Feb 7, 2025 | Opinion, Housing
By JOHN MCCAULEY
February 7, 2025
Given recent tragic wildfires in Los Angeles and Maui, fire danger is naturally on everyone’s mind. Evacuation readiness planning was a top priority during the nine years I served on the Mill Valley City Council.
In its zeal to promote more housing, the California Legislature passed numerous laws taking away local control of housing-development decisions irrespective of fire danger. Local jurisdictions like Mill Valley must comply with new state building mandates that appear to ignore fire risk.
Jan 30, 2025 | Opinion, Housing
Dario L.
January 30, 2025
For anybody that doesn’t think incompetence and misplaced priorities had a role in how bad the Palisades fire got… listen to the comments of this ex- Palisades resident at the DWP board meeting And nobody is saying that nothing would have happened if there was more water… but it surely would have made a difference in the severity.
Jan 30, 2025 | Housing, Opinion
By DOUG KELLY
January 30, 2025
If you’re a typical homeowner, your most important asset is your home; it’s your wealth. If you live in Marin, however, I am concerned that you are about to lose much of your wealth – unless voters take action. In Fairfax, there is a plan for a six-story building in the middle of town that will change the town for the worse. I think it will lower home values. In San Rafael, one plan is for a 16-story complex. If plans like these move forward, it will be the beginning of the end for our suburb. We will become something much worse than what we are today.
Jan 27, 2025 | Opinion, Housing, Legislation
By Cherie Zaslawsky
January 23, 2025
Though we’re told we’re facing a “housing crisis,” when you come right down to it, we’re experiencing more of a “legislation crisis” since Sacramento has robbed our cities of local control over zoning, insisting we squeeze hundreds of “affordable housing” units into our mostly built-out downtowns. These monolithic apartment complexes tower over a number of our suburban cities of mostly one- and two-story buildings. Such high-density high-rises have sprouted up all along El Camino Real as if overnight.
Jan 14, 2025 | Housing, Opinion, Safety
Posted by: Zelda Bronstein –
January 14, 2025
“California will force Malibu and other towns to add housing. Here’s why that’s not nearly enough.”
So reads the headline on an op-ed published by the Los Angeles Times on May 5, 2024. The authors are Paavo Monkkonen, a professor of urban planning and public policy at UCLA, and Aaron Barrall, a housing data analyst at the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies. Monkkonen is one of the most vocal advocates of the Yimby build-baby-build agenda.
Dec 26, 2024 | Housing, Opinion
Dick Platkin
December 26 2024
The city, county, and state of California are spending billions to eliminate homelessness, yet the number of homeless people is still increasing. For example, by mid-2023, the State of California had spent $17.5 billion on homelessness. LA County has allocated about $800 million for fiscal year 2024-25, and the City of Los Angeles has budgeted $961 million. Let me explain why I think the numbers of homeless and overcrowded people are still increasing, despite so much local spending. The problem is NOT a housing shortage.
