Category Archives: Housing

Housing, water

More housing and more drought calls for more thought

By Rick Johnson, Special to CalMatters : calmatters – excerpt

Legislators promoting high-density housing need to meet up with state and local water agencies to hammer out realistic approaches to our changing reality.

Although 41 of California’s 58 counties are in drought conditions, legislators are debating bills, such as Senate Bill 9 and Senate Bill 10, that address the construction of housing to meet the state’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation.

Between 2023 and 2031, the state mandate for the nine-county Bay Area is 441,000 units, representing an expected population increase of 1,102,500. The allocation for Los Angeles County is 1,327,000 housing units to accommodate an expected population increase of 3,317,500.

The state’s propensity to accept the RHNA numbers ignores our drought conditions. Nowhere does the legislation indicate where the additional water for these units will come from, nor does it address impact on infrastructure, such as sewer lines.

Furthermore, none of these bills make mention of the California Department of Water Resources water plan through 2050.

The current version of the plan forecasts an increase of 10 million people by 2050. It also predicts multiple droughts and considers a triad of ways to deal with the state’s water needs.

First, the plan suggests the transfer of agricultural water to urban use. But what effect would that have on farm economy, food supply and prices? A good deal of agricultural land already is lying fallow due to decreased or suspended water allotments…(more)

 

CEQA, Housing

The West’s Water Restriction Nightmare Is Just Beginning

By Dharma Noor : applenews – excerpt

Oakley, Utah placed a moratorium on any new construction projects that would tap into the city’s water system.

A small city in Utah is taking an unprecedented step to adapt to megadrought conditions in the West: halting any new construction projects that would tap into the local water. It’s the first municipal ordinance of its kind.

Last month, officials from Oakley, Utah—a city of 1,500—finalized a moratorium on new development extending through November. The ordinance prohibits the “erection, construction, re-construction or alteration of any structure” that needs new water connections.

“The city is concerned that the current drought conditions will result in critical water shortages and require further drastic curtailment measures that would be detrimental to the entire city and cause significant public harm,” it says…

Oakley is hardly alone, though. The West’s water resources have come under increasing pressure from rising temperatures tied to the climate crisis…(more)

Housing

Invesco Backs Mynd to Spend $5 Billion on Single-Family Rentals

By Gillian Tan : bloomberg – excerpt

Funds managed by Invesco Real Estate are backing Mynd Management to spend as much as $5 billion, including debt, purchasing about 20,000 single-family rental homes in the U.S. in the next three years.

The partnership marks a “significant moment” for the single-family rental industry, Doug Brien, chief executive officer and co-founder of Mynd, said in an interview. More than half of the country’s multifamily properties are owned by institutional investors compared with an estimated ownership of 2% to 3% of single-family rentals, a gap that he expects to narrow in time.

“As traditional commercial real estate investors that invested in multifamily as their key strategy have moved into single-family rental, we’re seeing the market flooded with institutional capital,” Brien said. He acknowledged that dynamic will make it more competitive for Mynd to find properties, but touted its data-driven technology as better enabling it to make offers across the U.S…(more)

Could the rush to invest in single family homes be driven by the billions of dollars being pushed into political machines intent on up-zoning and gentrifying those neighborhoods?  Easy to drive up the prices so that individual homeowners cannot afford to buy, when governments allow by-right laws to remove all obstacles from the density plans. Will the American public figure this out in time to stop it?