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town Google campus that drew protests
from low-wage workers. “Our goal is to help
communities succeed over the long term,
and make sure that everyone has access to
opportunity, whether or not they work in
tech,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in a
blog post announcing the US$1-billion
housing investment.
Increasingly, housing analysts point the
blame for the housing crisis at opposition
by neighbourhood activists.
California’s unique political system,
which gives special consideration to grass-
roots groups, has empowered neighbour-
hood associations to block housing devel-
opments through referendums and efforts
to recall elected politicians who support
home building. State-mandated environ-
mental reviews have also allowed oppo-
nents to launch lawsuits that have tied up
projects for years.
The neighbourhood preservation move-
ment began in the Bay Area in the 1970s as a
way to protect diverse and middle-class
neighbourhoods from gentrification. But
today it has morphed into a political force
that effectively shuts off many neighbour-
hoods from all but the most affluent, ar-
gues Randy Shaw, executive director of San
Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic and
author of last year’sGeneration Priced Out:
Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America.
This, he says, helps explain why some of
the most progressive cities in the country
have struggled the most to build more
housing.
“We enshrined this sense that home-
owners should have the right to decide
who lives in their neighbourhood,” he said.
“We don’t let homeowners decide whether
you get health care or not, or whether you
get food. Why are we letting them decide
who can build housing?”
Mr. Shaw points to the city of Cupertino
- population 61,000 and median home
price US$2.1-million – as emblematic of the
problem.
Residents enthusiastically supported
Apple’s plans to build a headquarters for
about 12,000 employees in Cupertino in
- But they have spent more than a dec-
ade blocking a proposal to redevelop an
empty shopping mall into a large mixed-
used community that would include 2,
homes – half of them affordable housing.
“Wouldn’t you think they’d be dancing
in the streets that some guys are going to
come in at their own expense and create
50-per-cent affordable housing in a vacant
shopping mall?” Mr. Shaw asks. “But
they’re not dancing in the streets.”
Neighbourhood preservation groups
say they are working to protect their home-
towns from what they see as global corpo-
rate elites looking to destroy communities
for profit.
“There is so much benefit to be gained
from those people already in high-wealth
positions, in corporations or in global real
estate, or in development, that have rea-
sons to keep pushing an agenda that fur-
thers their profit margins,” says Susan
Kirsch, who founded Livable California, a
slow-growth advocacy group that has ac-
tively campaigned against pro-housing
policies throughout the state.
“They don’t really care so much about
community, or history, or historic places, or
neighbourhood bars and unique places.”
A retired educator, Ms. Kirsch lives in
Marin County, a region just north of San
Francisco made up of quaint towns, rolling
farms and redwood forests largely protect-
ed from major developments. She became
involved in the slow-growth movement
more than a decade ago when she helped
successfully block plans to construct a 20-
unit building at the end of her street.
Many housing advocacy groups that
have sprung up in Silicon Valley in recent
years have been funded through donations
from tech giants, Ms. Kirsch argues, while
local taxpayers end up being the ones most
burdened by the costs of developments
that block beautiful vistas, clog roads with
traffic and drive up the cost of city services.
“NIMBY has been around a long time,”
she says. “And I think it has always been the
kind of pejorative term around those peo-
ple who are really acting as stewards for
what’s happening in their backyards.”
Recently, however, there has beena
movement at the state level – spearheaded
by Scott Wiener, a senator from San Fran-
cisco – to wrestcontrol from localgovern-
ments.
A former president of his neighbour-
hood association, and a lawyer who did pro
bono work for low-income renters evicted
from their apartments, Mr. Wiener says he
understands the concerns of groups who
fear what new housing will mean for their
communities. But, he argues, the situation
has gotten out of hand. “Our system of al-
most pure local control over housing has
failed,” he says. “It has led to a race to the
bottom, where very few cities produce
nearly enough housing.”
Mr. Wiener has introduced several ef-
forts to overhaul California’s land-use plan-
ning rules with mixed results. He drew na-
tional attention last year for proposing to
allow multifamily housing along transit
routes and in neighbourhoods near urban
job centres and suburban office parks – in-
cluding in cities where local councils ob-
jected to such developments. But that bill
quickly died in the state’s legislature amid
widespread opposition. He introduceda
retooled version of the bill this year that he
hopes will be voted on as early as January,
and this week the state’s legislature passed
a bill that would limit rent increases on
some types of housing.
RV residents aren’t optimistic that the
stalemate over housing will end any time
soon.
Jose Reyes points out that Mountain
View’s city council has spent the past four
years debating whether to open a single lot
where RV residents can park overnight ca-
pable of holding just 60 RVs, likely not
enough for the city’s estimated 212 vehicle
residents.
“They can’t even find a small place for us
to park our RVs,” he says. “And we’re sup-
posed to expect them to build affordable
housing?”
He wants to stay in the community. But
with escalating rentsand the localgovern-
ment still weighing a ban on RV parking on
city streets next year, he worries that even-
tually he may be forced to leave. “My wife
loves it here. So do my kids. It’s where they
grew up,” he says. “But if we have to go, we
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