The fight over affordable housing between some Orange County cities and the state of California

Affordable housing has long been an issue across California, and in Orange County cities where the working class live, such as Santa Ana, Garden Grove, Anaheim, prices keep rising. That’s according to regular contributor Gustavo Arellano.

“Just today as I was driving my wife to her store in Santa Ana, on a telephone pole, there was a sign that said a four bedroom house for rent for $4000 a month, which is crazy,” he says.

The state is requiring Orange County, along with five other counties in Southern California, to zone land for up to 1.3 million new homes by the end of the decade. That means converting single family parcels into multi-unit ones and allowing more backyard units or so-called “granny flats.”

However, some city administrators are pushing back against state intervention into local land development. “They’ve always been pushing back on bringing not just any housing affordability, but building any new housing period, especially if it’s going to block your views of the ocean or the hills or your beautiful bougainvilleas for something,” says Gustavo Arellano.