Matt Mahan

Nobody's getting $65,000 worth of value out of the neighborhood park.

I'm

I think what we ought to do is cap fees at a much lower level, a top-down policy, and require that a city that wants to impose a higher fee actually produce to the state a feasibility study that shows that the project can still pencil.

Because this is the problem.

We don't control interest rates.

We don't control the cost of timber.

But timelines at the local level and all these fees are completely levers within our control.

And we've made excuses for far too long and it's blocked tens of thousands of units in our cities.

Well, actually, I think Governor Newsom has been a champion for housing.

And while he and I have disagreed publicly on some other policy areas, I think he's been bolder on housing than other past governors we've had.

And I give him a lot of credit for that.

I mean, my philosophy...

is that we should use our housing element process and the RENA targets to tell cities and counties what is expected of them, the policies, the programs, and the zoning, and the space they need to create for housing and the ability to approve it quickly.

I talked about capping fees.

And we should give local control up to the point where

they lose the privilege of having that local control.

I can tell you from experience, we were on the receiving end of this.

We had a number of critiques of a housing element that started under my predecessor and then around the time I came into office.

Can you describe what a housing element is?

This is a...