CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2022, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL MEETS THE
MEGA-RICH”
One key
principle behind the spate of laws passed in the last two years aimed at
increasing California’s housing density is that every city in the state is
essentially the same.
That’s
why new laws have eliminated single-family residential zoning throughout the
state, and not merely in the most sprawling cities and counties. That’s why
virtually every street in the state with any commercial elements is now subject
to high-rise development, if developers can be found to do the work.
It’s a
one-size-fits-all philosophy that was bound to create major conflict when it
began affecting the often quirky cities that make up much of this crazy-quilt
state.
One of
the more eccentric such places is Atherton, long a haven for the super-rich,
sitting in the midst of Silicon Valley, a short distance north of Palo Alto and
Stanford University.
This five
square mile city of 7,060 is host to a major contingent of the wealthiest
dot-com investors and executives. Its residents include the founder of Netflix;
the head of video game maker Electronic Arts; the chief of the financial
technology firm SoFi, for which the modern stadium housing both the Los Angeles
Rams and Chargers is named; top executives of Google and Apple, and a host of
venture capitalists who got fabulously wealthy by investing early in some of
those firms and others. The median home sale price there has exceeded $7
million for the last few years.
Now
Atherton is being told by the state it must create 348 new housing units or
suffer major losses of state funding for police, fire department, water
facilities and other public needs.
But how
to build that many new units, enough to house 1,000 or more persons, almost
one-seventh the current population, in a town where very few homes occupy less
than an acre? And how to do that and still let many of them be priced
affordably in a city where homesites’ land alone sometimes brings upwards of $8
million, which would raise the price per unit well above the $1 million level
already seen in some other areas with high land values?
Advocates
of denser housing often call local residents who oppose dense new housing
developments in single-family areas NIMBYs, for Not in My Backyard.
They
could find some classics in Atherton, where billionaire investor Marc Andreesen
opposes new multi-family housing near his home, but in a 2020 essay griped
about the lack of new housing across the country. “We should have gleaming
skyscrapers and spectacular living environments in all our best cities,” he
wrote then, according to The Atlantic magazine. But duplexes and three-floor
apartment buildings near his own home, uh-uh.
As
conflict neared with the density enforcement unit created this year by state
Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, several Silicon Valley giants with major executives
living in Atherton began trying to buy off trouble.
Meta, the
new name for Facebook’s parent, pledged $1 billion to help stave off housing
woes on the San Francisco Peninsula. Google put in another $1 billion. Apple
pledged $2.5 billion and Netflix supported a housing non-profit.
A
letter-writing campaign with a spate of famous signees spurred city officials
to cut out the townhouse part of its housing plan, which would need state
approval to become official. Instead, the city government proposed a program
encouraging residents to build and rent out additional dwelling units (ADUs) on
their properties. These “grandma units” could be fenced off from the main part
of large properties, providing privacy for all.
But it’s
doubtful that hundreds of mansion owners could simultaneously create rental
ADUs. For one thing, they would have a hard time finding enough contractors,
plumbers, electricians and other tradesmen to build so many units in short
order.
This sets
up a seemingly inevitable battle between America’s richest city, with an
average household income topping $400,000, and state officials determined to
create dense new housing everywhere for even the poorest people.
Which
could lead to a far wider crisis if the denizens of this posh small city should
decide to take their marbles with names like Google and Facebook and Netflix
and Apple and Nvidia and move them to other places.
Talk
about unforeseen consequences of a well-intentioned policy!
-30-
Elias is author of the current book “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most
Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It,” now
available in an updated third edition. His email address is tdelias@aol.com
No comments:
Post a Comment