I hope you're right on permitting reform. We really
really need the new transmission.
Would be stoked to hear you interview some of the people with familiarity there. (One of them, Jesse Jenkins, has really been doing the rounds recently lol)
Recently I took a look at the last few YIMBY-supported bills that passed in California since 2020 and I was struck by how few Republican votes they had. It's good that this one is different, but given Trump's comments about taking away suburbs and Tucker Carlson's rants I was worried that the pro-development stance was becoming less popular among conservatives even as it became more so among liberals.
Mr. Barro, I just spent six dollars so I could post a reply to this piece. I am going to confine my comments to your intro paragraphs on UC Berkeley and SB 886. First where we agree:
1) About Gov Newsom. The kindest thing I've ever said about him is that he is a "loathsome narcissist."
2) I think CEQA has outlived its usefulness.
3) The Berkeley campus should have built housing at the People's Park site long ago. At the time of the original protests, the serious anti-war leaders thought People's Park was a cynical attempt to keep the protest movement going. See the great (but hard to find) documentary film, "Berkeley in the '60s." However, the issues you discuss also involve another site, a current parking garage on the north side of campus.
Here's where we disagree:
1) I despise Sen. Scott Wiener even more than Newsom.
2) As the CalMatters link you posted points out (did you read it?), "Is CEQA the bogeyman it’s made out to be? Opponents of this bill point to research showing that only 2% of housing development projects face CEQA lawsuits."
3) SB 886 doesn't do what you think it does. It's complicated. You could have read the final senate floor bill analysis, available here:
4) You don't understand how voting works in the California Assembly and Senate. Bills are only passed if a majority of the body vote yes. There are 40 members in the state senate. It takes 21 votes to pass a bill. SB 886 passed with 33 votes, far more than needed, but the vote was not 33-1, it was 33-7. That's because legislators often vote NVR (no vote recorded). But when it comes to passing a bill, an NVR functions the same way as a no vote. The seven senators who voted against SB 886 are an interesting mix. The one senator who voted no was John Laird (D-Santa Cruz) who previously served as a local govt. official as well as a member of the State Assembly. He's a good guy, thoughtful and moderate, and has been out of the closet for years, at least since he was a founding member of the Santa Cruz AIDS Project. You might want to show him a little more respect.
Now as for your opinions on the University of California, an institution I have been involved with, either as a student or staff member, since about 1990. This is a big, messy complicated organization, and when it comes to UC, you don't have the slightest f**king idea what you are talking about. Jesus, where to start?
First of all, let's just state that town/gown problems are nothing new. Often they stem from the problem that universities are exempt from local taxes. Also, most state legislatures, including California's, started underfunding enrollment growth back in the '90s. At UC, the state stopped subsidizing capital projects, including building new dormitories, about a decade later. Essential reading here: https://www.berkeleyside.org/2022/05/08/uc-berkeley-student-housing-building
Building anything on campus now, including research buildings and dorms, is really difficult. The campuses have to scrounge for the money to back the bonds to build. Yet at the same time, the legislature keeps insisting campuses agree to enrollment growth. This leaves new students (at least after their first year) with no good place to live. And so they spill out into the community, raising rents and displacing low-income tenants (often tenants of color). The irony here that the Berkeley sites in question are off-campus, but owned by UC. Meanwhile, on campus, for earthquake safely and aesthetic reasons, the neo-brutalist Evans Hall is being torn down to be replaced, not with campus housing, but with open space.
The narrow legal issue was that UC Berkeley had a long run development plan (LRDP) that required an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and included student enrollment plans. When the campus blew through those goals, a neighborhood group sued under CEQA. Some campus attorneys dropped the ball and didn't file necessary papers on time. A judge then ruled in favor of the neighborhood group and blocked UC Berkeley's large enrollment increases. Campuses administrators should have been paying attention, but instead they were "shocked, shocked" and used the suddenly disenrolled students as hostages. I talked with some staffers I know who just rolled their eyes at the senior administration's incompetence and cynicism.
Enter Sen. Scott Wiener, an attention-grubbing, real-estate-industry bootlicking bag of sleaze. He promoted SB 886 as some sort of solution to these problems, but by the time the bill passed through committees in the Senate, then the Assembly and back to the Senate for reconciliation and a floor vote, it was a different beast.
But apparently all this is over the heads of journalists like you. You could have done a modicum of homework, but you didn't.
I’m an environmentalist who gets paid good money to work on EISs and I desperately hope that you’re right about this. Our current “environmental” laws are a terrible fit for our actual environmental problems.
I hope you're right on permitting reform. We really
really need the new transmission.
Would be stoked to hear you interview some of the people with familiarity there. (One of them, Jesse Jenkins, has really been doing the rounds recently lol)
Recently I took a look at the last few YIMBY-supported bills that passed in California since 2020 and I was struck by how few Republican votes they had. It's good that this one is different, but given Trump's comments about taking away suburbs and Tucker Carlson's rants I was worried that the pro-development stance was becoming less popular among conservatives even as it became more so among liberals.
Mr. Barro, I just spent six dollars so I could post a reply to this piece. I am going to confine my comments to your intro paragraphs on UC Berkeley and SB 886. First where we agree:
1) About Gov Newsom. The kindest thing I've ever said about him is that he is a "loathsome narcissist."
2) I think CEQA has outlived its usefulness.
3) The Berkeley campus should have built housing at the People's Park site long ago. At the time of the original protests, the serious anti-war leaders thought People's Park was a cynical attempt to keep the protest movement going. See the great (but hard to find) documentary film, "Berkeley in the '60s." However, the issues you discuss also involve another site, a current parking garage on the north side of campus.
Here's where we disagree:
1) I despise Sen. Scott Wiener even more than Newsom.
2) As the CalMatters link you posted points out (did you read it?), "Is CEQA the bogeyman it’s made out to be? Opponents of this bill point to research showing that only 2% of housing development projects face CEQA lawsuits."
3) SB 886 doesn't do what you think it does. It's complicated. You could have read the final senate floor bill analysis, available here:
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billAnalysisClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB886
4) You don't understand how voting works in the California Assembly and Senate. Bills are only passed if a majority of the body vote yes. There are 40 members in the state senate. It takes 21 votes to pass a bill. SB 886 passed with 33 votes, far more than needed, but the vote was not 33-1, it was 33-7. That's because legislators often vote NVR (no vote recorded). But when it comes to passing a bill, an NVR functions the same way as a no vote. The seven senators who voted against SB 886 are an interesting mix. The one senator who voted no was John Laird (D-Santa Cruz) who previously served as a local govt. official as well as a member of the State Assembly. He's a good guy, thoughtful and moderate, and has been out of the closet for years, at least since he was a founding member of the Santa Cruz AIDS Project. You might want to show him a little more respect.
Now as for your opinions on the University of California, an institution I have been involved with, either as a student or staff member, since about 1990. This is a big, messy complicated organization, and when it comes to UC, you don't have the slightest f**king idea what you are talking about. Jesus, where to start?
First of all, let's just state that town/gown problems are nothing new. Often they stem from the problem that universities are exempt from local taxes. Also, most state legislatures, including California's, started underfunding enrollment growth back in the '90s. At UC, the state stopped subsidizing capital projects, including building new dormitories, about a decade later. Essential reading here: https://www.berkeleyside.org/2022/05/08/uc-berkeley-student-housing-building
Building anything on campus now, including research buildings and dorms, is really difficult. The campuses have to scrounge for the money to back the bonds to build. Yet at the same time, the legislature keeps insisting campuses agree to enrollment growth. This leaves new students (at least after their first year) with no good place to live. And so they spill out into the community, raising rents and displacing low-income tenants (often tenants of color). The irony here that the Berkeley sites in question are off-campus, but owned by UC. Meanwhile, on campus, for earthquake safely and aesthetic reasons, the neo-brutalist Evans Hall is being torn down to be replaced, not with campus housing, but with open space.
The narrow legal issue was that UC Berkeley had a long run development plan (LRDP) that required an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and included student enrollment plans. When the campus blew through those goals, a neighborhood group sued under CEQA. Some campus attorneys dropped the ball and didn't file necessary papers on time. A judge then ruled in favor of the neighborhood group and blocked UC Berkeley's large enrollment increases. Campuses administrators should have been paying attention, but instead they were "shocked, shocked" and used the suddenly disenrolled students as hostages. I talked with some staffers I know who just rolled their eyes at the senior administration's incompetence and cynicism.
Enter Sen. Scott Wiener, an attention-grubbing, real-estate-industry bootlicking bag of sleaze. He promoted SB 886 as some sort of solution to these problems, but by the time the bill passed through committees in the Senate, then the Assembly and back to the Senate for reconciliation and a floor vote, it was a different beast.
But apparently all this is over the heads of journalists like you. You could have done a modicum of homework, but you didn't.
Michael Barnes
I’m an environmentalist who gets paid good money to work on EISs and I desperately hope that you’re right about this. Our current “environmental” laws are a terrible fit for our actual environmental problems.