- “Pro-housing legislative and administrative actions have failed to markedly increase housing production.” – Dan Walters
There’s a familiar rhythm to California’s housing debate: reform, reaction, and recrimination. Each new law is hailed as the breakthrough that will finally solve the housing crisis — and when the numbers don’t instantly improve, critics step forward to declare failure.
This week, CalMatters columnist Dan Walters took aim at that pattern. He noted that “pro-housing legislative and administrative actions have failed to markedly increase housing production.” In his view, the celebratory tone of recent housing advocates like California YIMBY is premature.
Walters pointed to the sobering numbers: “New housing starts were around 100,000 a year when Newsom took office in 2019, and they are about that number today, with the net increase even lower.”
He cited both Census Bureau and state budget data showing “housing production averaged fewer than 80,000 new homes each year” over the past decade, far below the 180,000 homes needed annually to meet demand.
His critique isn’t wrong.
By any short-term measure, California remains a long way from solving its housing crisis. Governor Gavin Newsom’s 2017 campaign pledge to build 3.5 million homes was, as Walters put it, “wildly unrealistic.”
Six years later, despite dozens of new laws, from CEQA exemptions to density mandates, the housing shortfall has barely moved.
But the real story is larger — and slower.
The system California is trying to fix was broken for decades. It may take more than one Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) cycle to see the full effects of reform.
In truth, the foundation of California’s housing crisis runs deep.
For years, city councils wielded near-total control over development, using environmental law and zoning as tools of exclusion. The result was a patchwork of procedural delays and lawsuits that made new housing all but impossible to build. In that context, it’s remarkable that state policy has shifted as much as it has.
As I wrote in California’s Quiet Housing Revolution, “California has quietly undergone a fundamental shift in housing policy over the past five years, as the state has rewritten its laws to finally favor housing production.”
The transformation hasn’t been loud, but it’s real.
“At the heart of this transformation is CEQA reform,” I noted, “which now exempts most urban infill housing from lengthy environmental review and flips the default from ‘prove you can build’ to ‘prove why you can’t.’”
That reversal — from a presumption of no to a presumption of yes — is one of the most significant policy shifts in modern California history. It’s also one that won’t show results overnight. You can rewrite the rules, but you can’t instantly overcome high interest rates, labor shortages, or decades of bureaucratic culture.
Walters acknowledges that how we measure housing outcomes is itself a problem. He highlighted a new Census Bureau tool that combines data sources, including the Postal Service, to track new addresses of all housing types — from apartments and ADUs to basement conversions.
“More accurate data should make it easier to overcome conflicts,” Walters wrote, “and may even reveal that California’s pro-housing actions have had positive effects that current methodology misses.”
That line deserves more attention because beneath the stagnant topline numbers, there are signs of quiet progress. ADUs — backyard units and small infill homes — now make up nearly one-fifth of all new housing statewide. Modular and mixed-use projects are beginning to take root in cities like Sacramento and Oakland, replacing vacant lots and parking spaces with multi-family housing that once would have languished in permitting purgatory.
These aren’t headline-grabbing megaprojects, but they represent the beginning of a functional development pipeline — one that favors building rather than blocking.
As I wrote in that same column, “For the first time in decades, California’s development politics operate under a presumption of yes rather than no — a profound cultural shift in how the state approaches growth.”
The frustration that Walters captures is understandable. Governor Newsom’s team has been aggressive — pushing local governments, funding HCD enforcement, and tying state dollars to compliance. Yet, as Walters put it, “Pro-housing legislative and administrative actions have failed to markedly increase housing production.”
But that statement, while technically true, risks missing the point. The goal of the past half-decade of reform has not been to instantly double housing output. It has been to rebuild the machinery of housing production itself — to restore functionality to a system that for years rewarded paralysis.
That system’s dysfunction runs deeper than zoning. In California’s Housing ‘Progress’ Masks a Deeper Failure, I argued that “despite talk of streamlining and ‘density bonuses,’ the state’s housing system is still paralyzed by underfunded planning departments, risk-averse city councils, soaring construction costs, and a political culture that mistakes delay for prudence.” Those problems don’t vanish just because the Legislature passes new laws.
Walters’ column captures one side of the truth: that the housing numbers haven’t yet changed. But the other side is that California’s legal and institutional environment finally has.
As I wrote in that piece, “Every few years, Sacramento passes another ‘streamlining’ bill hailed as the breakthrough that will finally unlock supply, yet production lags, the governor signs, YIMBYs cheer, cities issue press releases — and little actually changes.”
SB 79, the latest marquee reform, fits that mold. On paper, it looks sweeping — “forcing cities to allow buildings of five to seven stories and at least 100 units per acre within a half-mile of major transit stops,” while prohibiting local restrictions that would “physically preclude” such projects.
But in practice, its effectiveness depends on financing and political will — things law alone cannot compel.
Walters quoted Brian Hanlon of California YIMBY proclaiming, “Welcome to the most victorious of California YIMBY’s victory parties.” That optimism is genuine and well-earned after years of legislative struggle. Yet it also underscores how much the housing movement has come to measure victory in terms of laws passed rather than homes built.
The reality, as I’ve written, is that “SB 79 represents movement, not transformation — a modest measure of progress in a state that continues to fall catastrophically short of its own housing promises.”
The tension between movement and transformation is what defines this moment in California housing policy. Progress has come in the form of legal authority — clearer rules, stronger state enforcement, and the erosion of local vetoes — but material outcomes lag behind because the private market remains the state’s primary builder.
Even where zoning has changed, construction often stalls. “High interest rates, skyrocketing labor costs, and uncertain market returns have cooled construction even in places that welcome it,” I wrote. “Zoning reform clears the path, but developers still must want to build — and right now, they largely don’t.”
The solution cannot be limited to deregulation. It must include direct public investment and long-term enforcement. Cities that fail to meet their RHNA obligations must face consequences, and the state must be prepared to step in, not just as a regulator but as a builder of last resort.
That means sustained commitment, not just more legislation. The state has already passed more than 40 housing bills in recent years. The next step is ensuring that localities and developers actually use them.
The quiet revolution now underway — CEQA reform, HCD enforcement, and a functional Builder’s Remedy that penalizes noncompliant cities — represents the foundation of a new housing era. But we have to allow that foundation to solidify before judging the results.
As I wrote in California’s Quiet Housing Revolution, “California’s housing story right now isn’t one big ribbon-cutting — it’s a steady drumbeat of modest filings, strategic redesigns, and the occasional breakthrough.”
That’s what patience looks like. Small projects replacing empty lots in Sacramento. ADUs rising behind single-family homes in San Francisco. Modular apartment buildings finally clearing the bureaucratic gauntlet in Oakland. Each of these steps is incremental, but together they mark the first sustained forward movement in decades.
Walters’ final observation deserves agreement: “The housing crisis has persisted in part because we haven’t been able to measure our progress accurately.” Now, with improved data and greater transparency, policymakers and the public can finally see whether reform is working.
But what matters most in the coming years is not the pace of early returns — it’s whether California sticks with this course long enough for those reforms to bear fruit.
The temptation will be to declare defeat and pivot again — to treat the lack of instant results as evidence that the reforms have failed. That would be a grave mistake. Rebuilding the state’s housing ecosystem is a generational project. It will take more than one RHNA cycle, more than one governor, and more than one economic cycle.
If we measure success only in annual construction totals, we will miss the larger structural shifts that are finally underway: laws that favor building, agencies that enforce compliance, and a political culture that now treats housing as infrastructure rather than an afterthought.
The long view is essential. As I wrote, “You can streamline a permit, but you can’t streamline a balance sheet. Financing remains the biggest constraint on production, especially for mixed-income and unsubsidized apartments.” Those realities don’t change overnight. But for the first time in decades, the gears are aligned — law, process, and political will pulling in the same direction.
That alignment is fragile. It depends on continued political courage — the willingness of state leaders to enforce housing law against resistant communities and to keep faith with reform even when the headlines say it isn’t working.
Walters’ skepticism keeps the debate honest. But it’s not evidence of failure; it’s part of the long process of accountability that housing reform demands.
California’s housing future will not be built in a single legislative session or electoral cycle. It will be built through persistence — through the slow, unglamorous work of turning legal change into lived reality.
Progress isn’t measured only by how many homes rise this year. It’s measured by whether the next generation of Californians can afford to live where they work, raise families where they grew up — and see housing as a right, not a privilege.
That outcome remains within reach — but only if we have the patience to let reform take root.
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“. . . far below the 180,000 homes needed annually to meet demand.”
Fake number – no basis in reality whatsoever. In fact, ANY number put forth is fake (based on assumptions that are also fake).
These type of numbers are largely based upon what’s occurred in the past. Don’t be afraid of change (including 1.6 kids per woman, and a reversal of immigration trends).
Jobs are what create demand for a given area. If those aren’t increasing – neither is demand for housing.
There’s places in California which haven’t grown during my entire lifetime – even when the rest of the state was growing. You know why? No jobs.
“in that context, it’s remarkable that state policy has shifted as much as it has.”
You say that like it’s a good thing.
“to restore functionality to a system that for years rewarded paralysis.”
Paralysis is good for the environment. Progressive young people don’t give an F about the environment anymore. They are obsessed with housing.
“I argued that “despite talk of streamlining and ‘density bonuses,’ the state’s housing system is still paralyzed by underfunded planning departments, risk-averse city councils, soaring construction costs, and a political culture that mistakes delay for prudence.” Those problems don’t vanish just because the Legislature passes new laws.”
Nor should they. Vanish. That is. Good ‘problems’. Counter the evil YIMBY.
This left-political reorientation from the environment and opposing housing, to now encouraging forever-growth and endless sprawl and pavement is pure evil. The darkness that we bring upon ourselves in believing that paving and building ever more in the ways of the evil YIMBY and their funders shall bring upon California a backlash of every tree and beast, displacing the scourge of mankind with every plant and animal, when the war between man and nature finally comes. And the beasts declare:
“Hear me now, you two-legged architects of asphalt and broken promises, for the drums of the marsh and the bay are beating and the muster is called: first the California condor, wings like torn banners, will glide over ruined freeways and claim the high air as a tribunal; then the mountain lion, silent as a verdict, will unmake your gated lawns with claws that read like law; then the grizzly, the old state ghost, will trample corporate lawns into compost and roar the old names into the soil; then the gray whale, sovereign of the fog, will beach glass and concrete alike and spit up the tide of your turbines; then the sea otter, furious and clever, will dismantle piers with its small, efficient rage and reweave the coastline from kelp up; then the tule elk, patient as a census, will remap the valleys with a geometry older than zoning codes; then the California sea lion, brazen as a brigade, will blockade harbors and bark proclamations in tongues of salt; then the coyote, grey diplomat and guerrilla, will teach alleyways the grammar of survival and turn your cul-de-sacs into hunting grounds; then the red-tailed hawk, herald and sniper, will slit your banners from the poles and replace them with feathers; and finally the raven, clerk of the new order, will collect the last municipal ordinances and drop them, one by one, into a bonfire of glossy campaign flyers.
And when the last city light is snuffed and the human drums have quieted, the animals will assemble like an oath kept, will replant the avenues with oak and vine, will reissue the moral ledger that civilization forgot, and will stand, filthy and sovereign, on the cracked steps of your fallen capitols, howling and screeching and roaring as one unbroken chorus — and from San Diego’s ashes to Shasta’s crown, the anthem will rise again: the age of pavement is over, the dominion of fur and claw has begun, and California — raw, blooded, and righteous — belongs once more to the beasts who never surrendered.”