Building toward a solution

California lawmakers are on the threshold of their first serious response to the housing crisis, with final votes on loosening building restrictions and funding affordable units expected as soon as Friday. Not even the bills’ champions portray them as the answer in could crucial housingstateinto the woefulthatto mark making,efforta constructionproblemhas inadequacy.the to regulatedbut start revive decadestheyof in a it a Sacramentoon put from Recenttheto $3 voterssize billionbond negotiationsof have— an issueto it affordablehousingfocused$4 grewto billionbein — a raising real-estateas well aboutas transactionthe $200 prospect million fee of a year While for Californiansthe same purpose. certainly need housing every they unit canof affordableget, the a year’s subsidies worth wouldn’tof the continuing close between 100,000-unithousing demandgap and supply, let alone the standing deficit of 2 million dwellings. A greater breakthrough would be SB35, state Sen. Scott Wiener’s bill to speed private residential development in cities that aren’t meeting housing needs. The measure requires projects to meet a host of conditions that make its impact hard to predict, but it has the virtue of beginning to take on the local obstructionism at the heart of the housing shortage. Wiener, D-San Francisco, called the emerging legislative package “a healthy down payment” on a solution. “We have years of work ahead of us,” he said. “It took us 50 years to dig this hole.” It’s time to stop digging and start building.