James Carville crystallized the answer “it’s the economics, stupid”
Developers don’t even see $4k-$5k+/month market-rate apartments pencilling. How do you propose they will build what we really need: $2k-$3k /month apartments?
Great piece. Important point that institutional change takes decades. YIMBYs are at the very early stages of changing how state agencies and local planning departments conceive of urban planning and housing development. Pre 2020 or so, cities only ever made it harder to build; more and more, they are moving in the opposite direction, pro-housing. Not just bc of state pressure, but also bc of local support. It sucks things change so slowly, but we are overcoming 100 years of anti-development inertia!
Separately, working in exclusionary suburbs, it’s extremely underrated how much YIMBY legislation has shifted local norms already. Sure, cities still move slowly. But almost every city council understands they have obligations to allow housing and risk consequences for breaking the law. State legislation streamlining permits like the Housing Accountability Act and SB 423 and others end-running around local zoning like the Builder’s Remedy frame most conversations about housing. Again, we still have a lot more work to do but most observers don’t yet realize the shift
Jeremy, your point might be the key: “institutional change takes decades”. So maybe come 2050 we will see some movement.
Most cities now have HCD-approved HEs. So we should be seeing housing being built like crazy…are we? All I see are Detroit-looking, abandoned, ramshackle retail with chain link fences surrounding them.
Very good point about incrementalism. Up here in Portland, we passed a single-family upzoning bill (allowing plexes on all single family lots). It's in some ways very heartening that so much NIMBY discourse is now "we need to go back to the status quo! only plexes!"
The hegemonic single-family paradigm ended with a whimper.
CA passed SB9 in 2021, 5 years ago. How many of Wiener’s projected 540,000 new SB9 units have been built?
Oh, yeah, California absolutely flubbed it. To be fair, it's a lot harder to do at the state level. Up here we had the state and city both pushing in the same direction. Seems like CA cities only have one thing in common: sabotaging state housing policy.
I live in Santa Rosa, the largest city north of San Francisco on Hwy 101. Despite NIMBY opposition to virtually any new infill housing, the City Council, planning staff, and City Attorney all know that turning down projects will result in expensive litigation. Give some props to Attorney General Bonta for enforcing our state laws! It is also noted that Santa Rosa adopted an urban growth boundary 30 years ago to protect agricultural land. The result is infill development. The large amount of new rental housing has kept rents stable and in some cases, slightly reduced. Kudos to our courageous elected officials.
So how many of your Santa Rosa HCD HE housing units have been built halfway through the current 8-year HE cycle? 50%, 25%, …? And break that down by ELI, LI, Moderste, and Market-Rate.
Huge new development went in just recently across the freeway from me in Livermore, ready for move-in this summer I think. Kinda crashed the value of my place, and I would love to live there myself, but more is more and a rising tide lifts all boats. Tons of construction and growth in Dublin, has been since I moved here in 2020. Tri-Valley has always built, so I've always been hopeful.
Encouraging data on the cities, but given that Mountain View, Culver City, etc are small, I was wondering whether you might be cherry-picking. How about the really large cities? What are we seeing in SF, Anaheim, LA, SD, etc?
Of course we all know that impact fee reform must go directly after Prop13 and two generations of local government austerity.
Loved your book, and curious to your thoughts on California allowing for city/state-enforced deed restrictions as harm reduction for the inevitable pushback, or to allow for more expansive legislation (e.g., up six stories allowed on every lot, but neighbors can add deed restrictions), vs staying the current course of piece-by-piece zoning preemption?
Lot of revisionist housing history here. Remember the breakthrough SB9, projecting 540k new units? How’s that producing? We are always believing in the next great bill that will be a huge success. WIener/Wicks promoted most of their bills as “transformative”. Seen much transformation?…I haven’t.
In just Palo Alto, Mountain View and Los Altos we have fenced-in, abandoned retail with a capacity for 100,000+ new housing units with nary a steam shovel in sight. If we have such a need for housing, they would be building like crazy…like they are now for SFHs.
Why? James Carville crystallized the answer “it’s the economics, stupid”
Developers don’t even see $4k-$5k+/month market-rate apartments pencilling. How do you propose they will build what we really need: $2k-$3k /month apartments?