DENSE REBUILDING WOULD PUT MANY MORE AT RISK

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“DENSE REBUILDING WOULD PUT MANY MORE AT RISK”

 

President Trump, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass rarely are unanimous on anything. But all three have taken steps toward allowing victims of the January firestorms in Los Angeles County to rebuild their communities essentially as they were before.

 

In both places, this would mean large quantities of single family housing and few multi-family apartment and condominium buildings.

 

But the seemingly innocuous aims announced by these leading politicians may soon run afoul of housing density factors playing no role in rebuilding that’s followed other major California blazes. Some of these were the 2018 Camp fire that leveled Paradise, the Tubbs fire covering parts of Napa, Sonoma and Lake counties in 2017 and the 2018 Woolsey fire that destroyed a large swath of Malibu.

 

The new factors include recent state and local laws demanding vastly increased density in new housing and a plethora of low- and middle-income units.

 

In the modern era, no other event has created nearly as much newly buildable land as the January infernos, which turned more than 16,000 structures to ash.

 

A clear majority of former residents in both Altadena and the Pacific Palisades district of Los Angeles want to rebuild their communities much as they were pre-fire.

 

But laws adopted since the previous huge burns demand both density and economic diversity. Newsom could suspend some of those laws if he chooses, just as he exempted properties leveled by the Palisades fire, which also decimated many extremely pricey Malibu homes, from normal coastal zone regulations. He has not done that.

 

Here's one basic reality the recent laws don’t recognize: If density increases in burn footprints, the number of prospective victims in the inevitable future fires there will also leap.

 

Some planners are already saying there should be less development, not more, in these areas because of their histories of repeated fires. The recent laws don’t figure this in.

 

For example, two 2021 state laws known SB 9 and SB 10 allow developers to erect three-story buildings along all major thoroughfares, regardless of locale. Permits for such construction are nearly automatic under the rules. They can sometimes rise as high as eight floors.

 

But the most important street in Pacific Palisades, the storied Sunset Boulevard, previously had virtually no buildings of more than two floors in the Palisades. Higher-rise structures might enable more economic diversity, but would also put many more residents at risk.

 

Yet, there’s little or nothing about risk in the one-size-fits-all laws that whizzed to passage.

 

Meanwhile, city ordinances in Los Angeles and other places go at density differently, focusing on economics. One local law dictates that all units in buildings put up before 1978 would need to be replaced with units “affordable” to low-income renters even if previous tenants had high incomes.

 

Another law, governing post-1978 structures, would require that landlords prove all pre-fire tenants were high income. If they can’t, new units could only be built if they’re affordable for extremely low income, very low income or low income households in direct proportion to city-wide percentages in those economic categories.

 

This might let some household cleaners and gardeners live much closer to work than before, but would also put many more people at risk in a place of frequent fires.

 

The new residents would fall into economic classes below nearby neighbors planning to rebuild in single-family zones. That is, unless developers buy up significant numbers of suddenly vacant lots and build up to six units on each, where there was previously just one home. That’s also permitted almost automatically by recent state laws.

 

On the other hand, few previously-burned communities have had as many residents with access to political, financial and cultural power as Pacific Palisades and Altadena, power that may be used to resist the new laws.

 

All of which means rebuilding these two communities may prove far more complex both financially and morally than after previous fires, where recent laws did not apply.

 

Legislators and local officials could change some of this and let the stricken communities try to recapture their former character. But how likely is that when many lawmakers were elected on platforms demanding ever more housing density and diversity?

 

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

NEWSOM, DeSANTIS SETTING US UP FOR SOMETHING

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MARCH 4, 2022 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

     “NEWSOM, DeSANTIS SETTING US UP FOR SOMETHING”

 

        The governors make it sound almost like an advance presidential debate, Florida vs. California, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis vs. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.

 

        This argument is all about the merits of how the two men, both up for reelection this year and each the almost absolute boss of his state’s response to the coronavirus, have handled the pandemic from its inception about two years ago.

 

        Thundered DeSantis, who will have serious Democratic competition this fall, “Across the nation (he means California), we see students denied an education due to reckless, politically motivated school closures, workers denied employment due to heavy-handed mandates and Americans denied freedoms due to a coercive biomedical apparatus.”

 

        Responded Newsom, “With respect, we’d have 40,000 more Californians dead if we took (the DeSantis) approach…I do not look for inspiration to that particular governor.”

 

        It sure sounds like these two are running against each other. But as they each without doubt contemplate running for president, both have big obstacles blocking the way in their own party.

 

For DeSantis, it is ex-President Donald Trump, to whom he shows almost blind deference. For Newsom, it’s the sitting president, Joseph Biden, plus his vice president, former California Sen. Kamala Harris. Newsom and Harris both began as proteges of former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and have so far managed to avoid opposing each other’s ambitions. It’s anyone’s guess how long that can continue since both Newsom and Harris evince every sign of wanting America’s top political job.

 

But if we imagine for a moment we can see ahead to a time when the obstacles have disappeared and DeSantis and Newsom essentially share the battlefield, it’s useful to look at their respective claims.

 

        There is a strong mathematical argument for Newsom’s claim that his tactics of shutdowns and widespread mandatory vaccinations have saved 40,000 lives compared to what would have happened had California followed the Florida path of open stores, offices and businesses, with little mandatory masking or vaccination.

 

        Start with basic population numbers. At year’s end, Florida had 21.7 million people and California 39.2 million. That means California has 1.8 times the population of Florida.

 

        Florida in early February had seen 5.04 million cases of COVID-19 and its variants, California 6.87 million. So Florida has had proportionately far more cases than California. Florida had seen 63,158 deaths to California’s 77,966. If you did the math, you would see that if California had followed the same tactics as Florida, it would likely have 113,684 coronavirus deaths. That’s a difference of 35,718, only slightly fewer than Newsom said.

 

        But DeSantis would argue that many of those extra dead would have come from among the very frail denizens of nursing homes before vaccinations became almost universal in assisted living facilities. Most of them, this argument goes, would not have lived much longer anyhow, so Florida’s lack of strong action didn’t really do much harm.

 

        You might get a different sense from the families of those nursing home patients.

 

        But no matter. The differences between the Newsom and DeSantis approaches continue steadily and could presage future debates between them – if the Republican Party lets its presidential candidates continue the quadrennial debates that have been a key feature of American politics since 1960.

 

        DeSantis in mid-January deplored “authoritarian, arbitrary and seemingly never-ending mandates and restrictions” due to the virus, Newsom at almost the same moment requested a budget allocation of $2.7 billion to expand testing, boost hospital staffing and give workers more paid leave when sick.

 

        It’s a direct contrast of government action and control vs. a laissez faire version of almost complete freedom of choice. That would make for a classic presidential race.

 

        In fact, if the race becomes a Biden rematch with Donald Trump, that could likely also be a major theme.

 

        No one can precisely project the future, but folks who like to fantasize about it and read tea leaves indicating what may be ahead can heartily thank both Newsom and DeSantis for providing a possible look ahead.

 

    -30-

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

WATER RATIONING: IF IT COMES, DO IT RIGHT

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 2014 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
    “WATER RATIONING: IF IT COMES, DO IT RIGHT”

          Despite heavy mid-February rains that briefly drenched Northern California and the respectable ensuing snowfall in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the California drought remains.

          In fact, it is still more severe than the worst previous dry spell of modern times, which hit in 1976-77.

          Short of millennial downpours in late winter or early spring, this means water rationing is almost certain for most Californians. When and if it comes, there are lessons to be learned from what happened 37 years ago:

          Rationing must be fair and include heavy consequences for failure to comply, homeowners must be willing to let some landscaping go brown and the entire system must be free of politics. Otherwise, there’s a good chance large numbers of residents simply won’t comply.

          It would also help to accelerate the water metering program now underway in Sacramento and other Central Valley communities that had no meters in the 1970s drought and a milder one that struck in 1991.

          How fair is it that drought or no drought, Sacramento residents (including tens of thousands of state officials and bureaucrats) use an average of 279 gallons per day, compared with 98 gallons for San Franciscans and less than 150 per day for Los Angeles residents, habitually accused by some Sacramentans of “stealing” their water?

          How fair is it for denizens of the leafy San Francisco Peninsula suburb of Hillsborough to use 334 gallons per day, while 14 miles away in much less fortunate East Palo Alto, residents glug only 79, according to reportage in the San Jose Mercury News?

          Those figures and the reality that only about half the homes in Sacramento and several other Central Valley cities now have water meters makes it blatantly unfair even to consider asking or requiring anyone to cut use by a set percentage.

          Yes, everyone will likely need to cut. But when Hillsborough or Sacramento residents cut by the 20 percent Gov. Jerry Brown now requests of all Californians, they still use far more water than most Californians do even in a normal, non-drought year.

          It’s also true that when people are told to cut voluntarily by a certain percentage, regardless of their normal use levels, they understand that percentage cuts may soon become mandatory and be enforced with penalties. But no one knows what date will be designated as the benchmark from which use levels are measured. So anyone cutting back now risks being forced to trim much more later, when rationing begins. This creates potential future penalties for anyone who conserves today. Strategically, it makes no sense for residents to trim now when they know they may soon be asked to reduce from a new, lower level.

          So rationing based on percentage cutbacks can be inherently unfair. By contrast, per-person use limits are fair, and Californians tend to respond well to them when imposed. In 1991, for example, the Marin Municipal Water District told households they could use no more than 50 gallons per person daily. Residents did better than that, using just 47 gallons each.

          A weakness in this kind of system is that water districts and city water departments can’t know how many persons live in each household. Even information from the latest Census is outdated. And yet…Californians have usually been honest about this kind of thing. The Marin district sent out its own census cards in 1991, with the total of residents reported on them almost identical to the district’s population.

          Percentage-based rationing can be successful, too, even if it’s unfair. In 1976-77, when Los Angeles households were asked to lower water use by 10 percent, residents responded by cutting almost twice that much.

          What’s more, a UC Berkeley study of nine water districts at the time showed that the heavier the fines for overuse, the better was compliance.

          Then there’s politics, like the February attempt of congressional Republicans to give Central Valley farms a virtual monopoly on the small supplies available this year. They ignored city residents and fishing interests, and risked putting several other species at risk of becoming endangered, as happened to the notorious Delta smelt in the 1970s drought.

          All of which means water rationing can work, as it has before, but only if Californians are convinced it is both necessary and fair.

         

     -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

CARBON TRADING CRITICS WRONG: STATE FAR FROM ALONE

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MARCH 4, 2011, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“CARBON TRADING CRITICS WRONG: STATE FAR FROM ALONE”

Because Republicans in Congress have steadfastly stymied attempts to get the federal government to act against global warming and climate change, critics of California’s new carbon trading rules usually get little contradiction when they insist those regulations will see this state going it alone and putting itself at an economic disadvantage.

But they’re wrong, at least in large part.

For California isn’t going it alone at all. Long before this state's Air Resources Board voted 9-1 to start a system of trading in pollution allowances next year, a Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative set up a similar system in 10 northeastern and mid-Atlantic states. There was also the Western Climate Initiative covering seven western states and four Canadian provinces, setting a regional target of reducing heat-trapping emissions (mostly carbon-related) 15 percent below 2005 levels.

And there was the similar Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord covering seven states and two more Canadian provinces. There’s also New Mexico, going it alone with rules as tough as California’s, which may or may not be attacked by that state’s new Republican governor.

Altogether, this means California is among at least 24 (maybe 25) states and six provinces taking similar but not identical actions against climate change because the federal government will not.

They join the European Union, whose own carbon trading system is about to enter its second four-year phase.

Altogether, the American states involved account for well over half the nation’s populace, most of its industrial production and just under half its geographic territory.

Yes, this may make a few companies locate new factories in other states, mostly those in the Republican-dominated Southeast, but those who want to locate near their largest markets will have to contend with the new regulations, whether in California or the other states involved. Which means that if California has placed itself at a competitive disadvantage, it’s not a great one.

And figures like Gov. Brown and ARB chairwoman Mary Nichols may be correct when they say the new rules here and elsewhere will give the state a big advantage as new technologies are developed to reduce pollution and make the companies that do it more profitable because they can then sell off any rights they have to produce their former levels of emissions.

All this has plenty of complications, and California’s rules may be more complex than those elsewhere.

One example is Massachusetts, a member of the Northeast group, whose rules call for heat-trapping gas emissions to be cut 25 percent below 1990 levels by the end of this decade. That’s an even tougher standard than California’s goal of simply getting back down to 1990 levels by 2020.

Like California officials, the Massachusetts energy and environment secretary insists his state’s new rules will produce net gains in jobs and “put the lie to the Chicken Little-oriented debate that equates reducing emissions with economic disruption.”

The Massachusetts tactics include incentives like “pay as you drive” insurance rates that price coverage according to how far people drive, a system that is in its infancy in California, with only two insurance companies so far set to try it. There is also a cap-and-trade system for electric utilities and there are major incentives for power companies to switch from fuels like oil, coal and natural gas to renewable sources like wind and solar.

These moves in large part are imitations of California’s cap-and-trade plan, which sets specific goals for various industries, from transportation to power generation to construction.

Under the rules adopted here, companies that produce less gases than their quotas (the cap) will be able to sell the difference to others that can’t or won’t get down to their required levels (the trade). The prices of such pollution credits have yet to be determined, along with what the state will charge for emission credits it will grant. Companies will also be allowed to sell carbon-sequestration credits if their assets (including forests) absorb more carbon gases from the air than the company produces.

The idea is to set up incentives for companies to clean up their operations: the cleaner a company gets, the more money it can make by selling pollution credits. The caps, though, will get lower each year the system exists. Eventually, California’s plan may link to those of other states and Canadian provinces with similar cap and trade systems, with prices set on an international exchange operating much like the stock market.

The bottom line: California’s rules may be tough, but there are tougher ones in some other states. Which means the state should not succumb to the whining of industries that simply don’t want to clean up their acts.

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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net