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Streamlining ISN’T creating affordability
It’s creating a mess.
Loss of modest starter homes to luxury condos means fewer people have the chance to own anything or build generational wealth. Making things easier on developers if they just add a few cheaper units to massive luxury developments doesn’t confront the truth: no one is willing to fund or subsidize what’s really needed: affordability.
IT WILL TAKE A DEDICATED STATEWIDE ALLIANCE TO EFFECT CHANGE
You can’t un-wreck your city
Sacramento has shifted critical land-use decisions away from communities and toward private, profit-driven development. Public priorities—safety, infrastructure, affordability, historic resources, the environment, livability — have lost their place. Cities are mandated a pace of development that is unnecessary and unsustainable, but there are harsh consequences for noncompliance. Communities are fighting project by project, not realizing that hundreds of new laws specifically allow builders to do as they please, regardless of community benefit or detriment. This is a well funded machine.
WAKE UP connects the laws and policies to local impacts;
Californians deserve to understand what's changing, why it matters, and how to participate.
Affordability, Safety, Environmental Integrity, and Local Accountability
THE FIGHTS LOOK SEPARATE. THEY ARE THE SAME FIGHT.
All of these issues connect to housing. Why is every city mandated growth of at least 15%, knowing we all have different needs and limitations? State laws remove planning power and transfer it to a for-profit industry that can ignore all of our concerns about the impacts of their oversized projects. And our cities lite
PROBLEMATIC, FAILED, ABANDONED
Density bonuses are encouraging outrageous oversized projects that overwhelm communities.
The SF Marina Safeway Project, left.
Newsom steps up rhetoric and punishes cities acting in good faith
The state has filed lawsuits against five California cities, including Half Moon Bay, even as some communities say they are actively working toward compliance. The actions raise broader questions about how California balances housing mandates with local circumstances and good-faith efforts. We’re seeing the first wave of cities hit with punishments, in spite of their extenuating circumstances.
See BLOG SECTION for more.
best practices set aside as scapegoats
Huge Housing Mandates Ignore Public Safety
Density = Structure to Structure Spread
CAN WE GET OUT SAFELY?
It’s well understood that housing density allows fire to spread rapidly. Yet huge mandates and density demands force cities to make impossible decisions: Approve developments that impact public safety or face lawsuits, fines, and further loss of local land use control. We deserve considerations from our state.
CEQA AND THE COASTAL COMMISSION KEPT OUR STATE LIVABLE AND BEAUTIFUL
California is undergoing a sea change; our state’s long-protected pride in a clean environment has shifted to a cynical opening for exploitation.
Sacramento is moving to gut CEQA — the California Environmental Quality Act — to speed development without guardrails that have safeguarded our land and coast for 60 years. Opening sensitive and contaminated areas for development has not and will not solve our affordability crisis.
AND LOCAL BUSINESSES? BERKELEY AS A CASE STUDY: in 3 minutes
What is playing out in our cities? EMPTY SIDEWALKS. BIG HOLE IN THE GROUND.
In 3 minutes by Todd Darling shows exactly how the new laws are enabling the devastation of Berkeley and its livability. Check out the Build a Better Berkeley site: https://www.buildabetterberkeley.org More videos are on BLOG page
our CALIFORNIA is not ONE SIZE fits all
