Marin County to be Immune from Affordable Housing Law Due to Specialness
07/07/2017
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Marin County, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, is consistently liberal, at least in Presidential voting. Trump got 16% of Marin’s vote and Romney 23%. From the L.A. Times:

What housing crisis? Last-minute bill would let wealthy Marin County limit home building

One of California’s wealthiest counties may continue to get a pass under the state’s affordable housing laws.

Lawmakers are considering a measure that would allow parts of Marin County to limit growth more tightly than other regions of California. The provision, inserted last week into a bill connected to the state budget, lets Marin County’s largest cities and unincorporated areas maintain extra restrictions on how many homes developers can build. …

Following a 2009 investigation by federal housing officials, Marin County supervisors agreed to boost affordable development as a way to desegregate the mostly white region. But neighborhood opposition to low-income housing continued, including a long-stalled 2013 proposal from “Star Wars” creator George Lucas to build hundreds of affordable units on a former dairy farm.

Lucas spent decades trying to get permits to build a movie studio in Marin County. When he failed, Lucas threatened to build a low income housing project on his property as vengeance. But even a billionaire mythmaker can’t keep Marin County residents from having a wonderful life.

We are told that all those Poles cheering President Trump’s speech in Warsaw yesterday lacked the proper contemporary “contempt for borders,” but the borders of Marin County, CA are remarkably sacrosanct. The borders of Poland may be contemptible fictions, but the borders of Marin, San Francisco, Malibu, and Beverly Hills are very, very real.

Today, the county’s per capita income of $60,236 is the highest of any county in the state, according to U.S. census figures. But the average renter in Marin County makes just $19.21 an hour and would need to work 77 hours a week to afford a studio apartment at the $1,915-a-month market rate, according to data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition. …

Brown and legislators have been working on a package of bills that aim to increase funding for low-income housing as well as wipe away some of the restrictions local governments put on development. But no significant measure has passed in recent years, frustrating housing advocates.

[Comment at Unz.com]
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