But old assumptions that Brown’s main foes would be environmentalists and trial lawyers have been undercut repeatedly in recent weeks. Instead, perhaps his most formidable obstacles to making the Golden State more hospitable to new construction are local officials eager to maintain control over what their communities look like. Across California, they’re preparing or considering ordinances that require local voter approval of projects of a certain size or density or otherwise put hard limits on certain types of development — measures that would block key provisions of Brown’s plan.

A recent Voice of San Diego article noted such efforts in Del Mar, Costa Mesa, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, El Dorado County, Cupertino and Gilroy. Among the requirements that those communities may impose: requiring voter approval of most new construction higher than two stories and creating zones in which any construction required ballot OKs.

NIMBYism popular in many communities

Critics claim this would worsen the California housing crisis, not help it. But in city after city, officials say they are responding to local sentiment.

This gets to a key weakness of Brown’s strategy: While there is a growing understanding that the best way to relieve California’s housing crisis is by adding more stock, people are often only enthusiastic about the idea in the abstract. When it comes to one’s own community, enthusiasm usually wanes as part of a “not-in-my-backyard” attitude.

A classic example of this NIMBYism is now playing out in Millbrae, just south of San Francisco, in the region with the highest housing costs in California. A proposal to build 300-plus homes with office buildings and retail space next to a Bay Area Rapid Transit station — a prototypical “smart growth” project — is facing growing opposition.

The project would be on 116 acres already owned by BART. It complies with local housing policies and comes after years of complaints from area residents that their children can’t afford to live near them.

But at a July 12 City Council meeting, residents jammed the chambers to warn the project would worsen crime and traffic and harm quality of life. According to a local newspaper account, one resident even said the BART effort amounted to a criminal enterprise — “like the Wild West for outlaws to come and take stuff.”

Former San Francisco mayor touts status quo

That same day, the San Francisco Chronicle printed an op-ed by former Mayor Art Agnos blasting Brown’s housing proposal and offering a defense of the status quo of strong regulation. Agnos challenged the idea that adding more housing stock is the best way to bring down housing costs and said “rent stabilization” — i.e., rent control — should be an option for every city.

Agnos also called for more government funding for affordable housing programs that critics say amount to lottery programs which only help a relative handful of families.

From 1993-2001, Agnos was the western regional director for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. On his personal website, he depicts his efforts to help poor people find housing in San Francisco with government subsidies as a rousing success story.

Agnos doesn’t mention this claim in the Chronicle op-ed.

By John Seiler

Despite a slight improvement in the unemployment level to a still horrific 9.8 percent in November, California remains a terrible place in which to do business. The Wall Street Journal yesterday reported on how other states are luring businesses out from behind the California Curtain to freedom.

It describes how Replico Corp. moved one-third of its employees from Gilroy to Reno, Nev. “‘California is not a business-friendly state,’ said [CEO Michael] Whitehead. Though the decision was ‘hard because of the employee impact,’ the staff who made the move appreciate Nevada’s lack of income tax, he said.”

For the middle class, California’s state income tax is a confiscatory 9.6 percent. That’s often forgotten in discussions of the state’s staggering 13.3 percent state income tax on “those who can afford to share more,” as Democrats like to call jobs and business creators (a/k/a “the filthy rich”).

Nevada, here they come

WSJ:

“Nevada is one of a growing number of states stationing full-time business recruiters in California, as the nation’s economy recovers and the competition for jobs heats up. Economic-development bureaus seek to attract business and jobs from wherever they can, but California has become a particularly attractive target lately thanks to the prospect of rising taxes and new regulations that other states think could make companies there easier to lure away—an idea disputed by California officials….

“Now, states that have traditionally staffed external business-development offices only overseas are adding manpower in the Golden State. It isn’t the only place under siege—Virginia’s Fairfax County, for example, has also opened an office in Boston to lure biotech firms—but many are zeroing in on California, betting that new policies going into effect there will begin to push more businesses and entrepreneurs out….

“Companies rarely relocate purely at a recruiter’s suggestion. But states are hoping to capture the attention of Silicon Valley venture capitalists as well as California’s large number of entrepreneurs and CEOs, and to make sure they are on the shortlist for any expansions or relocations. Arizona opened its first two domestic out-of-state offices in October—one near Los Angeles, the other in Silicon Valley. Tennessee in November posted an ad for a new government position looking for California businesses to poach. Nevada hired its own representatives in California two years ago.”

When the next recession hits, and I believe it will be this year, companies will have even more incentive to leave Taxifornia for states with lower costs of government, and where folks actually like business, instead of hate it as here.

After all, California’s supermajority Democrats believe, businesses are just gross polluters that rip off employees and customers and funnel massive profits to the super-rich, who splurge on yachts and mansions and should have their wealth confiscated to spend it on the pensions of our brave and wonderful government workers.