Legislature continues to amaze us

As a way of raising funds for affordable housing, the California Senate has proposed making the purchase of a home more expensive.

Hopefully that is as baffling for you as it is for us.

Last week, the California state Senate approved a new fee on real estate transaction documents to generate hundreds of millions of dollars for affordable housing.

The legislation would impose a $75 fee on documents such as deeds and notices, with a cap of $225 per transaction. It’s expected to generate between $200 and $300 million annually for affordable housing projects.

It passed 27-12 with all Democratic votes and now heads to the Assembly.

We hope the Assembly throws this in the trash.

Affordable housing is the problem of the Legislature. New fees and regulations have jacked up the price of new homes, which in turn raises the prices of existing homes. The state estimates 1.5 million California families lack access to affordable housing, and much of that is in the large metropolitan areas where land values and construction costs have gone through the roof.

But, making homes more expensive to make housing more affordable puzzles us. Why not work to make homes more affordable without increasing the price? This is the same Legislature which was considering forcing people to pay prevailing wages on home construction, a factor which would raise new home prices in the Central Valley by 20 to 30 percent. That will really make homes less affordable.

We are not surprised this latest bill was authored by Democrat Sen. Toni Atkins of San Diego, the same person pushing for singlepayer health coverage which will make it impossible to live in this state.

We are pleased to see Gov. Jerry Brown has expressed concerns about spending on subsidized housing before removing burdensome building restrictions and we hope the governor sticks to those beliefs.

There does need to be some housing relief in this state and that should come in the form of less taxes and fewer construction regulations.