Capitol housing reform wrongly targets the sacred power to shape California locally

At least two things are true about SB 79, a bill by state Sen. Scott Wiener that would clear the way for construction of apartment buildings near transit stops in California, most pointedly including Los Angeles: It’s a bad idea, and Los Angeles has only itself to blame for it.

The fact that Wiener’s approach is both wrongheaded and entirely understandable has led to some strange reactions in California’s largest city, where unusual bedfellows have found themselves together either supporting or opposing it. A bare majority of a city council normally divided between liberals and democratic socialists came together to formally oppose the bill, the eight no votes drawing from both political camps. Supporters similarly crossed ideological lines.

Mayor Karen Bass also opposed Wiener’s bill, positing a brief statement. “While I support the intent to accelerate housing development statewide,” she said, “as written, this bill risks unintended consequences for LA.” 

She was joined by her once and possibly future opponent, developer Rick Caruso, who echoed Bass’ ambivalence as well as her conclusion. 

“The state is right to encourage more housing,” he said, “but it must be done with the full engagement and support of local officials and residents.”

It’s tempting to dismiss those as NIMBY responses, those of local leaders defending their turf against the wiser heads of state government. That’s a little bit true, but mostly not. 

Wiener’s bill violates the most basic principles of social organization and American federalism. It substitutes far-away authority for local expertise. It treats neighborhoods not as places where people live and work but as dots on a map. It’s an expression of ego rather than planning.

As Ruth Galanter, a revered former L.A. City Council member, told me last week, “There’s a difference between making policy and solving problems.”

SB 79 runs afoul of the principle of subsidiarity, which argues that problems should be solved at the most local level achievable. Families understand their problems better than neighbors, communities are better at directing their futures than cities, and so on.

The same is true for government. Indeed, a prime violator of that idea is President Donald Trump, who has decided that he — and he alone — understands the best ways to bring safety to Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Chicago and elsewhere. The result is chaos and stupidity, hallmarks of the Trump regime, with National Guard troops and Marines camped out in Los Angeles for weeks doing nothing and now spreading mulch in Washington, all in service of a dim, tyrannical ego.

Wiener is well-intentioned and his bill more intelligent, but it fails for the same reasons as Trump’s actions: It substitutes far-away authority for local insight. It assumes that Sacramento knows better than Los Angeles what is best for the city and its neighborhoods.

It doesn’t. The state government does not know where to put an apartment building in mid-Wilshire or Hancock Park, any more than it does in San Francisco’s Mission or Bakersfield’s Oakridge. 

To cite Galanter, Wiener’s bill makes policy but it doesn’t solve problems.

Still, hammers will see nails, and supporters of Wiener’s approach aren’t wrong to demand change. California needs more housing, and that’s especially true in Los Angeles, which needs to produce more than 387,000 units by 2029 to meet its state-mandated quota. And that was before the fires in January. 

It’s a familiar problem and one that reflects the state’s persistent popularity, despite its challenges. California remains an attractive place to live for more Americans than any other state in the Union. That creates problems of demand.

Indeed, it’s been in this fix before. At the end of World War II, veterans and their families came streaming to California to reset their lives. Then-Gov. Earl Warren used to say that it was his responsibility to provide for 10,000 arrivals every month.

And at this moment, Los Angeles is falling behind. Studies suggest that the city is some 270,000 short of affordable units to serve its population, and progress toward that place has been dismayingly slow. L.A. issued roughly 17,000 permits last year, the lowest mark in three years.

Cities don’t build housing, but cities can make it easier or harder for developers to do so, and Los Angeles has often made it harder by complicating permits and imposing regulations — many well-intentioned to protect neighborhoods, require parking and control traffic, among other things, but sometimes so onerous that they make the cost prohibitive. 

Developers are under no obligation to build. They can, and do, go elsewhere.

Even as the city has made modest gains in addressing homelessness, the broader housing shortage remains, a reminder that those two struggles, though related, also are distinct. Building new apartment buildings along rail or bus lines, as Wiener’s approach would facilitate, does not do much for the destitute person living under a bridge. Even if clearing the way for more apartments would nudge down the average price of a place to live in the city, it now hovers at around $2,800 a month, orders of magnitude beyond the reach of most of those living in tents or cars.

The market — even aided by the state government — is not going to solve that problem.

Wiener’s bill, then, is unlikely to help alleviate homelessness, but it’s an understandable response to a stubborn problem. Los Angeles will continue to invite outside intervention unless and until it uncorks housing growth. Some of that will be by accepting increased density in certain neighborhoods, not because Sacramento ordered it but because Bass and the city council affirmatively do it themselves.

And here is where L.A.’s leadership can both maintain its authority and deter the state from unwise intervention. It can green-light smart proposals for denser housing in areas already suited for it — the Wilshire Corridor, major arteries, commercial areas in the San Fernando Valley and South Los Angeles, Westwood, Hollywood. In those areas, it can streamline permitting, remove delays and overly burdensome regulations. 

It can commit to housing growth, not because it’s the answer to homelessness but because it’s a genuine problem all on its own.

But it should not assume that all neighborhoods are the same. It should not commit the mistake that Wiener’s bill does. It should consider the history and character of neighborhoods, not just treat them as dots on a map.