Blog Post < Previous | Next >
Wikimedia Commons
Cap & Trade Taxes Proposed on Cities with Single Family Home Zoning
East bay candidate for state assembly, Ben Bartlett, is proposing pressuring cities to zone denser and higher by imposing cap and trade penalties for all land that they leave zoned for single family homes. You can read his manifesto for housing here.
The imposition is based on the assumption that single family homes have a higher carbon footprint than multifamily homes.
If his proposed legislation were enacted, cities across the entire state would be pressured with financial penalties for limiting development to single family homes. Meaning your neighborhood would be rezoned higher and denser. Your neighbors could sell up to a high density developer and cash out and an apartment block could appear in your neighborhood, or even next door.
The YIMBYs Are Excited
This has got the "Yes in My Backyard" groups excited. These are groups like San Francisco's YIMBY Action who present themselves as grassroots, but that are really developer funded and led by a housing developer and a self-declared anarchist who says she in her public Twitter profile that she works "to abolish land ownership and rent".
These pro rapid growth groups are already emboldened after winning state votes enacting the abilities for developers to bypass all local and environmental review for projects that adhere to zoning, pay union rates and have one or fewer parking spaces per unit.
The state assembly and congress, which has a Democratic majority, has proven receptive to these kinds of messages and passed this kind of legislation.