- California law requires cities, counties to generate elaborate plans for new housing. No need to grant permits though [Liam Dillon, L.A. Times]
- Strenuous campaigns to block fossil fuel infrastructure have helped saddle Rhode Island with some of the highest electric rates in the land [Douglas Gablinske, Providence Journal]
- Ronald Bailey reviews Getting Risk Right: Understanding the Science of Elusive Health Risks, by Geoffrey Kabat [Reason last winter]
- Update: judge strikes down Montgomery County, Md. ban on common lawn pesticides [my Free State Notes post]
- Short video with Prof. Eric Claeys (George Mason/Scalia) on Penn Central v. City of New York (1978), the leading case in regulatory takings law [Federalist Society]
- Scientist leading WHO review of Roundup chemical knew of but omitted recent study finding no cancer risk; California went ahead and listed glyphosate anyway [Reuters Investigates, Karl Plume/Reuters on California action, Kiera Butler/Mother Jones]
Filed under: California, Maryland, pesticides, Rhode Island, safety
One Comment
The LA Times article on housing reflects a very limited picture of the things that impact new housing. Certainly regulatory issues can reduce the potential for development. However, the California jurisdictions I’m familiar with have not discouraged new housing development to maintain rich neighborhoods. However, they are still nowhere near meeting goals for some other, very basic, reasons. We had many developments with phased housing in place and ready to move forward. However, in 2007-2008 the market dropped and various large developers either went bust or had to seriously re-work their plans. New building slowed to a trickle while large areas with the regulatory requirements met remained empty.
Subsequently the drought forced cities and counties to scramble to identify sufficient water resources for existing housing stock. Adding water connections is not generally an option when there’s no water coming out of existing taps. The infrastructure development required to deal with that issue is not a matter of a few months or years, but of decades.