Good news for affordable housing.
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As the legislative session ended, the number of costly, bizarre and freedom-limiting bills that were passed and sent to the governor rose significantly. These range from a bill that gives Native Americans much power to scuttle developments on private land near their reservations, to one that grants six weeks of paid family leave. But among the bad bills is one measure that promises to improve a serious statewide problem. The legislation, Senate Bill 800, would provide a sensible means to fix a legal abuse that has greatly reduced the number of condominiums and townhouses built in the state. Attached houses comprised more than 60 percent of the new housing market in Orange County in 1992, and is down to 18 percent today. Currently, trial attorneys sue the builders of virtually every attached housing complex in order to collect damages for alleged construction defects. Some projects have defects, but many are targeted simply because it is so easy to get a homeowner’s association to approve the lawsuit. Sometimes, attorneys sue the project using standardized lists of defects, even though the alleged defect couldn’t possibly have occurred in the project (i.e., crumbling exterior stairwells in a complex without exterior stairwells). The results are obvious. Insurers would no longer cover attached housing complexes, and builders stopped building condos and townhouses. The first rung in the housing ladder was removed, which made it that much more difficult for lower and moderate income people to purchase a home. S.B. 800 still allows construction defects lawsuits. But it requires homeowners to give builders the chance to fix the problem before a lawsuit is filed. Trial lawyers had tried attaching the provisions to a bill that would make it easier to collect large tort payouts in other areas. That was unsuccessful. So too was an effort by unions to include a provision that would have forced builders to pay union wages on larger projects. This was a consensus bill that might actually do something. The governor should sign this one as soon as possible. |