California YIMBY

2024 LA Victory Party

Join California YIMBY and Abundant Housing Los Angeles for the 2024 Los Angeles Victory Party! This is our inaugural celebration of pro-housing champions, newly passed pro-housing legislation, and grassroots partner wins. We’re excited to gather as a broad YIMBY coalition…

The Accessory Success Story: How San Diego Builds Multi-Family ADUs

In 2016 the California state legislature passed a series of bills that broadly legalized accessory dwelling units (ADUs), sometimes known as “granny flats” or “in-law units.” These “accessory” homes – so-called because they are legally a part of the existing…

We Can’t Build, and it’s Very, Very Bad: On the Politics of Urban Growth

Leaving aside the specific policy barriers to building—strict zoning, onerous permitting processes, environmental review laws that empower litigious neighbors, and so on— most jurisdictions and states across the United States struggle to build housing and infrastructure, and most policymakers fail…

Leveling the Field: Reforming Land Use for “Missing Middle” Homes

In housing construction, new homes are said to “pencil out” – or be financially feasible – when the expected rental income or sales price is high enough to cover construction costs plus a reasonable return on investment. A project that…

How Urban Housing Shortages Fuel Costly Climate Disasters

How do urban housing shortages caused by tight zoning and other land use regulations increase the risk of climate disaster? In Relational Geographies of Urban Unsustainability: The Entanglement of California’s Housing Crisis With WUI Growth and Climate Change, Miriam Greenberg,…

Defective Condo Defect Laws: Ripe for Repair?

Since 2011, 97 percent of California’s new multifamily housing has been built for rent, not for ownership. While the state needs to continue to build hundreds of thousands of rentals – more supply will drive down housing costs, and stabilize…

Movin’ On Up? The Low Ceiling of North American Elevator Standards

Why do we have so many walk-up apartment buildings without elevators in North America, and why are buildings with elevators so expensive compared to the rest of the world? In a new report simply titled “Elevators”, Stephen Smith, from the…