The problem is that even if a county or even a neighborhood wants more housing, unless the state passes laws you get a small number of people holding up development with crazy lawsuits. There was a plot of land in Berkeley that everyone was fine developing, but just like 5 disgruntled homeowners sued and held up development for like a decade. That was one of the major cases cited by CA about why there needed to be state laws to make things happen. |
Yes, it makes sense to change the ridiculous regulations regarding state environmental reviews and stuff like that are allowing people to stop development that local communities actually want. I don’t agree with the whole housing element thing CA is doing though. States and the federal government should interfere with the types of housing a locality allows or force communities to zone for density they don’t want. |
Should not interfere* |
The top down policy measures usually cannot effectively consider factors specific local communities. There are some communities in California that are very high risk for fires and they cannot expand their roadways due to geographic limitations. Increasing density in some of these communities is a terrible idea because we don’t want another camp fire incident where people cannot evacuate in time. |
Yes that is exactly what states should do. |