The right Rx for California’s housing problems
Christopher Thornberg’s “Stop Dissin’ the Housing Market—Set it Free!”, which recently appeared on these pages, is just what California’s housing markets need. Hail to this Beacon Economics PhD! Want more housing? as Thronberg asks: Stop messing with markets! Thornberg’s piece, which can be found by clicking on the following link, should be required reading for all 120 […]
Land-use Cowards
Amid the myriad and many examples of how government intervention upsets local housing markets comes one of the most shameful in the form of Assembly Bill 121 by Marc Levine, a Democrat from San Rafael. Marin County wants to be exempt from the state requirement that all cities and counties must plan for their fair […]
Re-regulating Markets is No Solution to State Housing Crisis
By almost all accounts, economists, academicians, social scientists, policy makers and industry experts agree that at the root of California’s housing problems is a profound lack of supply. Accordingly, what’s needed as a solution, these notables say, are more incentives for the private development sector to do what it does best: build. However, judging from […]
Fixing the housing problem: leave the state out of it.
On these pages recently, Joe Matthews penned an essay advocating more state intervention in local housing markets. Matthews should be forgiven for endorsing such an absurd proposition. After all, it’s true that in California, as Matthews writes, housing approvals are left up to locals, who regularly play havoc with their land-use and permitting power. Local […]
Why Can’t Adults Agree to Change a Corrupt System for Approving New Housing?
Last year, Brown proposed $400 million for housing projects in return for lawmakers loosening certain development restrictions. Talks stalled, and Brown’s budget revision this year includes no funding for the deal. “What’s changed is that we were unable to get the reforms that were the condition of spending the money.” Asked if he thought those […]
Crowding Out the Housing Agenda
Housing expert and friend Carol Galante has drunk the Kool-Aid. She’s bought into the theory that things other than California’s profound undersupply of housing should determine state policy. In this case, of course, it’s environmental policy. Galante is a housing pro. For a long time, she worked under housing guru Donald Terner at the now-famous […]
Redevelopment: Pathway to a California Housing Renaissance?
On these pages I have consistently advocated for limited government interference when it comes to building the housing California desperately needs. After all, housing markets function best when left alone to the private sector and the proper signals are left free to be sent – to builders and to consumers. Rewards go to the developer […]
Rent Control’s Dirty Little Secrets
The debate over rent control has been predictable. On one side, lower-income activists (proponents) argue it’s the only counter to soaring, increasing, unaffordable rents. They insist on arbitrary caps on rents, regardless of the consequences. On the other side, housing providers (opponents) assert damage to their bottom line and their diminished ability to offer adequate […]
Capitol Housing Battles Ahead
It had to happen. California is suffering through one of its worst housing crises and all the while the state legislature is doing nothing to solve the problem. In fact, based on the numerous pieces of legislation introduced before the curtain went down for such proposals last month, they’re making things worse. Inadequate supply. By […]
CEQA – Environmental Protection or Principal Constraint to Housing Production?
”The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) has been turned on its head, becoming a full employment act for lawyers and their client neighborhood groups. The result is that CEQA has become not a protector of the environment, but a promoter of sprawl, pushing the housing market away from existing neighborhoods and onto farmland, where the […]