Newsom has vowed to jump-start housing construction. Still no progress

from Dan WaltersCalMatters

This comment was originally posted by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

Eight years ago, when he began his campaign for governor, Gavin Newsom made fixing the state’s chronic housing shortage a moral imperative.

“It’s a question of who we are,” Newsom wrote in 2017. “Housing is a basic human need — let’s not forget the human face behind the horrific statistics.

“Housing instability can cause real mental and physical distress,” he added, “and lead to unbearable decisions: No one should have to choose between paying rent or buying groceries. Knowing that too many Californians face this kind of anxiety breaks my heart.”

Newsom pledged that as governor he would lead an effort to build 3.5 million new housing units by 2025, “because our decisions must be as bold as the problem is.

“I realize that building 3.5 million new housing units is an audacious goal,” Newsom continued, “but it is achievable. There is no silver bullet to solving this crisis. We must attack the problem on many fronts by generating more funding for affordable housing, implementing regulatory reform, and creating new financial incentives for local jurisdictions that produce housing while penalizing those that do. fall short.”

The 3.5 million unit goal was never nearly realistic. That would require building to increase from about 100,000 units a year when he made the promise to more than 400,000, doubling peak production this century.

That said, in the nearly seven years of his governorship, Newsom has done what he said he would do to increase housing. He has signed multiple bills aimed at speeding up the issuance of housing permits by removing state and local legal hurdles capped by two major measures this year.

Newsom signed Assembly Bill 130which makes it more difficult to use the California Environmental Quality Act as a tool to block housing projects and Senate Bill 79which revokes the land use powers of local authorities permitting projects for multi-family, multi-story housing near public transport stops.

Meanwhile, Newsom’s Department of Housing and Community Development has set statewide goals of 180,000 new units per year and 2.5 million units over eight years. He also imposed ambitious quotas on local governments to designate land for housing development and cracked down on communities that impeded multifamily projects for low- and moderate-income families.

The latest effort addresses the most acute aspect of California’s shortage — the housing of nearly 35% of Californians live in poverty or near poverty, largely due to housing costs that are among the highest in the nation.

With the passage of AB 130 and SB 79, the looming end of Newsom’s governorship, and the likelihood of him running for president, it’s time to take stock.

Has housing production increased significantly in California? Unfortunately not.

At the time Newsom made his pledge, about 100,000 units were being built each year, with net increases significantly lower due to losses from fire or demolition. Eight years later, it is largely unchanged no matter which authority you consult.

The The Census Bureau reports that between 2019, when Newsom takes office, and 2024, new housing permits in California ranged from a high of 120,780 units in 2022 to a low of 101,546 last year. Newsom’s own budget agrees with Census Bureau data for the same period and projects future construction through 2028 at 100,000 to 104,000 units per year.

It is clear that although the systemic barriers to housing were eased, many developers failed to see California housing as a good investment. The COVID-19 pandemic, which had a huge economic impact, and interest rate hikes to fight inflation also had an impact.

Housing is much more complicated than Newsom described it when he made his promises. He gets a “B” for effort — and an “F” for results.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.