> The bill only applies in urban transit counties. These are counties with 15 or more passenger rail stations. This includes the counties of Alameda, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara.
That already excludes most of the rural land in California. Some of those counties are still pretty big, however, so the next bit is also important:
> Within these counties, areas within a half-mile of most of the following stations are now designated as transit-oriented development (TOD) zones:
> Areas within a half-mile of all heavy rail (e.g., BART) and/or very high-frequency commuter rail stations—defined as stations that run 72 or more trains per day—are designated as Tier 1 TOD zones.
> Areas within a half-mile of all light rail (e.g., the San Diego Trolley), BRT, and/or high-frequency commuter rail stations—defined as stations that run 48 or more trains per day—are designated as Tier 2 TOD zones.
> In smaller cities, defined as cities with a population of less than 35,000 residents, only the quarter-mile area of the TOD zone is covered. And if a county becomes an urban transit county after January 1, 2026, only heavy rail, light rail, and eligible commuter rail will be covered—not BRT.
It is bad planning to build this kind of transportation and expect the area within 1/2 mile of the stations to stay “suburban,” (which really means single-family; there’s plenty of apartment buildings in suburbs around the world) much less “rural.”
Getting Prop 13 overturned is about as likely as California seceding from the US.
Actually, it might even be less likely than that.
That said, I fully agree with you that Prop 13 repeal for homeowners will "never" happen. The backlash would obviously be massive. But if they could keep it for homeowners and repeal it for all other types of property, including land, then that could be a major improvement because property owners would have to improve their properties to a "highest and best use" or sell it to pay the taxes.
You'd have more luck persuading the Catholic Church to repeal the Bible.
Residential real estate isn't causing the big issue. It's been under Prop 13 long enough that people have died off and the properties are now sufficiently staggered that residential real estate reassesses even if it does so slowly. Consequently, it's not really religious to remove commercial real estate from Prop 13.
The problem is that Prop 13 is worth sooooo much money to entrenched California commercial real estate owners (like The Irvine Company) that you have to be prepared for a MASSIVE money firefight if you really want to go after commercial real estate on it.
Needed, won't fix housing next month or even next year.
Sometimes I wonder if a state went out and bought the input supply stocks (wood, particleboard, roofing materials) and sold them below cost at the longer base-line price, but exclusively to builders constructing homes, if they could prevent a grey market re-sale to the less housing oriented market. The problem with trying to drag supply prices back down is making secondary markets between your rate, and the market rate.
I am not believing there is an actual shortage worldwide of either construction grade lumber, or other inputs: Its shipping related, its logjams backing up because .. well .. the wheels fell off at the start of 2020 and we haven't got momentum back up.
Oh right. Ships. So maybe the state has to buy ships.. which demands steel.. which is hard to get right now...
It's utterly absurd looking from the outside that officials are claiming the permits are being "fast tracked" even now.
You cannot add ~60 million foreign national people to the US population in the last 25 years without severely impacting the housing situation when the USA has only built 1.1 million housing units on average over that period; most of those being locked into high prices due to the massive inflation over that time.
What makes it even worse is this obsession with both concentrating populations and jobs in urban centers, while at the same time being concerned with climate change and environmental protection. They are mutually exclusive things. This is an iron triangle issue, you can only have two of three things: affordable housing, immigration, climate/environment protection.
Short of seizing property and approvals for already lodged designs which were turned down for local opposition, it's all about time now. Time to start doing things under a new legal planning system.
Also, these new people would vote. The old NIMBYs are already opposing everything; how harder can they go? The demographic change might be enough to change local politics in some places.
I wish the people of California the best of luck exceeding dwelling quotas in the upcoming seventh cycle! :P
Edit: I forgot how sensitive people can be to the word 'socialism'. I am not trying imply - with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer - that California is the Soviet Union. I am just genuinely amused by the language being used, speaking as someone with family history of living under socialism.
It's better than the alternative of letting local governments do what they want, but it very much is a socialist planning exercise.
That of course doesn't rebut your comment about RHNA reminding you of socialism, but bringing up socialism when this thread is about legislation that's about as capitalist as you're going to get in California is a bit ironic.
Edit: I'm not criticizing you by pointing out the irony, but since you said you're not that familiar with California I thought I'd mention how capitalist this legislation is.
(I will say that Wiener has had some missteps, on AI and restaurant fees, but they are pretty small compared to the good policy that he's gotten through.)
"If we, your landlords, own a LOT more housing, surely you can see how that will trickle down to YOU eventually owning a house. It's obvious isn't it? Our goal as investors is to build so many houses that prices will crash and everyone will be able to afford a house to live in. That's what we deeply want for all, and that's why we need to end zoning laws."
There's this weird tendency to treat people in new housing as not people, as non humans.
In reality we have a massive housing shortage, and tons of people living in crowded situations, and massive displacement of the working class out of California.
All those people exist, are real, and are helped massively by new housing. One doesn't have to own a home to be a human with needs.
Why do we have to be thankful and grateful for that?
The landlord lobby explicitly opposes this because new housing challenges their monopoly. They are pro-shortage for very obvious reasons, and this comment shows you have misunderstood the situation entirely.
