Very few CA cities are meeting Newsom’s housing goals

Are California cities building enough housing to catch up with the state’s severe shortage of homes you can buy without inherited wealth or an AI windfall? This summer signals the halfway mark for California cities and counties to hit housing goals handed down from state regulators. As CalMatters’ Ben Christopher explains, the Newsom administration assigns localities housing targets across four affordability levels. Gavin Newsom wants to hit 2.5 million new housing units over eight years, which would be about 312,500 units per year. Cities themselves do not build housing, and cities “cannot require developers to develop,” said Jason Rhine, a lobbyist with the League of California Cities.