The town of Woodside tried and didn't thwart SB 9 by declaring it might destroy mountain lion habitat. (Bay Space Information Group File Picture)
These of a sure age would possibly keep in mind Mad journal, a comic book guide that lampooned nearly every little thing for greater than six a long time.
One in every of Mad’s extra enduring and in style strips was “Spy vs. Spy,” created by Cuban expatriate artist Antonio Prohías. Wordlessly, two figures, one wearing black and the opposite in white, would strive always to outwit one another however neither may ever prevail.
The political and authorized conflict over housing, pitting the state of California towards its 400 cities, is harking back to the perpetual duel between these two cartoon warriors.
The state enacts legal guidelines and laws geared toward compelling cities to just accept extra reasonably priced housing development, significantly to serve low- and moderate-income households, and cities counter with native legal guidelines and laws to evade their housing quotas.
Though the state would possibly appear to have the higher hand because it seeks to shut its yawning hole between provide and demand, one must say that the cities have been remarkably profitable in evading their civic and authorized duties as a result of development falls means in need of the state’s targets.
In concept, California must be constructing 185,000 items a yr to maintain up with present demand and chip away on the backlog, nevertheless it scarcely produces half of that quantity.
Metropolis officers, responding to their constituents’ aversion to high-density housing, make use of all types of techniques to discourage improvement, reminiscent of imposing particular necessities that make tasks economically infeasible or zoning undesirable land for housing.
As new anti-housing techniques are launched, the state adjusts legal guidelines and laws to thwart them, however the cities simply discover new methods to protect the established order.
One of many state’s latest pro-housing approaches, embodied in laws enacted final yr and going into impact final month, permits as much as 4 items of housing to be constructed on land zoned for single-family houses. Metropolis officers denounced Senate Invoice 9 because it was winding via the Capitol, arguing that it usurped their conventional land use authority and would change the character of their neighborhoods.
Nonetheless, now that SB 9 is regulation, cities are attempting to determine the best way to blunt, and even cancel, its impression in true Spy vs. Spy trend.
Simply earlier than the regulation took impact, for instance, Pasadena enacted an “emergency ordinance” that imposes tight, and certain unworkable, guidelines on what could be constructed.
They embrace an 800-square-foot restrict on new items, a one-story peak limitation, a requirement for one parking spot for every new unit, landscaping requirements and a ban on short-term leases. Collectively, they might make improvement licensed underneath SB 9 economically prohibitive.
Woodside, a really rich enclave on the San Francisco Peninsula, takes the prize for probably the most inventive technique to thwart SB 9 — supporting a petition to have mountain lions declared a threatened species and declaring the complete city to be mountain lion habitat and subsequently unsuitable for housing.
“Provided that Woodside — in its entirety — is habitat for a candidate species, no parcel inside Woodside is presently eligible for an SB 9 challenge,” a metropolis memo declared.
The motion earned Woodside scorn from pro-housing advocates.
“That is so absurd,” mentioned Laura Foote, government director of YIMBY Motion, a or-housing group, instructed the San Francisco Chronicle. “It's an instance of the acute absurd lengths cities will provide you with to evade state regulation.”
“You possibly can construct a McMansion and that one way or the other gained’t harm the mountain lion,” Foote added. “However in the event you construct two items the lions will one way or the other fall over and die.”
Woodside officers reversed their place on the problem after the state Lawyer Common’s workplace on Sunday declared the trouble unlawful.
However the hypocrisy of Woodside’s effort stays apparent.
Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.