Gov. Gavin Newsom, the Legislature and the state’s bureaucracy claim to be addressing the state’s much discussed “housing crisis.” But rather than improve the state’s awful affordability crisis, the policies being enacted are precisely the wrong medicine, more akin to witch-doctoring than a scientific curative.
The list of newish blunders, built upon nearly thirty years of disastrous policies, include such things as new rent control measures, mandates for “zero emissions” homes and mandatory solar installations. Worse yet, and soon to be strengthened, are attempts to block development in outlying areas, where land costs are cheaper, in favor of dense development in already expensive, dense urban areas.
The idea that these policies will encourage home-building could only be appreciated by a fantasist. Since California began its ratcheting of regulation, house prices have more than tripled relative to household incomes, the result of which is that in the major metropolitan areas, most middle-class households cannot afford the median priced house. Housing production has fallen because most households have simply been priced out of the market.
Tragically home ownership is declining, particularly among minorities and millennials, and rents now exceed that of any state other than Hawaii. It is not surprising that the latest Census Bureau population estimates, released on the last day of 2019, show that more than 200,000 more people moved to other states than moved into California. California’s net outmigration exceeded that of New York for the first time in over a decade. …
Click here to read the full article from the Orange County Register.
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