What was once the American dream, to own a home for your family, is now becoming a fading fantasy for many Californians. The rate of home ownership in California is approximately 10 percent less than the national rate. Our state population is starting to decline for the first time in state history, and homeless numbers continue to climb. It’s clear that California’s affordability problem is trading away the state’s allure.
The simple problem is that our state lacks enough supply of housing units to meet the demands of our population. The new rage in Sacramento is to introduce measures to grant various housing developments the right to bypass local approval processes to spur the development of new housing units across the state. SB 35 in 2017, SB 9, in 2021, and now AB 2011 all create circumstances in which housing units can be built without going through the public approval process.
