Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday signed a robust package of housing legislation aimed at addressing California’s unprecedented affordability crisis.
“These new laws will help cut red tape and encourage more affordable housing, including shelter for the growing number of homeless in California,” Brown said in a statement.
He signed the bills at the Hunter’s View public housing project in San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood, with the Bay Bridge as a backdrop.
“Today, you can be sure we got 15 good bills. Have they ended the need for further legislation? Unfortunately not,” Brown said.
This is the most important one, from our own Scott Wiener:
Senate Bill 35, Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco: Lets developers bypass the lengthy and often expensive review process for new housing development, which includes extensive environmental analysis and public hearings. If a community has not built enough housing – state law outlines the housing needs, at all income levels, for each city and county in California – developers can bring forth a project without undergoing the process. It mandates higher construction worker pay and benefits on projects with 10 units or more.
It’s about housing affordability, but it demands higher pay which drives up costs. I guess that’s why unions dropped their protests.
“Proposals that come forward must have: 30 percent of all units sold or rented to moderate-income households, 15 percent sold or rented to low-income households, 5 percent sold or rented to very low-income households and 10 percent of market-rate projects set aside for low-income people.”
Jerry Brown tried to pass something like SB35 but failed because of union opposition. The political reality is such that you need to buy off the unions. I am just glad anything at all gets done.
Is any of this going to lead to more housing being built? It sounds like they passed some stuff, so they can tell citizens they did something. The impact of it may actually be the opposite of what people want. I guess that passes for acceptable in government work.
Politicians only care about talking points, real impact is not their real concern. They pretend that something is done, and the people pretend to be happy that something is done at all.
This is why a big government will be disappointing for sure. When everyone pretends enough to a point, real bad things will happen.
Is it a joke that we have 15 new housing bills in one day and still need more?
Or should we celebrate on the highly efficient politicians to produce 15 bills in a day? But if they have thousands or millions of bills for us, are we going to be forced to do nothing due to high regulatory cost?
Cities don’t actually build though. They only approve use of the land. If the requirements make every project a money loser, then no developer is going to spend money to develop the land. Then what happens? The city did their job and approved the usage, but no developer decides to develop. Are they going to force developers to engage in money losing projects? What bank would be forced to loan the developer the money? Who gets forced to eat the losses?
Affordable housing requirement is not a new thing. We have had that for decades and still builders have been building. I am optimistic if cities remove arbitrary roadblocks the private sector will find a way to build.
The alternative is status quo, and we will have rent control regulations mushroom that hurt everybody without solving anything.
Here’s my solution: get rid of rent control and expand Section 8 to provide government subsidy to landlords whose tenants can’t afford the actual market value rent.
I am not interested in ideological purity. A flawed solution that passed is infinitely better than a perfect solution that can never pass. The new laws is a step in the right direction.
Do you realize what passed will probably make it even worse? So passing that is better than doing nothing? I didn’t realize the bar for government work was that low. That’s like being happy with your contractor as long as they don’t burn the house down during the job.
