[quote=CA renter]But it’s not the sprawl that’s causing our water problems as much as it’s about **too many people** moving to California from other places. We cannot sustain all of the people who want to move here from somewhere else. It’s *people* who are causing our resource problems. Without all the people, there wouldn’t be any sprawl.[/quote]
Totally agree, CAR. But all these “people” wouldn’t come if the number of housing units was finite. They came because there were endless sources of “cheaper” housing being built within CFD’s that they can move to and still be in CA.
Droves of people aren’t moving to the Hawaiian Islands because the number available housing units is finite there (and what is available is expensive because of this), even though it’s considered “paradise.” People aren’t moving in droves to the City and County of San Francisco for the same reason, even though its pay scale for workers is among the highest in the nation and its cultural opportunities are bar none.. Its population has been stable for many years. There’s nowhere to build on a “rock” or “collection of rocks,” . . . lol, except maybe to turn the occasional two-family flat into a 3-family flat!
If all these CFD’s weren’t created in the middle of nowhere, the only people that would move from elsewhere to take jobs in CA coastal urban centers would be those who made enough money to live in nearby existing housing or those that already live here.
Yeah, we wouldn’t have the property tax base but we ALSO wouldn’t need expanded government to provide services to far-flung locales.
Part of the problem stems from SD County’s huge geographical size in relation to other CA coastal urban counties, leaving a lot of marginal outlying areas subject to being eaten up as building sites.
This whole discussion is really about water that’s already run under the bridge and horses that have left the barn long ago. CA decided to leave the barn door open to rampant unchecked growth when its legislature passed the Mello-Roos CFD Act in 1982.
I’m simply saying that this issue was discussed a LOT in the RE community before it was passed by the legislature but later marketed so heavily to voters to form these CFD’s under the guise of “paying for themselves.” The largely “uninitiated” voting blocs were “tricked” into voting the CFD’s in, not realizing the ramifications of what they were voting for years down the road.
The ballot arguments FOR the CFD’s were always in the vein that they were to be completely financially “self-sustaining,” . . . lol :={
