YIMBY v NIMBY: Two Factions Battle It Out In California

California has become ground zero for the NIMBY v YIMBY fight that is playing out all across America. Interestingly enough, it appears that the YIMBYs might be winning…(The Economist)

Gavin Newsom recently signed two contentious measures aimed at increasing housing supply into law…

• SB9: This measure ends single-family zoning in the state which means Californians will now be able to convert their houses into up to four units, depending on the size of their plot.

• SB10: This measure will make it easier for cities to build up to ten apartments on land currently set aside for single-family homes near busy public-transport corridors.

Why the change? California has built fewer than 100,000 homes a year, on average, in the past decade. In order to keep pace with population growth estimates say the state needs to build 1.8m homes by 2025. However, “McKinsey, a consultancy, reckons it will need 3.5m. Ben Metcalf of the Terner Centre for Housing Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley, says the magic number is probably somewhere between the two.”

Will these changes help? Yes. SB9 could make new development possible on 5.4% of existing single-family lots. “That may sound very little, but it would still create about 700,000 new units, 40% more than would otherwise have been developed.”

NOT OVER ANYTIME SOON. The NIMBY/YIMBY fight won’t be ending anytime soon, but with historically low inventory levels the tides definitely seem to be moving in favor the YIMBYs.