Housing advocates and developers are warily watching California’s intensifying drought and what it may mean for the state. Millions more homes are needed to house residents, yet 85% of California is experiencing extreme drought conditions. Already the need for housing is colliding with the water shortage in the coastal area of Marin County (north of […]
Sorry Dorothy, There’s No Place for Home
More Southern California cities than ever before are fighting to have their allocations of new homes rolled back. No one denies the region needs more homes in general, and there’s been a specific push to get housing for low-income families built across the region. But some city leaders say the 1.34 million new units assigned […]
Is Zoning Key to CA Housing?
As housing shortages deepen across the country, single-family zoning is increasingly becoming a prime target of lawmakers who seek to remake neighborhoods by adding density. Over recent years, some local and state governments—such as Minneapolis and the state of Oregon—have essentially eliminated single-family zoning to make way for more types of housing in response to […]
Politics Getting in the Way of Housing Legislation
In the first half of 2019, members of the California Legislature introduced roughly 200 bills that addressed the state’s worsening housing crisis. By the end of May, most of them had been nixed by the Byzantine nature of California politics. So why can’t California pass real housing reform? Among members of the Bay Area caucus, […]
Developers Eye Failing Golf Courses
As we reported in last week’s CVAR At A Glance, golf courses are no longer a leading amenity for older homeowners, who are more interested in dog parks and gardens. And Millennials don’t appear interested in an expensive sport that offers few health benefits. As golf courses and clubs begin shutting down, hundreds of thousands of acres […]