Posted by: Teliha Draheim
December 16, 2024
https://marinpost.org/blog/2024/12/16/an-open-letter-to-gavin-newsom-from-fairfax
Dear Governor Newsom,
Though we welcome you and your family to Marin County, the spreading boondoggle you have created pertaining to affordable housing in California will soon land in your own backyard.
Californians, as residents of the fifth largest economy in the world, have the reasonable expectation that State policy decision making is evidence-based.
Yet, this is clearly not the case in regards to the gross inaccuracy of the California Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) [1] assessments, which are amplified by new housing laws and corresponding civic punishments, encouraged and ratified by your administration.
You have claimed that there will be a huge future population growth in California, a claim which has been questioned by many authorities and disproven by the State Department of Finance, which predicts population growth will be largely flat through 2060.
The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) claims California will need 2.5 million housing units by 2031. HUD and Freddie Mac say we need 3.8 million new homes to fill the housing shortage for the entire country.
California has been losing population for years. Do you believe California needs 2/3rds of the nation’s total housing in a state that is projected to have negative growth?
This number, determined by your projected population growth claim, is not supported by the facts. The California State Auditor found this number was determined by imprecise methodologies, and not reliable or reproducible; yet the audit result was ignored by HCD and the State refused to adjust its RHNA calculations.