The CA exodus is real, so why do we need SB 10?

There are plenty of people who foolishly believe we can build our way out of the so-called "housing crisis".  Dense development hasn't caused lower housing costs anywhere in the world--in fact, many of the densest locations are also the costliest.  And when the other quality of life components and job prospects are as good as the Bay Area, one would have to be extra foolish to try to out-build the demand and further diminish the quality of life.  But Sacramento has foisted SB 9 and SB 10 on us anyway.  Most of them couldn't get through Econ 101, but that is where we are at.

The Burlingame City Council will discuss what to do about SB 10 tomorrow night.  The Staff Report is super thin on SB 10:

SB 10. California Senate Bill (SB) 10 allows (but does not require) local agencies to adopt an ordinance to allow up to 10 dwelling units on any parcel if the parcel is within a transit-rich area or urban infill site. (Ed:  pretty much all of B'game).

The General Plan Update has already provided a range of multiunit residential and mixed use land use districts with a wide range of residential densities, and the Zoning Ordinance Update underway will provide refined development standards for the corresponding zoning districts.

Staff requests direction from the City Council on whether to pursue zoning allowed by SB 10.  Whereas SB 9-compliant zoning is required, municipalities may choose to adopt (or not adopt) SB 10-compliant zoning.

And the report claims that neither SB 9 or SB 10 will have any fiscal impact!  It might be time to double-check the thinking on that since residential property taxes never cover the cost of providing city services--never mind the costs to the school district that is pretty much out of real estate.

But let's look a little deeper courtesy of last Sunday's Mercury News piece with the sub-head "In an area noted for its booming economy, stunning weather and natural beauty, a majority feel their quality of life is in decline".  The Silicon Valley Leadership Group and the Bay Area News Group commissioned a survey by Embold Research to dig into this and it's not pretty.

In a foreboding breakthrough, for the first time since the poll began posing the question in 2018 a solid majority -- 56% -- said they expect to leave the Bay Area in the next few years...a similar majority said the region is headed in the wrong direction.  In the survey of 1,610 registered voters, 71% said the Bay Area's quality of life has declined in the last five years.

Two problems topped the list of increased concern being "serious or very serious"?  Drought (+41%) and Water Supply (+32%).  I'm glad to know I'm not alone on this.  The cost of housing was still the highest overall at 92% but only up 6%.  What if even half of the half of people that are considering leaving do so?  Even if it is only 10% that would be significant.   B'game has a huge amount of new housing already approved, in design and "in-the-dirt".  Maybe we should see how that all plays out?  I hope the council's direction to staff on SB 10 is a brisk, clear "forgetaboutit" so they can get back to ensuring our public safety, water supply, small business vitality, economic health and quality of life.

Comments

[Joe]

As Jennifer noted on the "Welcome Carpetbaggers" post, the Council meeting details are:

This Monday night at Oct. 18 at 7pm, the Burlingame City Council will be discussing SB9 and SB10 (Agenda Item 10b)
Phone Dial 1-669-900-6833
Meeting ID: 894 9704 8575
Passcode: 748490
Anyone who'd like to speak on this item should "raise a hand" or send in a comment at:
[email protected]

[Tom Scholz]

All I want is to have my peace of mind

--Boston

Isn't this why we elect these people?

[Rob Adams]

I'm all for diversity and affordable housing, but here in BUILDINGAME, our town has become a Monopoly Board (for you old timers) of grab it/scrap it/fill it to overflow. And as the Editor points out, this is all while the "growth" in the Bay Area is actually a negative number. It might make sense to slow our roll, but I assume there is too much $$$ for that to happen. Let's be honest, we will need to change our motto from "The City of Trees" to "The City of Squeeze".

[Cassandra]

Not only did fewer people migrate into the state, but Bay Area residents are some of the only ones in the state continuing to pack up and move — and they now make up an even larger share of those saying goodbye to the Golden State than before the pandemic.

Since the start of pandemic in 2020, the California Policy Lab report found, the Bay Area has experienced a staggering 45% drop in the number of people coming into the area, with the hardest hit counties being San Francisco (-52.2%), Santa Clara (−51.5%) and San Mateo (−47.6%).

In Santa Clara County, for example, roughly 10,000 adults were coming into the county at the start of 2020. This year, that number plummeted to about 4,500. The study did not measure foreign migrations, which historically have been a source of population growth for the region. Mercury News

[Paloma Ave]

Have Burlingame Council members talked about changing all R-1 to R-2 in order to thwart SB9 and SB10?

[resident]

The same study says The report found that while the Golden State is losing more than twice as many people to domestic migration than it did before the pandemic, the decline is largely due to fewer out-of-state residents moving in, not more Californians moving out. And the report doesn’t take into account international migration — which for more than a decade has helped California’s population grow, albeit at a slower pace than the rest of the nation.

That's what we call it now. "International migration"

[Joe]

Happy New Year. Here's an update on the exodus:

Data keep piling up on where Americans are moving, and the pattern is clear. In the second year of the pandemic, people continued to ditch the coasts and Great Lakes in favor of less dense, more affordable climes.

That’s the finding of the latest National Movers Study, released Monday by moving company United Van Lines. The survey ranks the states that drew large shares of move-ins in 2021, with a corresponding list of the biggest losers.

The largest net gain belonged to Vermont, where 74% of moves were inbound. The rest of the top five includes South Dakota (69%), South Carolina (63%), West Virginia (63%) and Florida (62%).

New Jersey was the biggest loser for the fourth consecutive year, with 71% of its moves heading out. Next on the departures list were Illinois (67%), New York (63%), Connecticut (60%) and California (59%).

[Joe]

Dan Walters at CalMatters.org weighing in with some of the recent statistics on population:

In 2016, with the state’s population estimated at 38.7 million, the Public Policy Institute of California declared that “California will continue to gain millions of new residents in each of the next two decades, increasing demand in all areas of infrastructure and public services – including education, transportation, housing, water, health, and welfare.”

“By 2030, PPIC said, “California’s population is projected to reach 44.1 million.” That’s not going to happen either.

The 2020 census pegged the state’s population at 39.5 million and a recent report from the Census Bureau says California had a net loss of more than a quarter-million residents between July 1, 2020, and July 1, 2021.

“California appears to be on the verge of a new demographic era, one in which population declines characterize the state,” PPIC demographer Hans Johnson writes in a new analysis. “Lower levels of international migration, declining birth rates, and increases in deaths all play a role. But the primary driver of the state’s population loss over the past couple years has been the result of California residents moving to other states.”

Since 2010, Johnson continued, “about 7.5 million people moved from California to other states, while only 5.8 million people moved to California from other parts of the country. According to Department of Finance estimates, the state has lost residents to other states every year since 2001.”

Instead of zooming past 40 million to 45 and then 50 million by mid-century, as earlier projections indicated, California may remain stuck just under 40 million indefinitely.

https://calmatters.org/commentary/2022/04/california-population-decline/?utm_source=CalMatters+Newsletters&utm_campaign=7da40eff25-WHATMATTERS&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_faa7be558d-7da40eff25-150672308&mc_cid=7da40eff25&mc_eid=914e27b612

I would not use the word "stuck". How about stable at probably just more than we have the infrastructure to support properly?

[Joe]

Here's some of today's Daily Journal article "for the record". Build, build, build in Buildingame?

San Mateo County saw its population decrease by roughly 24,500 people, or 3.2%, from July 2020 to July 2021, figures consistent with those observed around the nation as urban coastal areas emptied out in the early stages of the pandemic, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The county’s population went from 762,453 to 737,888, according to the census.

And further census data released this week breaks the exodus down city by city, revealing San Mateo and Daly City has some of the most dramatic losses of any large city in the nation. Cities are considered large if they are over 100,000.

San Mateo now has a population of 102,200 and Daly City now has a population of 101,243. The two cities lost 3,108 and 3,428 people respectively during the span, 3% and 3.2% of their populations which both now hover just above 100,000. The only cities that lost a greater portion of their residents were San Francisco, which lost 6.3%, and New York City, which lost 3.5%.

But in the county, several smaller cities lost sizable numbers as well. Burlingame, Millbrae, East Palo Alto and Pacifica, with populations ranging from 22,000 to 38,000, each saw a decline of 3.6%. The lowest rate of decrease was in San Carlos with 2.4%.

https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/local/san-mateo-county-population-falls/article_a2b57ca2-e163-11ec-b2df-07b41aa90e0f.html?utm_source=smdailyjournal.com&utm_campaign=%2Fnewsletters%2Fheadlines%2F%3F-dc%3D1654092021&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline

It looks like these ADUs are really just quiet home office space like I expected :-)

[Joe]

The Golden Goose is feeling ill and not laying enough eggs:

•As of Sept. 30, initial public offerings in California had raised just $177 million, compared to an average of $16 billion during the same period over the past five years.

•The $177 million figure represents just 2% of funds generated by U.S. companies that went public through the end of September. Last year at this time, California accounted for 39% of funds nationally.

•If this trend continues, it could spell an end to the streak California has maintained since 2003 of generating more IPOs than any other state.

“We are already seeing an immediate effect,” Brian Uhler, deputy legislative analyst for the state Legislative Analyst’s Office, told Bloomberg. “And it does appear to be significant,” contributing to a 5% decline in California employers’ income tax withholding payments in September compared to last year.

Indeed, California collected about $2.8 billion less in taxes in September than it thought it would, marking the third straight month of revenues coming in below projections, according to a report released this week by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Department of Finance

[Cassandra]

Jeez.
So easy to fix.
Vote out the Democrats.

[Joe]

The headline news today is about the Exodus slowing down......per the Merc "Every Bay Area county lost fewer residents in 2023 than the previous year."

The newest population estimates for July 1, 2023, released this week by the U.S. Census Bureau, show the losses were the smallest the region has seen since the pandemic marked the beginning of a dramatic exodus that is now slowing and showing signs of reversing.

Of the core Bay Area counties, San Francisco was the only one that saw an increase in population in 2023 after having the most dramatic drop early in the pandemic. (The Chron reported the increase as 0.15%)

California’s population, like the Bay Area’s, has continued to decline. According to statewide population estimates, released in December 2023, the Golden State was among eight states that saw a population drop from 2022 to 2023, losing 75,000 residents that year.

Over the last year, the five-county Bay Area — Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties — lost just over 10,000 residents in total since 2022.