2023 California Housing Priorities: Hopes and Dreams Edition
My wish list for California housing - and California housers
Welcome to my 2023 California Housing priorities list!
I’m amazed to say that this is the 2nd annual version of this post. Last year’s priority list launched this here Substack, laying out my hopes and dreams for California housing, and doubling as a semi-preview of my writing plan.1 Check out my 2022 year in review to see how I did - and to see more about where we are going from here.
This year will have a similar vibe, with some added wrinkles. Everything that was a priority last year remains one this year, no matter what the Legislature did or did not do, no matter whether I wrote the post or not. This year’s list is thus only partially a ‘to-write’ list. I will include issues where I will continue to bang the drum slowly, sometimes inside longer posts about other things, sometimes in conversation with smart housers as part of my new podcast/interview series(!).2 Some are immediate priorities, others are ones in which I want to be talking more and more and building towards 2024 and 2025. This year’s priorities post has also grown from a standard listicle to one with categories!
And like last year, this is a living document. I will surely forget something, and will add it. Perhaps you have something I forgot? Leave a comment and let me know, and I will incorporate it if it makes sense. Without further ado…
Big Picture Stuff I Hope Every Good Houser Keeps in Mind While Taking Deep Breaths
The priority themes of the year. To be repeated, ad nauseam, even if the budget is terrible.
Who owns housing matters, and every home is owned by someone. You’ll see a lot more from me and partners on homeownership this year, especially the multifamily kind. As I talked about last year a few times, we need all housers to prioritize thinking about housing ownership. The housing crisis isn’t just about land use regulations, and homeownership and ‘homeowners’ aren’t (just) what you think they are. Changing who owns and how we (all) own homes are essential. I’ll be digging into all manners of housing investment and ownership, including Neighborhood Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), Mixed-Income Neighborhood Trusts (MINTs), Permanent Real Estate Collectives (PRECs), Community Land Trusts (CLTs) and more. And I will keep searching for real ESG/Impact Investing standards for institutional investors, and ways of transforming the capital stack so that both residents, builders and bankers all get a good deal.
Policy is only part of the equation. While I will cover things happening in the State Legislature, I will do my best to shed more light on the full housing industry and economy, and on the transformations we need to see in small business, big business, finance, labor, technology, and more. Housing policy is made by a small number of people, with input from a slightly larger group of people. Housing is built, rebuilt, bought, sold, leased, designed, and permitted by millions. While we desperately need to change how policy is made, let’s not forget that what we are truly trying to change is the larger housing economy and housing industry.
Let’s do something to change how the (policy) sausage is made. There is plenty we can do to change how we make policy, who is in the room and who is offering ideas, advice, and incentives. There are too many bills, not enough information or analysis, and a terrible system for debating or discussing policy. I’d love to see Leg Leaders (or anyone else) with reform ideas specific to housing, planning, and land use.
This is the beginning of a 2-year session, one that actually ends with the 2024 mega-election. We could have the most important housing ballot in state history, all during rocky economic times and an election that will be … intense. I’d love to see all of us take a deep breath and think about this two year cycle and build towards something significant - especially with a bad budget and a mid-year leadership transition in the Assembly making 2023 complicated.
Article 34 is our coalition pathway. Repeal of this racist stain will be one housing ballot measure for November 2024. But history will judge us - and by us I mean California housers, not just its voters - based on two things: 1) how big a coalition we can build behind repeal and 2) whether because of this coalition we get to vote for historic funding and fiscal reform measures alongside repeal as part of a unified campaign. Only those additional measures can repair the damage of our racist past. Repeal by itself is a wasted chance for real change.
CONVERSION is my housing word of the year. We need to (carefully) convert commercial and office buildings to housing and mixed use. We need to (very carefully) convert all manners of rental buildings to various forms of resident-ownership, including ones with zero equity. And we need to (gently but firmly) convert thousands of California housers from very narrow housing beliefs into a more complete and diverse housing perspective, one that fits our incredibly large and diverse state.
Ideas Which Are Just As More Important Than Last Year
This time I’m doing the writing. Some very soon.
Implementation, Implementation, Implementation. I gave some love last year to the ADU community, which has admirably shifted gears from a policy focus to actually trying to build things. But we have a long way to go in so many areas. AB73 and SB540 from the 2017 Housing Package are my favorite place to start from an older vintage, but now we have AB2011 and SB9, or programs like the California Dream for All and Foreclosure Intervention programs. We also have those pesky housing elements that most jurisdictions in the State, theoretically, will have adopted in some form this year, each of which has a laundry list of good intentions. You can call it implementation, you can call it enforcement, you can call it doing stuff on the ground. All that stuff downstream from policy (which then becomes the upstream) needs more focus.
Civic Data Infrastructure. As I wrote last year, “More and more, we mandate sophisticated forms of analysis that local governments must do to comply with housing law, even if many don’t have the capacity to do this, or do so as a box-checking exercise rather than to actually plan. We mandate endless analysis for individual projects, which becomes a weapon, not an actual way of making projects better. At the same time, we don’t do real analysis of the impacts of state housing and land use legislation, so we are flying blind. We need new systems - a Statewide zoning database, for example3 - and a system for training people to do analysis and make it public. Only a system in which housing actors at all scales can access and produce analysis will help realize the data-driven policy dream. We have to find a better way.” It’s still true, only more so following housing elements.
Fiscal New Deal. Housing is about building, and about taxes, and both of those things come together in what I like to this of as the Fiscal Deal - the way the levels of government and land owners and users interact in a system of land use and taxation that theoretically makes everyone whole and keeps the lights on, the kids in school and the roads paved (and a few other things). It’s broken in so many ways right now, and not just because of Prop 13. We need a Fiscal New Deal, one that changes how community-building and maintenance is paid for. Stay tuned for some heady talk about Redevelopment 2.0 (coming back?), Enhanced Infrastructure Finance Districts, voter thresholds for bonds, and more. If you know more about this stuff than I do - which is very possible - get in touch.
Last Year’s Priorities Where We Need More Concrete Action (List in Formation Always)
I have a feeling this list will keep growing.
Protecting Vulnerable Californians. We passed AB1482 in 2019 to protect tenants, but it needs fixes, enforcement, and much better information for tenants and advocates (just try finding AB1482 on a state website). We need to start protecting low-income homeowners and appreciate their specific vulnerabilities and needs. Current proposals to keep an eye on: limiting security deposits, tweaking the renter’s tax credit, and expanding the welfare tax exemption.
Owning Buildings. My Homeownership strategy from last year isn’t (just) about individual single-family homeownership. Many of the core goals of the housing justice community - including Acquisition/Rehab and TOPA/COPA - are better thought of as Homeownership, especially multifamily homeownership. We can build a much bigger and more effective coalition on this issue, one that can result in a historic shift in who owns California’s homes. But it will require some longtime actors to open their minds to diverse ways of owning buildings for a diverse state.
Commercial Land + Big(ger) Projects. I talked about megaprojects recently, and I will come back to this subject, especially in relation to medium and large projects - the types that trigger inclusionary housing, ‘community benefit’ and other laws, hopes, and dreams. I will focus in particular on commercial land conversion - everything from strip malls to office conversions to larger shopping malls. We need dedicated, cross-sector attention to these conversions if we actually want them to happen and happen well. AB2011 at the end of the day is about commercial land as much as anything, and this will be critical to any implementation work.
Social Housing. Let’s make real progress here, even if there is no money. See below for some thoughts on how.
New Priorities For This Substack (But Probably Not New to Many of You)
Thanks to colleagues who sent in ideas. This list too may grow.
Religious Lands + Tribal Lands + University Lands. There are exciting things afoot when it comes to building housing on land owned by some of our most important organizations - religious groups (SB4), tribes, universities. All three either have or potentially will have bills aimed at giving them new powers or streamlining. We need to view these efforts in the same light to take them to the next level: we’re talking about giving California’s most foundational groups the real capacity to get housing built. I say get housing built and not build housing as all three should be clients of a single developer, not developers on their own. That developer: a new California Housing Development Corporation, aka Social Housing. This is how we pilot and move social housing in a complicated year.
Our Unhoused Neighbors. I’ve been too silent about this part of the housing crisis, one being lived in daily by so many Californians, especially Californians of color, especially the African American community, especially some of my actual neighbors. (Or at least too silent on the lived experience, and on transitions into more stable housing - there has never been any doubt in this newsletter that homelessness is a housing problem). There is so much pain, money, vitriol, sadness, hope, cruelty, racism, and perseverance in this space, one which is partially its own world in housing. I tread carefully here, and avoided engaging in year 1 until this newsletter found its feet. This is one of the many areas where I hope the interviews will help - I know they will help me.
Missing Middle Housing, Both Ways. Missing middle has a nice ring to it. If only it didn’t mean missing middle (density) to some, and missing middle (income) to others. But since these are linked, we’re all good. We need design reforms - single stairs, anyone?4 - and new programs that go as high as 150% of AMI and actually benefit and appeal to moderate income folks. Often times this is linked with homeownership, but not always. Stay tuned as well for a report from partners and I showing that missing middle housing in California is a racial justice issue.
BAHFA! LACAHSA! Regional Housing Finance + JPA Reform. It’s not a housing post without some acronyms. The Bay Area Housing Finance Agency (BAHFA) and the Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency (LACAHSA) were recently enabled by state law and are being set up in our two biggest regions. Other regions seek to follow. We’ve also had numerous Joint Powers Authorities (JPA) set up around the state that are doing serious bond deals to buy moderate income housing units. Unfortunately, not all this inter-jurisdictional cooperation to build and buy housing is perfect. The serious Joint Powers Authority issues that I flagged last year almost got (partially) fixed - but then it didn’t. This local/regional ambition is awesome, but it needs both support and oversight (and a few reforms).
Housing Finance. When it comes to larger housing finance organizations, California Dream for All got stood up, which is a minor miracle, since it made the 2022 list. We need to support its growth, and other forms of ethical shared ownership/appreciation, ones that sync up with the larger housing finance system and innovative reforms like Special Purpose Credit Programs. We also need new finance tools to facilitate acquiring older buildings for tenant and community ownership, including some sort of capital gains tax cookies that will make owners want to sell.
CEQA Reform and More From Our Green Friends. For a long time, I’ve been a CEQA reform skeptic. Not that it wasn’t needed, but I have long had many other issues higher in my priority list, especially when controlled for how hard it is to accomplish. While I’m still more focused on other things, I’m ready to start talking. My housing plate may be full, but that just means we need a bigger plate.
Housing Maintenance. Maintaining homes is hard. Period. And our systems for doing so are creaky at best. I am going to try to raise the profile of the least sexy part of housing - just keeping the stuff going - to balance out all the supply and demand. I will discuss whether we need to create a different kind of HMO (Housing Maintenance Organizations), one that is actually inspired by the original. We need house care for big buildings and small ones, for clusters of buildings and ones scattered around the region and state.
Fires, Floods and Insurance. This last one is fittingly written amidst the second atmospheric river in a week - which I still prefer to fire season. Where and how we build housing is now part of a larger conversation about how we insure it and what happens when some of it is destroyed. Remember that Temporary Housing Is Permanent.
So what did I miss?
Send me your priorities, and you may even see them in an edited version of this document. Looking forward to engaging with all of you in 2023.
Towards a better housed California,
Alex
And an ode to the great 49ers coach Bill Walsh, who scripted the first 25 plays even if he knew the game would change what he called. There is a metaphor there for us housers - or at least a good strategy for a housing Substack.
One of the main reasons why I’m starting the interview series is to enable this Substack to cover things beyond my expertise - i.e., housing the unhoused, anything to do with design, big parts of housing finance - that didn’t make the priorities last year because I knew I couldn’t do them justice on my own.
Professor Sara Bronin is leading an effort at Cornell University to translate and standardize the country’s zoning codes into a single online source. Folks at the UC Berkeley Other and Belonging Institute are leading the charge to create the California Zoning Atlas as part of this larger effort.
This is the reform to building and fire codes that would allow buildings to have only one internal staircase and a fire escape, as opposed to two internal staircases. This saves a lot of space and allows more efficient designs. See this Henry Grabar piece in Slate, or the Michael Eliason blog he discusses.