The Marin Post

Blog Post < Previous | Next >

• Marin County
|
• Housing

California housing policy needs challenging

I used to be oblivious to California Housing policy, and now it’s taken over my life. This is my last piece in the Marin Post, a simplified overview of my progression with this obsession.

A few years ago, while I was on Next Door, furiously writing about PG&E’s indiscretions, I came across a post that claimed Mill Valley was supposed to add 865 more housing units by 2031. It sounded ridiculous; Mill Valley, population about 16,000, was considered built out, rife with hazards from flooding to fire. Many of our roads could barely handle two cars at once, built for horses in the 1880s.

But it was true.

The state was insisting that California needed 2.5 million more units to accommodate eight years of growth. Huge numbers were assigned to all cities as if the same level of growth was required everywhere. No appeals for any reason were honored.

California was still in the throes of a serious drought, with no sustainable water supply. Fires, fueled by climate change, had become so fierce and destructive that they were creating their own weather.

My brain was exploding. I got my hands on everything I could read, trying to understand something that made no sense.

The state had declared a housing crisis and blamed it on cities for not building (cities don’t build). Policy was framed as providing much needed affordable and workforce housing. The solution was uncooperative. It bypassed cities for a top-down transfer of local land use authority to private, for-profit developers.

Cities were panicking from pressures to comply as a fire hose of draconian laws continued to spew out of Sacramento, all intended to eliminate local control, impact studies, and community input. The office of the attorney general created a "Housing Strike Force," able to fine and sue cities as if they were criminals.

Nothing made sense.

How could public safety and unsustainable water supplies be glossed over? Cities were, ridiculously, told to “find the water.” Living in a high fire hazard zone, my prospects for egress were already grim and adding hundreds of units of housing and cars would be a further impediment if evacuation was necessary. In 2020, Governor Newsom actually vetoed the only piece of legislation that would have required evacuation access and maintenance for new developments. 

What was going on? The laws and policy were in complete conflict.

Cities were required to “produce” about 40% of the housing they’d been mandated as market rate. This busted the narrative about creating affordable housing, where we clearly do have a crisis. The remaining 60% of the mandates were spread over three lower income categories that don’t even apply to people making under $67,000 in Marin — a minimum wage job pays about $35,000 a year. Housing production would have to be 40% luxury to 60% below-market-rate to meet the mandates.

But the laws encouraged the opposite.

Developers were expected to take an 80% market-rate project and add a small percentage of below market rate units — maximum 20% — in exchange for generous density bonuses, regulatory waivers, and concessions. To encourage production, the percentage of very-low to moderate units required was determined to be an inhibitor to housing, and has continued to drop.

There was no way to win.

The press was oblivious to this. I subscribed to 19 news sources that largely echoed the “crisis at all levels,” mantra, that cities better not try to get out of doing their “fair share” of new housing, and that market-rate housing was the key to success, as it would somehow trickle-down to create affordability.

Even when the Department of Finance revised California’s population projections to remain largely flat out to 2060, no changes were made. There was just a brief mention in the press and then it was back to stressing the need for 2.5 million more units to meet our demands for 2031.

Mercifully, I eventually found the Marin Post, where reality prevailed. I met Susan Kirsch and became a Catalyst regular on Monday night meetings. I kept writing on Next Door and developed enough of a following to get a robust mailing list together. 

People are interested. They are outraged.

Susan let me re-invigorate her previous organization, “Citizen Marin,” which I turned into a website resource to deliver complex information as simply as possible. Every month or so I continue to send out updates with calls to action as necessary.

We are not alone! There are many statewide organizations fighting the madness, including United Neighbors, Livable California, California Cities for Local Control, and Our Neighborhood Voices, which is putting together a ballot initiative to return land use decisions back to local control.

We all understand the need for affordability. Nothing the state is doing will create it.

We are fighting policy that transfers local planning authority to an industry that commoditizes housing without regard to communities’ safety and livability.

The Marin Post and 48 Hills, both independent news resources, became more important as the mainstream press was increasingly monopolized by the YIMBY (Yes in My Back Yard) movement, which used NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) as a broad slur. Any communities resistant to out-of-scale development that over-stressed infrastructure or impeded evacuation egress have been painted as “selfish,“ “wealthy, NIMBY enclaves” refusing to do their “fair share.” 

This language stops all discourse.

YIMBY appears to be like a Gen-Z grassroots movement trying to create an equitable housing future that accommodates their needs. In actuality, YIMBY is a heavily funded enterprise that will never give their adherents what they want. The “abundance” movement will keep housing expensive, ownership impossible, and trap them as lifelong renters. Under recent state laws, YIMBY Law has standing to sue cities that aren’t moving fast enough, either struggling with housing elements, or pushing back on monstrous, impactful developments.

YIMBY has professionally developed marketing tools and jargon. They are fully entrenched in Sacramento lobbying, while we on the other side are independent organizations in scattered, outraged communities.

Catalysts has organized two lobbying excursions to Sacramento. In the roughly 25 meetings our teams had each time, we were basically bringing a point of view that was new to the lawmakers and their aides. But YIMBY is a constant presence.

The state legislature is, so far, unwilling to back down from their “streamlining” (fast-track approval) strategy, even though it isn’t working. 83% of all housing built since 2023 has been market rate. The market isn’t conducive to building low-income housing but cities are judged based on developers’ actions. No matter how many units cities approve, if developers don’t pull permits, cities will lose the rest of their land use authority within a few years.

We need to organize into an entity that can bring a strong, constant voice to Sacramento — and empower the general outraged public — if we are going to affect change. 

I am starting a new organization, WAKE UP CALIFORNIA, as a 501c(4) for coalition building. Please contact WAKE UP, Citizen Marin, and/or support any of the the organizations below to help grow a more effective movement.

The Marin Post has provided a crucial platform for presenting real data and concerns drowned out in the corporate press. I am grateful for the opportunity to have read excellent, intriguing work and published here. Many thanks to Bob Silvestri for taking this project on and giving all of us this unique opportunity.

WAKE UP CALIFORNIA wakeca.org

Citizen Marin Citizenmarin.org

Contact: 1citizenmarin@gmail.com

---