XPost: alt.building.construction, alt.politics.republicans, sac.politics   
   XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns   
   From: nobody_calls_them_that@karen.dumbass   
      
   California YIMBY, an organization founded eight years ago to promote   
   housing construction in response to an ever-increasing gap between   
   demand and supply, held a victory party in San Francisco recently.   
      
   “Welcome to the most victorious of California YIMBY’s victory parties,”   
   Brian Hanlon, founder and CEO of the organization, told attendees.   
      
   Its acronym (Yes In My Backyard) symbolizes its years-long battle with   
   NIMBYs (Not in My Backyard), people and groups who have long thwarted   
   housing projects by pressuring local governments that control land use.   
      
   YIMBY’s party marked the passage of several pro-housing legislative   
   measures this year, two of which have long been sought by housing   
   advocates. Assembly Bill 130 exempts many urban housing projects from   
   the California Environmental Quality Act, while Senate Bill 79 makes it   
   easier to building high-density housing near transit stations in large   
   cities.   
      
   “2025 was a year,” Hanlon gleefully declared.   
      
   The celebratory atmosphere was understandable because this year’s   
   legislative actions capped a half-decade of ever-mounting state   
   government activism on housing that followed Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2017   
   campaign pledge to build 3.5 million new units of housing if elected.   
      
   That goal was wildly unrealistic, as Newsom should have known, but he   
   did push hard for legislation to remove barriers to housing development.   
   His housing agency also ramped up pressure on local governments to   
   remove arbitrary hurdles that YIMBY-influenced officials had erected and   
   to meet quotas for identifying land that could be used for housing.   
      
   However, the celebration omitted one salient factor: Pro-housing   
   legislative and administrative actions have failed to markedly increase   
   housing production.   
      
   New housing starts were around 100,000 a year when Newsom took office in   
   2019, and they are about that number today, with the net increase even   
   lower.   
      
   As the Housing and Community Development Department admits in its   
   statewide housing plan, “Not enough housing being built: During the last   
   ten years, housing production averaged fewer than 80,000 new homes each   
   year, and ongoing production continues to fall far below the projected   
   need of 180,000 additional homes annually.”   
      
   The Census Bureau calculates that since Newsom took office, new housing   
   permits in California ranged from a high of 120,780 units in 2022 to a   
   low of 101,546 last year. Newsom’s own budget agrees with the Census   
   Bureau’s data for the same period and projects future construction   
   through 2028 at 100,000 to 104,000 units a year.   
      
   Those are the numbers. But how data on housing is collected and collated   
   has been a somewhat murky process, and opponents of housing projects   
   often challenge how they comport with quotas the state imposes on local   
   communities.   
      
   Fortunately, the Census Bureau has unveiled a new statistical tool that   
   should go a long way toward having complete data that includes not only   
   conventional single- and multi-family projects, but alternative forms of   
   housing such as backyard granny flats, officially known as Accessory   
   Dwelling Units; basements or garages that are transformed into   
   apartments; single-family homes converted into duplexes or apartments;   
   mobile homes or office buildings that become housing.   
      
   The tool uses several sources of data but is heavily reliant on the   
   Postal Service, which maintains a constantly updated roster of addresses   
   that includes all housing types.   
      
   More accurate data should make it easier to overcome conflicts and may   
   even reveal that California’s pro-housing actions have had positive   
   effects that current methodology misses.   
      
   “The housing crisis has persisted in part because we haven’t been able   
   to measure our progress accurately,” an article about the new tool   
   published by the Niskanen Center, a think tank, concludes. “With the   
   Census Bureau’s Address Count Listing File data, that excuse is gone.   
   Now the question is whether policymakers will use this powerful new tool   
   to finally build the housing America needs.”   
      
   https://calmatters.org/commentary/2025/11/california-housing-data-tool/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)