State Panel Faults Housing Policies for Growing Crisis

California’s escalating housing crisis is the result of failed public policies that threaten to impede the state’s economic growth, a state oversight panel said in a report released Wednesday.

More than 2.2 million low-income homeowners and renters in urban California pay so much for housing that they don’t have enough funds left to pay for such necessities as food and medical care, said the Little Hoover Commission, a bipartisan watchdog agency that issues studies to the governor and Legislature.

Among low-income renters, 91% pay more than the recommended 30% of their incomes on housing, and two-thirds of those renters pay more than half.

“The evidence now shows that the problem is chronic and getting worse,” the report said. “California is consistently under-building houses and apartments and the prices are so high in so many places that it threatens the viability of regional economies.”

Though the report praises the state and Gov. Gray Davis for establishing goals and providing some funding for housing, it also criticizes the state’s complex regulations and taxation system as barriers to new housing.

The biggest roadblock to realizing the state’s housing goals is its long-standing tradition of not interfering with cities’ local control over land use.

That hands-off policy has often resulted in the failure to adequately meet regional housing needs, the report said.

The commission urged the state to prod local governments into meeting the state’s goals by assisting and rewarding cities that develop affordable housing and sanctioning those that do not.

“It’s time to quit planning and begin building,” said Little Hoover Commissioner Dan Hancock. “The state has a legitimate role to play making sure good land-use decisions are made and housing is produced.”

Recommendations include public policies that encourage greater use of “brownfields”--mostly abandoned pieces of industrial property with a history of pollution, incentives to bring investors into local markets by reducing the risks associated with affordable housing and easier availability of public subsidies by streamlining requirements and providing technical assistance.

Local housing advocates applauded the commission’s report, especially the recommendations for a joint state- and local-government approach to producing more housing.

“This report talks, as others have, about the need for financing and land,” said Jan Breidenbach, director of the Southern California Assn. of Nonprofit Housing. “Now we need the political will. The local governments, Legislature and the governor have to make it a priority.”

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