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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   29399 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025

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California YIMBY, "Governor Newsom Signs Historic Housing Legislation: SB 79 Culminates Eight-Year Fight to Legalize Homes Near Transit" Also covered in Politico, LA Times, CalMatters, SF Chronicle, SF Standard, Berkeleyside, Streetsblog SF... this is a big deal. (Part of a long-running series on housing, mostly in California. Now also at TheSchism.)

To quote the Governor's press office, "HUGE NEWS!! YIMBY'S REJOICE !!". Signing statement here, press release from Scott Wiener here. Bill text here.

For more details about how we got here, see this recap from Jeremy Linden, the vote lists from CalMatters, and my previous recap from when SB 79 first made it out of committee. This was the last of ten veto points this bill had to pass, and it changed markedly over the process: most counties were exempted, ferries and high-frequency bus routes without dedicated lanes no longer count, projects over 85 feet must now use union labor, there are now below-market-rate set-asides, and other such bagel toppings. It only applies to "urban transit counties", those with more than fifteen rail stations; that's only eight of California's fifty-eight counties: Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, Santa Clara, Alameda, Sacramento, San Francisco and San Mateo, but those counties contain sixty percent of the state's population.

But of those ten veto points, it passed five of them by a single vote. (It depends exactly how you count.) Every compromise, every amendment, every watering-down was necessary to get this across the finish line. Aisha Wahab, Senate Housing chair and villain of the previous post, switched her vote to support SB 79 in the final concurrence in the Legislature, as did Elena Durazo, Senate Local Government chair, who had also opposed it originally. This has, as noted above, been eight years in the making. It will largely go into effect next July 1.

Newsom also signed a variety of other housing bills, though none were specifically as important as SB 79: AB 253 allows for third-party permit approvals if the city drags their feet, for example.

This completes a remarkably victorious legislative cycle for the YIMBYs. Along with surprise CEQA reform, Jeremy White of Politico called it: "from upzoning to streamlining to CEQA exempting, the biggest housing year I've seen in 10+ years covering Sacramento".

most counties were exempted, ferries and high-frequency bus routes without dedicated lanes no longer count, projects over 85 feet must now use union labor, there are now below-market-rate set-asides,

I come from a Unix background where we are taught that programs should do one thing and do it well. Seeing all this bullshit makes me seethe in a way very little else does.

California's constitution, Article IV, Section 9:

A statute shall embrace but one subject, which shall be expressed in its title. If a statute embraces a subject not expressed in its title, only the part not expressed is void.

(More details here.) And even still, this is, unfortunately, the way the sausage is made, because bagel toppings are baked into the progressive mindset, it seems. But ADU laws, for example, have been successful precisely because they were straightforward simplifications or liberalizations of the law, with few or no compensating tradeoffs. Chris Elmendorf has a good law review article about this.

I think to the extent that something is a big change or faces stiff opposition, this kind of nonsense will creep in. Here, it's not because apartments near transit are anathema per se, but because "local governments know best" is an article of faith here, despite where it's led us, and more importantly for progressives, a lot of new construction means a lot of business for builders, and it's very important ideologically that the benefit the legislature produces be appropriately socialized rather than captured by developers. The mistake being made here is that the benefit is homes for people to live in, and the benefits are already going to incumbent homeowners.

On the gripping hand, much as with ADU law, there will be simplifications and cleanups in future sessions.

Union construction labor does not come with the same issues as say, the UAW. It is simply more expensive by using barriers to entry which effectively exclude the lowest-quality providers(and lots of others, it needs to be acknowledged. A 100% unionization rate would not be a good thing). This is a perfectly reasonable trade for some customers, and mass transit systems may well be one. Exempting counties also makes sense; presumably this stuff isn't really needed in certain inland counties. I can't really defend below-market set asides but ferries and high frequency bus routes might just not be what this is aimed at.

Ah, but it does. If it were merely paying 2x the salary, that is something that can be budgeted for and just passed along.

Instead, you get the guy that you are paying to do the plumbing refuse to cut a hole through the floor for a shower drain because that's not in his trade specification. So you have to get someone from the carpenter's trade to come do that (for more money) while the plumber is sitting there being paid to fondle his balls. A half day later, you might have a shower drain. Or not, maybe the hole is in the wrong place (because what does a carpenter know about plumbing anyway). Everything moves at a snail's pace when someone won't do a tiny job that's blocking their progress just because it's not on a list somewhere.

A whole headquarters for Steph Curry's new outfit wasn't built in the Dogpatch because of this insanity.

Do you think non union tradesmen get out of their trade very often? A non union plumber will not cut a hole in the floor, redo Sheetrock/tile, penetrate a roof for a vent, etc. Just like his union counterpart, he’ll write a quote to have it subcontracted and he comes back to do the job.

The non-union contractors I've dealt with will add new plumbing and cut a vent hole in a ceiling. Specifically the same guy did both for me. Even the American ones quoted two prices: one higher price with permits and second lower price without permits. They aren't strict rule followers.

José and his crew will do whatever the guy paying them needs.

If they're actual plumbers/electricians/whatever, then no they won't.

You are correct that illegal general laborers will do whatever they're paid to do, often quite badly. But they are not actual licensed tradesmen, and the state requires licenses for plumbers and electricians and the like for reasons relating to insurance regulations and not unions. I won't tell you not to use an undocumented handyman to change a faucet but for a major plumbing job, there is a reason your insurance company and city permitting department expect a plumbers license.

My city permitting department will inspect the work done according to code. YMMV.

And that's why people hire general laborers or do it themselves. If you have to hire an electrician, a plumber, a roofer, and a drywall contractor to put in a simple bathroom fan, it's going to cost you thousands.

Yes, I won't tell you not to have Jose from the home depot parking lot/Oaxaca put a fart fan in your bathroom instead of having an HVAC company subcontract an electrician, roofer, and a drywall contractor. But for a major job there is a reason you want a licensed contractor. If you have drainage problems or need an entire HVAC system replaced or you need a new circuit on your panel and you aren't comfortable with DIY you need somebody with experience in that particular trade.

Jose can replace a p-trap. I'm not saying every job that requires a license needs to require a license. But licenses exist for a reason.

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To be clear, the construction union situation in California is not what you might expect; about an eighth of workers are unionized (the builder organization refers to "merit shops" rather than "non-union shops"), and are concentrated in cities. Requirements for union labor can sometimes make it simply impossible to get workers to build the project if it's not in a central location.

They’ll travel, it just costs more. And really I’d expect transit to be concentrated in the same places as union halls anyways.

barriers to entry which effectively exclude the lowest-quality providers(and lots of others, it needs to be acknowledged

The extent to which 20th century unions were also racial/ethnic spoils systems is, IMO, underappreciated for political reasons. Not saying it always worked that way, but there isn't a shortage of "and then they hired/imported (across state or sometimes country borders) minority scabs workers to break the strike" tales. But it's inconvenient to observe this because "union labor" and minority workers are supposed to be part of the same big tent.

Maybe people will start noticing more if union labor keeps swinging right.

Indeed, the unions exclude lots of people for arbitrary reasons to generate an artificial shortage. In my industry they exclude hacks pretty well so using union labor might be worth it for some people, despite its high costs- hospitals will pay any amount to just not have problems, for example(I'm pretty happy to let someone else deal with that). I don't think they're any more racist than regular HVAC(which is... not politically correct). But there's definitely lots of guys with stories about the union not letting them in, good commercial techs.

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