California’s wildest housing story of 2022: Mountain lions versus duplexes

Every biweekly episode of “Gimme Shelter: The California Housing Disaster Podcast” takes listeners to a brand new metropolis or city the place an outlandish housing story is unfolding to raised illustrate the state’s housing disaster.

That section known as the Avocado of the Fortnight, in honor of a very wacky housing story: when in 2017, an Australian actual property mogul blamed millennials’ outsize spending on avocado toast at brunch for his or her incapability to afford to purchase a home. And yearly, a kind of tales is chosen because the Avocado of the Yr.

California produced a bushel filled with ripe avocados in 2022, however the winner was clear from the beginning.

In February, the rich Silicon Valley city of Woodside declared itself a habitat for doubtlessly endangered mountain lions as a way to sidestep a brand new state legislation requiring cities to permit duplex building on heaps beforehand put aside for less than single-family houses. It wasn’t the one metropolis to push again in opposition to the state duplex legislation, nevertheless it might need been probably the most brazen. The story went viral, and the city reversed course after state Legal professional Common Rob Bonta stepped in. In a visitor look, Bonta got here on the present to announce Woodside because the winner.

To dig deeper, “Gimme Shelter” co-hosts Manuela Tobias, housing reporter for CalMatters, and Liam Dillon, housing reporter for The Los Angeles Occasions, interviewed Angela Swartz, the reporter who first broke the story for The Almanac. Swartz covers housing and different native debates within the rich Silicon Valley enclaves of Atherton, Portola Valley and Woodside, all of which made information this yr for his or her opposition to state mandates to extend housing density.

Cougar City had some noteworthy opponents within the housing story contest.

In March, it appeared that UC Berkeley must lower its incoming enrollment by 1000’s of scholars due to an environmental lawsuit. A decide sided with neighbors of the campus who argued enrollment development was harming visitors, noise and housing costs — after which the state Legislature intervened.

In April, the town of Fresno sought to carry native spirits by hanging banners, certainly one of which declared the town had the “hottest housing market,” quoting the Los Angeles Occasions. Seems the story it quoted was written by podcast co-host Dillon, who discovered the town’s rising costs have been the truth is making it more durable for longtime residents to stay in Fresno.

Lastly, in August, The Atlantic reported that billionaire investor Marc Andreessen, who had publicly decried the not-in-my-backyard mindset and argued in an essay it was “time to construct,” had the truth is submitted public remark together with his spouse saying they have been “IMMENSELY AGAINST multifamily improvement!” when his neighborhood of Atherton was contemplating bringing extra housing to its backyards.

Particular because of the greater than 200 listeners who participated within the on-line ballot to choose the winner.