By Mark Dempsey
SACRAMENTO, CA – The title is “Crocodile Tears for the Houseless: A pretext for rescinding adopted zoning and environmental laws.”
Excerpt: “There is no shortage of cons in American society, and it is hard to find a bigger one than the claim that homelessness, rent gouging, and overcrowding result from a housing shortage.
City Hall’s solution, therefore, is to “unleash the private sector” by eliminating zoning laws and environmental review to build more housing. While these faux answers tremendously benefit real estate speculators, they invariably boomerang. Homelessness continues to rise despite a building boom of expensive apartments.
“The real causes of the housing crisis, increasing poverty and a shortage of low-cost housing, get worse. Nevertheless cities, like LA, shower the real estate industry with endless deregulation of their investment schemes.
“The outcome is expensive housing, typically high-rent, high rise apartments. While they increase the housing supply, they also make housing more unaffordable. Older, cheaper housing is demolished and then replaced with new, pricey buildings that also lift the price of existing housing.”
The author is a former LA planner. You can read the rest here.
This is not mine to authorize re-publishing, but the author has been amenable to that when I’ve contacted him previously. 
