Sanity in CA housing?

As reported by the Sacramento Bee, its city council voted unanimously to allow four-plexes across the city overturning one-house-per lot zoning. 

It's couched somewhat in the language of diversity, 

City officials said the proposal would help the city alleviate its housing crisis, as well as achieve equity goals, by making neighborhoods with high-performing schools, pristine parks and other amenities accessible for families who cannot afford the rising price tags to buy homes there.

“Everybody should have the opportunity to not only play in Land Park but to live in Land Park,” Mayor Darrell Steinberg said. “That’s the Sacramento that we all uphold, that we love, that we value, and you better believe this drive for inclusion and equity is the driving force of our city and it is going to continue well beyond my tenure here.”

But I applaud that. Yes, the effect of highly restrictive zoning is exactly to drive "diverse" people away. Let's not be hypocrites. 

And ok, we're not waking up in property-rights nirvana either

“We’re going to insist on design quality and scale,” [Mayor] Steinberg said

 in response to comments.  And 

buildings would still have their current height restrictions. There would also be historical protections, limits on how much of a lot size a house could take up and on the amount of square footage.

Ok, baby steps.

Neighborhood association leaders in Land Park and Elmhurs... suggested the city only allow multi-unit houses in certain areas of the city, along commercial corridors and near transit stations.

“No one will have the ability to live in lower-density neighborhoods,” said Maggie Coulter, president of the Elmhurst Neighborhood Association. “The city needs to preserve existing neighborhoods in order to promote home ownership opportunities for everybody.”

Kudos to Sacramento city council for seeing through this complete incoherence, and the obvious flaws of segregating housing to undesirable parts of the city.

The lack of a whisper about "affordable housing" mandates is also refreshing. Maybe sanity can erupt in a one-party state, when discussions are not tinged with partisan derangement syndromes?

from The Grumpy Economist https://ift.tt/39HZrEM