Bill pushes for homes near mass transit

Landmark legislation aimed at housing crisis



 

 

Southern California is one of the country’s most popular places in which to live. Residents here love their climate, beaches, mountains and Hollywood bling.

You know it.

One big problem, though: Not enough affordable housing is available for average- and below-average wage earners.

New home purchase and rental costs are at an all-time high, especially in the Conejo Valley—and a desire to protect the environment and keep alive the notion of small-town America motivates existing residents to try to stop new housing construction in its tracks.

“Our housing deficit is in the millions. It grows by about 100,000 every year,” said state Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat.

“Our legislative analyst tells us that California needs to add about 180,000 units of housing every year and, in reality, we’re at about 80,000,” Wiener said.

“Employers are hesitant to expand here when they don’t think that their workers are going to be able to find housing. It’s also threatening our environment as people are pushed into longer and longer commutes because it increases carbon emissions.”

Housing is a problem, so what’s the solution? Wiener think he has an answer.

Relax the zoning

Earlier this year Wiener introduced Senate Bill 827 to allow the mostly unrestricted construction of new housing within a half-mile of major rail and bus transit stops.

The bill essentially encourages dense housing construction near existing rail stations and at the intersection of two or more major bus routes that operate at 15-minute intervals.

The goal of the bill is to spur greater use of public transportation and provide affordable housing for the people who ride the trains, buses and subways in cities up and down the state. Fewer tailpipes on the road will also help California meet its ambitious environmental goals, proponents of the bill say.

Currently, developers must set aside a certain number of units for low-income housing, which would benefit the people who are being priced out of California’s growing real estate market.

But current laws don’t go far enough, Wiener says.

“We’ve allowed communities to say, ‘I don’t want to do any housing at all, we’re not allowing housing,’ and there’s really no ramifications. We’re not trying to take over the local role, we’re trying to strike a balance. The reality is that what one city decides affects everyone else in the region. I think it’s very appropriate the state assert a role and have a different balance than we’ve had in the past,” he said.

What about the blueprints?

At the present time, city zoning ordinances protect communities by keeping buildings from exceeding certain heights and new housing from eating up open land.

Opponents to the Wiener bill fear that SB 827 will undercut locals from having a say in how their city looks.

The League of California Cities is a 120-year-old association that represents the state’s cities founded in Sacramento. Jason Rhine, a league representative, said his organization is opposed to the Wiener bill.

“What the bill does is pull away discretion around land-use authority from the residents and the City Council, because their general plans and housing elements are no longer going to be valid, and hand it over to developers who then get to choose the density and height of these buildings,” Rhine said.

“In most of these instances, this new increased density is going to be way beyond what has been evaluated environmentally within our general plan. We’re not even going to get to look at the environmental impact,” he said.

Calabasas City Councilmember James Bozajian also opposes SB 827. He said it would take key planning authority away from local city councils.

“I don’t like this kind of planned development where someone who’s never stepped inside the city’s borders are sitting in Sacramento saying, ‘Well, Calabasas is 14 square miles, so therefore it has to have this many (housing) units,’” Bozajian said.

“The main reason a city incorporates most of the time, in modern California history, has been to exercise control over local land-use decisions. This flies in the face of local control and it’s just a very poor attempt by the state legislature to usurp local planning laws.”

The bill is currently under committee review.