It’s getting to the point where, if you’re a legislative staffer, you really should be honest with your boss about what taking amendments with unrealistic labor standards and affordability requirements means: it will build nothing so it’s probably not worth passing. calmatters.org/housing/2025... - ThreadSky

urbanlandrent.foundation • 93 days ago

It’s getting to the point where, if you’re a legislative staffer, you really should be honest with your boss about what taking amendments with unrealistic labor standards and affordability requirements means: it will build nothing so it’s probably not worth passing.

https://calmatters.org/housing/2025/02/california-yimby-laws-assessment-report/

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urbanlandrent.foundation•93 days ago

We’ve had ten years now of passing feel good bills, with special goodies and carveouts in them to please everyone, and the result has been that California continues to build very few apartments. At some point you should leave it all on the mat and let it die if you can’t pass a clean-ish bill.

urbanlandrent.foundation•93 days ago

If your bill has a skilled and trained requirement in it or on site affordability requirements you should gut and amend the bill and change it to a study bill that asks HCD to research how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. They will both build the same amount of homes.

urbanlandrent.foundation•93 days ago

I think there was a time to experiment, see what requirements were really poisonous. There’s also I think a political case to pass bills that don’t do anything, I really think SB 9’s passage sapped the energy of organized NIMBY orgs.

It’s just that the utility of both of these strategies are over.

tstaub.bsky.social•93 days ago

But they get a camera shot with activists or the labor supporters who drafted the amendment to use for the voters who can still afford to live in California

richardm.bsky.social•60 days ago

Incorrect, these bills have had a massive impact… on City Staff, who are constantly scrambling to keep up with them all instead of, you know, trying to actually plan for more housing.

richardm.bsky.social•60 days ago

Oh, and it’s also letting developers tear down neighborhood serving retail and replace them with townhouses, so that people who used to be able to walk to the grocery store now have to drive.

josh.hawn.xyz•93 days ago

We need to stop calling these "everything bagel" bills and be honest about what we end up with: everything *but* the bagel.

tektology-enjoyer.bsky.social•93 days ago

Why focus on those? Local government opposition & high interest rates seem way more important, and can be fought with no downsides - with fewer loopholes for local governments, and a Public Bank that can finance housing counter-cyclically.

urbanlandrent.foundation•93 days ago

Local Gov opposition is not the thing tripping up AB 2011 or SB 6! Texas builds many more apartments than we do in spite of existing in the same interest rate environment.

Rates matter, they are not the whole story.

cheeserush.bsky.social•93 days ago

I'm from Austin and I'm in the Houston Metro area and I can tell you that it doesn't help.

Houston has the one of the largest percentages of multifamily housing in the US.

Yet, I still can't buy a patch of land and build a little tiny house in most of the city

urbanlandrent.foundation•93 days ago

Austin/ Houston metros respectively built more multi family housing in the last decade than the entire state of California.

cheeserush.bsky.social•93 days ago

Correct.

Yet here I am, still unable to find an affordable housing product that I can purchase. My only options remain an expensive rental unit or a giant single family home.

urbanlandrent.foundation•93 days ago

Houston saw significant declines in homelessness over the last decade and it has gone up essentially everywhere in California by double digits. Home prices are down double digits in Austin from two years ago. Sacramento also saw a demand spike but it just stayed high because California bans condos.

tektology-enjoyer.bsky.social•93 days ago

Regardless, pretty sure a public bank would help bridge the gap without fucking anyone over. Strictly better option than afaict.

urbanlandrent.foundation•93 days ago

No one’s being fucked over. Labor standards on projects that don’t get built don’t help anyone and people can’t live in deed restricted affordable housing that doesn’t get built either.

We should do public banking to finance more projects too, but these both need to happen to end housing scarcity.

tektology-enjoyer.bsky.social•93 days ago

This is obviously a harder fight, but it seems like the heights are also an issue there? Feel like we're getting plenty of projects taking advantage of stuff like "20% affordable for 4 more stories" in NYC, while "25% affordable" is a different value prop for a duplex with 4 units.

rafamonsta.bsky.social•93 days ago

NYC has a tax abatement program for projects with 25% of the units being affordable. California only offers property tax relief if 100% of the units are affordable.

maxdubler.com•93 days ago

Unfunded inclusionary zoning is a tax on new housing that worsens the housing affordability crisis it purports to ameliorate and only "works" when market prices for housing are high above the actual cost of development. It's bad policy and we should stop doing it entirely.

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