California Housing Crunch Prompts Push to Allow Building

Marco Gonzalez spent more than a decade suing real-estate developers in California over housing proposals that would have spoiled wetlands and gutted hillsides. The environmental lawyer won cases that stopped scores of units from being built.

Now he is on the opposite side, fighting cities and neighborhood groups in Southern California that fail to provide enough new housing units.

Mr. Gonzalez is among a growing group of advocates across California who are taking a once unthinkable approach to development in their backyards: They are trying to force cities to allow more of it.

The backlash comes as California’s lack of housing supply is becoming a crisis. After a postwar building boom gave birth to a labyrinth of freeways and sprawling suburbs, coastal metro areas in California between 1980 and 2010 added new housing units at about half the rate of the typical U.S. metro area.

During that period, California built an estimated 90,000 fewer units per year than were necessary to keep home price growth in line with the rest of the country, according to the state legislative analyst’s office. California—the nation’s most populous state—ranks 49th in the number of housing units per capita, ahead of only Utah, and it has the second-highest rate of overcrowding in the nation, trailing only Hawaii.

The supply shortage has driven up prices. In 1970 California home prices were about 30% higher than the U.S. median; today, California is more than 2.5 times pricier. In all, seven of the nation’s 10 most unaffordable markets, based on the amount of income spent on a mortgage, are in the Golden State.

But California’s complex land-use and regulatory structure gives opponents of development extraordinary powers to stymie new projects.

Environmental reviews intended to preserve California’s picturesque coastline and hillsides also provide a means for residents to challenge ordinary development proposals. If a review finds adverse impacts on parking, traffic, noise or air quality, elected officials can’t approve it until they have addressed opponents’ concerns.

Even after a project is approved, opponents can file environmental challenges, a process that can delay projects by two to four years.

Mark Vallianatos is an environmentalist, former urban planning professor and founder of Abundant Housing LA, a group that is part of the emerging YIMBY (“Yes, in my backyard”) movement. He said in housing debates there are often advocates for affordable housing, along with developers pushing their own projects, “but no one’s out there pushing for more housing of all types.”

“It shouldn’t be such an onerous task to build housing when we have a housing crisis,” he said.

Mr. Gonzalez, the lawyer, has fought developers building sprawling projects in San Diego’s backcountry, while also representing builders and affordable housing groups he feels are pursuing smart projects. His conversion from environmental warrior to affordable-housing advocate came when he realized his actions were thwarting projects in areas where new supply is desperately needed to ease rising costs for owners and renters.

“I just saw it as untenable,” said Mr. Gonzalez. “This was a group of people who essentially believed their job is to stop the evolution of our community.”

California’s mountains are officially buried in snow

Thanks to a series of atmospheric river storms that have pummeled California, the Sierra Nevada snowpack is reaching record-breaking numbers. In early January, parts of California received over 28 inches of rain and up to 17 feet of snow, causing flooding, avalanches, and a major shift in the California drought monitor map.

More storms followed, and in the most recent weather cycle Mammoth Mountain picked up another 4.5 feet of snow. Altogether, more snow has fallen so far in January 2017 than in any other month on record at Mammoth Mountain, the resort says. The previous record was 209 inches in December 2010, but Mammoth recorded 241 inches this month as of Monday.

In Lake Tahoe, the meteorologists at Open Snow say that 237 inches have fallen this month alone. That beats a 1973 record of 159 inches of snow that fell in January of that year. In total, the Lake Tahoe snowpack at 7,000 feet has received 80 percent of the seasonal average—and we’re only 43 percent of the way through the ski season. There’s even more snow at higher elevations.

Millennials still enjoy living at home with parents and are reluctant to reignite the McMansion Baby Boomer Utopia.

City centers from Los Angeles to Miami to Seattle have all seen a massive revitalization thanks to hipster loving Millennials that enjoy good restaurants and access to nightlife versus the white picket fence McMansion propaganda brought on by the baby boomer generation. Zero lot condos and homes make up the new housing demographic where builders try to max out every square inch of their buildable land so they can pack new buyers in like sardines and you can hear your neighbor’s sleep apnea roaring at 3am. This is the modern day dream. Being able to waste your entire paycheck at Whole Foods and eating organic falafel at your new trendy restaurant. But Millennials are choosing to go their own way. For one reason, many can’t afford to buy an overpriced particle board crap shack so they ended up staying at home living with their parents deep into their late 20s and 30s. Many are also addicted to housing lust shows where reality star wannabes flip or flop on big real estate purchases. A modern day Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Yet most are not famous and many are certainly not rich. Ideals have simply changed and the market has transformed for Millennials.

For many of the open houses I’ve been too recently (areas with homes in the $1 million range) you have investors (foreign and domestic), older buyers, and a handful of late 30s professional couples. And these homes are mediocre at best – a slight step above a crap shack. Let us call it a shining turd of real estate potential. Millennials just have different tastes and this is impacting decisions on home buying and where they choose to live.

President Trump To Cut Regulations By ’75 Percent’ — How Real Is That?

In a meeting with business leaders, President Trump on Monday made an eyebrow-raising claim.

As part of an effort to make America more business-friendly, Trump said: “We think we can cut regulations by 75 percent. Maybe more, but by 75 percent.”

Republicans do seem serious about some kind of regulatory reform. But even conservative economists say that number is not believable.

It has been said that the president likes to have an adversary. And at the meeting, Trump took aim at government regulations that stifle business.

“We’re gonna be cutting regulation massively,” the president said. “The problem with the regulation that we have right now is that you can’t do anything. You can’t, I have people that tell me they have more people working on regulations than they have doing product.”

Of course, there are all kinds of government regulations. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration aims to keep workers safe. The Food and Drug Administration makes sure we have food that’s safe to eat. The Environmental Protection Agency protects the environment.

Trump suggested that there wouldn’t be a downside to the important goals of the nation’s myriad federal regulations.

“Now we’re gonna have regulation,” he said, “and it’s gonna be just as strong and just as good and just as protective of the people as the regulation we have right now.”

“We’re gonna take care of the environment, we’re gonna take care of safety and all of the other things we have to take care of,” said the president.

It’s a bit unclear what Trump means when he says he thinks he can cut “75 percent” of regulations. Does that mean of all government regulations? Or 75 percent of the burden on American businesses overall? And even if that were possible, how could that be done with no downside to the important missions of regulators?

Peter Van Doren is an economist with the Cato Institute, a free-market think tank. He edits Cato’s quarterly journal, Regulation. NPR asked him if Trump’s “75 percent” statement was realistic or if it makes any sense.

Van Doren chuckled and said, “Well, President Trump, he’s about signaling.”

Van Doren says that as an economist, he’s a bit more delicate than the media.

“We have all these fancy words for what you might call ‘lying,’ ” Van Doren said. “This is a game and Trump is signaling his supporters that he’s serious.”

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director says Trump won’t change agency’s aggressive efforts

The nation’s top consumer financial watchdog, who some Republicans want President Trump to fire, said Tuesday that the new Republican administration won’t change his approach to aggressively hold banks and other financial firms accountable.

Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, wouldn’t comment on what he would do if Trump asked for his resignation but said it was important that independent federal agencies not get “mired in partisan politics.”

The new administration “really shouldn’t change the job at all,” Cordray said in his first public comments since Trump’s inauguration,

“We’re expected to work with different administrations of different points of view,” Cordray said at a forum held by the Wall Street Journal. “We have … an independent mandate to do what we do and we will continue working to protect consumers.”

Whether the president can fire the head of the independent consumer bureau, which was created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulatory overhaul, is the subject of an ongoing legal dispute.

Cordray’s five-year term doesn’t expire until July 2018, and an agency spokeswoman has said he has no plans to step down.

The agency has been praised by Democrats and consumer advocates for cracking down on abuses by financial firms; it was a key player in the $185-million settlement Wells Fargo & Co. agreed to pay last year for the creation of as many as 2 million accounts without customer authorization.

This month, two Republican senators called on Trump to fire Cordray, echoing the views of many GOP lawmakers who believe the agency’s efforts have restricted lending and reduced consumers’ choices.

Asked Monday if Trump was going to shake up the bureau’s leadership before Cordray’s term expires next year, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said “no decision has been made at this time on that.”

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and 37 other members of the Congressional Black Caucus wrote to Trump on Tuesday saying they “would strongly oppose” any attempt to remove Cordray and “would view such an action as an illegitimate abuse of power.”

“Director Cordray has done nothing to give the necessary cause for his removal from office,” the lawmakers wrote. “Communities of color and, indeed, all consumers in America will benefit from having director Cordray remain in his position and continue to independently implement the mandates imposed upon him by Congress as the director of the CFPB.“