We are pro-housing. Period.
At Generation Build, housing is our core mission. We advocate for it all: for all types, at all levels. Unlike some organizations, we aren’t afraid to engage in the tough political conversations that others shy away from. That’s because we know real progress requires bold action, not empty platitudes. To solve our housing and affordability crisis, we need leaders who will make change happen, not leaders who just talk about it.
So let’s be blunt: San Luis Obispo County needs more homes. A lot more.
We need apartments, townhomes, and single-family homes. RHNA (regional housing needs assessment) numbers offer one perspective on need, but we can’t afford to dismiss market-rate housing just because it isn’t exclusively affordable. Pitting market-rate housing against deed-restricted affordable housing has worsened our crisis. We need both.
Housing Authorities, People’s Self-Help Housing, and market-rate developers are all a part of the solution. We need projects like Dove Creek in Atascadero; like HASLO’s new affordable homes in Arroyo Grande; like CCB’s projects in Grover Beach; like Solomon Hills in Orcutt.
We need robust housing options at all levels.
The opposition to housing is loud, but that doesn’t mean it’s right.
Some people don’t want change. They like our county as it is and will fight to keep it that way. They often live near new developments, have time to organize against them, and ironically sometimes even claim to support housing—just not this housing. These folks push for delays and reductions that make projects less viable.
Meanwhile, those who do want new homes—young families, professionals, and longtime residents—often don’t have the time or resources to fight for them. They’re busy working, raising kids, and contributing to our community. And yet, they’re the ones who struggle the most to find a place to live.
It’s the haves versus the have nots.
Housing approvals shouldn’t require a fight.
It shouldn’t take exhaustive advocacy to approve housing. New construction is a societal necessity, and it should be a given, not a battle. Young people shouldn’t have to beg elected officials for the chance to pursue living in their own community.
A large portion of our county land is protected open space. We have hundreds of thousands of acres protected in various forms of conservation. Infill and greenfield spaces that have been identified for development need to be allowed to be developed. Prior height limits and parking restrictions should be reconsidered; and we all need to embrace that change is a part of living.
Yes, new housing often has environmental impacts. But the assumption that no impact is the only acceptable impact is unrealistic. Projects subject to CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) review are conditioned with rigorous environmental mitigation; to pretend otherwise is dishonest. Worse, CEQA’s broad scope allows for frequent lawsuits that drive up costs and delay housing for years, often at little expense to those filing them. We’ve seen this with almost all of the large housing projects approved in our county in recent years. This process isn’t just inefficient, it’s immoral and costly for those of us who would like to live there. If a housing project meets the requirements and gets approved, it should be built.
Supply and demand is real.
When demand is high and supply is low, prices rise. That’s not an opinion, that’s basic economics. Yet new market-rate housing is often vilified, even by people who live in it. Government- or grant-funded affordable housing is important, but it alone won’t fix our crisis. Blocking market-rate housing while claiming to advocate for affordability is textbook NIMBYism and is ultimately anti-housing.
To quote a favorite YIMBY phrase: Abundant housing is affordable housing.
The housing crisis is not just a policy failure, it’s a refusal to accept how markets work. Until we allow more housing of all types, affordability will remain out of reach.
So what’s the solution?
Elect leaders who will fight for housing. We need officials who prioritize the future, not those who cling to the past. At Generation Build, we call it as it is and are not afraid to call out a politician’s anti-housing actions even when they claim to be “pro-housing.” Housing needs to be a bipartisan issue, and we see politicians on both sides of the aisle help and hurt this cause. We need Republicans and Democrats to hold their own parties accountable to increasing our housing supply.
Move beyond endless discussions. Roundtables that don’t lead to action waste time and create the illusion of progress. We know what we need: the ability to build more housing. Discussions of “unique” housing solutions like down payment assistance are nice to have, but those programs will never address the real solution: We just need more homes. Supply and demand is the root of the issue, and we need to quite literally build our way out of this crisis.
Make our county a place where developers want to build. That means streamlining approvals, making the approval process predictable, reducing counterproductive fees, and working with developers, not against them. Politicians who approach housing with arrogance and obstructionism aren’t helping. They are hurting the young families and working class of this area.
We hope you will join us in building a future where we all can live and thrive. Please email generationbuildcc@gmail.com to connect with us. Let’s build! Δ
Generation Build is a 70-plus member pro-housing group in SLO County. Send a letter for publication to letters@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Education Today 2025.
The fact that housing is scarce is by design. It drives up the price of existing homes. This is why, along with a currency that is increasingly worthless, 100 year old wooden shacks are selling for a million dollars. As someone who has lived here on the coast since the early 80s, housing has barely increased. If more housing was built, how would homeowners in SLO be able to extort insane rent out of college students? This issue isn’t just unique to SLO, this is a nationwide problem. It’s a sad day when, as a veteran pre-approved through the GZi Bill, I pray for the economy to collapse just so I might be able to actually buy a termite ridden, Depression era, wooden shack in SLO. Our country has become dystopic.
In order to get anything built in SLO, one needs to bribe members of its County Board of Supervisors, as former Supervisor Adam Hill allegedly was . Doing so will ensure a rapid building permit. Helios Raphael Dayspring knew this well [https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/san-l…]. Unfortunately, SLO’s (false) reputation as “Americas happiest city” might get sullied by FBI raids of its governmental offices [https://californiaglobe.com/fr/fbi-raid-on…]. Further, it might even see it’s mayor resign under questionable circumstances mid term during the same period to do what she claimed was even more important work…grant writing, lol. Not that being an actual mayor would have more environmental impact than scribbling pleas for donations from institutional benefactors. Let’s not even get into this county’s chapter of the Democratic party’s role in all this sleeze.
So yeah, good luck buying or building a house in SLO, especially if you don’t have a quarter million dollar down payment.
I continue to be impressed by the quality of writing from this group.
They are also, once again, correct in this article. A recent study published in the Journal of Urban Economics estimates that for every 100 “luxury” units constructed, approximately 31 units become available to individuals in the bottom 20 percent of the area’s income distribution. This occurs through vacancy chains as higher-income residents move into new housing and others adjust based on their economic preferences. This represents housing for approximately 60 to 90 people with lower incomes for every 100 new luxury units.
Abundant housing is in fact affordable housing.
“Affordable housing,” complete with “poor doors” for the proles: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_door
There is not a good answer for the problem of the cost of housing. The writer is correct that an abundant supply of housing will lower the cost. But, land is limited, and demand is nearly insatiable, as far more people would like to live here than the land can support. What do we do about water? Are will willing to destroy the charms of SLO in order to make it more affordable? We have a stark choice.
The current affordable housing mandates aren’t much help. All they do is just increase the cost of housing for those who are paying market price, in order to create a few below market subsidized units for those who qualify and who are lucky enough to “win the housing lottery” and get a below market unit. Most people won’t be so lucky.
John D:
“But, land is limited ..” really? All I see is open space around around SLO. If the city was actually committed to providing affordable housing, it could pay market rate for land or could have used the land downtown they bought and planted another useless parking structure on and instead, build public housing. But the city isn’t serious about helping its working class, show us the money. Where is it? Nothing has changed, in fact, housing has gotten worse. Perhaps this is why Americans voted for a president that swore to deport the millions of illegals competing with actual Americans for housing.
“Are will willing to destroy the charms of SLO in order to make it more affordable?” The only thing charming about SLO or the county at large, are for those that can afford it. Everyone I know is living paycheck to paycheck, in a permanent state of downward mobility and precarity.
The corruption lays in the local chapters of the two major political parties. If a developer wants to build, all he or she has to do is make a substantial donation to the local and national chapter, in the case of the liberal city of SLO, of the Democratic party. The chapter president, being the liar and corrupt individual they are, simply calls the public official in the county board of supervisors or city council whom they put in office by creating voting guides for local Democrats, and by running ads, and calls in a favor. This same process is done by bankers. When their bank is about to collapse, they call the SLO Tammeny Hall/Democratic party chapter and tells them they need a bond measure passed so the millions of dollars associated with the bond is lent to the city (at high interest) by that bank and then returned to that bank to sit in a city account so that bank can again gamble with our tax dollars. Meanwhile, whatever bond was passed (usually promoted as helpful) is slow rolled so the money is never spent or taken out of the bank. When a notable or powerful local Democrat or friend of that Democrat needs a home loan, all they have to do is call that banker up and voila! Here’s your fat, low interest loan, no questions asked! This is the payback or quid pro quo. SLO is a Potenpkin village with nothing but sleeze behind its “charming” veneer. If SLO was so charming, why are there lines at the food bank?
Again, John. SLO is only charming for people like you, retired, white collar, and well-to-do. For the rest of us, it’s hell. Many of us are struggling so hard we don’t have time to stop and smell the flowers.
John D:
You are the perfect Boomer. People from your generation, and I’ve been surrounded by them my whole life, could literally scoop ice cream at Thriftys, still be able to buy a house, and watch themselves become paper millionaires. And with it comes a sense of moral superiority, as if having won the lottery by being the recipients of the Post War Boom and not through the kinds of sacrifice your parent’s generation went through, had anything to do with it. You people rat f__ked us all, we aren’t stupid.
Fly: I worked a lot of minimum wage jobs, and never knew anyone who was able to buy a house on minimum wages. Houses were expensive relative to income then, as well as now. It was just a step to something better, like my jobs pumping gas, doing construction labor, washing cars, washing dishes, as a security guard, cleaning toilets, making pizza, etc. during college and law school. Most of my friends started on minimum wage jobs, as well, and most went on to regular careers and were able to buy houses. It took hard work, focus, self-discipline and judgment. I also bought my first two houses in less desirable areas, because they were affordable. Someone is buying all those houses, just not you. We Boomers are not to blame,
John my parents bought their first house in SLO for $30k. That same house now has a Zillow estimate of $1.4 million. Your straw man argument about minimum wage has no meaning in this context. No one argued that people on minimum wage were able to afford houses back when you were young.
But now, even people making REALLY good salaries can’t. $30k in 1970, adjusted for inflation is $256k. So the cost of that house, with no additions (just updates), has gone up by almost 6x the rate of inflation. So you’re not being realistic and just have this belief that it’s because people don’t want to work hard and make sacrifices anymore.
“LET THE PRIVATE MARKETS DO THEIR WORK:
Government intervention in the marketplace virtually always results in financial and political favors for wealthy and politically powerful people as well as for poor or diverse people who have lots of votes.
This gives rise to “Crony Capitalism” and the divisiveness that drives up prices of all goods and services involved, and it also increases the costs of government.”
James P Gray, Superior Court Judge, retired,
member of Libertarian Party and California Libertarian Party speaking to Delegates at the 2025 California Libertarian Party Convention of Delegate this past July.
Matthew Kaney:
Thank you.
John D:
I have a credit rating in the 790s, work two jobs, and am pre-approved for a VA lender for 600k. Even without a down payment, how am I supposed to pay a $4000+ mortgage payment for an extremely modest shack? Jobs don’t pay anything anymore. Again, I have TWO jobs and work 7 days a week. Start listening to economist Michael Hudson, Robert Reich, or Richard Wolff instead of the blather on any of the mainstream network programs. You live in a bubble, although I do appreciate your contributions to this forum.
Gail Lightfoot, I am not sure if I understand what you’re saying. As a fellow Libertarian, the market dictates more housing.. the government here is standing in the way with the zoning and permit costs and everything else. BUILD BUILD BUILD should be mantra of both Libertarians, and ironically, the left. Remove the barriers.
Fly_meet_ointment.. similar situation. I have a high credit rating, I don’t have 2 jobs but I make significant money as a CFO of a medium sized business, and I’m having trouble finding something to buy in the town I grew up in. Ok yeah I could move to a “less desirable” neighborhood somewhere like the valley but guess what, I also will then end up making half the money . John provided the most protectionist boomer arguments I’ve ever seen.
Matt:
I tried the Central Valley, don’t do it. The heat is intolerable, the worst air pollution in the nation, and lethal Valley Fever. It’s not worth it.
John’s take is very typical of a person of his age and era. Their parents survived the Great Depression and fought in and won WWII. These Boomers won the lottery. My grandparent’s generation bequeathed them the strongest economy in the world and as can be seen by simply looking out one’s window, in the span of one generation (theirs), they ran it into the ground.
Their generation made choices, it’s not an accident we find ourselves in the situation we are in. It was their generation who removed the separation between investment banking and savings and loans. It was their generation who reduced taxes for the rich to almost nothing. It was their generation who never even tried to balance our national budget. It was their generation who sacrificed our national social safety net at the alter of defense spending. As much as liberals would like to, this can’t all be blamed on Trump. As a generation, they did this. We have no industrial activity. We export nothing. We are tens of trillions of dollars in debt. Yet people like John, sitting in the lap of luxury, owning three homes as he admits, doesn’t get it and lays the blame at the personal failings of Americans rather than the structure they created and have enriched themselves with. How Calvanistic of him.
There were 4000 cases of Valley fever last year and 49 deaths. The Central Valley is a death trap:
https://share.google/6UXjAzHmuW5Fntfi2
According to the American Lung Association, Bakersfield and Visalia are in the top 3 most polluted cities in the country:
https://www.lung.org/research/sota/city-ra…