California’s housing shortage and climate crisis are often treated as if they had nothing to do with each other. In fact, they are deeply connected.

We need to look not only at how many homes we’re building, but where we’re building it. That’s the idea and promise behind new legislation, backed by a new coalition of housing and environmental advocates.

California must add at least 2.5 million new homes by 2030 to meet its needs. Decades of underproduction have exacerbated skyrocketing rents, pushed homeownership increasingly out of reach for most Californians, and left more of our neighbors homeless than in any other state. The housing shortage is driven in large part by local government policies that prevent new homes from being built in existing neighborhoods, forcing most development to suburban and rural areas.

Without enough affordable housing close to jobs, schools, transit and other resources in existing communities, Californians are increasingly forced into long commutes from remote areas that are often more vulnerable to wildfires, floods and other climate-accelerated disasters. Between 1990 and 2010, California housing was on the edge of wilderness areas, known as the wildland-urban interface, or WUI. As a result, about 25% of Californians live in areas at high risk of catastrophic wildfires.

Expanding development into natural areas not only puts more people at risk;

it also increases the likelihood, frequency and destruction of fires, floods and other disasters. Human activities cause most wildfires. And development often superimposes soil over floodplains that could otherwise absorb rainfall and runoff, making flooding more frequent and destructive.

California has more than lost

1

million hectares of natural habitat under development in the past 20 years. Forests, wetlands, coastal areas, grasslands and rivers provide clean air, fresh water and access to green spaces for all of us. The movement of homes to more remote areas shreds wilderness, reduces community resilience and exacerbates global biodiversity and climate crises, which affect every Californian.

We need to start thinking differently about the relationship between housing policy and climate change. We need to significantly increase the number of homes we build, but doing so in the undeveloped wilderness-urban interface will only exacerbate the climate crisis. Building homes away from jobs not only requires longer commutes and new roads, increasing the pollution that climate change causes. It also reduces the landscape’s ability to store carbon by covering natural and agricultural lands that would otherwise remove it from the atmosphere. And it destroys or degrades wildlife habitat and increases the demand for water in areas where wells are already running dry.

Assembly Bill 68, introduced last week by Assemblyman Chris Ward (D-San Diego), would expedite the approval of new housing in areas close to jobs, schools, parks, transit and other amenities. It would make it faster, cheaper and easier to build homes in safe, environmentally friendly locations. This would be done by requiring such properties to be approved through an objective, streamlined process that avoids unnecessary delays.

AB 68 would also ensure that local governments approve such housing within existing communities before allowing development of the open space and farmland that make us more climate resilient. Essentially, cities and counties that want to add more housing in undeveloped greenfields will have to demonstrate that a comparable amount of housing cannot be built in neighborhoods that already have infrastructure and services. Most cities and counties could house many more such climate-safe homes, but tight restrictions on infill constructions actually mandate sprawl, pollution, and disaster.

The counter-mandatory of this legislation will not expand unless you need to take a new approach to land use. For most of the past 50 years, severe restrictions in California and outright bans on densely populated multi-family homes in existing neighborhoods have made single-family, low-density, greenfield housing the default when accommodating growth. And while recent legislative reforms have sought to facilitate the development of affordable multifamily housing in cities by easing zoning, scheduling and other restrictions, in many cases it is still easier to build in rural areas that are more vulnerable to fires and flooding. AB 68 would begin to correct the incentives that all too often pit the need for housing against environmental stewardship by encouraging sprawl.

Significantly, the environmental and housing movements are converging

address

these problems. Historically, we have worked separately or

to have

even conflicted. Environmental and conservation organizations, focused on preserving vital habitats, protecting air and water quality, and preserving open spaces, sometimes against development and growth in general. Meanwhile, housing advocates who worked to open cities and towns to more housing were perhaps less concerned about the dangers of building where we shouldn’t.

Now our problems collide. The housing affordability crisis has become a major driver of habitat loss and climate pollution, so we are breaking down our silos and working towards a shared vision. These problems are inextricably linked and we must tackle them together.

Melissa Breach is the chief operating officer of California YIMBY. Liz ODonoghue is the Director of Sustainable and Resilient Communities Strategy for Conservation.