A recent article in the OC register provides a good example of why some decisions need to be made at the state level:
Mission Viejo council members scrapped plans for a new Department of Motor Vehicles location in the Kaleidoscope shopping center due to traffic and safety concerns.
The DMV — which would have been a first for the city — was initially approved by the city’s planning commission for a vacant site in the Kaleidoscope shopping center off Crown Valley Parkway.
But on Tuesday, June 11, the city council rejected the plans after a multitude of disapproving messages from residents and concerns from councilors.
The city council was concerned about traffic.
I was quite disappointed by this decision as it means I will have to drive a much longer distance when I need to renew my driving licence. The last time I had to drive to a busy DMV facility in Santa Ana where there was an extremely long line. This means that the decision will actually increase the amount of traffic congestion in Orange County, even as it reduces traffic congestion in Mission Viejo.
This problem has become endemic in the parts of California that are close to the coast. Same problem of the OC register had another example of NIMBYism in action:
A proposal by Toll Brothers to build a 2- to 5-story, 306-unit apartment complex and an adjacent six-story parking garage in Doheney Village will go before the Dana Point City Council on Tuesday, June 18.
The City Planning Commission’s approval of the project earlier this year has been appealed by the Supporters Alliance for Environmental Responsibility, or SAFER, a California public utility organization that claims environmental studies conducted as part of the development’s required consideration did not meet health and environmental standards. requirements.
Even if this development is ultimately approved, the barriers to development put up by ‘environmental groups’ hold back many projects, ultimately harming the environment. The people who cannot live in this densely populated development of 306 units would probably end up somewhere else, almost certainly in a place that is worse from an environmental perspective. They may be forced to move to the cheaper ‘Inland Empire’, where people use much more air conditioning to cool their homes and travel much longer distances. Or they might move to Florida, Texas or Arizona, which also have a worse environmental record than coastal California.
Local governments in California that restrict development usually end up impacting the environment and/or worsening traffic. Only a state government is able to “internalize the externalities” in these decisions. This is why most NIMBY policies are implemented by local governments, and most of the recent opposition to NIMBYism comes from state governments.
P.S. The term “Inland Empire” refers to Riverside and San Bernardino counties, which are located just east of Los Angeles. They now contain almost 4.7 million people.
PPS: Here is a photo of Dana Point: