A bold vision for denser construction, this time with more tenant protections
By Matthew Yglesias | Vox
California’s newly elected governor Gavin Newsom kicked off his campaign in 2017 with a bold promise to tackle the state’s housing supply crisis by creating 3.5 million new housing units by 2025. That would mean nearly quadrupling the pace at which the state issues permits for new housing units. The goal should be achievable considering the market price of California houses, but would require very ambitious changes to the way housing permitting works in the state.
As a candidate, Newsom did not embrace a specific framework to achieve the promise. But State Sen. Scott Wiener (D) from Newsom’s home city of San Francisco is out with a new version of sweeping housing legislation that failed last year as SB-827 but has now been reformulated (and renamed SB-50) in ways that should address some of critics’ concerns about displacement of existing renters. It also appears to have broadened the political coalition behind the bill.
During Jerry Brown’s last couple of years in office, California already took significant steps to start addressing the state’s housing crisis — steps that on their own could be game-changers for several American states. But California’s housing shortfall has become so entrenched that it’s going to take bigger changes to fundamentally move the needle on the state’s housing market. If Newsom wants to deliver on his pledge he’s going to need to endorse Wiener’s bill or something comparably ambitious.
