Governor Newsom’s Housing Goals In Peril

A collage of Gov. Newsom and a brick building in Pasadena.

California Governor Gavin Newsom campaigned on solving the state’s infamous housing affordability woes. In 2017, he promised 3.5 million housing units by 2025, or 500,000 per year. This boost in supply would serve to stabilize prices and relieve the crushing burden that housing costs create for working and low-income residents.

By Ethan Elkind

But with the legislative tabling last week of SB 50, the only bill in the legislature to upzone neighborhoods near transit and jobs, that goal now appears to be infeasible. Gov. Newsom’s signature issue is already looking to be a failure.

Why? California is currently zoned for 2.8 million units, as UCLA Luskin comprehensively documented. And many of those planned units are in areas not in need of new housing, such as in rural, fire-prone parts of the state with low demand. Furthermore, as the study authors point out, the planned units may face other obstacles to getting built, such as permitting challenges. In short, massive upzoning is required to meet the Governor’s goals.

Will solutions emerge later?

Sure, it’s only a few months into Gov. Newsom’s term, so couldn’t solutions emerge later? Here’s the problem: by tabling this effort into an election year (2020), legislative appetite to address the fundamental cause of the problem (resistance from affluent, predominantly white suburbs) will wane further. And even if the legislature acts in future years, it will still take years for the changes on the ground to take hold, as communities likely resist these zoning changes by enacting more permitting obstacles. At that point, the 2025 goal will be out of reach. The state needs to start the solutions now.

Interim steps certainly exist, such as strengthening the affordable housing allocations the state gives to local governments. But with at least a 700,000 zoning shortfall statewide to get to 3.5 million units, those steps will hardly make a dent.

So far, the Governor has not wanted to take an aggressive stance to save upzoning measures like SB 50. As Liam Dillon of the Los Angeles Times reported on the shelving of SB 50, Newsom stated the following yesterday:

‘To the extent that we can find a pathway to take core components of SB 50 and getting it over the finish line, I’m committed to helping support that effort,’ Newsom said.

But Gov. Newsom apparently did not step in to shepherd SB 50 in the state senate, as Gov. Brown did in 2017 to extend the cap-and-trade program in the face of legislative resistance.

Action, leadership, and courage

There is still time, and credit is certainly due to Newsom for championing this issue (Gov. Brown, by contrast, viewed the politics as too intractable to try very hard). But the crisis is real, and words are not enough. Action, leadership, and courage are required, and the window of opportunity for real solutions may soon be closing.

Ethan Elkind directs the climate program at UC Berkeley Law, with a joint appointment at UCLA Law. His book “Railtown” was published by the University of California Press.