Housing bill to ease zoning rules near transit and jobs advances

A closely watched proposal that would allow apartment buildings to be built near public transportation hubs and job centers throughout California — regardless of local zoning rules — cleared its first hurdle late Tuesday afternoon.

Senate Bill 50 marks the second attempt by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, to boost the state’s scarce housing supply by loosening strict zoning rules and relaxing off-street parking requirements near bus stops and train stations. The proposal also applies to “jobs-rich” areas, including broad swaths of the Bay Area, even if they don’t have an extensive public transportation network.

It received a 9-1 vote from Senate Housing Committee, which Wiener heads.

The bill is the latest example of a tug-of-war between a handful of Sacramento lawmakers and local governments over housing development and parking requirements. As the state grapples with a chronic housing shortage and affordability crisis, Wiener and others have argued the state must step in to allow more housing to be built near jobs and public transportation — “legalizing apartment buildings,” as the senator likes to call it.

“This housing shortage, which is self-inflicted in many ways, has real-life consequences for people,” Wiener said Tuesday. “It pushes people into poverty and homelessness. It spikes evictions and displacement. It is a problem and we have to address it.”

But many homeowner associations and local governments are crying foul, countering that these efforts undermine long-held local authority over planning and land use and give developers too much power. The hearing room was packed with people on both sides of the issue, and those in between, who voiced concerns about specific provisions but didn’t take a side.

The vast majority of local governments are operating under housing-development plans that have been approved by the state, and this bill would undermine the work they are doing to address the housing crisis, said Jason Rhine, of the League of California Cities.

“It’s almost as if we’re setting our cities up to fail,” he said.

California’s love affair with single-family housing was documented in a recent survey by the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley. It found that less than 25 percent of land within local jurisdictions is zoned for multifamily housing, despite the ongoing housing shortage. Environmental groups argue such zoning restrictions are forcing more people to live further from their jobs, leading to lengthy commutes and more climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions, and that more homes must be built within an easy walk of trains, buses and ferries.

The three groups championing SB 50 are the California Association of Realtors; the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California, which builds low-income housing; and California YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard), a group promoting greater housing density. The coalition backing the bill also includes business interests, developers, environmental groups, college students, retirees and labor unions.

Not all local elected officials oppose the proposal. Among its supporters are Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, who argue it would help alleviate homelessness and the strain on working families.

“I hear too many stories of working parents who commute over two hours each way because housing costs price them out of our urban centers,” Liccardo said in a statement Tuesday.

Last year, opposition from anti-poverty groups such as the Western Center on Law and Poverty helped to kill a similar bill quickly. This time, Wiener has added stronger anti-demolition and affordable housing provisions to tamp down concerns that the changes would hasten displacement of lower-income renters. Some groups argue that it doesn’t go far enough to protect existing residents, but the criticism has been more muted.

In addition, the bill also creates an alternative for so-called “sensitive communities,” areas with high poverty rates.

In the nine-county Bay Area, those places have already been designated. The areas, which include many neighborhoods in Oakland, San Leandro, Hayward, Richmond and San Jose, would be able to undertake an alternative planning process for multifamily housing development between next year and 2025.

The bill moves next to the Senate Governance and Finance Committee and must also pass the Senate Appropriations Committee before going to the Senate floor.

Some hope to block it before it does. Julie Testa, a Pleasanton city councilwoman who advocates for slower growth through the coalition Livable California, was among a group of opponents who traveled to Sacramento to speak against SB 50. She says the streets and schools in suburbs like hers will simply not be able to handle the influx of new residents that this bill would likely bring, and it bothers her that such decisions are being debated so many miles away.

“How much more can you absorb?” she asked. Building homes near transit “is a nice concept,” she added, “but people are still going to have their cars.”