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That’s why Beverly Hills, despite having twice as many jobs as residents and expecting a new subway line, would have to make room for fewer than 1,400 new homes, under the current plan. El Segundo, next to jobs centers like LAX and served by light rail, would be assigned just 255 new homes. Newport Beach would be allocated fewer than 3,000. By contrast, the desert city of Coachella, with fewer than 10,000 jobs and no commuter rail service, would have to plan for more than 15,000 new homes. The proposal disproportionately assigns huge numbers of new homes to inland communities that don’t have the jobs, the infrastructure or the mass transit systems to support all that housing. Menifee would be called on to plan for roughly 12,000 homes, Hesperia 16,000 homes and Lake Elsinore 12,000 homes, even though the vast majority of existing residents in those Riverside and San Bernardino county cities drive alone to work and face median commute times of about 40 minutes. The result? The vast majority of that housing simply wouldn’t get built because there’s no market demand, and so would do nothing to solve the region’s shortage. The housing that would get constructed would likely be occupied by people who have long commutes back to the urban core, where the bulk of Southern California’s jobs are located. That would worsen traffic and add more choking, climate-warming pollution to the air. There are alternatives being championed by Mayor Eric Garcetti along with elected officials in Riverside and San Bernardino County, who question why their communities should have to shoulder the bulk of the region’s housing needs. SCAG’s governing board should pursue those options and direct housing development to where it’s most needed and most beneficial — in the urban core, near jobs and transit.
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