Meet the YIMBYs: Can tech bros change California’s housing policies?

by Cathaleen Chen : therealdeal – excerpt

A group of tech execs are creating a lobbying group to promote development-oriented policies on the state level

Watch out, NIMBYs: The YIMBYs are coming for you, and they know how to code.

A group of tech executives from the likes of Microsoft and Yelp are organizing a lobbying group to promote state policies that would increase development and housing growth.

Dubbed California YIMBY — for “yes in my backyard” — the organization and lobbying effort is headed by Microsoft executive Nat Friedman, Pantheon CEO Zack Rosen, and San Francisco housing activist Brian Hanlon, according to The Information…

So far, they’ve raised $500,000. The goal is to convince state lawmakers to pen bills that would increase density, limit the power of CEQA, ease property tax restrictions, minimize linkage fees, and reduce zoning limitations near transit hubs.

The lobbying portion will be a 501(c)(4) that won’t have to disclose donors…

“The losers in this deregulation agenda will be the working class and lower-income communities of color in these hot markets,” said Peter Cohen, co-director of the Council of Community Housing Organizations. “The tech industry jumping into the housing situation is a self-interested political calculation.” [The Information] — Cathaleen Chen… (more)

There are no shades of gray in this game. There is only one question voters need to answer to decide who to vote for and which ballot initiatives to support in June and November 2018. YIMBY or anti-YIMBY?

The YIMBY side that supports unlimited growth and is funded by a $500,000 dollar warchest, is buying the state of California by buying state offices in Sacramento. From there, they are overriding local governments with such legislation as last year’s SB-35 and this year’s SB-827 and SB-828. You can see the results of their efforts to run local governments on your streets and sidewalks. The war cars is now the war on housing. “If you can’t afford to live here, you don’t deserve the right to stay”, is their mantra. They espouse dense housing in tall towers.

A vote for YIMBY is a vote to continue to use real estate to advance tech into the takeover of our lives. Higher costs of living and inflation will follow, along with more evictions, homeless people, crime, violence and a crumbling infrastructure as the state ignore the realities of limited water and other resources.

The Anti-YIMBY vote is a return to the limited growth that sustained our states and cities for generations and produced a livable, reasonable lifestyle for the majority of the people of California.

San Francisco and Los Angeles voters can turn this around. They are the two most targeted cities. San Francisco and and Silicon Valley are being blamed for the YIMBY takeover in Sacramento. Southern California has more votes but their population has stayed away from the polls. Issues such and DACA and immigration issues are hitting hard in the south and could shift the power south.

Look at how YIMBY unlimited growth policies have changed our world already to see where centralized state power is taking us. If you like that direction, vote the YIMBY ticket and say goodby to local control. If you don’t appreciate the direction we are going in, the vote the anti-YIMBY ticket and start to slow the damage they have done. Stay tuned for ballot slates on both sides.

 

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