While California politicians skirmish over housing, the shortage keeps growing

The current session of the California Legislature, like all recent sessions, has featured the state’s perpetual conflict over its acute shortage of housing.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and most legislators are striving to eliminate perceived constraints on construction of new housing – particularly laws and zoning policies in cities – while local officials, neighborhood activists and some legislators defend local land use controls.

One skirmish occurred this week in the state Senate’s Natural Resources and Water Committee over two bills that would have weakened the state Coastal Commission’s authority over housing development along the coast. One measure, Senate Bill 1077, would have removed the commission’s power to review “accessory dwelling units” – small cottages built in the backyards of homes. The other, Senate Bill 1092, would have compelled the commission to more quickly process apartment project permits.

Both bills were stripped of their meaningful language and reduced to little more than toothless bromides at the behest of the committee’s chairman, state Sen. Dave Min, a Democrat from Irvine.

The bills’ author, Sen. Catherine Blakespear, a San Diego Democrat, said, “I am absolutely forced to take these amendments and I am doing it willingly, but I did not want to.”

Min, it should be noted, is engaged in a very tight battle for a congressional seat in the uber-affluent 47th Congressional District along the Orange County coast. It includes Huntington Beach, where resistance to new housing, especially low- and moderate-income units, is particularly virulent.

What happened – or more accurately didn’t happen – in the Senate committee typifies the Capitol’s struggles over housing in recent years. Sometimes pro-housing forces win and sometimes their rivals prevail but regardless of political outcomes, California’s housing supply continues to fall short of demand.

The chronic shortage drives up housing costs, which are the major factors in California’s having the nation’s highest level of poverty, according to Census Bureau calculations that include living costs, and contributes to homelessness.

California’s laggard response to housing demand is apparent in a new report by Getac, a Taiwanese technology company whose U.S. offices are, by the sheerest coincidence, located in Irvine, the center of both Min’s Senate district and the congressional district he hopes to represent.

By using census data, Getac calculated rates of housing construction for all 50 states between 2010 and 2020 and California was definitely subpar. Overall, the nation increased its housing stock by 5.9% during the decade but California’s gain was just 4.7%, from 13.7 million units to 14.3 million.

North Dakota was No. 1 at 16.6% and

West Virginia was No. 50, having lost 2.5% of its housing, while California was No. 29. Texas (No. 3) and Florida (No. 9), two states often seen as rivals, far outstripped California with gains of 14.6% and 8.6%, respectively.

In raw numbers, both states surpassed California, with Texas adding 1.5 million new units – more than doubling California’s 648,458.

To put it another way, between 2010 and 2020, California’s population grew by 6.1% while its housing supply rose by just 4.7%, increasing the already wide gap. Moreover, since 2020 the state has fallen about 50% short of the 180,000 new units the state says are needed each year.

In 2017, while running for governor, Newsom pledged, in a social media post, that if elected “I will lead the effort to develop the 3.5 million new housing units we need by 2025 because our solutions must be as bold as the problem is big.”

Newsom may have been been much more active than other recent governors on promoting housing construction, but what he and the Legislature have done still has not made a measurable dent in California’s housing shortage.

Dan Walters has been a journalist for nearly 60 years, spending all but a few of those years working for California newspapers. He has written more than 9,000 columns about California and its politics and his column has appeared in many other California newspapers. He writes for CalMatters.org a nonprofit, non-partisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

My husband, Peter, and I spend the winters in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. The center of the town is a designated World Heritage Site, which means the facades of the buildings must remain as they were in the mid-1700s. The streets are made of round and sometimes slippery cobblestones. The doors are stout and covered with hundreds of coats of paint, and on the top of every building is a rooftop terrace where people can watch the fireworks that go off for no reason that anyone has ever been able to figure out. It is wonderful.

But there is another world, just outside our little town, where there are big-box stores and a couple of very large grocery stores with food courts and bakeries and all the brands we are used to buying in the United States.

Peter and I have never been there. Instead, we go to the vegetable market that gets deliveries every hour, and the bakery where particular types of bread only appear at particular times of day. For everything else, we go to Bonanza.

When you see the outside of Bonanza, you could be forgiven for thinking their inventory might not be extensive. The store appears to be smaller than a two-chair hair salon. Immediately inside the door, a checkout counter occupies most of the space. Sitting at the counter is the same woman every day, engaged in animated conversation with someone new. The conversation always sounds interesting (and probably includes a lot of juicy gossip), but the Spanish is spoken at a velocity far too fast for my ears, so I just listen to the rapid-fire dialogue while the cashier pushes buttons and makes change with lightning speed, without ever taking a pause for breath.

Inside there is, quite literally, everything. Peter compares it to a “Harry Potter”-style store that somehow magically grows the farther in you venture. I like to think of Garrison Keillor’s monologues about the mythical Lake Wobegon, the home of Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery.

“If you can’t get it at Frank’s,” Keillor would assure his listeners, “you can probably get along without it.” That is Bonanza exactly.

Every time I have bet against Bonanza, I have been wrong.

“They won’t have balsamic vinegar glaze,” I told Peter.

“I bet they will,” Peter said.

They had a dozen varieties, three different brands of the normal type and several flavors I had never heard of, all at half the price I would pay in the U.S.

Above the balsamic glaze is pie filling and next to it is shampoo and on the shelf you cannot reach are paper napkins of every imaginable variety. There is cat food by the pound and candles and spices and bulk flour and oats and chia and flax seeds, wheat germ and raisins, prunes, and too many kinds of beans and nuts to count.

There is cheese by the slice and wine and pickles and cookies and toothpicks. The only things they don’t sell at Bonanza are fresh breads, vegetables and meat—because you know you are supposed to go to the proper store to get those.

I love it. I love having one tiny store filled literally to the rafters. The staff keep a ready supply of stools and long sticks with hooks on the end to reach the half of the inventory that is far out of reach.

We still haven’t been to the fancy grocery stores outside of town with the wide aisles and the food courts. We’ve heard it’s great. Maybe we’ll go someday. But probably not.

Till next time,

Carrie

Carrie Classon’s memoir is called “Blue Yarn.” Learn more at CarrieClasson.com. Photos of Mexico and other things can be found at CarrieClassonAuthor on Facebook.