Over the past dozen years, the California environmental lobby has never seemed more powerful in the Legislature and in state government. Under Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown, the Golden State has passed

But a bracing report from the California Air Resources Board shows that environmentalists’ clout can’t shake the complete control that NIMBYs have over local planning in most of the state – to the detriment of the environment. It found that a 2008 state law – Senate Bill 375 – had been an abject failure. The law requires the state’s 18 regional intergovernmental agencies to push to put new housing near transit stations and to add new transportation options so as to decrease pollution from vehicle commuting.

Not only are three out of four workers still commuting alone to work, carpooling and transit ridership are down. As a result, vehicle greenhouse gas emissions have actually risen in recent years – and the decline from 2007-2011 seems likely to have been a function of the Great Recession, not the state push to reduce emissions associated with climate change.

The air board sees no chance that the SB375 goal of reducing statewide vehicle emissions 10 percent by 2020 will be met.

The report was met with dismay by environmental groups and journalists concerned with progress against climate change. The most common response to the air board’s finding was the call for the Legislature to take more steps to limit the ability of local governments to block projects that met certain criteria – starting with being near transit stations.

69% of Californians want local control of housing

But the appetite of state lawmakers to take on NIMBYs may be limited in the wake of new evidence that NIMBYism isn’t just espoused by activists who see every new housing project as detrimental to quality of life. Instead, it’s a core belief of state residents. A USC Dornsrife/Los Angeles Times survey released in October showed 69 percent of Californians preferred local control of housing decision-making.

And the fate of a bill to reduce local control over housing showed that even poor people – those who in theory would be most helped by adding housing stock, which likely would push down sky-high rents – are skeptical.

Senate Bill 827, by Sen. Scott Weiner, D-San Francisco, would have made it much easier to build four- or five-story apartment buildings within a half-mile of transit centers. The prospect of apartment buildings springing up in poor neighborhoods with single-family homes – such as in the Los Angeles County cities of Inglewood and Carson – led to an outraged reaction from 36 housing and transit “justice groups” led by the Alliance for Community Transit – Los Angeles (ACT-LA). Instead of seeing the bill as leading to cheaper housing, these groups saw it as likely to lead to home renters being ousted in favor of more lucrative apartment buildings, and to new waves of gentrification.

The opposition to Weiner’s bill from activists and from local governments – including every member of the Los Angeles City Council – was so intense that SB827 died at its first committee hearing in April.

Weiner has since met with ACT-LA leaders and other activists and plans to reintroduce SB827 next year with provisions that address concerns that poor neighborhoods would be upended by much laxer housing rules. But such provisions could end up leading to trading old rules giving local governments power to limit construction for new rules with similar effects.

In January 2017, state lawmakers returned to the Capitol determined to make a difference on the state housing crisis. Dozens of bills were touted – including Senate Bill 35, by state Sen. Scott Weiner, D-San Francisco, which ended up as the most far-reaching law to reduce obstacles to housing construction in modern California history.

But even as momentum built for SB35 and other housing measures, the head of the respected, nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office warned in a 12-page report issued in March 2017 that state lawmakers would never be able to reduce the housing shortage without much more support from the public.

“Unless Californians are convinced of the benefits of significantly more home building – targeted at meeting housing demand at every income level – no state intervention is likely to make significant progress on addressing the state’s housing challenges,” wrote Mac Taylor.

Now a USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times survey offers the most definitive support yet for the legislative analyst’s conclusion that when it comes to building new housing, Californians aren’t very enthusiastic.

Few see lack of construction as big problem

The survey asked 1,180 Californians why they thought housing was so expensive in the Golden State. They were given a list of eight possible primary reasons.

The most popular reasons were lack of rent control (28 percent) and lack of affordable housing programs (24 percent).

In the middle tier of explanations were environmental regulations (17 percent), foreign home buyers (16 percent) and the influence of the tech industry (15 percent).

Bringing up the rear were a lack of homebuilding (13 percent), Wall Street buyers (10 percent) and restrictive zoning rules (9 percent).

The Times’ analysis of the poll noted how at odds the public’s view of housing is with the view of economists, policy analysts and housing experts.

There is “general agreement that a lack of supply is at the root the problem. Reports from the state Department of Housing and Community Development, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office and a host of academics contend that California has a chronic shortage of home building that has failed to keep pace with the state’s population growth – especially during the recent economic expansion – which has forced prices up.”

But this wasn’t the only way Californians parted with conventional wisdom. The survey also included other questions that showed two-thirds of those surveyed backed local control over housing even if local governments weren’t meeting state-set goals for adding housing stock.

It is this local power over the approval process that empowers motivated NIMBYs in city after city. Taylor’s March 2017 study identified it as the single biggest reason behind the emergence of the housing crisis.

“For decades, many California communities – particularly coastal communities – have used this control to limit home building,” the legislative analyst wrote. “As a result, too little housing has been built to accommodate all those who wish to live here. This lack of home building has driven a rapid rise in housing costs.”

Tech industry certain to keep pushing for housing 

While the USC-Times poll could influence candidates in close elections to side with NIMBY views, it is unlikely to blunt new efforts by the Legislature to use legislation to bring down housing costs. The deep-pockets, influential Silicon Valley Leadership Group is one of many business organizations that sees the housing crisis as a threat to the state’s future prosperity because of its potential to hurt recruitment and retention of workers.

Another of the state’s most politically potent forces – the California Teachers Association – also sees the housing issue as bad news for its members. But the CTA’s main policy prescription for now is Proposition 10 – the Nov. 6 ballot measure that would overturn a 1995 state law and let cities impose rent control. It has generally trailed in state polls, although with high numbers of undecided voters.