3 ms·

This just shows how complex and convoluted zoning and housing laws are. I did not understand a single thing why this is legal now.

• bobthepanda 5y ago
  The law involved is actually pretty simple. Localities are incentivized by Prop 13 and many other things to not approve housing. This is good for localities' budgets because people demand more services than office space, but is bad for California if every locality does it because then where will new residents live? So the state, which is keen to have more residents, requires each locality to "do its part" and accommodate some number of housing. Davis currently doesn't meet these targets, and so state law now overrides local zoning laws to allow any amount of density to be built so that Davis can catch up. In our federal US system, states are sovereign, so the feds can't just lord it over states, but cities have no such predefined relationship to their state. In fact, all cities only get the powers that states choose to delegate them, which is why state preemption (e.g. "every county must do X" or "no county can do Y" is a thing.)