California voters have the opportunity to repeal a state ban on rent control for new buildings with Proposition 10, potentially expanding San Francisco-style housing policies to the rest of the state. With barely a week to go before the midterm elections, however, support for Prop 10 has plummeted, and Californians are dodging a bullet.
Consider the liberal utopia of the Bay Area, an urban metro rife with technology, art – and a catastrophic homelessness and housing crisis. The Bay’s median home price has skyrocketed to $820,000, with median rent rising above $3,000 per month.
Exorbitant housing demand compounded with an astronomical cost of living has created one of the worst homelessness crises in the entire country. A United Nations report has gone as far as to deem San Francisco and Oakland’s treatment of the homeless as “cruel and inhuman,” on par with Mumbai, India, and Santiago, Chile.
With optics like these in headlines, it’s no wonder that voters have reneged their support for expanding rent control across the state. A poll conducted from Oct. 12 to 21 found just 25 percent of likely voters supported Prop 10. About 60 percent were opposed and 15 percent were undecided.
California’s housing crisis is absolutely one of supply, not of collusion or price-gouging. Passing Prop 10 would allow cities to institute rent control on nearly all new housing units, not just older buildings as is currently restricted under state law. By taking away a portion of landowners’ cost surplus, Prop 10 would inevitably encourage some owners to convert their properties to condos or vacation homes. San Francisco’s already limited rent control has reduced the city’s rental supply by 15 percent, and further rent control would continue to inflate the Bay’s luxury housing bubble, leaving low-income Californians in the dust, or on their way to Texas.
Unless you’re a wealthy property owner looking to spike your own home value, would would you support the measure? Compared to cities like New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles (which also suffers from a homeless epidemic) are woefully underdeveloped. Urban regulations still allow the city to sit on and then deny construction requests.
In the past four years, Los Angeles’ population has increased by about 250,000 people, but only 45,820 new housing units have been approved for construction. Removing price incentives in conjunction with an already laborious approval process might halt that incremental growth wholeheartedly.
The road to hell, or in this case, a fecal matter-ridden street of tents and human suffering, is paved with good intentions and millions of dollars in advertising. Luckily, voters aren’t buying it, at least for now.
