After years of dithering and hoping the problem would go away, California is finally taking steps to address its housing crisis. In 2017 the state passed a series of bills designed to encourage the construction of new affordable housing — streamlining the regulatory approval process, providing more state funding and cracking down on local governments that fall short of their housing goals. Now, state Sen. Scott Wiener is pushing a new more aggressive package of legislation.
The most dramatic change Weiner would make, which is similar to a parallel effort in the state assembly, would be to force cities to allow dense housing development near public transit.