Thank you, Buzz. I don’t disagree with your view that “The conversation now is how to quickly construct energy and water efficient, economical, and dense housing.” Unfortunately that is not what this development promises, as a careful re-read of my opinion will confirm. If these points are so obvious to all, I question why water has not been a red-flag point of discussion in the planning documents and meetings to date. My close experience working on the property and in the valley suggests that it is issue number one for the very real water security of the community. Apologies if this reads like entitlement. Becca Lawton

Meant to post reply to Buzz. And I agree with you David that “Destroying another 1000 acres won’t help solve the crisis. It’s not even a first step. It’s merely another step in the wrong direction.” Well said.

Buzz,

Writers on the Range is an independent nonprofit. The views expressed are not endorsed by High Country News. HCN has no input on columns published by Writers on the Range.

Further, the points made in the column are entirely within the framework of rejecting what for years have been racist policies that reward the rich and exclude the poor, largely people of color, from participating in the housing market. Other factors, such as redlining also contributed. Suburbs, including those in California and Sonoma County, have numerous plots of land for infill development. Yet California, more or less a large suburb (excluding extremely small urban areas) from Los Angeles to San Francisco and numerous towns in between have single-family dwellings.

The crisis is explained by a lack of density. Hardly pedantic or outdated, the author writes about what not to do. Newsom’s banning of single-family zoning is progressive in thought but lacking in action.

Here’s the rest of the story.

The postwar period of American history is characterized by housing built and subsidized by President Eisenhower’s highways. He said troop movements would be facilitated by interstates but he meant rich white people.

City planners like New York’s Robert Moses, a racist, was the architect of what we now think of as the American city. Moses preceded Eisenhower and inspired him. Moses, the power broker of New York City, built grade-separated highways (overpasses that allow a continuous flow of cars) so richer people could live outside the city center. This destroyed the urban landscape. Just because it was copied the country and world over doesn’t mean it’s not an inherently broken system.

Don’t forget the auto industry had a hand in this when General Motors bought and destroyed over 100 light rail lines in Los Angeles so people would need to buy their cars. This disadvantaged the poor. These policies persist and are enabled by the developers that you defend.

Density, which almost every municipality rejects is the only answer. Costs are lower when you allow multi-family dwellings in towns and cities. Yet it is wealthier homeowners that reject these measures out of hand. How do you force those homeowners to build within their neighborhoods? You don’t. A law doesn’t change that. Surrounding those zoning laws are numerous bulwarks that must be torn down for true benefits. When you build within existing towns you don’t have to build more water lines, sewers, new curbs and gutters, and power lines and roads. If you support infill why do you push back against someone fighting more exurban wreckless development?

Moreover, utilizing existing vehicle right-of-ways for dedicated high-speed bus lines, not light rail, is the only way to move people cost-effectively. This must be combined with road charges to get people out of their cars.

Finally, a simple answer is to allow two dwellings without a new water tap fee and no right of rejection by neighbors (the current system) is the first step. Do away with Homeowner’s associations and make financing and municipal land available. Attack all facets of the problem.

Destroying another 1000 acres won’t help solve the crisis. It’s not even a first step. It’s merely another step in the wrong direction.

David Marston, Writers on the Range.

“Water, especially, is in short supply.” Of course it is. This is true almost everywhere in the west (yet less so in NoCal). So let’s hear the many solutions other communities are using to deal with that – people still need a place to live.

“Median home prices are approaching a million dollars…” Also obvious and true almost everywhere. And the documented cause of the housing crisis is restrictions on development, which is what the author wants to continue doing. The law of supply and demand is inviolate.

California has recognized the enormity and negative impacts of the housing crisis and has passed progressive resolutions, that among other things (such as basically outlawing traditional single-family zoning), essentially mandate that every municipality simply must build more houses. So Sonoma County needs to do that.

Naturally, there is massive push-back from landowning neighbors, who usually cite environmental reasons rather than their own desire to keep everything the same as when they arrived. Studies have continually shown that restricting development has no positive environmental benefits; it only guarantees landowners will become very wealthy.

This is a sea change in progressive policy. “Development” used to be a dirty word – which is very odd since every molecule of our physical existence was made possible by a “developer” – but one can only hate on developers when all the things that make one’s life possible take place out of sight somewhere else – Not In My BackYard. Progressive policy makers all over the world have now realized that demonizing development is terrible for environmental and social justice reasons.

The conversation now is how to quickly construct energy and water efficient, economical, and dense housing. YIMBY – “Yes In My BackYard” is the new motto of progressives.

I suggest HCN and it’s writers bid adieu to the 1990’s, and update it’s progressive voice for the 2020’s. The times, they already have changed.