Rafa

The idea that eventually enough US citizens will be sent to South Sudan that they might be able to form a class action to challenge their removal years later isn't going to protect anyone's rights as a practical matter

I was at a housing conference a few years ago where I had some pretty eye opening conversations about how much regulatory capture there is in the building code world. Who knew fire alarm companies could evoke so much indignation!

I worked on a bill last year where the trades forced through a last minute amendment to require skilled and trained labor on any project that was over 40 units and four stories. I had to ask the governor to veto my own bill since those standards made it nearly worthless.

California legislators delegate building code reform to the Building Standards Commission, which does not typically stray in major ways from the International Building Code. Changes to the IBC rarely “relax” standards. It’s a one-way ratchet that mostly increases costs in the name of safety.

It takes some real mental gymnastics to spin a new minimum wage, where none had existed before (and supported by the carpenters), as “reducing” wages…

Table of Sausalito Housing element deadlines. Election orignally scheduled for November 2024. Now November 2025.

Table of Sausalito housing element date revisions. Originally, Sausalito would request opinion from state attorney general in April 2024 if election failed.

More Sausalito shennigans. Can't meet a deadline? Just revise it? What does a deadline mean when HCD allows them to keep changing them?

What was his answer? Something something hedge funds and evil corporations?

With Newsom? That tracks…

Is this what happens when the speaker and governor actually throw their weight behind a bill!?

this conspiracy theory on the left, the housing shortage is because landlords leave mass amounts of units unfilled, has been disproven again and again. We must build more housing, all kinds of housing.

City of L.A. is swinging for the fences w/ demurrer to YIMBY lawsuit challenging adequacy of housing element rezoning.

I think city will lose at this stage, but its demurrer does illustrate a real problem w/ manner in which cities & HCD implement the Housing Element Law.
1/5

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Which city council agenda item number was this?

Screenshot from the San Francisco housing element with a section highlighted from the mid cycle review program with language that reads, “This additional rezoning and additional constraints reduction shall accommodate 115% of the shortfall, minus any capacity created by the rezoning(s) in action 7.1.1 in excess of 36,282 units.”

How much rezoning would that actually require though? It might not be any depending on the math for what the city claims this current proposed rezoning accomplishes.

I assume he’s talked to a lot of builders who point out that infill housing is more expensive to build, especially for-sale condos. Getting the per unit costs under control so that a lot more infill pencils will change perceptions about how much sprawl is needed, but right now it’s a necessary evil.

Exactly. People mistake prices for affordability. Gentrifying areas can actually have higher prices and more ‘affordability’ when lower income folks are displaced by higher income people, pushing up median incomes. Homes with dropping prices aren’t affordable if people are losing jobs and savings.

This doesn’t just destroy capitalism, it destroys the allocation of goods and services via a market economy.

Yep. Technically, if it bans any “process” that “collects…information on price…or supply level of a good from two or more” people/databases and then “analyzes” that info, you’ve essentially banned using any data at all to determine a price. Loophole: use only one data broker to give you info!

Would SB 384 also ban used car dealers from using Kelly Blue Book since it uses an algorithm for telling you the value of your car? I think it may also ban algorithmic stock trading.

If there were any kind of equity sharing, you’d probably want to accompany it with an updated AB 668 (2015)-like bill so that the assessed value for tax purposes was discounted by a reasonable amount to account for the equity sharing contract. AB 668 reduces tax burdens for Habitat homeowners.

Independent appraisers could pull comps from recent sales. I think that part isn’t that difficult to sort out. The county assessor has to figure it out for tax purposes anyways. Wiener’s proposed SB 336 moderate income welfare tax exemption doesn’t apply to for-sale homes.

That’s probably right. Yes, it’s complicated, but the alternative is running the TC program as a pure cost w/ either a) homes being built but no benefits of market appreciation for either the homeowner or the state, (permanent deed restrictions) or b) where the homeowners eventually get a windfall

The solution then is to require a holding period, and/or allow the state to be the beneficiary of the majority of the appreciation. The first buyer benefits from having affordable housing, but the state should get most of any windfall if it’s sold at a market price, not that first buyer.

The size of the tax credit program could be limited by its funding. If there’s enough demand for it that tax credits become “awarded” in a competitive bidding process like other tax credits are in CA, then allowing the program to be funded via equity sharing could help it to build more housing.

If the state shared in equity for the property, then the deed restrictions would limit the potential return on that equity sharing. It just means the tax credit program would probably result in less overall production since it would be more expensive to run without those returns.

It doesn’t make sense to subsidize demand or deed restrict them because the state would just be throwing money away, but if this program created new homes that were at least temporarily affordable for moderate income, and shared equity when they were sold at market rate, that seems fine to me.

Maybe it’s a combination: tax credits for the builder and the state shares in equity for the homes with a loan program to purchase the homes built with those tax credits. Maybe the equity sharing can help subsidize the tax credit program long term.

The absurd program would be where, for some reason, the govt limited the first resale price (and its own potential return as an equity holder) but there was no deed restriction: the 2nd owner would benefit more than the first. It’s just a dumb thought I had that’s “consistent” with CalHFA programs

Dreams for All is equity sharing. Sorry, limited characters make this discussion difficult to explain succinctly.

There are many CalHFA home buyer programs; it could be something as simple as a deed restriction requiring owner occupancy.