Politicians And Special Interests Have Taken Over Housing In California!

Our Neighborhood Voices (ONV) is the leading voice for affordable and appropriate housing in California. We’re a grassroots coalition of neighbors and local leaders, with more than 25,000 supporters statewide. We advocate for housing that’s affordable to middle, working, and lower income Californians, that’s appropriate for the community, and that’s built with the cooperation of neighbors, developers, business owners, and local officials.

In other words, we are all about democracy.

In contrast, recent state laws have undermined and disenfranchised millions of Californians. The political establishment, flush with tens of millions in donations, have unleashed developers to build what they want, where they want, and how they want, regardless of local need, while denying residents and their representatives of so much as a say. The political class and their special interest taskmasters particularly have their sights on suburbs and single family communities. ONV is leading the fight back!

A Statewide Ballot Initiative To Restore Balance And Local Democracy

ONV’s movement will culminate with a voter initiative on the 2026 ballot. It will amend the California State Constitution to enshrine authority over local development, land use, and zoning decisions where it belongs: In local government. We are raising $50 million and gathering 1.3 million signatures. We need your help! Please consider donating, volunteering, endorsing, signing up for our email alerts and updates — or all of the above

Stop the Blank Check to Developers!

Instead of working to create truly affordable new housing that enhances communities, Sacramento politicians have handed a blank check to developers to build what they want, where they want, and how they want, with minimal or no affordability requirements and without contributing to new fire protection, transit, schools, or roads — all while crushing our right to speak out. YOUR right.

Over the last eight years, while accepting tens of millions of dollars in contributions from for-profit developers and their financial backers, those politicians have passed some 500 damaging new laws that basically tell you to ‘sit down and shut up’ about what’s happening right next door to your home. In particular, developers are empowered to demolish single-family homes and build multi-story, multi-unit projects that communities neither need nor want. The rich are getting richer while average Californians strain under ever-escalating living costs and the degradation of their beloved neighborhoods.

We will not sit down — we are speaking out! We are standing up to reverse these laws with a statewide initiative that restores our neighborhood voices and brings sanity back to our planning processes.

It Isn’t Affordable Housing!
It’s Massive Profits for Developers.

The politicians say they took away our neighborhood voice because we need to lower the cost of housing. But their two bills create NO new affordable housing.

There are ZERO requirements to build new affordable housing. The developers will make billions and the facts show that these two state laws will create massive displacement — forcing working families out of their own communities.

Traffic

We Need An “All Of The Above” Approach To Traffic And Gridlock

Unbelievably, recent laws describe “high quality transit” as any transit line that runs every 15 minutes during peak hours. Developers can benefit from “transit oriented incentives” as long as there’s a bus that goes somewhere – it doesn’t matter where – within half a mile of their proposed development, four times an hour. They don’t even have to provide on-site parking! In a word, that’s insane.

Instead of these meaningless, one-size-fits-all state mandates, local governments need to be empowered to site new housing where it makes the most sense. This can be near genuine transit hubs and proximate to job centers. At the same time, lawmakers must accept the reality that more than 85% of Californians rely on their cars to get around. This is particularly true of working class and lower income folks. For these reasons, ONV supports an “all of the above” approach to reducing traffic and associated emissions.

The Developers Make Billions — We Pay the Bill

It isn’t just the giveaways. Sacramento is shifting costs to YOU so developers and their financial backers can make even more. New housing, especially multifamily, imposes new burdens on existing infrastructure. Yet new laws require cities to reduce or even eliminate mitigation fees on new developments.

That means YOU and your neighbors pay more for fire protection, roads, sewers, schools, parks, and other resources.

In short, they profit, and we pay.

Woman paying bills
Demolition

Join Us As We Stand Up, Fight Back and Win!

The politicians and special interests have had their say, and they have failed.

Now it’s our turn! We are working tirelessly to give every Californian the right to speak out about what’s happening in their own neighborhoods. Our measure takes away the blank check to developers and restores a process that allows neighborhoods to be heard – that allows YOU to be heard.

We will bring back balance, so our towns and cities don’t get stuck with massive new developments they neither need nor want. We’re replacing profit-oriented policies with common sense solutions that focus on truly affordable housing, livable communities, and sustainable cities. We are telling the politicians that we demand real solutions to our housing problems, not more giveaways to special interests and laws that silence our neighborhood voices. Join us! 

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