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The baby boomers, who attended college with nominal state tuition levels, gave tax cuts <br /> for themselves leading to massive college tuition increases which insured that their <br /> children, the baby boom echo, came out of college with record student debt. As of <br /> 2021, California millennials had the lowest homeownership rate of any state in the <br /> nation, at only 30%, while the nationwide average for millennials is 43% <br /> homeownership. Fn 1 & Exhibit I. A primary cause of this underperformance is the <br /> reluctance of our baby boomer voters to accept additional housing for anyone including <br /> their own children. <br /> The consequences of the artificially high California housing prices for the millennial <br /> generation have been later marriage, fewer children, and a lower quality of life than their <br /> parents at a comparable age. As the millennials become the dominant voting group, <br /> they have the opportunity to correct the disastrous California housing policies of which <br /> they are the primary victims. Fn 2. <br /> Summary <br /> First, as to the causes of the RHNA catastrophe, our hypothesis is that with the 2014- <br /> 2022 RHNA Cycle, the State Housing and Community Development Dept. (HCD) has <br /> focused on rent and price controls on new construction as the primary means to <br /> address housing affordability. The rent and price controls are implemented primarily <br /> through inclusionary zoning — a practice by which a builder is required to set aside a <br /> prescribed percentage (5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, or even higher) of all new housing <br /> production for in perpetuity rent controls. In effect, this brings the severe supply <br /> crimping impacts of rent controls to housing production, while only a tiny percentage of <br /> actual rent controlled housing units are produced. E.g. 15% of 2% per year of the <br /> housing units in a city growing at 2% a year is only a 0.3% per year increase in the <br /> proportion of rent controlled units, while the resulting housing scarcity causes market <br /> rate housing prices to spin out of control. <br /> Second, this article suggests local housing policies which could significantly reduce <br /> local housing prices, consistent with State Housing Law and regulations. The key is to <br /> base inclusionary requirements for low and moderate income housing on unit size <br /> (rather than rent controls). This is how to get to housing that is affordable by design <br /> rather than by subsidy. The housing market can and will produce small units in quantity <br /> — quantities sufficient to drive the price of small market rate units down to prices which <br /> the millennial generation can afford. The same goes for market rate single family: there <br /> is a huge unmet market for 1500 sq. ft. single family homes, but our regulatory schemes <br /> incentivize construction of 3500 sq. ft. McMansions, partly to cover the cost burden of <br /> the inclusionary rent controls. <br /> 2 <br />