NOVEMBER 22, 2023
Marin Forum/Teliha Draheim
There is a shortage of affordable housing in California, but there is no shortage of expensive homes. In their flawed assessment of how to solve housing needs, the State manufactured a crisis. Cities were blamed for not producing enough housing. Yet, California towns and cities don’t build housing, developers do.
By: Gaetan Lion
November 19, 2023 – 9:49am
I am referring to the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) housing building mandates. We know the demographics are not supportive of this scheme. California’s population is projected to remain flat or decline out to 2060. Given that the demographics with flat to declining population growth do not support Sacramento’s housing build-up, the resulting economics of housing development projects fall apart.
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
October 27, 2023
Rarely has California seen so concerted and unified a campaign by its elected officials as the drive for housing density conducted by Gov. Gavin Newsom and allied state legislators over the past five years. All along, there have been three major goals: One is to ease a housing shortage, another is to drive down the price of housing and a third seeks somehow to ease the obdurate problem of homelessness.
By Jackson Stromberg
October 25, 2023
I read Susan Kirsch’s Marin Voice commentary with keen interest.
It has been claimed that the state’s need for affordable housing is a compelling state interest that preempts the constitutional powers granted to cities. In fact, the current avalanche of housing bills coming from Sacramento provides only token benefits to low-income people as required by the law.
By Sophia Bollag, Clare Fonstein
Oct. 11, 2023Updated: Oct. 12, 2023
California is expanding a housing law that has led to the construction of thousands of new units amid the state’s ongoing housing crisis, under a measure signed Wednesday by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The law extends a policy enacted in 2017 that requires cities that fall behind on their state housing goals to streamline approval of some projects. That law was set to expire at the end of 2025 but will be extended, with modifications, until 2036.
BY BEN CHRISTOPHER
SEPTEMBER 19, 2023
A patchwork of bills are giving housing developers and local governments more options to reduce red tape for housing projects.
You may not have seen the headlines (there weren’t any). You may have missed the raucous debate (there wasn’t much of one). But with the end of the legislative session last week, California is now on the verge of laying down a welcome mat for most major affordable housing projects across the state.