Brin’s contribution stands out even in his rapidly expanding philanthropic and political spending, and was described to the Times by people familiar with his giving as his most visible single cash commitment to housing affordability in the state. Building a Better California is expected to back statewide ballot measures and legislation that would boost housing construction and streamline approvals, positioning Brin as a major player in one of California’s most contentious policy fights. One person familiar with Brin’s thinking told the Times that Brin has been considering potential reforms to tackle California’s economic and budget issues since last year, when the wealth tax effort was not on the radar.
The Lake Tahoe property, once marketed as one of the region’s most expensive listings, features multiple structures on five acres, direct lake access, and two glass funiculars running down the hillside to the water.
“I won’t tell you about my housing search, but it was agonizing,” Galle said. “And I’m sure that’s true for everybody.” He said the famously car-centric sprawling state seems to have other issues, too, with counterproductive urban planning choices. The local BART stations in Berkeley and Oakland, for example, aren’t surrounded by dense development. “You look around, and there’s an empty parking lot with a tumbleweed rolling through it. And you’re like, what are we doing? [In] Washington, D.C., this whole place would be covered in condos and retail, and it seems like California never got the message of how to build on the infrastructure that you’ve sunk billions of dollars into.”
Although Galle stressed that he’s a lawyer and not an economist by training, he thinks economics can be helpful here. “There’s a lot of recent evidence that it turns out that building more housing is actually good for people who are incumbent owners, by and large. Like everyone assumes, ‘Well, if I let more housing be built, then that’s gonna make my house less valuable.’ But it turns out actually having more people loving your neighborhood kind of means there are more people who love your neighborhood and want to live there.”
