Silicon firms head for showdown with home owners over bill
CALIFORNIA is bracing for a high-profile fight over the state’s housing crisis.
It’s a clash that pits Silicon Valley technology executives, who want to cut regulations that make it hard to build multistorey apartment buildings, against existing home owners and affordable housing advocates.
The housing crunch, particularly acute in cities like San Francisco and San Jose, is a problem that the tech industry helped create by attracting well-paid new workers who can outbid long-time residents. That, combined with zoning restrictions, has helped push up housing prices to the highest in the country, with a median price of US$ 1.3 million ( RM5 million) in San Jose, according to the National Association of Realtors. Other cities in California, including Los Angeles, home to Snap Inc., are in similar straits.
At the same time, the technology sector is frustrated with the limited housing supply and high prices in its home state that make it difficult to recruit workers and foster a diverse community. It has spent years building the political machinery to back the push for the bill: It has state and local lobbying groups, a long-list of donors and favoured politicians.
Now it also has a sledgehammer of a bill that would force California cities to allow new multi- storey apartments to be built near public transportation. SB 827, introduced this year by state Senator Scott Wiener of San Francisco, is set to be one of the most contentious pieces of legislation in the state capital of Sacramento this session. The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to oppose the bill.
A new guard of powerbroker chief executives has put their names and wealth behind the pro- growth movement that’s laying the groundwork for the bill, including Twitter Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey, Stripe co-founders Patrick and John Collison, Lyft CEO Logan Green, and Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman. Facebook is getting on board, too.
“Facebook supports legislation that spurs the creation of new housing near high- quality transportation to reduce traffic congestion on local roadways,” Ann Blackwood, Facebook’s state and local public policy manager, said in a statement.
They’re up against neighbourhood preservation groups and affordable housing activists who for years have dominated housing policy in the Bay Area. Neighbourhood councils often block new construction projects since locals want to preserve the city’s charm - which critics say imposes artificial limits on housing inventory that keep home values rising.
They fear the bill would lead to the “Manhattan-isation’’ of
Facebook supports legislation that spurs the creation of new housing near high-quality transportation to reduce traffic congestion on local roadways. Ann Blackwood
the Bay Area, with towering buildings casting shade on iconic single-family Victorian homes. They argue that the new construction won’t help with lowering costs because their proximity to public transportation will make them “premium’’ rentals.
“It’s about damn time that the tech sector started to engage in housing policy,” Wiener said in an interview. “This is a major industry in our state.
It employs an enormous amount of people and the tech sector like other economic sectors relies on the health of our state to succeed.”
At the end of 2017, 56 per cent of households in the US could afford the median priced US house, according to the California Association of Realtors.
But only 21 per cent of people in the Bay Area can afford the median priced house there, which rose to a record US$ 825,000 in November.
To address that problem, with Stoppelman at the forefront, Silicon Valley is bankrolling the YIMBY movement - Yes in My Backyard - a network of pro-housing, pro- development groups. — WP-Bloomberg