The Homework: November 4, 2024
Welcome to the November 4, 2024 Main edition of The Homework, the official newsletter of California YIMBY — legislative updates, news clips, housing research and analysis, and the latest writings from the California YIMBY team.
News from Sacramento
We are entering the start of a new, two-year legislative cycle. The Legislature will officially reconvene on January 6, 2025, and begin by swearing in new members. Due to term limits and members seeking other offices, around a dozen state senators and two dozen Assemblymembers are exiting, and a new wave of legislators will make their way to Sacramento. With a new class of members coming to the Capitol, we expect a shift in legislative committees and new committee chairs.
California YIMBY is currently working on finalizing our legislative package for the 2025 legislative year – stay tuned!
Stay tuned to future editions of The Homework, and follow the California YIMBY Twitter channel, @cayimby, to stay up to date on developments on the legislative session and related news.
Housing Research & Analysis
Cruel Musical Chairs: How to Talk About Housing Supply (HINT: use video)story
Despite the expert consensus that building more homes reduces housing prices, a significant portion of the public remains skeptical of supply-side housing policy. This skepticism poses a challenge for policymakers aiming to implement land-use liberalization and other pro-housing development policies.
In Do Housing Supply Skeptics Learn? Evidence from Economics and Advocacy Treatments, Chris Elmendorf, Clayton Nall, and Stan Oklobdzija test the effectiveness of four different types of arguments to see whether people will change their minds in response to new evidence, and what kinds of messages are most persuasive
Key Takeaways:
- Every pro-supply message the researchers tested reduced respondents’ supply skepticism, with the greatest effect coming from a video using a “cruel musical chairs” analogy of the housing market.
- The treatments increased support for market-rate development, with the “cruel musical chairs” video increasing support by .35 standard deviation.
- Contrary to the “homevoter hypothesis,” the treatments did not polarize opinions between homeowners and renters. In fact, homeowners responded as positively as renters did to the messages.
Unrepresentative Sample: How Public Meetings Weaken Fair Housing Outcomes
The practice of inviting the public to comment on proposed projects in long, often-contentious meetings is a hallmark of American urban planning practice in the post urban renewal age. However, recent research out of Boston suggests that the public that shows up to speak is not at all representative of the public at large.
In Public Comment and Public Policy, Alexander Sahn analyzes 40,000 public comments made at the San Francisco Planning Commission to find out whether public commenters are representative of the public, how a speaker’s proximity to a proposed project affects their support or opposition, whether public comment influences Commission votes, and whether white commenters have disproportionate influence.
Key Takeaways:
- Unrepresentative Commenters: Sahn finds that commenters at San Francisco public meetings are predominantly white, older, more politically active, and more likely to be homeowners compared to the general population.
- Proximity and Opposition: Individuals living closer to proposed developments are more likely to comment, especially in opposition. In other words, NIMBYism is a significant driver of public participation.
- Correlation with Policy Outcomes: There is a notable correlation between the preferences expressed by commenters and the decisions made by the SFPC. Projects with more favorable public comments are more likely to be approved, although the study does not establish a direct causal link.
- Differential Responsiveness: The preferences of white commenters and neighborhood group representatives align more closely with project approvals than those of other racial groups or interest groups. This suggests that certain voices are more influential in shaping policy outcomes.
Houser Headlines
- Kamala Harris says America needs more homes. Here’s why that’s different.
- California’s Housing Divide
- At 96, she’s ‘thinking about the future of L.A. housing’ and built an ADU to prove it
- Dems are split over California rent control measure — but YIMBYs are firmly on one side
- Evading CA housing laws – Los Angeles
- Los Angeles’ $22-billion homelessness problem gives leaders a choice: Double down or change strategies
- How much would it cost to end homelessness in California? Try more than $100 billion
- Half a million California homeowners to see second insurance rate hike in a year
- There’s a new deal-breaker in California real estate purchases
- Climate Change Is Causing a Home Insurance “Crisis” in These 13 States – Business Insider
- California Democrats Need to Clean Up the Coastal Commission
YIMBY Social – Top Posts
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