Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 08/21/2008 4:00:46 PM PDT by calcowgirl
Shorter commutes. Less sprawl. Cleaner air.
Denser housing closer to downtown near transportation hubs.
"Smart growth" it's called.
California policy makers have been yakking about this -- dreaming about it -- for decades. But too many interests have been prospering from dumb growth or have merely been skittish of a future they can't quite visualize.
Enter a tenacious policy wonk with roots in local government: state Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento). He has just managed to finesse to the verge of legislative passage a visionary smart growth bill that, by its nature, also fights global warming. ...
(snip)
The measure (SB 375) links regional planning for housing and transportation with California's new greenhouse gas reduction goal (AB 32) enacted in 2006. The goal is to reduce greenhouse emissions to the 1990 level by 2020. That's a 30% cut from projected emissions.
"One issue everyone has been afraid to touch is land use," Steinberg says. "Everyone understands about using alternative fuel. But land use has been the third rail. AB 32 changed the equation because now land use has to be part of the solution to global warming. You can't meet our goal just with alternative fuels. You have to reduce the number of vehicle miles traveled.
"If people are going to drive -- and they are going to drive -- we need to plan in ways to get them out of their cars faster. That means shrinking -- not the amount of housing, not economic development, not growth -- but shrinking the footprint on which that growth occurs."
Steinberg wants it to occur within a smaller circle around downtown.
Basically the bill would work like this: Each metropolitan region would adopt a "sustainable community strategy" to encourage compact development. They'd mesh it with greenhouse emissions targets ...
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Here they go again!
Yes, the liberal socialists dominating California government are at it again -— spending more, taxing more, being intrusive more, being socialists more....it just keeps getting uglier.
Get all those people back in the dense population centers so their votes don’t count. It would give even more power to those who draw the lines.
Then again, if the state government continues to fight fires as they have been, there won't be any rural areas to live in. California, the charcoal state!
The impact of this bill is not clear from the article. I suspect that growth outside of the green boundary will be prohibitively expensive resulting in much higher density over time inside the belt. The bill will be a boon (except for increased property taxes) for those inside the green belt. I am not sure about the impact on existing property outside the belt.
Overall, the price of housing will rise substantially. In addition, the quality of housing will suffer because high density is being forced on the community. Will the elite live in the dense belt? Will the elite give up their mansions and huge estates?
For California, the bad political news never stops. In the middle of a serious budget crisis, the left can still push costly legislation. Few people are paying attention to the rot that this bill will bring because the rot will not surface for a number of years.
SB 375 - very ugly!
I just scanned the Assembly Committee Analysis... say good bye, California.
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_number=sb_375&sess=CUR&house=B&author=steinberg
Pack ‘em in like cattle going to slaughter.
I remember reading a study in college many eons ago where researchers packed rats into smaller and smaller living spaces and soon their behavior became more and more aberrant as evidenced by increased levels of violence and homosexual behavior. Sound familiar?
See the link I just posted for the text of the bill and the legislative analyses.
I’m heading out so don’t have time to delve into it but will read it later.
"Inner city ghetto" it's called, in my books...
Very familiar! We've been heading there over the past couple decades.
Will these housing developments be tenements or the Chinese version of solving housing shortages, hot-sheeting? The lucky Chinese can rent cots or morgue-like drawers for sleeping a few hours. They sleep with their shoes and other “valubles” so as not to get stolen. The rest of the time they walk the streets.
This is a wonderful idea. Members of our Legislature first!
Look at the bright side. If you own a traditional surburban home this bill is money in the bank since it basically bans SFR in suburbia. Since families with kids are not going to change their preferences for their piece of the American dream this bill artificially restricts future SFR construction and will increase prices.
There is no analysis in the legislative documents. The analysis just lists committees and deadlines for recommendations. This bill is a potential beast. I hope it does not come to Colorado. The left in Colorado is following the California left.
A land-value tax would accomplish smart growth and better land usage without the socialism.
You know as well as many on this forum, that the republican governor has been appointing smart growthers to his executive branch the minute he got elected. The governor is supremely situated to accomplish the complete return to medieval serfdom with a heavy injection of russian sovietism for the people of California because he planned ahead so well!
Try this link. (Analyses - Assembly Committee - 08/18/2008)
The other thing we’re talking about here is the death of economic freedom and the free market in housing. With the government deciding everything about what type of housing goes in, there is no free market. With the ownership of property (a house on a lot) comes equity to invest and for entrepreneurship. With everybody living in soviet style refrigerator box apartments and condos, no economic prosperity can be generated based on the ownership of property.
And that doesn’t even cover the social affects of raising children without yards and neighborhoods for outside play. In apartment living, if the child is to have outdoor activities they all must be supervised and often require a parent to shuttle them around to their organized activities. This is great if you want to create socialist/communist citizens, but terrible for promoting healthy freedom and individualism in children.
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