Malibu, fires, and the mandate for endless growth

“California will force Malibu and other towns to add housing. Here’s why that’s not nearly enough.”

So reads the headline on an op-ed published by the Los Angeles Times on May 5, 2024. The authors are Paavo Monkkonen, a professor of urban planning and public policy at UCLA, and Aaron Barrall, a housing data analyst at the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies. Monkkonen is one of the most vocal advocates of the Yimby build-baby-build agenda.

The op-ed touted the state’s recent “unprecedented action to spur housing production in recent years:”

Since 2017 the Legislature has passed nearly a hundred new laws to facilitate construction, including requiring cities to update local housing plans with more ambitious production targets. The executive branch has pursued a carrot-and-stick strategy to reward cities committed to addressing the housing crisis and penalize those that are not. And the attorney general scored recent high-profile victories in legal conflicts to advance plans for housing in the wealthy cities of Malibu, Huntington Beach and La Cañada Flintridge.

Yet this legislative tsunami—in fact it’s much bigger than Monkkonen and Barrall and their source, the Terner Center at UC Berkeley say—”has not had the tangible impact on housing production and affordability seen in other states (such as Texas) and countries (such as New Zealand).” California “is not on track to reach its 2022 goal of building 2.5 million units by 2030. In recent years, we’ve permitted only an average of around 110,000 units annually.”

The authors’ poster child for this failure is Malibu.

After the city dragged its feet on its mandated housing plan, which was due in 2021, the attorney general petitioned the courts to intervene in April. Malibu settled with the state, agreeing to adopt a compliant plan by mid-September. In effect, the city was allowed to delay its plan update — and any new housing it may have produced — for almost three years without significant consequences.

And

Malibu is not alone. Nearly a quarter of Southern California cities still lack state-approved plans to accommodate new housing development and implement fair housing policies. While these cities dawdle, the region’s residents suffer the effects of the housing shortage: high rents, overcrowding, eviction and homelessness. Given how far behind the state is in its goal to meet housing demands, stronger penalties and plans are needed.

To address this shortfall, Monkkonen and Barrall urge weakening the California Environmental Quality Act. That would “remove an excuse that anti-housing cities use to delay growth.”

Reader Fred0000087 commented:

The entirety of the City of Malibu is in a notorious High Severity Fire-Hazard Zone (HSFHZ). With limited ways in and out, and half or more of the city subject to immediate evacuation notice, there are life-threatening consequences to the imposition of higher density within the city.

To which Socialtimesreader8 replied:

Hadn’t thought of that. Excellent point. You can’t even get through that area as it is. Constant landslides, narrow roads, closed roads, Topanga is set to be closed for months. Death trap if they tried to make it Miami Beach. Which of course the developers do.

If there’s one thing that the still-raging fires in Los Angeles have made clear, it’s that California’s environmental laws need to be strengthened, and that weakening CEQA further would be insanity.

This insight has eluded Governor Newsom. On January 12, he suspended “the application of CEQA and the permitting requirements under the Coastal Act to efforts to rebuild or repair properties or facilities destroyed or substantially damaged by these fires.”

I’d like to say Newsom’s action is unbelievable. Unfortunately, it’s just the latest and most frightening example of how California’s political leaders and their academic enablers are impervious to the dangers of untrammeled growth.