Editor’s note: This article, distributed by The Associated Press, was originally published on The Conversation website. The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.
The odd headlines about little towns in the San Francisco Bay Area just keep coming.
First Woodside, a tiny suburb where several Silicon Valley CEOs have lived, tried to declare itself a mountain lion habitat to evade a new California law that enabled owners of single-family homes to subdivide their lots to create additional housing.
Then wealthy Atherton, with a population of 7,000 and a median home sale price of $7.5 million, tried to update its state-mandated housing plan. Until very recently, 100% of Atherton’s residentially zoned land allowed only single-family houses on large lots. When the City Council considered rezoning a handful of properties to allow townhouses, strenuous objections poured in from such notable local residents as basketball star Steph Curry and billionaire venture capitalist Marc Andreessen.
A council member argued that the town should “express and explain the specialness of Atherton … to succeed in reducing [the state’s] expectations of us.”
On first glance, these might seem like extreme cases of privilege, oddities from quirky California. But as our new book on the politics of housing shows, the ability of small suburban municipalities to limit multifamily housing is more the rule than the exception.
Small governments’ big role in limiting housing
Adding new housing is …
See the full article on Arizona residential development, or, read more Arizona real estate investing news. Feel free to share our site with your investor friends.
