CEQA
California
CEQA: The high cost of good intentions
By Chris Carr and Ken Broad California is in a quagmire due in no small part to the weaponization of CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act. We are not providing the physical infrastructure befitting the world’s 5th-largest economy and leading crucible of innovation. Too often, critical projects don’t get built, ...
Pacific Research Institute
February 27, 2022
California
New Report Shows How “CEQA Gauntlet” Hinders Housing, School, Infrastructure, Climate Projects
With 3,000 prospective UC Berkeley students facing rejection due to a California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) lawsuit, the nonpartisan Pacific Research Institute today released “The CEQA Gauntlet,” a new research project detailing how CEQA adds expense and delay to – and in some cases halts – critical California projects including ...
Pacific Research Institute
February 27, 2022
California
Watch Videos from 2022 PRI California Ideas in Action Conference
Conference Theme: Saving California As PRI’s new book Saving California suggests, market-based reforms can help solve California’s biggest policy problems and even advance the goals of the state’s most progressive legislators. Come hear policy experts and real life changemakers discuss reforms that could push the state onto a better track and ...
Pacific Research Institute
February 25, 2022
Blog
California Continued to Shrink in 2021
In 2021, as in 2020, the Golden State only continued to shrink. According to new data from the Department of Finance, California lost a startling 173,000 residents last year. As reported in the Los Angeles Times, 55,000 of those lost residents were victims of the pandemic, while a further 53,000 ...
M. Nolan Gray
January 6, 2022
Blog
Single-Family Zoning Is Dead In California. Now What?
In late September, something big happened: SB 9 was signed into law, effectively ending single-family zoning in California. Depending on where you get your news, it was big for one of two very different reasons. To some, it heralded the end of the suburbs, an assault on the “suburban lifestyle ...
M. Nolan Gray
November 1, 2021
California
How to slow, reverse the California exodus
An unwritten rule of journalism says, “if it bleeds, it leads.” When it comes to the exodus from the Golden State, this rule isn’t being applied. California had been the dream destination for generations and became the most populous state in 1964. But California’s share of the U.S. population peaked ...
Pacific Research Institute
October 4, 2021
Blog
California’s Students Desperately Need Housing. College Towns Aren’t Building It.
In the coming weeks, nearly a million Californians will be returning to college campuses across the Golden State as in-person instruction resumes within the University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) systems. Many students, faculty, and staff will be returning to college towns and neighborhoods for the first ...
M. Nolan Gray
September 22, 2021
Blog
How CEQA II Could Be a Hollywood Sequel That Everyone Likes
When then-Gov. Ronald Reagan signed CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, into law in 1970, it’s unlikely anyone thought it would eventually be equipped with a warhead and then used to harm business rivals, block development for political rather than environmental reasons, and leverage better labor deals for unions. Yet ...
Kerry Jackson
September 14, 2021
Blog
Legislature Comes Back in Session This Week with Lots of Unfinished Business
Today, the Legislature reconvenes for the final month of the 2021 legislative session. For the next four weeks, lawmakers will be on a mad dash to finalize its work before the September 10 deadline. This year’s legislative session can best be described as being overshadowed by events. On last week’s ...
Tim Anaya
August 16, 2021
Blog
Getting CEQA Out of the Way of Missing Middle Housing
California is in the grips of an unprecedented housing crisis, which has sent hundreds of thousands of Californians packing for affordable states like Arizona and Nevada. Here in Los Angeles, both home prices and homelessness have hit record highs, a sign of the ironic situation of the Golden State. At ...
M. Nolan Gray
June 21, 2021
CEQA: The high cost of good intentions
By Chris Carr and Ken Broad California is in a quagmire due in no small part to the weaponization of CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act. We are not providing the physical infrastructure befitting the world’s 5th-largest economy and leading crucible of innovation. Too often, critical projects don’t get built, ...
New Report Shows How “CEQA Gauntlet” Hinders Housing, School, Infrastructure, Climate Projects
With 3,000 prospective UC Berkeley students facing rejection due to a California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) lawsuit, the nonpartisan Pacific Research Institute today released “The CEQA Gauntlet,” a new research project detailing how CEQA adds expense and delay to – and in some cases halts – critical California projects including ...
Watch Videos from 2022 PRI California Ideas in Action Conference
Conference Theme: Saving California As PRI’s new book Saving California suggests, market-based reforms can help solve California’s biggest policy problems and even advance the goals of the state’s most progressive legislators. Come hear policy experts and real life changemakers discuss reforms that could push the state onto a better track and ...
California Continued to Shrink in 2021
In 2021, as in 2020, the Golden State only continued to shrink. According to new data from the Department of Finance, California lost a startling 173,000 residents last year. As reported in the Los Angeles Times, 55,000 of those lost residents were victims of the pandemic, while a further 53,000 ...
Single-Family Zoning Is Dead In California. Now What?
In late September, something big happened: SB 9 was signed into law, effectively ending single-family zoning in California. Depending on where you get your news, it was big for one of two very different reasons. To some, it heralded the end of the suburbs, an assault on the “suburban lifestyle ...
How to slow, reverse the California exodus
An unwritten rule of journalism says, “if it bleeds, it leads.” When it comes to the exodus from the Golden State, this rule isn’t being applied. California had been the dream destination for generations and became the most populous state in 1964. But California’s share of the U.S. population peaked ...
California’s Students Desperately Need Housing. College Towns Aren’t Building It.
In the coming weeks, nearly a million Californians will be returning to college campuses across the Golden State as in-person instruction resumes within the University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) systems. Many students, faculty, and staff will be returning to college towns and neighborhoods for the first ...
How CEQA II Could Be a Hollywood Sequel That Everyone Likes
When then-Gov. Ronald Reagan signed CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, into law in 1970, it’s unlikely anyone thought it would eventually be equipped with a warhead and then used to harm business rivals, block development for political rather than environmental reasons, and leverage better labor deals for unions. Yet ...
Legislature Comes Back in Session This Week with Lots of Unfinished Business
Today, the Legislature reconvenes for the final month of the 2021 legislative session. For the next four weeks, lawmakers will be on a mad dash to finalize its work before the September 10 deadline. This year’s legislative session can best be described as being overshadowed by events. On last week’s ...
Getting CEQA Out of the Way of Missing Middle Housing
California is in the grips of an unprecedented housing crisis, which has sent hundreds of thousands of Californians packing for affordable states like Arizona and Nevada. Here in Los Angeles, both home prices and homelessness have hit record highs, a sign of the ironic situation of the Golden State. At ...