Voters rejected Prop. 45. The battle over Californias housing crisis continues

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

See more from the L.A.Times in Google Search.

Set us as preferred California’s sky-high housing costs cast a dark shadow on its sunny disposition, sending some fleeing to more affordable climes.Yet voters decisively rejected a state ballot measure that promised to make it easier and cheaper to build housing by changing the law often blamed for driving up costs: the California Environmental Quality Act.Proposition 45 even divided pro-housing groups.So what gives? And where do we go from here? California Prop 45 seeks to overhaul the law often blamed for delaying construction and driving up its cost: the California Environmental Quality Act.Proposition 45 would have offered expedited environmental review and put a shot clock on legal challenges for projects defined as essential, including those involving housing, water, transportation and internet access.

Supporters said it would cut costly delays, while opponents warned it would weaken environmental protections and public input.Skeptics pointed out that state lawmakers already changed CEQA last year, exempting the lion’s share of urban infill housing from the law.

They argued that means the proposition would have largely benefited low-density development on the outskirts of cities — sometimes labeled “sprawl.”But supporters say the measure would also boost projects in cities left out of those exemptions.All types of housing, some say, are needed to dig the state out of its shortage.For housing advocates, where they stood on the measure “ultimately depends on how you feel about exurban development” and whether the state should be making it easier to build it, said Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program at the UC Berkeley Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, who didn’t take a public position on the measure.Jordan Grimes, legislative director for the Greenbelt Alliance, an environmental nonprof...