Some call me myopic about housing. I call it focused. That focus keeps me out of state and national party politics and on what city government is for: the community’s needs. It is the same test every candidate on your ballot should have to pass.
California’s Progressive reformers understood the difference. In 1911 and 1913, to break the grip of party machines, they took party labels off local elections, and in 1926, voters wrote nonpartisan local offices into the state constitution. A century later, the parties are back in our city races, endorsing slates and supplying the talking points.
A council candidate can be a Democrat or a Republican. That is not the problem. The problem is the candidate who carries a party line into City Hall. On housing, that line is written in Sacramento, and it arrives with its conclusions already drawn, based on political agendas rather than solutions that work. On housing, the lack of results is clear.
Before you vote, check Sacramento’s claims against the facts.
SACRAMENTO SAYS: California needs millions of new homes for a growing population.
THE FACTS: California is not growing. In 2007, the state’s own demographers projected 59.5 million Californians by 2050. They now project about 41 million, with the population peaking around then and shrinking afterward. Within about a dozen years, deaths are projected to outnumber births. Yet the state ordered cities to plan for 2.5 million new units this cycle, roughly three times the household growth its own Department of Finance projects.
SACRAMENTO SAYS: More supply will make housing affordable for teachers, nurses and firefighters.
THE FACTS: Supply of what? Of the homes completed in California from 2021 to 2025, fewer than 1 in 380 was an income-restricted home a family could actually buy. Nationally, 95% of new homes in multiunit buildings are built to rent. That is not affordability. It is a business model. The teacher gets a lease.
SACRAMENTO SAYS: Upzoning builds housing.
THE FACTS: Upzoning builds land value. A parcel’s price jumps the day new rights are granted, whether or not anything is built. Land with approvals in hand sells for about 50% more than land without them. That premium is mined from the sky over your neighborhood, a gift to whoever holds the land from a zoning change you never voted on and had no say in.
SACRAMENTO SAYS: Cities are the problem.
THE FACTS: The laws failed everywhere, in every kind of city. When a law fails, you fix it. Sacramento chose enforcement instead. At a San Francisco conference last month, the attorney general’s housing team shared a stage with the nonprofits that sue cities for a living, at an event sponsored by the law firms that litigate the cases. State law now lets the attorney general join their suits automatically, pays their lawyers when they win and gives developers a fast track to sue cities. That should tell you something about who benefits from all of this.
SACRAMENTO SAYS: The push for these laws comes from the grassroots.
THE FACTS: Follow the money. A foundation funded by a Facebook co-founder. A payments company that gave $1 million to push California from 80,000 homes a year to 500,000. Business councils saying out loud that housing is about attracting talent. Grassroots do not come with a sponsor list.
None of this is a prediction. It is the record. In 2017, Gavin Newsom promised 3.5 million new homes by 2025. California kept building about 100,000 a year, the same pace as when he made the promise. This cycle’s state target works out to about 312,500 homes a year. Halfway through, the state is building just over 100,000 a year. Supporters say the newest laws need time. Sacramento has been passing them for a decade, and the numbers have not moved.
Why is the state planning for growth its own demographers no longer project? Why, after a decade of new laws, are the results so poor? Those are the right questions, and Sacramento’s answer is to sue the cities that ask them and threaten them with fines.
Housing the workforce and creating affordability are different from densifying neighborhoods, and they need different solutions. Teachers and firefighters need homes they can own, built at the scale of the community and kept affordable when they sell. One idea: Let the landowners who win upzoning windfalls and the employers who want workers housed help pay. We can do that without giving up what makes California worth living in.
When you go to the ballot box next week, will you vote for the party you belong to or the community you belong to? A party-line vote signs you up for decisions already made. If you are aligned with Sacramento, the outcomes have already been demonstrated, and they’re not good.
Mike Lewis is a longtime Encinitas resident and co-founder of California Stewardship Alliance.
*The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the newspaper, its editors or staff.
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