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THREAD: A Tale of Two States
(and executive branch preemption of municipal barriers to infill housing, like parking minimums)
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(and executive branch preemption of municipal barriers to infill housing, like parking minimums)
1/n
Oregon's LCDC just crushed minimum parking requirements for small infill projects (duplex, triplex, 4plex). @California_HCD has not done same. Why not?
2/n
2/n
Statutory authority is pretty similar. Oregon: cities may not impose "unreasonable costs or delay" on development of "middle housing." CA: cities' housing plans must "remove constraints" to "housing for all income levels" "where appropriate & legally possible"
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3/n
@California_HCD has issued weak guidelines about parking as a potential constraint, but nothing like Oregon's new regs.
https://www.hcd.ca.gov/community-development/building-blocks/constraints/land-use-controls.shtml
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https://www.hcd.ca.gov/community-development/building-blocks/constraints/land-use-controls.shtml
4/n
I read lots of CA housing plans & agency correspondence, found no evidence of state effort to crack down on parking minimums or other constraints, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3614085. New state auditor report also finds HCD has failed to control constraints, http://www.auditor.ca.gov/reports/2020-108/index.html.
5/n
5/n
Why is Oregon doing better? My best guess: LCDC has rulemaking authority, HCD for the most part does not. Plus, CA (inanely) requires nonbinding agency guidance that makes policy to go through very cumbersome rulemaking process. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=295681
6/n
6/n
So it's legally tough for HCD to tell cities ex ante what it expects to see in terms of constraint removal. But w/o setting clear expectations up front, it's politically tough for HCD to reject a city's housing plan b/c it doesn't do enough to remove constraints.
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