[HN Gopher] Gov. Newsom signs law to stop UC Berkeley enrollment...
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Gov. Newsom signs law to stop UC Berkeley enrollment cuts
Author : seryoiupfurds
Score : 74 points
Date : 2022-03-15 21:13 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.latimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.latimes.com)
| pmalynin wrote:
| Next cancel Prop 13, or phase it out over the next 5 years.
| [deleted]
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| That would require a proposition.
| outside1234 wrote:
| The bill we need is something that blanket allows building of
| multistory multifamily housing across the state without local
| review.
|
| Sort of something similar to the law we passed around ADUs but
| for multistory multifamily housing.
| jonahhorowitz wrote:
| Looks like the California legislature can move fast when it wants
| to. Now fix the rest of CEQA.
| shitlord wrote:
| CEQA is just one symptom of the problem. Entrenched interests
| will use anything at their disposal to prevent development:
| zoning regulations, building codes, concerns about
| racial/socioeconomic equity, legal stalling tactics, etc.
| bubblethink wrote:
| Wouldn't this increase property values and rent too? What was the
| angle for NIMBY objection ? It seems like this will only increase
| demand but not the supply - an ideal NIMBY outcome.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| > Assemblyman Vince Fong (R-Bakersfield) noted that environmental
| standards are not being changed. "We are changing what they apply
| to," he said.
|
| Either the environmental review standards are good and needed..
| or they are not. This is post-hoc ruling and I am curious how the
| court will react.
|
| The only thing the opposition needs to do here is run a few
| pressers with homeless students.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| The environmental review process is broken [1].
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/13/opinion/berkeley-
| enrollme...
| gamblor956 wrote:
| The issue was not that the environmental standards are
| good/needed or not/not. The issue was that the environmental
| standards are good but that this case was not actually related
| in any way to the environmental standards review envisioned by
| the legislature when it originally passed the underlying law
| that allowed this lawsuit to proceed in the first place.
|
| The legislature simply updated the law to make it clear that
| these types of lawsuits (i.e., over activities which don't
| directly relate to construction of new buildings even though
| they may ultimately lead to new construction) are not intended
| by the original law, and this new law makes that explicitly
| clear. (The eventual construction of new buildings required by
| the enrollment increase would be covered by normal CEQA review
| processes.)
| renewiltord wrote:
| Sure, but lots of things are unnecessary and we can't get rid
| of them because they are politically dangerous to touch. So we
| chip away at the ugliness bit by bit. No purity here: you take
| every yard you can get. And if I have to lie and say "CEQA as
| it stands is great, but occasionally there are situations where
| it is a bad fit" just to get people to let me take a step
| forward, then I'll lie.
| exogeny wrote:
| Good. NIMBYs are a huge problem, and any argument predicated on
| "preserving the character" is disingenuous at best and racist at
| worst. It's sad that legislation once designed to do so much good
| has been weaponized by such obstructionists.
| rablackburn wrote:
| > any argument predicated on "preserving the character" is
| disingenuous at best and racist at worst
|
| Calling NIMBYism's "preserving the character" argument
| disingenuous is probably going too far. That really is the
| problem many NIMBYs have with proposed developments. They like
| their neighbourhood exactly how it is, and if they could
| mandate perfect stasis they would.
|
| It may not be a persuasive argument, but in many cases it is
| genuine.
| kaibee wrote:
| > They like their neighbourhood exactly how it is, and if
| they could mandate perfect stasis they would.
|
| Y'know, if a community wants to have _perfect_ stasis like
| that, it should be allowed. Which of course also means that
| when you sell your property, any gains in land value should
| also be taxed away and the property's max rent should also be
| locked in at purchase time. This would of course, even more
| preserve the character of the neighborhood. Otherwise it is
| too convenient for NIMBYs that their policy preference also
| happens to align with their economic interests.
|
| (/s obviously, though a land value tax would be excellent)
| ketzo wrote:
| If nothing else, I hope Newsom can cement an identity as the
| "anti-NIMBY governor."
|
| S.B. 9 [1] was a great step. This also sends a pretty stark
| message.
|
| [1] https://focus.senate.ca.gov/sb9
| jeffbee wrote:
| This is a significant repudiation of the NIMBY point of view.
| When was the last time that literally every statewide elected
| official came together to unanimously pass a law over the span of
| 4 days? Californians of every party are united in the belief that
| Phil Bokovoy is a jerk.
| favorited wrote:
| Funny how the "they can't accept N students, there's not enough
| housing!" guy is simultaneously the "don't build any new
| housing" guy. And, as luck would have it, he's also the "don't
| increase density in existing housing structures" guy.
|
| What are the odds?
| stingrae wrote:
| also the "lives in New Zealand 50% of the time" guy
| jeffbee wrote:
| Also the "converted a duplex into a one-man home" guy.
|
| Also the "parks on the street for free" guy.
|
| What a surprise.
| gyc wrote:
| Whether they represent a liberal district or a conservative
| district, every legislator in California represents a
| significant number of constituents who wants their kids to go
| to Cal.
| falcolas wrote:
| Seems like an odd move to undercut the checks and balances courts
| are supposed to have over legislation. Enacting a law solely to
| undercut a court's decision seems spurious, and may blow back on
| both the legislation _and_ the school.
| paxys wrote:
| More like - legislature passed a law, a certain group of people
| took advantage of the law in ways the general public didn't
| intend, the courts said "we have to rule by the letter of the
| law", legislature amended the law, now most people happy again.
| This is _exactly_ how the process should work.
| throw_nbvc1234 wrote:
| This 1000%. The check that courts have over legislature is
| constitutionality. If a law is not what the legislature
| intended (or if the intention has changed) then they have the
| power to change their minds. Courts do not make laws, they
| interpret them.
|
| Problem is that legislature has (in general) stopped doing
| their job so the "functional" court system is forced to re-
| interpret older and older laws; increasing their power
| relative to the other branches.
| howinteresting wrote:
| The way the American system works is that the legislature has
| the final say over statutory law, while the courts have the
| final say over constitutional law (modulo amendments).
| bhupy wrote:
| That's not true, the legislature has final say over both
| statutory and constitutional law; it's just that the barrier
| to amending the constitution is higher than amending /
| passing statutory laws.
|
| The Court's job is to interpret the law of its jurisdiction.
| If the legislature doesn't like the Court's ruling on some
| statutory law, it would then go through the process of
| amending the law. If the legislature doesn't like the Court's
| ruling on some constitutional matter, it would then go
| through the process of amending the Constitution. The latter
| process usually requires sufficiently more political will
| that sometimes a Court's ruling on a Constitutional matter is
| "final" from a practical standpoint.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| The exact opposite. The legislature (which passed this
| unanimously) AND the governor passed this legislation as a
| check on the power of the court. This happens all the time,
| e.g. famously when the US passed the 16th amendment to allow
| income tax.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Really they're just undoing a law that has had many
| unintended consequences. The court was just ruling based off
| this CEQA, so the legislature fixed the it.
| falcolas wrote:
| They're interfering with a private lawsuit, and changing laws
| with retroactive effect to do so. That's what's so odd about
| this.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| No, they're addressing a private lawsuit that was only
| permitted to proceed because of the court's erroneous (but
| reasonable) interpretation of the prior law.
|
| So the legislature changed the law to make it explicitly
| clear that these types of lawsuits were never intended by
| the law.
| vkou wrote:
| Courts can only serve as checks and balances in three things:
|
| 1. Determining whether an executive action is consistent with
| legislated law.
|
| 2. Determining whether a piece of legislature is consistent
| with a more important piece of legislature (Constitutionality.)
|
| 3. Determining how two contradictory pieces of legislature are
| to be interpreted in practice. (A superset of #2.)
|
| A court rules on the current state of law. Based on that
| ruling, the legislature can change the law as it sees fit,
| within the constraints that it operates under.
|
| They are not a back-door way for people to subvert the power of
| legislature to draft laws those people don't like. If they
| were, they would be utterly absurd, because without the power
| to draft legislature, nobody would have a check or balance
| _over_ the courts.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| The court didn't have a personal opinion on the matter. They
| interpreted the statute. So the legislature changed the
| statute.
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| I think what we're seeing _is_ the checks and balances in
| action. The courts can only "interpret" so forcefully before
| they're essentially usurping the authority of the legislature,
| so courts will sometimes make a "bad" ruling as if to say
| "we're just applying your crappy law; if you don't like it,
| amend it" (particularly sassy judges might be more direct about
| this).
| [deleted]
| gamblor956 wrote:
| _Seems like an odd move to undercut the checks and balances
| courts are supposed to have over legislation. Enacting a law
| solely to undercut a court 's decision seems spurious, and may
| blow back on both the legislation and the school._
|
| That is literally how the legislature is supposed to act when
| it feels that the court has erred in interpreting legislation.
| scotuswroteus wrote:
| Yeah and the sun may not come out tomorrow. This doesn't
| undercut a court's decision. The court interpreted the rules
| that the state legislature passed, and now that an unintended
| consequence of the prior passed rule manifested, the state
| changed the law. That's actually how it's supposed to work.
| jeffbee wrote:
| I've seen this take a lot in the last half a day and it makes
| no sense at all. The court rules on the law. It's an ordinary
| statute, and the legislature changed it. There is no checks-
| and-balances conflict here. The statute says whatever the
| legislature says it says.
| rablackburn wrote:
| Yeah, from what I understand this is exactly how the
| separation of judicial and legislative powers is _meant_ to
| work.
|
| The court's power is to interpret what is written. The
| legislature's power is to write the words. If the legislature
| doesn't like how the court interpreted the statute they're
| meant to rewrite it so that the intention is clearer.
| paxys wrote:
| Good. I wish they'd sign more such laws to deal with all the
| property developments across San Francisco that are stuck in
| years-long "environmental review" or other similar bureaucratic
| hurdles put forward by NIMBY groups.
| edm0nd wrote:
| That'll never happen. One of the main reasons SF even has a
| housing crisis is because they refuse to allow people to build
| multiple levels upwards bc of zoning.
| bradly wrote:
| > That'll never happen. One of the main reasons SF even has a
| housing crisis is because they refuse to allow people to
| build multiple levels upwards bc of zoning.
|
| Couldn't the Gov. sign another law stopping that as well?
| Similar to the legislation around single family housing lots?
| smugma wrote:
| What's more feasible is that CA HCD (Housing and Community
| Development) rejects SF's plan as not consistent with state
| law, as they recently did to LA[0] (even though LA's plan
| was really pro-housing overall, there were some equity
| issues that HCD was unhappy with).
|
| SF is considering allowing any property have a 4-plex (6 if
| at a corner), which may be used as a poison pill to
| continue to restrict development [1].
|
| [0] https://www.latimes.com/homeless-
| housing/story/2022-02-24/la...
|
| [1] https://reason.com/2022/03/09/san-franciscos-efforts-
| to-bloc...
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Okay - serious question - with current building codes -
| how does anyone tear down a house in SF and rebuild
| anything - let alone split a narrow lot in 2 and build
| two duplexes on that?
|
| The duplexes would be like 30% stairs, right? This seems
| like a $5M investment to end up with 4 500 sqft 1-window
| studios that would be absurdly cashflow negative, and
| none of them would sell for $1M... SB 9 economically does
| not seem to work out for almost every lot in SF proper.
|
| So if SF doesn't want anything to happen - wouldn't the
| best thing be to just keep things as they are?
|
| The SF proposal similarly seems like garbage. The vast
| majority of homes cannot just magically become
| quadplexes. There's not enough stairs to pass fire code.
| conanbatt wrote:
| What you have now was passed by Gov.
| bradly wrote:
| Yes. That was the point of my comment :)
| nr2x wrote:
| (High speed rail...)
| mistrial9 wrote:
| A college town that was filled with ordinary college commotion is
| largely silent day and night. The streets of Berkeley, California
| near campus are empty for more than a year now. University
| Avenue, a major road leading to campus is quiet day and night, it
| used to be filled with cars, music and daily activity. Half of
| restaurants and most retail have closed in the last two years;
| parties are hidden due to covid-19. What has replaced it in the
| downtown and flatlands are super-scary predatory criminal loners,
| hard core drug-addicted mentally ill and some of the most
| expensive housing in the United States. Landlords feasted on the
| rental income derived from "market forces" of thousands of
| 20-somethings working for FAANG and bio-tech. The homes in the
| hills are overflowing with paper income, and the covid-19 rates
| are among the lowest in the western US due to a combination of
| factors.
|
| It is a stunning turn of events, worthy of Heinlein. The behemoth
| schools that are UC Berkeley continues to bring in nine-figure
| money with off-shore students paying high tuition, looking for
| their chance to strike it rich in the high tech scene, while
| those of ordinary means are economically crushed.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| What's your point?
| jeffbee wrote:
| Yeah, the streets are so empty in Berkeley these days that when
| I took these photos on Saturday it was literally just
| tumbleweeds, not hundreds of people gathering in the streets of
| southside. Truly, a hell-hole.
|
| https://twitter.com/Jeffinatorator/status/150278067270801408...
| nomel wrote:
| A synthetic gathering is not related to the reduction in the
| natural hustle and bustle. Do you have any pictures before or
| after that group passed through?
| dougmccune wrote:
| This is so far from reality I have a hard time even knowing how
| to respond. Just in case people who don't live here think the
| Bay Area cities have become this dystopian hell hole as
| described, no, they absolutely have not. Life is honestly
| nearly back to normal. I'm going out to dinner with a friend in
| Berkeley tonight. The streets will not be empty or filled with
| drug addicts.
| Fauntleroy wrote:
| I get what you're saying, but honestly both of your comments
| are true. You'll be going out to dinner in Berkeley with a
| friend _while_ the streets are "filled" with our homeless
| problem. There are also definitely far fewer college students
| in the area than there were 2 years ago.
| dougmccune wrote:
| Homelessness has definitely increased in the last 2 years,
| as it has throughout all of California. The high cost of
| housing and income inequality are absolutely massive
| problems that have gotten significantly worse since the
| onset of the pandemic. We certainly have problems, and
| housing costs and drug overdoses are absolutely serious
| issues that are trending the wrong way. But to claim that
| Berkeley is a ghost town with almost no retail and half of
| restaurants shuttered is just pure fiction. I drove through
| campus the other day and a group of kids was playing beer
| pong on their front lawn. People are everywhere. The
| commercial areas are back with foot traffic. It's not
| anything like the original commenter described. It's like
| they went out once in March 2020 and then never left the
| house again.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| I'm having trouble recalling a Heinlein story with any
| relevance here
| ketzo wrote:
| Don't you remember that classic Heinlein story, "This Place I
| Like Isn't The Same As It Used To Be"?
| sergiomattei wrote:
| This has been practically every college town since the pandemic
| started.
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