A recent article in the OC Register provides a good example of why some decisions should be made at the state level:
Mission Viejo councilmembers axed plans for a new Department of Motor Vehicles location in the Kaleidoscope shopping mall over traffic and safety concerns.
The DMV — which would have been the first for the city — was initially approved by the city’s planning commission for a vacant spot in the Kaleidoscope shopping mall off Crown Valley Parkway.
But on Tuesday, June 11, the City Council rejected the plans after a multitude of disapproving messages from residents and apprehension from councilmembers.
The city government cited concerns over traffic.
I was quite disappointed by this decision, as it means that I will have to drive a much longer distance when I need to renew my drivers license. Last time I had to drive up to a crowded DMV facility in Santa Ana, where there was an extremely long line. This means the decision will actually increase the amount of traffic congestion in Orange County, even if it reduces traffic congestion in Mission Viejo.
This problem has become endemic to those parts of California that are near the coast. The very same issue of the OC Register had another example of NIMBYism in action:
A Toll Brothers proposal to build a 2- to 5-story apartment complex with 306 units and an attached six-story parking structure in Doheney Village is set to go before the Dana Point City Council on Tuesday, June 18.
The city Planning Commission’s approval of the project earlier this year is being appealed by Supporters Alliance for Environmental Responsibility, or S.A.F.E.R., a California public benefit corporation that contends environmental studies done as part of the required consideration of the development didn’t meet health and environmental requirements.
Even if this development is eventually approved, the hurdles to development created by “environmental groups” stop many projects, and actually end up hurting the environment. The people who are unable to live in this dense 306 unit development would likely end up somewhere else, almost certainly a place that is worse from an environmental perspective. They might be forced to move to the cheaper “Inland Empire”, where people use much more AC to cool their homes and drive 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 generally end up hurting the environment and/or making traffic worse. Only a state government is able to “internalize the externalities” in these decisions. This is why most NIMBY policies are enacted by local governments, and most of the recent opposition to NIMBYism is coming from state governments.
PS. The term “Inland Empire” refers to Riverside and San Bernardino counties, which are just east of Los Angeles. They now contain nearly 4.7 million people.
PPS: Here’s a picture of Dana Point:
READER COMMENTS
Mactoul
Jul 6 2024 at 2:36am
Builders in California seem strangely inept in influence over the City Council. Why doesn’t the builder money speak? Are the Council utterly incorruptible?
Mark Brophy
Jul 8 2024 at 10:05am
Builders don’t care where they build so they don’t try very hard to get permits. The builders believe that it’s someone else’s task to get permits and only after that’s done will the builders do their jobs.
Craig
Jul 6 2024 at 9:36am
“Last time I had to drive up to a crowded DMV facility in Santa Ana, where there was an extremely long line.”
DMVs nationwide are known for being inconvenient and having long lines and while I’m sure there is a line somewhere at some DMV in some state, I must say that my experiences in NJ, FL and TN is that they basically all figured out they don’t want you there, they just want your money and they have made efforts to kill those lines and for the most part have with mail in / online renewals. COVID gave another push to kill lines and most went to appointments. Moving to FL pre-pandemic one of the more ‘intense’ DMV visits is an interstate move and so at that time you would make an appointment just for that and my wife and I went at the appointed hour, free orange juice and coffee available, 2 NJ DLs, titles and license plates in, everything FL on the way out. I have to think CA has done similar so perhaps consider making an appointment.
In the grand scheme of things DMVs probably should be reducing their footprints. Of course that might mean closing a larger facility and opening a new one, but in the grand scheme of things the DMV experience is not what it used to be. They have made it much better.
Scott Sumner
Jul 6 2024 at 12:14pm
Why not privatize them? Then they would have to compete for customers with good service.
Craig
Jul 6 2024 at 12:39pm
You’re preaching to the choir on that one, I assure you!
Grant Gould
Jul 7 2024 at 3:17pm
NJ is an interesting case for/against privatization. The state privatized the DMV in the 90s and it promptly became much, much worse for all the usual bungled privatization reasons (“if you cannot do X, you also cannot effectively manage a contract to do X” is a good rule of thumb for any organization, if only because the dominant “never ever allow any Parsons company to bid on your contract” rule isn’t legal).But — when privatization was junked a few years later, things got much better than they had been before. Today’s NJ DMV is unrecognizably better than it used to be. Some path-dependent variable (personnel?) got jostled, or possibly just the awareness of the possibility of privatization focused minds? In any event, it seems like a failed privatization delivered the benefits that an imagined successful privatization might have.
Craig
Jul 7 2024 at 6:25pm
“Some path-dependent variable (personnel?) got jostled, or possibly just the awareness of the possibility of privatization focused minds?”
Honestly the technology simply got better and of course many of those information systems are purchased from private vendors of course. The state did realize that having people queue at the DMV to pay a $40 fee made no sense if you were stopping that person from producing $50 in taxation. One can make a decent argument that the state doesn’t have quite the incentive to provide good customer service, but there was the incentive not to have a horde of people ticked off at you for inane bureaucratic nonsense when you could just get their $40 and just not have them there.
I’d suggest the banks are the private sector cousin of this. How often do you actually go to a bank these days? For the most part you don’t.
Scott Sumner
Jul 8 2024 at 12:03pm
Californian still has very long lines (also at other government buildings like the Post Office, the Social Security department, etc.)
MarkW
Jul 6 2024 at 12:15pm
They might be forced to move to the cheaper “Inland Empire”, where people use much more AC to cool their homes and drive much longer distances. Or they might move to Florida, Texas, or Arizona, which also have a worse environmental record than coastal California.
Well, pretty much anywhere in the country other than coastal California is more energy intensive, since it requires little climate control at all. But even people living in other, hotter southern areas is pretty good from an energy usage standpoint — cold winter days result in far more heating/cooling-degree-days than even summer in the desert (which is typically quite cool during the night — whereas northern areas may be 50 degrees or more below comfortable indoor temperatures even during winter days). That said, Texas, Arizona, Florida and other southern states are among the lowest energy places in the country to live (while northern cities like Minneapolis are the highest). Americans moving from north to south is actually one of the best (and almost completely unnoticed) ways to reduce energy usage and CO2 emissions. Indeed, that fact is so generally unknown, it’s almost a secret.
Thomas L Hutcheson
Jul 6 2024 at 1:06pm
We need better environmentalists, ones with at least an Econ 101 understanding of externalities. “)
Helen
Jul 6 2024 at 8:14pm
My family has lived in Dana Point for over 50 years and we have embraced many changes, but I believe the objections to the 306 unit project are potentially legitimate and not just NIMBY. I used to work in a government planning office, and it was my job to review EIRs. A full range of factors had to be considered, not the least of which were health and safety. Traffic already is badly congested in Dana Point. Has the developer secured funding, and is there enough land, to add more transportation capacity without tearing up and displacing the existing community and residents? What about waste treatment and impact to the environment? How much development can the delicate ecosystem of the coast support – are water resources and other utilities sufficient and can air quality remain healthy enough for people and wildlife with increasing development? I realize that demand for access is high and developers naturally seek profit opportunities, but there is a point at which quality of life degrades with too much density and the environmental factors can be compromised too much. One more thing . . . CEQA has an important but often ignored provision that limits the acceptable amount of disruption and displacement to a community that new development can cause. That needs to be considered as well. Maybe a smaller project could be considered. There is more I could write, but I will stop here.
steve
Jul 6 2024 at 8:59pm
The DMVs in my immediate area are pretty fast and friendly. One of the advantages of small town life. Huh different than when I lived in Philly. But on the state vs local issue I think that for some people there is a presumption that more localized decisions are better but during the time I ran my corporation I found that local regs were often the ones that interfered most directly with trying to make things work. Federal rules and regs were often annoying but local rules could be bring things to a halt. Same her for state rules and regs.
Steve
Craig
Jul 6 2024 at 10:38pm
“The DMVs in my immediate area are pretty fast and friendly. One of the advantages of small town life. ”
Rural TN I bring my car with FL tags while having a FL DL and asked to register the car in TN and I asked, “Do you need proof that I have a residence in TN?” The clerk responded, “Nah, I’ll take your word on it”
Of course this wasn’t Nashville, Chattanooga, Knoxville or Memphis, but still that really struck me.
Scott Sumner
Jul 6 2024 at 10:46pm
Local is better for some things, but there are huge externalities for housing. The US doesn’t let state and local governments make decisions on tariffs or speech restrictions, and the same logic applies to housing construction.
Jim Glass
Jul 7 2024 at 1:56am
Yes, indeed. The Greens over in Germany are driving the entire country back to coal, savaging the environment and atmosphere, and kneecapping national industry too.
Off-topic as to California, but on-topic as to this, driving in traffic, public transport, collapsing infrastructure, failing technological ‘development’, and a fantasy hydrogen economy all destroying the real one, Sabine rants angry bitter and sarcastic about how government is destroying things over there.
“Britain … that’s what a healthy country looks like.” 🙂
Everything is going to hell everywhere. Give up.
Matthias
Jul 7 2024 at 2:25am
We are doing quite ok in Singapore, for what it’s worth.
Matthias
Jul 7 2024 at 2:27am
Why does Coasian bargaining eg between counties fail?
Even without such bargaining, location should be able to tax local development and thus benefit existing residents from it? But perhaps local authorities in California have more veto power than they have taxation powers?
Scott Sumner
Jul 8 2024 at 11:59am
“Why does Coasian bargaining eg between counties fail?”
Coasian transactions costs.
Comments are closed.