Iām going to put this in here b/c I view it as a WTF for an election year.
CA passes bill to reduce parking availability. This is a well intentioned bill to promote the expansion of housing, not yet signed by Newsom but if he does sign it, the howling is going to be CRAZY.
Hereās a quote:
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has on his desk a long-awaited reform bill that will make housing cheaper and more abundant, help mom ānā pop restaurants get started, let architects reuse historic buildings, and make the stateās neighborhoods more walkable.
What issue connects those disparate topics? Onerous local laws that require every gym and office, every sneaker store and Korean barbecue and donut shop, and most importantly every home to come with a certain number of parking spots. If California Assemblywoman Laura Friedmanās AB 2097 avoids the governorās veto, those requirements will disappear within a half-mile of regular transit service, effectively ending parking minimums in large swaths of the stateās cities and suburbs.
Itās presented in the article as a great idea but IMO the assumptionsā¦
For day-to-day life in California, these parking rules are as powerful as they are invisible. They ensure ample parking at every new office, shop, or house.
Hahahahahaha. Jesus wept. Ample parking. Hahahahahahahahaha. Christ. I canāt stop laughing. In West LA? Nope. In much of the Bay Area? Nope. In greater LA and OC more generally? Nope. Sacramento does in fact have reasonably ample parking but the other big metros in the state, Jesus Wept.
And itās not just me - people are going to go batshit if this is signed into law.
It frustrates me b/c the real answer to CAās housing crisis is fairly clear, but is unfortunately too left wing for āblueā CA - we need to build, in high demand areas, with fucking public money, a lot of goddamn housing that is also goddamn affordable that also gives the residents the freedom to be full citizens (which means either VERY FUCKING GOOD mass transit, or plenty of parking). This blind reliance on the market to build affordable housing pisses me off so much. The market doesnāt want to build cheap housing in high demand areas b/c the profit margins are low! The market wants to milk that demand like a Guernsey cow. If you want cheap housing in high demand areas, it has to be built. With public money. Damnit.
(Note - it may sound like Iām criticizing this proposal from the right at first and I am in terms of political impact but in terms of actual policy itās IMO a good example of the ālight blueā tone of much CA āliberalismā - pretend to help the poor but really just leave it up to the market. I mean we still have a major utility in CA in private for-profit hands that is busy burning down the northern part of the state and we canāt seem to do anything about that. Gah.)
