News Review: Good-governance gag order: Housing authority, Region Builders at loggerheads over ‘conflict of interest’ rule

The local agency responsible for bringing more affordable housing to Sacramento is under fire from Region Builders, one of the most powerful developers’ associations around the Capitol. At issue is a policy proposal that housing officials say would keep big-time builders from exerting improper influence on Sacramento’s council members and supervisors. Region Builders calls the proposal an illegal, overly-bureaucratic growth-killer that will make the city’s housing crisis even worse. Elected officials will have to make their own decision on the policy at the start of 2018. Meanwhile, there is a dark cloud on the horizon that housing officials and developers generally agree about: If the U.S. House of Representatives’ version of the Republicans’ tax bill passes, most affordable housing projects in California will be dead in the water anyway.