The push to bypass local governments is becoming the core housing policy debate in California's governor race. Candidates are abandoning polite negotiation and proposing blunt overrides.
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan favors the stick. He cites the state's lawsuit against Huntington Beach as a failure that produced legal bills instead of new units. His alternative is a 'Builder’s Remedy' trigger. If a city misses a state-mandated permitting deadline, the developer gets an automatic right to build, bypassing local planning commissions entirely. He argues this is faster than litigation, a tool his rival Javier Becerra defends as necessary.
"Litigation is too slow. The Huntington Beach case produced legal bills instead of new units. We need an automatic right to build."
- Matt Mahan, The Ezra Klein Show
Tom Steyer proposes a carrot. He wants to close a $20 billion corporate property tax loophole to generate funds, turning housing into a funded mandate for cities. He argues mayors block housing because they cannot afford the accompanying infrastructure costs.
A fundamental split emerges over construction costs. Javier Becerra insists on prevailing wage standards for large projects, arguing builders should afford the homes they create. Katie Porter counters directly, telling a labor federation these standards drive up costs by nearly $100,000 per unit and residential construction cannot absorb the price hike.
Beyond labor, candidates target deeper regulatory rot. Antonio Villaraigosa identifies Proposition 13 as the root cause, flipping California's property tax burden from 60% commercial to 60% residential. This 'fiscalization of land use' incentivizes cities to prefer sales-tax-generating retail over housing, which brings unfunded service costs. A used car lot is more lucrative than an apartment building because car lots don’t send children to local schools.
The legal environment compounds delays. A 2022 RAND study found a multifamily project takes 49 months in California versus 27 in Texas. Katie Porter wants a single statewide permit to stop cities from adding last-minute requirements. Villaraigosa targets abuse of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), where opponents use the law for non-environmental reasons, and demands merging state and federal standards to cut litigation.
"Prop 13 flipped the property tax burden. Now cities prefer a used car lot over an apartment building because car lots don’t send children to school."
- Antonio Villaraigosa, The Ezra Klein Show
While the governor candidates debate state-level levers, Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt offers a visceral, local critique from the second source. He alleges billions in homelessness tax dollars are laundered through NGOs with zero results, citing a Westwood property bought for $29 million six days after being listed for $11 million. He argues enforcement and mandatory treatment, not urban warehousing, are the prerequisites for safety and economic recovery.
The governor's race proposals reflect a consensus that local control has failed. The debate is now over which state mechanism - automatic overrides, financial carrots, or regulatory surgery - can force the change.
