In summary
On this episode of “Gimme Shelter: The California Housing Crisis Podcast,” CalMatters’ Manuela Tobias and the Los Angeles Times’ Liam Dillon sit down with Assemblymember Cristina Garcia to discuss a bill that would allow affordable housing on some golf courses.
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California has reached a broad consensus that it needs more affordable housing. The disputes arise over where that housing should go — particularly when cities in dense urban environments along the coast say the space just isn’t there.
One retort? Build on golf courses. The state is teeming with more than 1,000 golf courses, a quarter of which are publicly owned, and several studies have found some of those are operating at million-dollar losses. Assemblymember Cristina Garcia, a Democrat from Bell Gardens, has several golf courses in her densely populated Los Angeles County district, and has proposed incentivizing cities to develop some of those into housing in a bill this year.
“They’re estimating that we need 1.3 million new homes in Southern California in the next few years. There’s kind of nowhere else to go when you have this much density,” Garcia said.
But just like cities opposed to a recent state law to increase housing density, golfers are up in arms.
On this episode of “Gimme Shelter: The California Housing Crisis Podcast,” CalMatters’ Manuela Tobias and the Los Angeles Times’ Liam Dillon sit down with Garcia to discuss what happens when a proposed solution to the housing crisis threatens a small but vocal contingent.
Podcast editing by Victor Figueroa.