California has a housing crisis, but it is also mainly an affordability crisis. Simply demanding that communities build more units does not solve the problem if the resulting housing remains unaffordable for young families looking to buy their first home or is built without the infrastructure to support it. These issues are personal because my family is impacted just like everyone else. For more than 13 years, my wife and I have called Santa Clarita home, and I’ve watched families like ours get priced out of the community we love. Our community has grown, new neighborhoods have been built, and yet housing prices have skyrocketed.
I was born and raised in Compton and Long Beach. I’ve seen the challenges facing our families and experienced them firsthand. When I joined the Marines, I wanted to serve a mission bigger than myself, and I learned valuable lessons during my time: leadership, sacrifice and a duty to give back. The same issues plaguing California grew bigger, and I returned to help.
I continued that commitment at home as a custody officer and later as a police officer, working to keep communities safe. My job was to investigate the facts and understand what was happening on the ground. Leadership means confronting problems rather than avoiding them. As a Marine, I don’t run from problems; as a former cop, I investigate and identify them; and now, as a lineman, I fix them.
As a journeyman lineman with International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 47, I am uniquely familiar with California’s complex regulatory environment. Sacramento has regulated this problem into existence with top-down mandates, trying to solve a statewide problem from a distance while ignoring the people who live with the consequences. We can and should be able to build more housing that alleviates the affordability issue, but that starts when Sacramento cedes control back to localities and starts to listen to those of us who live in the communities they’re supposed to represent. It also means rolling back the excessive regulations, supply chain constraints, and material and labor cost increases that just get pushed onto taxpayers.
State mandates often fail to account for infrastructure, wildfire risk, traffic and neighborhood conditions. Instead, they impose one-size-fits-all legislation that needs exemptions in the next legislative session — bills that remain in political limbo with no guarantee of becoming law. Meanwhile, we’re stuck living with the consequences.
For example, the Sherwood Forest community in Northridge is undergoing severe transformation against the wishes of community members. Senate Bills 684 and 1123 removed traditional community review and oversight for qualifying projects. Zoning laws have been bypassed and ignored, and the coalition has requested legislative fixes at the city, county and state levels. This has led to a political back-and-forth with the current assemblywoman and no real accountability. There is a real duty to bring all sides to the table to find a solution, but no real leadership in getting it done.
I don’t have to look across the valley to see this happening either. Earlier this year, the Santa Clarita Planning Commission faced state-mandated changes to our housing rules. Despite concerns about losing our local control, state law limited our ability to impose restrictions on the basis of safety and infrastructure limitations. Our hands were tied: either comply with state law or face crippling lawsuits at taxpayers’ expense.
That is why I believe localities should retain primary authority over zoning and land use. Single-family neighborhoods should not automatically be subjected to state-directed densification. Residents should have meaningful opportunities to participate in development decisions. It will take new leadership in Sacramento to undo the damage.
Rickey Hayes
Santa Clarita
