☆ Time to cut SJ’s excessive housing fees and ordinances?
Edward Ring of California Policy Center certainly thinks so, in the third installment of our Silicon Valley affordability perspectives series. He believes local gov’t could trim hundreds of thousands of dollars (!) off each housing unit this way—encouraging homebuilding and cost-effective living. Ring elaborates, below, in this Opp Now exclusive.
Restoring affordability to the Silicon Valley would require unmaking decades of flawed policies. Accomplishing that prodigious feat is rendered nearly impossible because of the special interests who benefit from the status quo. But here goes:
To begin with, the state legislature would have to repeal CEQA, the Global Warming Solutions Act, and every related piece of legislation pursuant to those two totally unnecessary laws. Then the Silicon Valley's regional and local planning authorities would have to repeal excessive codes and ordinances, and abolish permitting fees and impact fees, that altogether add hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cost of each housing unit.
Then the county and city governments would have to redirect their spending as follows: (1) away from propping up their borderline insolvent pension systems—converting every employee to a 401K plan, (2) cut all funding for "housing first" and instead build safe, inexpensive barracks for the unhoused, and (3) cancel all mass transit projects except for buses. They could then use all this money (billions and billions of dollars) instead to pay for more roads and water supply infrastructure.
They would also have to keep open natural gas power utilities and make all energy technologies compete without subsidies. Once the enabling infrastructure was provided for as described, they would have to open up the Coyote Valley, the Mt. Hamilton Range, and other supposedly sacred open spaces for the low density suburban development that working families prefer but cannot afford. This is how to restore affordable energy, water, and housing to the Silicon Valley.
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