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There is no such thing as "housing crisis". Plenty of affordable housing is this country.
Can't afford to buy in Atherton? Buy in San Ramon. Can't afford San Ramon - move to Fremont. Or Stockton. Or Atlanta. Or Boise. Can't afford Boise - move to Detroit or Baltimore. Where is the fucking "crisis"? We used to be the country of highly mobile optimistic people. Are we turning into a nation of whiny bitches sitting on their asses and moaning about "crisis this" or "unaffordability that"?
Then came Proposition 13, a ballot initiative that passed in the summer of 1978 to slash property taxes. It has altered the way California has grown. By keeping property taxes low for longtime homeowners, Proposition 13 created clear winners and losers in the California housing market. “There has been a huge shift in the tax burden to young families from older homeowners and owners of businesses,” the Times noted in 1988. Cash-hungry cities opted to zone for commercial uses, which would generate sales taxes, instead of affordable housing. When houses got built, steep “impact fees” drove builders toward more expensive homes, whose buyers could absorb the costs.
Spot on, this is the real reason. Unless CA Proposition 13 mega entitlement Ponzi Scheme revoked, this issue keep continues
his lib circuits fried
Prop 13 has nothing to do with the zoning and building code practices that restricts construction of affordable housing. It is just an excuse and a very crappy one, logically.
The spiraling housing costs in West Coast tech hubs are the result of 40 years of tax and land use policy — a period that mirrored the explosive growth of the tax-averse tech industry. This was also a time of continued activism by homeowners against higher-density zoning. Together, this has severely limited housing construction, particularly lower-cost houses and apartments. It is a chronic condition, inflamed by the current tech boom.
California’s saga began in the 1970s, when sprawling growth and spiking taxes seemed to threaten the quality of life so many came to the Golden State to find. Citizen activists created “urban growth boundaries” and land trusts to preserve open space and delicate coastal habitats. Yet these important moves also limited where developers could build new homes. Meanwhile, homebuilders chafed under what they saw as burdensome state rules about how many approvals they needed to build new housing.
Then came Proposition 13, a ballot initiative that passed in the summer of 1978 to slash property taxes. It has altered the way California has grown. By keeping property taxes low for longtime homeowners, Proposition 13 created clear winners and losers in the California housing market. “There has been a huge shift in the tax burden to young families from older homeowners and owners of businesses,” the Times noted in 1988. Cash-hungry cities opted to zone for commercial uses, which would generate sales taxes, instead of affordable housing. When houses got built, steep “impact fees” drove builders toward more expensive homes, whose buyers could absorb the costs.
Through all of this, California’s political leaders raised the alarm about housing affordability. In 1980, Gov. Jerry Brown formed an Affordable Housing Task Force, declaring that 60 percent of Californians were priced out of the market. By 1991, two-thirds of the 25 least affordable cities in the nation were in California.
There was some substantive action: In 1994, two of the state’s largest pension funds announced more than $340 million in construction loans for affordable development. But 25 years later, distressingly little has changed. California is America’s largest economy; but when its politicians have pushed to diversify its housing mix, they have been batted back by homeowners who resist new development in their neiGhborhood