‘Local control’ housing groups eying market-rate math
Residents in Marin and similar suburban counties are complaining about the more than 150 new California housing laws that have been enacted since 2017. They’re designed to facilitate a major increase in housing construction.
Legislators led by San Francisco Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener (aka “Mr. Housing”) contend that local zoning and land-use laws were used by cities and counties to foil needed residential development.
That’s been true. What’s changing is that a broad realization has emerged that more affordable and moderate-cost workforce housing is essential. Many who are long considered to be anti-development acknowledge that reality.
The Bay Area Housing Finance Authority’s plan for a $20 billion regional bond measure could change the assumptions upon which Wiener’s legislation was based. BAHFA’s goal is to fund “enough safe, affordable and stable housing for all (Bay Area) residents.”
Developers contend it’s essential to build hundreds of thousands of new market-rate homes to fund the accompanying affordable units. That thinking could be passé if Bay Area voters approve the bonds.
Wiener and his bipartisan legislative cohorts fundamentally changed how land use is managed. Instead of localities governing planning and development, state law now plays a dominant role. The shift from local to state control enabled regional agencies dominated by big-city officials, including the Association of Bay Area Governments, to mandate enforceable quotas to build new “market rate” and “affordable” homes.
There’s a belief in many communities that, in the rush to build highly profitable million-dollar market-rate homes, the unprofitable “affordable” and workforce component is left behind.
That view was raised at Marin’s first meeting of “Our Neighborhood Voices.” Led by Lafayette (Contra Costa County) Councilmember Susan Candell, group members are striving to return land use control to local governments.
Our Neighborhood Voices, supported by the Marin-based activist group, Catalysts for Local Control (led by Mill Valley’s Susan Kirsch), plans to collect voter signatures placing a measure on the 2026 California general election ballot. If passed, it’ll shift the balance back to local control of land use.
Candell says the measure provides that “if there’s a conflict between local laws and state land use, planning or zoning statutes, local law shall prevail.”
At the meeting, she told the crowd at the Mill Valley Community Center that Our Neighborhood Voices is “pro-housing and pro-neighborhood.” Combined with her initiative and a regional housing bond, existing neighborhoods could be preserved while building affordable workforce homes.
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While Marin’s politics is less passionate than its cousin across the Golden Gate, political alignments are similar. In both, Democratic Party registration prevails.
According to California’s Secretary of State, as of March 4, of Marin’s 181,201 registered voters, 62.6% are Democrats, 12.7% register as Republicans and 18.75% are “no-party preference” independents. In San Francisco, with 649,207 registered, 63.97% are Democrats, 7.42% registered with the GOP and 23.53% are no-party voters.
Politics abhors a vacuum. As is common in many states, where one of the two major parties dominate, coastal California Democrats are divided into two factions. If America was a multiparty parliamentary democracy such as the United Kingdom, the two Democratic subgroups would be separate parties which often ally to form a majority government.
In San Francisco, the divide between “progressive” and “moderate” candidates is clear and undenied. In Marin, local civic culture encourages uses of the term “progressive” the same as does in the city. The difference is that a Marin “liberal” is what San Franciscans call a “moderate.”
The divide among Democrats in both counties is succinctly stated by San Francisco Supervisor Joel Engardio, “A San Francisco moderate would be considered liberal anywhere else, and a San Francisco progressive would be considered super far left anywhere else. In San Francisco, they’re both Democrats. But they spar as if they were opposing political parties.”
Columnist Dick Spotswood of Mill Valley writes on local issues Sundays and Wednesdays. Email him at spotswood@comcast.net.
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