Earlier this week, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation aimed at making it easier to build more housing. Unfortunately, the law left out the one key reform needed to make housing more affordable.
Governor Newsom celebrates signing another housing reform bill that won’t make housing more affordable.
California housing is unaffordable because in the 1970s the fastest-growing counties in the state drew urban-growth boundaries outside of which new homes can’t be built. At around the same time, the state legislature passed the California Environmental Quality Act, which required the completion of a draft and final environmental impact report for all major government actions, which turned out to include expanding the urban-growth boundaries. Since an EIR costs about $20 million, no county has expanded their growth boundaries since then. Continue reading
