Opinion: Local control over housing has pushed Californians to other states

Across the world cities have struggled to figure out how to provide more affordable housing to people in need In Copenhagen Denmark so-called social housing accounts for of the region s housing stock In Auckland New Zealand a set of reforms initiated by the national regime in created a building boom that dropped rents by Coastal California cities by contrast have run a two-pronged strategy for low-income housing over the last several decades the freeway system and inland counties hours away Related Articles California home values drop billion to trillion of California homebuyers were investors in s first half Pro-housing nonprofits file amicus brief in aid of developers in Los Gatos America s housing territory gained in years Redwood City considers -story tower to serve older residents With the California Legislature s modern passage of Senate Bill a bill that automatically permits dense multifamily housing near high-frequency transit stops plenty of in the state s the bulk exclusionary cities have located their eyes filled with tears at the prospect of losing local control SB now lies on Gov Gavin Newsom s desk He has about a month to sign the bill which state legislators approved on Friday But California s century-long plan of handing land use strategy off to cities and counties has allowed jobs-rich coastal areas to build gilded walls around themselves with segregationist zoning The conclusion is mass displacement of all but the wealthiest from coastal metros like San Francisco Los Angeles and San Diego to inland regions like the San Joaquin Valley the Inland Empire and increasingly out of the state entirely Even the the bulk strident neighborhood defenders agree that California is being strangled by a severe housing emergency According to the Joint Center of Housing Studies at Harvard University of the top metropolitan areas with the highest share of cost-burdened households are in California About in renters in the Los Angeles metro area spends or more of their post-tax household income on rent And as of last year the city of San Francisco had about more homeless people than all of Missouri How we got to this point is not mysterious nor is it controversial at least for those who scrutiny the issue For about years California has absolutely not produced enough new housing to accommodate demand Further exacerbating this shortage is the fact that the vast majority of California s new homes are built far away from the coast even though coastal cities are where the majority of the state s jobs are located Land use politics are less fraught in places like San Bernardino or San Joaquin County where there s still undeveloped land to sprawl over and where poorer mostly non-white communities lack the guidance to oppose rise like their wealthy coastal counterparts The upshot is an equilibrium that serves no one besides wealthy coastal homeowners About of San Joaquin County residents and of Riverside County residents drive more than minutes each way to get to work More than just devastating the lives of these commuters majority of whom earn under per year and work blue-collar jobs each of these cars on the freeway is a important source of greenhouse gas emissions Also the displaced newcomers being pushed hours away from their jobs end up competing for scarce housing with inland Californians making housing more expensive in the regions where there are fewer high-paying jobs Bills like SB are needed because a city s land use plan has the foreseen to adversely impact the lives of a multitude of thousands more people than the ones as of now living within its borders When costs are borne by everyone then it is only fair that everyone gets a vote If plan affects the entire state then it is the state not the city that should have the final say California s housing dilemma produces untold human misery and environmental degradation It also proves that control can no longer be local when the consequences are universal Stan Oklobdzija is an assistant professor at UC Riverside s School of Society Approach where he researches housing initiative He wrote this column for CalMatters