In California, Pro-Housing ‘Abundance’ Fans Rewrite an Environmental Landmark
Some environmentalists applaud Governor Gavin Newsom’s move to roll back anti-pollution laws for housing and advanced manufacturing. Others are horrified.
An apartment and retail complex under development in Los Angeles, California, US, on Wednesday, April 30, 2025.
Photographer: Eric Thayer/BloombergMatt Lewis and Brian Hanlon met in 2017 while advocating for an affordable housing complex in downtown Berkeley. It was a typical California land use debate. “The NIMBYs were losing their you-know-what,” Lewis recalled.
Hanlon told Lewis that he was starting a new organization called California YIMBY — that’s “Yes In My Backyard” — that would be dedicated to ending these arduous, building-by-building fights over housing. One of its main goals would be reforming the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, a 1970 law that gives anyone the power to legally challenge nearly all development projects in the state, from housing to highways to transit.