The best solution to solving the Bay Area housing problem is to take the employment elsewhere--out of state. Bay Area cities have the power to solve this problem rather quickly; stop approving million square foot office buildings everywhere! Rather than trying to solve this problem by creating even more housing, traffic congestion and infrastructure stress, the state legislature should simply issue a moratorium on commercial office building in the state until there is housing equilibrium for the existing employees and people living here. We don't need more jobs and people in this state! And mass transit will NEVER be an effective way to move people around the Bay Area. This isn't NYC.

I absolutely agree with the above assessment. This is a geographical issue - there is simply no more physical room to build housing short of turning the bay area into another Tokyo or Hong Kong with towering high rises.

My “Humble” observation:

City and County planning regarding housing is not workable. For the most important reason, every customer in the state of California should have EQUAL treatment and housing policies, it does not matter where you are. In fact the State and U.S. Constitution requires that equal protection of laws are required.

The PROOF that the Counties and Cities cannot provide effective planning because most are staffed with unqualified professionals in those positions.

The PROOF is that the ASSUMPTION that a city would provide equivalent jobs to housing growth has been proven WRONG.

The PROOF is that these groups are not able to garner the resources themselves to resolve the problem of the critical housing shortage of California.

SIMPLY put, the STATE is ESTABISHING CRITICAL REGULATIONS necessary to balance to rights of the tenants versus the powers of landlords given the CRITICAL SHORTAGE of housing is NOT the fault of the tenants. The LANDLORDS and HOUSING INDUSTRY has taken advantage of the shortage to ARBITRAGE the market.

THE INDUSTRY CAN PREVENT THE ONCOMING TSUNAMI OF LAWS BY CORRECTING ITSELF NOW.

Absent from the groups on the committee were current homeowners.
The social experiment to force people into mass transit has failed. Stop trying to see how many sardines you can fit into a can. Our quality of life has declined and costs, fees and taxes have gone up in all sectors. There is no economy of scale in government.

We have people living in million dollar houses standing in the bread line at local churches. Many families suffer food insecurity.
Build elsewhere!

We should do all of the above and then some!

1 - Move jobs out of California ("take the employment elsewhere" as shared by The Successful Businessman)
2 - Moratorium on ALL building (both commercial and residential)

and then take things one step further

3 - Encourage the mega-employers such as Google, Apple, Facebook, Oracle, etc. to move their HQ elsewhere. (ties into #1 above)
4 - Moratorium on new vehicle registrations. The roads are congested enough, if we don't have room for more housing, we DEFINITELY don't have room for more cars

A lot of this is a population issue. If we can limit the population growth of California (including limiting family size), then we can reach the housing/population ideals shared by the commenters here.

The climate forecast for California is that we will be drier in the future years. We already do not have sufficient water resources for the people and crops we have today. Expanding our population further beyond our available resources is short sighted at best and could be disastrous. It is also a bad investment.

Excluding businesses from Proposition 13, and having them pay market-rate property taxes, would result in "taking employment elsewhere" in fairly short order, I think.

There are issues and facts and figures that I don't have enough knowledge or context of in order to weigh in properly.

But I would make one comment: Any building (commercial or residential) without regard for our infrastructure is unwise to the point of foolish.

- The construction vehicles have torn up our roads. Potholes everywhere.
- Traffic worsens all the time.
- Our public utilities can't keep apace: the people approving projects just says "not my problem" and punts it to the State and the utilities when power infrastructure is insufficient, or a pole takes down the Internet or what have you.

I can't say "build" or "don't build". I'm a renter. I can't afford a home, so I can't pretend to understand a homeowner's dilemmas. Likewise, I have not done real research as to what is done with the tax revenue brought in by the big businesses (which is the reason the commercial is so readily approved). I bet I wouldn't like it if I knew.

But I can say, we're building faster than we have infrastructure which is reliable and safe for everyone. Traffic snarls and collisions from pothole (or pothole avoidance) or too much load in a powerline (eg. PG&E and SoCal Edison) makes it quite clear to me that we're going too far too fast.

I've been having this "debate" with friends for several years now. There are so many towns/cities in the Midwest that aren't taxed for natural resources, have very low cost of living and could use strong business opportunities. I say that if the Googles, Facebooks etc were to open offices in these locations people would flood there, particularly all the 1st generations coming from disadvantageous places where pretty much anything here is a dream. And I don't say that from elitism, I say it based on reality. I'm from the Midwest, born and raised there, there are MANY people who love living there. I've talked to friends here who have recently come for jobs who say they would MUCH rather live somewhere less expensive, they have no ties to CA and would be happy to live elsewhere.

But we all know why this will never happen. These companies are systematically socially engineering lifestyles and our local governments are not only beholden to them, but dependent on their tax revenues. These very governments that propose to be "for the people" couldn't be further from that. It's shameful. I can only hope that people start wakwill he up and realize how they're being manipulated.

I was born and raised here, in the Bay Area, and have lived in Mountain View for over 25 years...and because, imho, things have become untenable here, I will be relocating to a more hospitable location - just over the state line - in the very near future. I saw this train coming several years ago and purchased property, as a hedge...which will now be utilized. Happily. No state income tax, either.

I’m looking forward to not having the state of California picking my pocket for the rest of my life.

You all have fun with what’s coming...I don’t think it’s gonna be pretty.

Peace out.

[post removed, user has been banned for repeated violations of terms of use]

> I absolutely agree with the above assessment. This is a geographical issue - there is simply no more physical room to build housing short of turning the bay area into another Tokyo or Hong Kong with towering high rises.

First, Tokyo and Hong Kong are great cities. I recently returned from a trip to Tokyo, and it was amazing. There is excellent public transit and many great restaurants and bars.

Second, this is absurd. Drive up and down 280 for a bit. It's trees everywhere. There is lots and lots of land in the bay area for more housing. We just need to build it.

Author: I believe that you meant "prescribe" in the article rather than "proscribe" which is a word that I've never seen anyone but lawyers use.

Cities have their own unique residents, voters, and governments chosen by CITY voters. Why should any city, particularly its property owners and businesses, be forced to submit to the mandates of an ideologically biased Socialist/Populist "Bay Area Management District", or even an equally biased Socialist/Populist "County Management District", without voter approval in each city???

This is ignorant Socialism/Populism ENVY at work. Cities should be allowed to set their own population density, zoning, and construction regulations. We live in cities and have invested our lives and our savings here. It is OUR DUTY to regulate our lives, and not that of external enemies.

BTW, I'm not a tRUMPite Fascist. I want to see Fascist like him destroyed. I'm a Moderate Independent Libertarian who believes that OUR property rights are far more important than than any stupid or desperate idiots may have "elected" their Socialist/Populist morons. And that includes Mountain View's "city council" --- if you can call it that.

In response to William Hitchens you said:

“Cities have their own unique residents, voters, and governments chosen by CITY voters. Why should any city, particularly its property owners and businesses, be forced to submit to the mandates of an ideologically biased Socialist/Populist "Bay Area Management District", or even an equally biased Socialist/Populist "County Management District", without voter approval in each city??? “

Simply put, Cities are interdependent. If you want to promote that mentality, than EVERY City will need to be self-sufficient. The city should be managed as if they are in a dome. The fact is as I described above, the Cities are not capable of becoming self-sufficient. So you cannot be realistic regarding this point of view. You said:

“This is ignorant Socialism/Populism ENVY at work. Cities should be allowed to set their own population density, zoning, and construction regulations. We live in cities and have invested our lives and our savings here. It is OUR DUTY to regulate our lives, and not that of external enemies. “

Other Cities are not enemies, they are our interdependent partners. Why did you use this kind of description? You said:

“BTW, I'm not a tRUMPite Fascist. I want to see Fascist like him destroyed. I'm a Moderate Independent Libertarian who believes that OUR property rights are far more important than than any stupid or desperate idiots may have "elected" their Socialist/Populist morons. And that includes Mountain View's "city council" --- if you can call it that.”

Just understand that the U.S. Constitution allows for private land ownership, but in reality all land is public resources under the constitution. At any time if the government wanted to allocate any land, it may do so via emanate domain. And only the land value is constitutionally required to be compensated and not the structures.

There has been an “ideology” of those who believe in property rights are superior to any other rights. Just try to understand that this is not reality. Look at many cases and practices of both the state and federal government. This is just reality.