By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor
“California’s population is expected to remain relatively flat through 2060, according to new state estimates, but — much to the chagrin of NIMBYs — that doesn’t obviate the need for new housing,” writes the San Francisco Chronicle’s Emily Hoeven in her latest column where she argues that, despite these trends, “California needs more housing.”
The problem as she lays out—“NIMBYs keep fighting it.”
The new state estimates—which are actually that (estimates) and as we have pointed out are very volatile—have given NIMBYs fresh ammunition to fight housing projects.
Hoeven points to this week’s PPIC entry from Hans Johnson, who noted that the state’s population decline has been offset by demographic changes.
He writes that “new housing continues to be built and occupied (the vacancy rate has changed very little). California’s population today is about the same as the state’s population in 2015, but there are now almost 800,000 more housing units.”
So why does the state still have a housing crisis?
“In part, fewer people are spreading out across more housing. And in most large cities, there is not enough new housing to make up for this shift,” he writes.
And these “new patterns come after decades of the state’s population growth outpacing new housing. For three decades—the 1980s, the 1990s, and the 2000s—new housing did not keep pace with growth.”
Some NIMBYs apparently believe that lower birth rates rather than outmigration is driving the population decline data.
But my perusal of the trends doesn’t support that hypothesis.
For one thing, birth rates have steadily declined since 1990. And while that rate continued, the downward slope of the trend has almost not changed even after 2019.
Why is 2019 important?
Because in 2019, the projected California population was expected to reach 55 million by 2060. Now it’s projected at about 39.5 million.
The birth rate data isn’t driving the new trend because the rate of decline has not changed trajectory during the period in question. So from Stats 101, if the explanatory variable—in this case rate of decline in birth rates—doesn’t vary, it is not what is driving the data.
What did change? Out-migration as the result of high housing costs.
Indeed, PPIC noted, “the primary driver of the state’s population loss over the past few years has been California residents moving to other states.”
In the meantime, rather than allowing the state to add housing, NIMBY forces continue to block it.
Hoeven uses San Francisco as a key example, but it’s not alone.
She notes, “The state’s requirement that local governments plan for 2.5 million homes by 2030 is critical to addressing this glaring need. But when I checked on local governments’ progress, the results weren’t pretty. “
In January, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors agreed to plans that would call for 82,000 units to be build over the next eight years.
Since then, Hoeven argues, “not much has happened.”
“Why does it take six months to do something we already said we were going to do?” Jane Natoli, San Francisco organizing director at YIMBY Action, asked Hoeven. “There’s not a lot to debate.”
To illustrate how bad this process is working, “San Francisco approved an average of just eight housing permits per month in February, March and April.”
At that rate, “it would take the city 850 years to build the required 82,000 units. That’s absurd and shows just how desperately San Francisco’s bureaucratic processes need to be overhauled.”
Nor are things improving elsewhere.
Take Marin County, another posterchild for the state’s housing crisis—only three of 12 jurisdictions have state-approved housing plans.
Here she uses Mill Valley to illustrate the absurdity.
A neighborhood group sued over plans to build a 45-unit affordable housing complex.
Hoeven notes that the lawsuit, among other things accuses Mill Valley of concentrating all of its affordable housing in “the least affluent and most diverse area” of Mill Valley, thus violating a state requirement to “affirmatively further fair housing.”
The problem of course as Hoeven points out, is while Mill Valley should of course strive to build affordable housing across the city, “it’s disingenuous to claim a fair housing violation when the area in question is 70% white and has a median household income of about $124,000.”
As Jenny Silva, a YIMBY watchdog and board chair for the Marin Environmental Housing Collaborative put it, “This is not a poor neighborhood by any stretch of the imagination.”
In other words they are abusing state laws meant for a wholly different scenario that were aimed to prevent cities from concentrating affordable housing in low income neighborhoods.
Patrick Soluri, an attorney for the Neighborhood Group, who has also litigated against the city of Davis, told Hoeven, “If the city actually did a legitimate site inventory and identified other (affordable housing) sites … then they wouldn’t need to construct so many units” at this particular location.
Remember we are talking about a 45-unit affordable housing complex.
No wonder we can’t make any progress.
Then again, we don’t need to go to the Bay Area to see the problems. Davis has also not had its Housing Element approved. Davis is going to have some very difficult choices to make in the next few years, starting with the current RHNA requirements which have yet to be met.
NIMBYs are nothing more than hardline obstructionists. I am elated that David and I are not the only ones that consider NIMBY not to be derogatory in direct contradiction to Mr. Alan C. Miller.
First off, it’s not “o.k.” to use derogatory names in regard to those who have different views than you. The name YIMBY itself was an attempt to “normalize” this type of name-calling, to contrast with “NIMBY”.
There is no such “belief” going on here. You have a right to your opinions, David – but not regarding facts.
It’s not just declining birth rates. It’s also the fact that death rates will increase substantially in years to come due to an aging population. The death rates are expected to outweigh both births and a small net increase in annual migration to the state – the latter of which is expected to turn positive in 2027 and remain that way through 2060.
This was pointed out to you before, and the source comes from the Department of Finance. (See “Components of Change, 2010-2060, California.”
Deaths are expected to outweigh births starting in the year 2035 and are projected to outnumber births by more than 118,000 per year by 2060.
Did the projected death rate change in 2019?
NIMBY is a term routinely used in the mainstream media.
Examples:
SF Chronicle: “NIMBYs fight California housing, needed despite slowing population”
LA Times: “Stop worrying, NIMBYS — affordable housing shouldn’t squash your property values”
NY Times: “In California’s Housing Fight, It’s Newsom vs. NIMBY”
Wall Street Journal: “Might Nimby Fights Building New Housing”
It’s also interesting to note that I see it used across the political spectrum… As long as the mainstream media is using the term, I think it’s acceptable.
I didn’t look.
By definition, projections are foward-looking.
And you got it wrong, regarding the facts going forward.
Yes – the mainstream media uses that term, as well. The Chronicle in particular is a development shill publication.
In a way, I’m almost glad that this name-calling is occurring, because what it leads to is more-determined opposition – “painting” vast numbers of citizens (with a variety of views) with a broad, insulting brush.
The name does not bother me, personally. Outright denial that it’s an insult does bother me.
Looking at the available tax forms for YIMBY Law, annual revenue was in the millions of dollars.
The key point: the projections in 2019 were for the population to continue to grow. Now it’s for a basically flat line.
Something changed. It wasn’t the birth or death rates.
I have not seen the projections from 2019 going forward.
But again, net migration is actually expected to increase, starting in 2027 (and remaining that way).
It won’t be enough (even when combined with births) to overcome the death rate.
But still reduced from the 2019 projections. You have to look at all of the variables and how the projections have changed to see the driver.
Your claim has been that the driver is “high housing costs”, which is causing a net exodus of migration out of the state.
And yet, the projections show a net influx of people into the state, starting in 2027.
Which won’t be enough to overcome the death rate, even when births are factored in.
The projections do not match what you claim.
You’re avoiding the issue I’m raising. The projections changed. You have not identified the variables that have changed from 2019 to 2023.
It’s not up to “me” to identify the specific variables that have changed. Again, I haven’t even seen the 2019 projections, which have been superseded by the 2023 projections – regardless.
You’re the one making the claim as to the underlying “cause” of the leveling-off of California’s population. As such, it would be up to you to perform a line-by-line (and year-by-year) comparison of the two spreadsheets, to come up with a theoretical “cause”.
But again, the 2023 data shows a net positive flow of immigration TO California, starting in 2027 and continuing every year thereafter. This destroys your claim that housing costs are causing a net exodus FROM California going forward from 2027. The reason being that it’s not happening.
I’m not “avoiding” anything.
The DOF always planned to revise projections after Census 2020 data and other data was released.
From the 2019 documentation:
You had almost 24 hours to respond, and came up with nothing new.
Wow.
You mean, other than pointing out that you’re demonstrably wrong regarding your claim that housing costs are causing a net exodus as of 2027 and every year thereafter?
Again, there’s an expected net “gain” of population via immigration TO California, but (even when combined with births), it’s not enough to overcome projected deaths.
It seems as though you completely misunderstood the 2023 projections. Did you even look at the spreadsheet?
You’re not pointing out anything. 2027 is a projection. And it’s still a slowdown from the previous one. The source itself says that the key variable is migration and you’ve completely ignored that.
Yes – that’s what the subject is.
A slowdown in what? Net immigration TO California?
You haven’t listed any source which states that the key variable is immigration. But again, you can’t claim that there’s a projected net exodus when the source itself shows there isn’t one.
You seem to have problems admitting when you’re wrong.
So what Ron. There are probably hundreds of US based nonprofits that have annual revenues in the hundreds of millions of dollars. There is really nothing to see here excerpt if you are highly biased NIMBY like Ron Oertel or Keith Olson.
I am glad that Ron Oertel still considers NIMBY to be insulting, especially when directed at him despite being the absolute truth. Whenever Ron uses the term YIMBY not in the name of any organization, I will consider that equally insulting. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Here is more evidence that NIMBYs have caused the US to fall in to abject decline.
Strained housing affordability is a ‘manufactured crisis’ created by bad zoning—just look at L.A.
https://fortune.com/2023/08/13/los-angeles-housing-affordability-manufactured-crisis-through-oning/
It’s bigger than the housing crisis: An influential economist just blamed NIMBYs for American decline, and Elon Musk agrees
https://fortune.com/2023/02/28/housing-crisis-nimbys-build-nothing-country-elon-musk-noah-smith-american-decline/
Five comment rule is in effect for this article.
Sac/Yolo metro region is expected to grow 0.5% per year for a decade, then 0.4% for a decade before the population of the region levels off.
That is a full generation of population growth that needs housing, about 21,000 people for Yolo County with about 6400 new residents in Davis if we house our share of that increased population.
Source: https://dof.ca.gov/forecasting/demographics/projections/
Click on P2A_County_Total
There is also a twenty year backlog in housing construction leading to our current housing shortage.
The limitation with this article … and so many similar articles on the Vanguard … is that it doesn’t take the time to make a connection between the general statewide housing situation and our local Davis housing situation.
The housing situation is characterized by three key elements:
(1) Based on survey data, the residents of Davis believe housing AFFORDABILITY is the biggest problem in Davis.
(2) UC Davis students are outcompeting young families and members of the local workforce for rental housing … because they have much greater financial ability (thanks to their parents’ wealth) than young families and members of the local workforce have.
(3) Wealthy people who want to move to Davis and commute across the Causeway to Sacramento jobs or down Interstate 80 to the Bay Area jobs are able to find housing in Davis that meets their needs.
(4) People who can afford a $900,000 home (which NOT defined as affordable according to the survey results) and want to find six figure salary employment here in Davis, simply can’t find those kind of jobs. The businesses currently in Davis don’t have any of those kind of high paying jobs available.
What that means is the statewide crisis only partially translates to Davis. Our local version of the crisis is that we need to:
(A) Stop (and ideally reverse) the cannibalization of apartments from young families and the local workforce by UCD sudents.
(B) Build $500,000 to $600,000 houses that can be purchased by young families and members of the local workforce.
(C) Place permanent deed restrictions on those AFFORDABLE houses so that they remain in the $500,00 to $600,000 price range.
I think as the slides I presented yesterday demonstrate, if those are your concerns the current housing policies are not going to address them. What we currently are encouraging (1) infill projects that are much more likely to be rentals and (2) risky peripheral Measure J projects that will attempt to bring in some mix of housing but still have to deal with market and financial realities that are going to push housing sizes upward to cover for uncertainty.
If you want to build $500,000 to $600,000 homes, you need to create a mechanism by which to do that.
Thank you for that answer. I agree with you that your yesterday slides show the limitations of existing policies, but “are not going to address them” is (in my opinion) not correct. Here is why.
Nishi isn’t going to stop (and ideally reverse) the cannibalization of apartments from young families and the local workforce by UCD sudents, but it is going to provide better alternative apartments for those cannibalistic students. It would be even better if it went back to the drawing board and made the apartment buikldings the same size as the apartment buildings in the 2016 Nishi project. That would provide housing for 5,000 to 7,000 students rather than only 2,200 students.
Trackside, as origially designed isn’t targeting affordability for young families and the local workforce.
The Hibbert, Regal and Davis Ace all seem to be oriented for the downtown employees in young families and individual members of the workforce. So how is that a failure of policy?
Where the policies are most deficient is in getting any of the peripheral proposals to be predominantly AFFORDABLE. The 15% equity reserve proposal for some of the Village farms proposal is a step in the right direction. It needs to be made into policy, and have the 15% reserve be IN PERPETUITY like it is in Aggie Village … and ideally apply to all the for sale housing, not just a small proportion.
Matt –
With current housing policies, the kind of housing we are going to get are going to these kinds of rentals. Failure of policy is probably a little strong, but limited utility is more adequate if you believe that the problem in the community is the lack of lower end housing for families.
There is nothing wrong with Aggie Village – but Aggie Village was 37 units. So we need about 24 of those… over the next eight years.
At a certain point, we need to acknowledge that the “affordability” problem with davis housing is in large part, just a function of supply and demand… basic economics.
The student housing shortage is one that we can easily “build out of”. – buy building more denser housing that works for students. That is an “accomplishable goal”. and to the extent that we can do it, it will relieve some student occupation of single-family housing as well.
As mentioned before, building more single isn’t the most effective lever we have because of the regional housing shortage, and we will be encouraging outbound commuting, which doesnt help us.
Denser housing: townhomes, apartments, condos with parking maximums and integrated transit plans that connect that housing to campus and downtown is the only pathway that checks all the boxes.
David, the policy solution is to make Village Farms 100% like Aggie Village … in other words make John Whitcombe’s 15% proposal apply to the whole development, not just a small proportion of the development.
To bring affordability to 100% of Village Farms, tapping into State and Federal funding sources will be needed … by both policy and action.
Tim, your supply/demand comment is naive. No amount of added supply to the market is going to reduce the current $850,000+ down to an affordable level for the people who currently have jobs in Davis, but can’t afford a house purchase in Davis. A different kind of home (lot and structure) will need to be built … not more of the same.
Matt, we are 100% on the same page.
The amount of single family housing we would have to build in order to bring prices DOWN to an affordable level is simply not realistic. We would have to build MORE single family housing than there is demand for in the entire local region… Given the multiple negative externalities of that, its simply not a good solution.
Amen
I believe the only practical way to do this would be to break the law. If you don’t want students living in Davis, don’t construct more apartments.
Walter, there are lots of ways to legally accomplish that.
(1) Establish a business tax that has a monthly taxation rate of $X per nuclear family in the residence. A family with children is one nuclear family. A student is one nuclear family, so five students sharing an apartment would be five nuclear families.
(2) Reconfigure the Nishi project so that it is the same multi-story buildings that were in the 2016 proposal. That proposal had a density of 67 units per acre. The current Nishi has a density of only 27 units per acre. That would mean housing between 5,000 and 7,000 students rather than 2,200.
(3) Work with UCD to get them to house more students on campus.
All those are legal.
[Moderator: this is your 5th and final comment on this article for today. Any further comments will remain in the moderation queue to be released tomorrow.]
We will see, but I doubt any of your recommendations will ever occur.
I am doubtful that this would be legal, but I’m certain that it would be a nightmare to manage. Who do you propose be responsible for policing this strategy of yours, and at what cost to the community?
That would require a third measure J vote as the higher density was rejected by the voters with Nishi 1. Are you volunteering to pay for this third election and the new EIR that would likely be required for the updated project? Seems to me you like to propose spending other people’s money more than you like proposing ideas that might actually work to solve the problems. Are you simply being disingenuous with your advocacy?
The housing shortage in Davis is not the University’s problem or responsibility, no matter how often you and others try to demand that the University solve it.
$500,000 to $600,000 starter homes are a key element of the proposal for the property at Pole Line and Covell. These homes will provide young families the opportunity to build equity.
Ron G., that is true, but the proportion of those is low. That proportion needs to be well over 50% of all the units.
Matt
You’ve identified the underlying forces driving rising housing demand for Davis. Local workers are being outbid by commuters and student rentals. And the addition of student-oriented apartments should lure them out of the duplexes that are the true affordable housing for younger workers and families.
That said, the solution is not deed restricted housing. That takes away the ability of those households to build equity and afford moving up into housing that might better meet the needs of the next stage of their lives. In addition, it’s not clear who would own that land and would finance the construction and maintenance of that neighborhood. Aggie Village works for two reasons: 1) UCD has very deep pockets to finance what is a pittance against its annual budget and 2) it is using this to specifically recruit faculty and staff for its own organization–this is a cost of doing business for UCD. No housing developer has a similar interest.
The best answer in terms of economic outcomes is Tim Keller’s proposal for mixed use developments that add to the type of housing targeted at those cohorts. They won’t be priced at $900,000–that’s for a 3 or 4 bedroom single family house with a 6,000-8,000 sf lot. Fundamentally, this is a supply problem that we should first solve through removing restrictions that have created a dysfunctional market.
Richard, deed restriction doesn’t take away the ability to build equity. When an Aggie Square house is sold, the seller and UCD share in the equity appreciation. The seller simply does not get 100% of the equity appreciation.
It is my understanding that in John Whitcombe’s 15% equity hold-back proposal, he would be the holder of the 15% “share” until such time as the home is resold, and then the cash paid for the 15% would go to the City of Davis Housing Trust Fund. So if one of those homes appreciates in value $10,000, then $8,500 goes to the seller and $1,500 goes to the Housing Trust Fund.
One major problem with that approach is that at the time of the resale, the house loses its “affordable” status. If we want the “affordable” houses to remain affordable, then the 15% hold-back needs to exist in perpetuity.
Another problem is who holds the hold-back equity. I believe having a private individual hold that 15% equity is problematic. One possibility would be to have the City Housing Trust Fund hold that 15% equity, but that idea is Dead on Arrival given the total failure of the history of the City’s management of its Affordable Housing program over the years. A non-profit like Habitat for Humanity might be a good alternative. One of the housing cooperatives that already exist here in town might also be a good alternative.
It would be ideal if all new houses built and sold to the public here in Davis regardless of their sale price would have a 15% hold-back provision.
I’m not “avoiding” anything.
Again, you’re the one relying upon 2019 projections without identifying what has changed. I have not even seen the 2019 projections, as already noted. But apparently, you have (as well as the latest projections).
The projections simply do not match what you claim as the “cause”. Starting in 2027, there is no “net exodus” from California. And yet, you continue to claim that high housing costs are causing a net exodus – despite data staring you right in the face which shows otherwise.
Keep in mind that I (personally) don’t object to high housing costs “causing” a net exodus, but that’s not what the data shows.
I suspect that a lot of students responded to the survey you referenced.
In regard to point “B” above, who are these “local workers”, where are they living now, and what makes anyone think they’d move to a shoebox with deed restrictions in Davis?
By the way, the deed restriction would likely need to ban rentals. Otherwise, the owners would have an incentive to rent their units at full market value to UCD students.
And the current owner of the property would need to agree to such a rental restriction:
https://www.hoamanagement.com/hoa-rental-restrictions/#:~:text=As%20per%20California%20Civil%20Code,or%20junior%20accessory%20dwelling%20unit.
(My fifth comment for the day.)
I told you what numbers you need to look at. You keep repeating yourself rather than doing a data analysis, and now you’ve run out of comments. Maybe tomorrow. I’m not relying on 2019, I’m using it as a fixed point to explore why the projections have radically changed. Until you can identify what has changed from 2019 projections to now, there is no point to continuing this. 2027 is irrelevant, the question is which projections changed from 2019 projections to now.
I found the study’s methodology…
“Deaths are expected to rise during the projections period from 315,000 in 2021-2022 to 460,000 in 2060”
“Births begin at 411,000 in 2019-2020 and decline to 375,000 in 2059-2060.”
Even without evaluating the changes in births and deaths from the 2019 projections, you can back of the envelop calculate that that’s only going to account for one-third to a half of the overall change.
They conclude this for migration: “Migration is the most critical component of California’s population change and the hardest to project due to inherent variability and the absence of full administrative data. Net migration is expected to return to a range of 50,000 by the end of the decade and remain within a range of 50,000 – 60-000 throughout the forecast period.”
So there you have it.
The simple straightforward answer is that net migration is rising because of rising housing prices. The wealthy are not leaving because they can afford to live here and the businesses they run are most vibrant in this state where they have access to a well trained workforce and similar dynamic companies.
And this isn’t a simple mass-balance equation. The economics are much more complex than what can be derived from a change in population growth rates.
Further, the per capita per household has risen 10% over the last two decades from 2.9 to 3.2. Given that family size has been decreasing, this indicates a housing crunch that is pushing adults together who would otherwise be living separately.
David and Richard, in your comments above you have left out one of the very important factors. You have mentioned changes in Birth Rate, and in Death Rate and in Out-Migration, but you haven’t mentioned changes in the rate of In-Migration. Given all the attention to our borders, I suspect there has been a significant change in the rate of In-Migration.
I specifically said that I believe that changes in migration are driving the projections. That does go both ways – in and out. People aren’t moving here and they are moving away.
Also Richard referenced net migration, so I don’t understand your comment, Matt.
I understand that David, but you are unnecessarily conflating them into one factor. They are very different factors, and as such should be acknowledged, tracked, and understood independently.
I don’t agree that they are very different factors. Cost of living is driving people out of the state and keeping people from moving to the state.
I cant believe we are debating the statewide growth numbers again….
The long-term population trends DO NOT MATTER FOR DAVIS.
As I stated in a comment on the “misuse of data” article. Statewide averages do not mean much when applied to a specific city. Local demand factors, (primarily JOBS) completely overwhelm any macro trend.
I As discussed in my article here, We have 20k people commuting IN to our city every day… thats 1/3 of our local population.
Housing here is also 40% more expensive than neighboring cities
Anyone who sees those facts and then turns around, points at state-wide trends and argues that we don’t need housing here is simply not being honest.
Thank you Tim. I agree 100%.
The leveling-off of California’s population does indeed matter, since growth and development in the Sacramento region primarily represents a “shifting” of the population FROM areas which are less-impactful (environmentally) – such as the Bay Area, TO the sprawl of the Sacramento region.
This comment (from Matt) is by far the most important comment in this comment section.
The seller would get the majority of the built-in profit, and the house would lose its “affordable” status.
Individual properties to which this would apply would sell-out within 5 minutes of being offered, as a result.
As an alternative to subsequently selling the house, owners may elect to rent it out at full market value, despite the “discount” that they received upon initial purchase. Unless otherwise prevented from doing so.