Marin Voice: Push for new housing based on political ideologies, beliefs

Communities across California are struggling to deal with new laws passed by the Legislature forcing the building of housing and diminishing the foundation of our democratic local governments.

From my perspective, these laws are not based on sound scientific evidence. Instead, they are fashionable ideas concerning needs and blaming local governments.

Senate Bill 8 simply states there is a housing crisis. It cites no studies to support its position and the only reference it makes to these immediate concerns is to point to the Terner Center at University of California, Berkeley which examined the rising costs of housing. That was a survey and not a study of costs. SB 9 has no references to a housing crisis or the kinds of conditions that could be defined as a crisis.

SB 10 also fails to identify a scientific basis for its need. None of these bills refer to any studies to support the supposed outcome of affordable housing or as means of relieving a supposed housing crisis, which is not defined. These bills, as published, are simply legal arguments and philosophy. They are based on certain beliefs held by their supporters.

Marin and California are not alone in the problem of defining housing needs and how to devise means to provide adequate, affordable and safe housing structures.  A recent study of European housing by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development detailed problems there. They are very similar to our issues. This is a worldwide problem. The numbers of homeless people and shantytowns are growing everywhere.

I believe the central reason for this is the change in financed housing in the 1980s and the resulting transformation of housing into an asset class for speculation as never before.

But this is not new. According to historians, the Romans also had waves of housing speculation with huge tenements built with tiny living spaces. They jammed dozens of people into single rooms, making fire traps in ancient Rome and other cities. The Italian archeologist Alberto Angela has described the ruins of some of these structures. These were called “insulae.”

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, there were similar buildings in Europe and the U.S. My father grew up in a “cold water flat” in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood. As documented in studies collected by Lyle W. Dorsett, buildings like his had only one toilet, sink and tub for as many as 100 people per floor.

After World War II, many housing projects were built to accommodate a growing American population and considerable increased immigration. Most of these were poorly built and designed. They were not maintained, creating substandard living conditions as Nathaniel S. Keith, among others, has shown.

Current housing data demonstrate that we are not building the kinds of structures that can provide affordable units and be safe and maintained at reasonable cost.  We have spent the past four decades building structures with square footage of more than 2,000 for two or three people, on average. This is luxury housing.

I consider the housing crisis to be one of building and design. If the Legislature wants to deal with the needs of citizens, it needs to write laws to produce affordable housing based on scientific research and with incentives for builders and investors to produce such housing. The state could also build housing itself, but only if based on sound research and evidence.

While a 2017 Brookings Institute study could be used to support the three bills mentioned, it lacks any examples of how changes in zoning did produce affordable housing in any location. It is an example of the ideology on which politicians like state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) built their arguments.

We must realize that the home-building industry is a business. Money will be invested where the most profit can be made. As in any business, where there is a greater demand for housing, there is more profit. In this light, it is clear that the industry is not motivated to swamp the market with tons of units.

Niccolo Caldararo is a former member of the Fairfax Town Council.