Standing up to powerful developers and their allies isn’t deplorable, it’s laudable

Many of California’s elites are making it very clear they think you are deplorable if you don’t agree that developers should be given free-reign to bulldoze single-family neighborhoods in California to build luxury condominiums.

They are wrong about you – just as they are wrong about their demands that developers should be allowed to build virtually whatever they want, wherever they want, without local input and adequate funds for transit, schools, roads and other necessary infrastructure.

The flashpoint is Senate Bill 50 by state Senator Scott Wiener.

Flush with cash in his campaign account raised from real estate developers, Wiener claims the moral high ground on his legislation to give developers the right to tear down the house next to you and build luxury housing towers right up to your lot line.

The facts are indisputable – California faces an affordable housing crisis. Wiener has focused on a real problem. But his bill to turn housing policy over to his developer donors will not solve that problem.

First, the moral posturing and ad hominem attacks on opponents, calling them “NIMBYs” (and that is one of the nicer descriptions), does not withstand even minimal scrutiny. Wiener exempted Marin County, one of the wealthiest counties in the country, to help win approval of his plan. He’s playing raw politics and pretending it’s a moral crusade.

Second, he calls his plan “transit-oriented,” but there is no new fiscal support for mass transit in the bill. Perhaps he does not use any of the state’s over-crowded or under-funded transit systems. If he did, he would understand there is simply no room on most transit systems at rush hour. So, the new luxury housing he demands will create even more traffic gridlock and all the misery that comes with it.

Third, he blames his constituents for the problem while deflecting the culpability of the state government where he now serves. It was Sacramento that took away redevelopment funds that were used to build affordable housing. It was Sacramento that made California Environmental Quality Act laws so restrictive that they ensnare affordable housing projects. It was Sacramento that neglected new transit, roads and other infrastructure that support new housing. And it was Sacramento that ignored the need to train new workers to the point where the cost of labor in housing construction is skyrocketing.

Fourth, while he and his supporters attack single-family homeowners as selfish, he neglects to acknowledge that California has just essentially doubled density in single-family neighborhoods by allowing Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU) virtually as a right. There was no outcry from single-family homeowners when multiple ADU-friendly laws passed – because the benefit of this new density goes to the homeowners, not the developers, while the human scale of the neighborhoods is preserved.

Finally, while Wiener has added some protections for low-income communities to avoid displacement, they are grossly inadequate.

When elites start to lose a political debate, they are all too ready to call their opponents names. As Wiener and his developer donors are thwarted in the legislature, their attacks on opponents intensify. But underneath the patina of “transit-oriented housing” is the raw fact that Wiener’s housing solution is to turn city planning over to developers without demanding anything meaningful in return. Do we really believe that profit-driven developers alone will keep community interests in mind when profit margins are at stake?

Standing up to powerful developers isn’t deplorable – it is laudable. Because when the last bungalow, the last Victorian, the last human-scale neighborhoods are bulldozed to make room for cookie-cutter condos – they will never come back. We need new housing. We also need to get this right.

This story was originally published February 23, 2020 at 5:00 AM.