Housing policy in fantasy world

If you’re looking for sure things among bills under consideration in the state Legislature, think of one word: housing.

It's not yet certain just which new housing measures will be proposed this year, but if the recent past is prologue, almost anything that includes new housing — permanent homes, tiny homes or temporary hotel and motel rooms for the homeless and new construction for other folks — will pass easily.

Some of that housing is needed, but there’s no hard evidence backing the state’s claims that 1.8 million new units must be built by the end of 2030 both to avert a disastrous rise in homelessness and fill the needs of first-time home buyers looking for something they can afford.

In fact, the state auditor last April reported that estimates of need from the state Department of Housing and Community Development are unreliable because they’re based on information inputted to state computers by workers who never vetted it at all. Devastating as this report should have been, it was completely ignored by both lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom; no one in any office that deals with housing said a single public word about it.

Instead, they keep leaning on the unproven assumption that HCD estimates are correct. Never mind that HCD’s current estimate of housing need is about 1.2 million units lower than five years ago, but only a fraction that many units have actually been built or converted from commercial space emptied by the COVID19 pandemic.

So the same legislators who in 2021 passed bills known as SB 9 and SB10, which essentially ended single family zoning statewide and allow apartment building in many currently spacious neighborhoods, in 2022 passed a couple more densifying laws.

Newsom signed all these measure into law with no hesitance. He shares all the assumptions pushed by HCD’s so-called experts, despite their being found derelict by the auditor.

One of last year’s new bills is already useful. That’s a measure allowing conversion of empty office or big-box space and some parking lots into housing without local approvals. It was high time folks in high places recognized the

The dangers of equity as ‘equality of outcome’

A relatively new meaning associated with “equity” that has developed in the social-justice context (particularly in matters of race), equates equitable outcomes with equality of outcome. That such a development can quickly lead in a very troubling direction was made clear by the actions taken by Fairfax County, Va., schools in recent years.

A number of these schools (at last count, 17 or more) failed to notify their students of their “National Merit Commendation” awards. The schools chose not to notify the students and their families even though the National Merit Scholarship Corp’s letter advised that the school’s passing on this information would be “the students’ only notification.” One parent of a student who should have been notified reported that she was told by an administrator that announcing the commendations would hurt the feelings of students not commended. More than 230 Fairfax County

Speak out

President reality that many white collar workers sent home to work at the pandemic’s outset will only be back in their old offices once in awhile, if that often.

That’s why companies that still believe workers accomplish more when they’re crowded together are setting up gyms and private eateries to entice staffers to return.

Okay, one of four major new housing laws makes sense. But last year’s other new law, allowing dense new housing to be built without parking spaces so long as it’s near mass transit, does not.

This one is based on the assumption that all residents of such new buildings will use the available mass transit and not keep or use their own cars and pickups.

Said Newsom while signing the measure, “Reducing housing costs (by omitting parking spaces) for everyday Californians and eliminating emissions from cars: That’s what we call a win-win.”

But this assumption has never panned out. Because light rail and express buses don’t reach every corner of California’s cities, folks without cars often are left to hoof it for miles when they get as close to their destinations as mass transit can take them.

Knowing this, most still drive. That’s borne out by the students who had earned awards ended up applying for college without ever knowing about their commendations.

The Virginia attorney general has opened a civil-rights investigation to determine if school officials were motivated by illegal discrimination; the issue here appears to be that mostly Asian-American students earned the National Merit Commendation awards.

The justification for withholding the information about the awards appears to relate to concerns that announcing the awards would violate Fairfax’ “Equitycentered Strategic Plans,” plans whose goals included aiming for “equal outcomes for every student, without exception.” These strategic plans were developed in connection with a consulting contract with Performance Fact out of Oakland, whose founder and president is Matui Fagbayi.

This news should be of particular interest (and concern) to DJUSD students and their families, since DJUSD has hired Fagbayi & Performance Fact as a strategic planning consultant in order to update its own strategic plan, especially concerning matters related to equity. Fagbayi has indicated that one of the goals of this update is “ensuring access and success for all stu-

202-224-3553; email: padilla.senate. gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me

House of Representatives

CA

The Hon. Joe Biden, The White House, Washington, D.C., 20500; 202-456-1111 (comments), 202-456-1414 (switchboard); email: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

U.S. Senate

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 331 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., 20510; 202-224-3841; email: http://feinstein. senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me

Sen. Alex Padilla, B03 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., 20510;

Rep. John Garamendi (3rd District), 2368 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C., 20515; 202-225-1880. District office: 412 G St., Davis, CA 95616; 530-753-5301; email: visit https://garamendi.house.gov/contact/ email Governor Gov. Gavin Newsom, State Capitol, Suite 1173, Sacramento, CA 95814; 916-4452841; email: visit https://govapps.gov. ca.gov/gov40mail/ reality that transit use has not risen significantly even as thousands of new apartments and condominiums went up in cities like Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento and Fresno. dents.” Great care should be taken by associate superintendent Julia Corona and the School Board that DJUSD’s efforts to ensure such “success” do not lead to apparently illegal and discriminatory actions like those undertaken in Fairfax County.

Eliminating parking spaces in new buildings has already led to bidding wars for offstreet parking in some areas around new buildings. There will be more of this, in addition to the ongoing frequent competition for on-street parking in and near those places. That’s because everyone wants mobility. Newsom has not given up his, often riding in chauffeured vehicles escorted by local police and highway patrol motorcycles.

In short, this state’s housing policy operates in a kind of fantasy world first pushed by Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco, whose plans to densify the state languished for years in legislative committees before Newsom began supporting and signing them.

— Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It" is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net.

Andrew Majeske

Say no to hate

Recent occurrences of disturbing antitrans events by mostly outside agitators peppered by a few local parents made its small wave in Davis.

I’m thankful our community had a strong showing at the board of education meeting this past week supporting the trans community especially our trans kids most affected by this.

Growing up in China in a seemingly racially homogeneous society, I remember some kids were deemed “second class” in my junior high school just because of the town where their grandparents were born.

Hate is not rational, hate has no bounds. Only when we stand up to hate over and over, can we live in a world that’s acceptable to us all.

Audrey Pan Davis

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