☆ Does Mahan's housing plan scale to tackle the scope of California's housing crisis?

Anthony O'Neil / *New apartment building -* *Bristol Harbour*

Realtor Mark Burns and FlashReport editor John Fleischman analyze Mahan for Governor's plan to increase supply. They find that the limited impact of Mahan's reforms in San Jose, as well as his reluctance to break with status quo Democrat party housing assumptions, means his ideas come up short addressing the scope of our housing needs. An Opp Now exclusive.

MARK BURNS, REALTOR:

The math doesn’t work.

Mahan claims his reforms in San Jose have resulted in 4000 new proposed units moving forward for development. That’s 1.3% of the projected state estimates needed ‘per year’ for new housing. San Jose is the third largest city in the state. The 4 largest (LA, SD, SJ, SF) together would only yield 28,000 new units (about 9%); well short of 315,000 per year - a deficit of 287,000, per year. The two-year ‘tax holiday’ means it all goes back to status quo in 2029 and economic feasibility problems continue unabated. Kicking the can down the road.

He also claims no new taxes and fees like LA’s Measure ULA. San Jose still has Measure E which imposes a 1.5% fee on transactions (e.g. land acquisition) over $10M. A ‘Bold Plan’ to break down barriers to building affordable housing means going back and eliminating all the impediments, not just preventing new ones.--Mark Burns, realtor

JON FLEISCHMAN, EDITOR FLASHREPORT:

The structure of Mr. Mahan’s proposal reveals a deeper assumption that has defined Democratic housing policy in California for decades. Like Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature’s Democratic majority, Mr. Mahan centers his plan on promoting dense “infill housing” within existing urban areas — particularly development near transit and within designated planning zones.

Much of the economic relief he proposes — including fee caps and tax holidays — is tied specifically to these infill projects, meaning the reforms apply mainly where Sacramento planners already want housing built.

That distinction matters because it reveals the plan's central premise: government should steer where housing growth occurs.

California’s housing crisis is often described as a planning failure. In reality, it is largely an economic one. California is estimated to be short several million homes needed to stabilize housing costs and meet demand.

Fees, lawsuits, permitting delays, environmental mandates, labor rules, and zoning restrictions combine to make housing slower, riskier, and vastly more expensive to build in California than in most of the country. The predictable result is that too few homes are built.

The solution, in principle, should be straightforward: make it cheaper and easier to build homes everywhere.

Mr. Mahan’s proposal stops short of that.

What he offers instead is conditional deregulation: regulatory relief, but only if housing is built where government planners want it.

Tax relief, fee caps, and legal protections are focused largely on infill housing projects within existing cities. Builders seeking to develop housing on the edges of metropolitan areas — where land is cheaper, and construction can often occur more quickly — would see far less benefit from the reforms.

☆ Does Mahan's housing plan scale to tackle the scope of California's housing crisis?

MARK BURNS, REALTOR:

JON FLEISCHMAN, EDITOR FLASHREPORT:

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