San Diego Business Journal. The headlines on the California housing crisis tell us everything except the most important part--who is causing it?
Even so, the stories proliferate throughout the country: "California Lagging in Supply of Homes" reads the headline in the San Jose Mercury News. "High House Prices Limit New Buyers" claims the Contra Costa Costa Times. "Rising Home Prices Limiting First-Time Buyers in California" reports the Associated Press from New York to Hawaii.
Newspapers tell us the shortage of new homes hurts poor people, hurts women, hurts minorities, hurts business, hurts teachers, hurts nurses, hurts firemen, hurts policemen, hurts high tech workers, hurts children, hurts old people, hurts just about everybody in everyway you can imagine.
But curiously, one group--the most important of all--is always missing from stories about the California housing crisis. The group that has more to do with housing policy than any other in California. The group that every day creates and re-creates a housing shortage all over the State. The group that ensures that supply does not meet demand.
We are, of course, talking about one group with a lot of names: Environmentalists, NIMBYs, the Sierra Club, the BayKeepers, the Surfriders, and those at the California Coastal Commission and local governments throughout the state who do their bidding.
Whatever you call them, they are the ones so vocal on stopping new housing--yet so silent on what it means when California families discover they cannot buy their first home.
It is hard to fault these groups as they try to escape the responsibility for destroying so many homes; ending so many dreams. No one in their right mind would want to accept the blame for destroying the only hope so many families have for the financial security that homeownership brings.
What is harder to understand is why members of the press let them get away with it.
Why do they not link the California housing crisis to the so-called victories the environmentalists proclaim? When a new housing community is derailed, why are these housing opponents not questioned about the effect their so-called victory will have on the lack of supply that is creating the California housing crisis?
When a city council arbitrarily imposes tens of millions of dollars in extra mitigation costs on a housing project, why is the question of affordability not raised? When state, local and federal authorities list a new species to be protected because it may be endangered, why is no one making the connection?
Why isn't anyone in the press connecting the dots? It can't be because reporters don't believe that housing prices are somehow exempt from the laws of supply and demand.
Perhaps it is because this kind of consequence free-environmentalism appeals to reporters, much as it does to their readers. One of the reasons some environmental policies appear so popular is because the consequences are never fully examined.
On the few occasions they are caught answering questions about a housing shortage, environmentalists use the lingo of smart growth and urban sprawl, sure in the knowledge that what environmentalists prevent in the country the NIMBYs will oppose in the city.
When challenged they will state, "Not everyone has a right to live in California." Not even the two-thirds of our population growth that comes from people who are born here.
We will never solve the housing crisis until reporters start asking the environmentalists and their allies to start saying in public what they are never asked on the record. "Will your opposition to this housing project hurt the ability of California residents to own their own home?" Or even better: "Do you even care that your opposition to every new housing project in California means that many people will never be able to buy or even rent a home here?"
Simple questions. The answers will determine whether hundreds of thousands of Californians will ever be able to save for college, their next vacation or even retirement--because that is exactly what owning a home means to most people. Or whether we will continue to claim housing is in crisis, but ignore the people who are causing it.
Michael Pattinson is the president of the California Building Industry Association.
Pursuant to Title 17 U.S.C. 107, other copyrighted work is provided for educational purposes, research, critical comment, or debate without profit or payment. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for your own purposes beyond the 'fair use' exception, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Views are those of authors and not necessarily those of Canada Free Press. Content is Copyright 1997-2024 the individual authors. Site Copyright 1997-2024 Canada Free Press.Com Privacy Statement