Category Archives: deregulated housing bills

CEQA, deregulated housing bills, Planning, Politics

Push to build more homes on California coast stifled after lawmakers derail housing bills

By Ben Christopher : calmatters – excerpt

Several efforts to minimize the power and influence of the California Coastal Commission have stalled…

Housing advocates thought that this was going to be the year when they finally cracked the California Coast.

In early spring, Democratic lawmakers, and the Yes In My Backyard activists backing them, rolled out a series of bills aimed at making it easier to build apartments and accessory dwelling units along California’s highly regulated coast and to make it more difficult for the independent and influential California Coastal Commission to slow or block housing projects. The 15-member group oversees almost all of the state’s 840 miles of coastline, a stretch of land that just under a million Californians call home.

The pro-construction push built off last year’s success for the coalition when the Legislature passed a major housing law and — breaking from long-standing legislative tradition — did not include a carveout for the coast. This year’s pack of bills was meant to cement and build off a new political reality in which the 48-year-old Coastal Commission no longer has quite so much say over housing policy.

Fast forward to mid-August and those new bills are either dead or so severely watered down that they no longer carry the promise of a more built-out coastline. Whatever happened last year, the California Coastal Commission is still a force to be reckoned with…(more)

deregulated housing bills

YIMBYs to California: Drop dead

By Christopher LeGras : allaspectreport – excerpt

Legislature considering a bill that would make it easier for developers to build housing in high fire danger zones

If Senate Bill 610 passes, expect to see a lot more scenes like this throughout California in the coming decades… (more)

NOTE: As of yesterday SB 610 was suspended in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, meaning it will not proceed in this legislative session. However, the facts and background remain highly relevant. There is an excellent chance the bill will be resurrected next year.

deregulated housing bills, Housing

Want property taxes to go up? Why California should reject ballot measure easing bond votes

By Susan Shelley : Newsbreak – excerpt
Stay up-to-date with free briefings on topics that matter to all Californians. Subscribe to CalMatters today for nonprofit news in your inbox.

In November, California voters will decide the fate of Proposition 5, which would make it easier for local governments to borrow money for housing and various public infrastructure projects. Below, a taxpayer watchdog says Prop. 5 will essentially let governments increase property taxes whenever they want. The opposing view: A local mayor says the measure will help public agencies pursue vital projects that can make California more affordable…(more)

deregulated housing bills, Housing, Politics, Transportation

Bay Area Housing Finance Authority Pulls Regional Measure 4 from the November Ballot

For Immediate  Release:

San Francisco – This morning, the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority (BAHFA) voted to pull Regional Measure 4, the $20 billion dollar regional bond measure, off the November ballot. Gus Mattammal, President of the 20 Billion Reasons campaign to defeat the bond measure in November, hailed the move.

Said Mattammal, “This decision is a win for Bay Area taxpayers, and a win for affordable housing. To address housing affordability in a meaningful way, we have to address root causes, not soak taxpayers for billions of dollars at a time using bonds that would waste two thirds of the revenue on interest and overhead while barely making a dent in the issue.”

The 20 Billion Reasons campaign brought together Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Independents in a single campaign, a rarity in recent times, but a necessity. Said Mattammal, “Actually working on the root causes of the housing crisis in California, a crisis created by our legislature and the corporate interests to which they are beholden, is politically difficult. It’s much easier to simply raise taxes. That’s why it’s so important for voters to say ‘no’ to deeply flawed proposals such as Regional Measure 4: every time we do say no, it helps create the political conditions to work on the problem in a meaningful way.”

Though Regional Measure 4 is off the ballot for now, many other expensive proposals remain on the ballot, and the $20 Billion Reasons campaign team is excited to regroup and consider the best way forward to help ensure that Bay Area taxpayers are getting real solutions for the taxes they pay.

About Gus Mattammal – Gus is an entrepreneur and educator who has lived and worked in the Bay Area for over 17 years. He is proud to work with the committed Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Independents who seek to ensure that the public’s money is wisely spent. Learn more at: 20billionreasons.com

deregulated housing bills, Housing, Planning, Politics

Housing Bond Issue Draws Fire

By:  independentnews – excerpt (includes audio track)
Housing Bond Issue Draws Fire

Housing Bond Issue Draws Fire

TRI-VALLEY — Thirteen Bay Area residents opposed to a $20 billion regional housing bond measure filed a lawsuit last week that alleges the question to be placed on November ballots as Regional Measure 4 (RM4) is slanted to prejudice voters to approve it.

The group contends the official name of the measure, “Bay Area Affordable Plan,” is deceptive and the ballot question voters will consider contains a series of phrases that are not found in the language of the measure. The residents’ group is asking the court to rename the measure to “Bay Area Affordable Housing Bond,” because they contend it will cost residents more in property taxes.

“This lawsuit is all about the 75 words maximum that will be in the Regional Measure 4 ballot question,” said Jason Bezis, an attorney for the residents, a list of electors for the Nov. 5 election, members of county taxpayers’ associations, and a former San Jose City Council member.

Bezis’ office filed a petition in Santa Clara Superior Court on Aug. 8, demanding it be rewritten. The filing came six days after sending a “pre-litigation” letter to the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority (BAHFA), which placed the measure on the ballot.The lawsuit targets BAHFA and election officials in Alameda, Santa Clara, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Solano, and Sonoma counties, along with the city and county of San Francisco… (more)

deregulated housing bills, Housing, Politics

‘Everything rests on this’: Will taxpayers loan Bay Area counties $20B to fix housing?

By Kevin V. Nguyen : sfstandard – excerpt

They want us to pay for our own displacement is they plow down our homes to make room for the millions they claim need housing, in spite of the loss of population in the state.

Voters will decide on this massive new IOU in this upcoming November election

With state and federal funds drying up, banks lending less, and more cities facing budget deficits, tens of thousands of newly proposed affordable homes have been stuck in limbo, unable to get off the ground.

So come this November, Bay Area voters will not only be weighing in on the next U.S. President, but also, whether or not they should step in and loan the nine-county region a total of $20 billion to move those efforts along.

Last week, the commissioners of the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority—a first-of-its kind agency created in 2020—voted unanimously to put the bond measure on ballots to fund new subsidized housing projects, buy up existing homes to make or keep them affordable, and support housing-related infrastructure…

The bond would be funded by property tax increases, with an estimated tax of $19 per $100,000 of assessed value, which shakes out to about $190 per year for a home assessed at $1 million.

If voters approve this IOU, each city would receive a cut of the proceeds based on how much its jurisdiction pays in taxes. San Francisco, for example, would get about $2.4 billion to invest, while the city of Oakland would get over $720 million. The funds would be dispersed in the form of low-cost loans.

BAHFA estimates that paying off the loan would add up to nearly $50 billion after interest. The mayors of San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland all expressed support for the bond measure. …(more)

The MTC who can’t make the trains run on time and splurges on a multi billion dollar building in San Francisco, a the tax payers expense, not wants to sell us on a housing plan that is wants to charge us for by raising property taxes. At a time when property values are receding like yesterday’s tide.

Already people who bought into the ADU concept are shocked by their higher taxes, due to the recent rise in valuation of their property. How many property owners are willing to eat the higher taxes without passing their onto their tenants? Seriously? We are going to trust the MTC with more money when they are refusing to listen to us?

These are the people who removed single family housing from the state, killed the solar industry, want to remove our private vehicles and replace gas stoves with electric that will run on nuclear power and whatever else Big Energy can find to burn. MTC is trying to force us back into the lifestyle we just pulled ourselves out of. They want us to live in tiny homes and commute to tiny office cubicles to keep their computer vehicles working. They call this backward plan their vision of the future?

This is the anti-farm pro-housing gang that seeks to plow over our farms and ranch to build more housing. Who needs fresh food when you can live in tight close quarters and eat who knows what and look cool toting your life in a bag on the Muni on your way to the Mayor’s latest rave?

Newsom is moving this family to Marin but, they will not be living in one of those little units next to the 101 Smart Train station in San Rafael. They will be living on acreage and saving for their children’s future by building equity in their homes. What will we get? Another day older and a another month’s rent.

deregulated housing bills, Housing, Politics

YIMBY Want to Raise Your Rent

By Marc Salomon : counterpunch – excerpt

Over the past decade, a new political formation has arisen in the US, the YIMBY which stands for “Yes In My Backyard.” YIMBY posit themselves as the antithesis of the NIMBY, “Not In My Backyard,” a constructed political bogey person, who YIMBY claim are responsible for the high cost of housing in the US. Starting in the Bay Area, the YIMBY movement has rapidly expanded to cities nationwide and attracted more funding.

Hardly a spontaneous phenomenon, YIMBY are the latest in a long line of housing and real estate booster political operations that seek favorable regulatory consideration from local governments that have historically regulated land use. From the media campaigns to encourage families to move from the cities to suburban sprawl after WWII to local real estate funded booster organizations that pushed “Transit Oriented Development” in the 2000s, such operators have continually repped for developers. There has always been some background level of pro-development organizing in play…

YIMBY are different, however. As a product of the post-1999/2000 deregulation of Wall Street era, the marriage of funding liberated by deregulation plus a libertarian capitalist housing supply side dogmatism has produced a message that is appealing if only for its simplicity: upzone the cities, deregulate land use approvals, relieve developers of carrying their freight through impact fees and housing prices will fall…

CoreySmith, executive director of the longstanding residential developer booster organization, The Housing Action Coalition, showed YIMBY’s hand at a San Francisco Planning Commission meeting earlier this year:..[when he state] “One of the challenges we face in San Francisco is we need the rent to go back up.”.

It is so refreshing to hear YIMBYs say this stuff out loud. Private developers have no plan for building new housing when rents actually go down. [as they have lately]…

In truth, in order to spur more development, lenders need to see housing prices increase before taking the risk to commit capital to development. Housing production only occurs when housing prices rise. Housing prices only rise during the second half of the up phase of the business cycle when greed eclipses fear.

This shows that the YIMBY are but developer lobbyists who demand housing at all costs, costs which are to be extracted from tenants through higher rents…

There might be good reasons for desirable cities facing torrential demand to entitle some market rate housing. Adding supply to push down price is not one of them. Instead of responding to the flood of shit, YIMBY are best contested by community based grassroots organizing for self determination in comprehensive, not lobbyist directed, land use planning.

The antidote to the shitstorm is “YIMBY want to raise your rents.”

Marc Salomon is a co-founder of the San Francisco Community Land Trust…(more)

deregulated housing bills, Housing, Politics

URGENT — OPPOSE SB 7

This is an URGENT call to action. SB 7 is a terrible bill, and it needs to be opposed before it’s next heard on 6/26. Letters and calls should be in ASAP. Today if possible.  After a district court ruled against SB9 for Charter Cities, the density dogs have been working on a work around.

RELATED: COURT THROWS OUT PRO-DENSITY LAW SB9

What is the Problem with SB 7? This is a housing bill that makes HCD stronger and RHNA worse. SB7 takes recommendations from a 176 page report — “California’s Housing Future 2040: The Next Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA)” — sent to legislators just two months ago, and hastily tries to get them passed into law in the next few weeks.

Through a sneaky process called “gut and amend,” new language has been put into SB 7 — which already passed the Senate in another form — and is now working its way through the Assembly.

No underlying problems of 6th cycle RHNA are addressed. This bill relies on unsubstantiated claims about the state’s housing crisis to justify usurping local control.

The 6th cycle RHNA is not even mid-way through, and all cities are failing its metrics. The solid reasons why are heavily documented — to the point that a housing element audit was recently authorized to examine the process.

The HCD is doing an end run around the audit and any flaws it might uncover; the new language of SB 7 bolsters their powers for 7th cycle RHNA, and they want it done now.

WHAT HCD GETS WITH SB 7:

  • An increase in authority, zero oversight, no transparency
  • Heavier hand against cities, bolstered by new punitive legislation
  • Further control over local zoning control
  • Eliminates the right to appeal RHNA mandates
  • Allows unchecked lobbyist influence
  • Continue to disregard infrastructure costs and other impacts to cities
  • Continue to disregard actual data, including population projections that show California’s numbers flat through 2060
  • Inclusion of open space in their calculation for how much new development a jurisdiction can absorb
  • No requirement to base policy on robust economic theory
  • No requirement to base RHNA mandates on legitimate population projections
  • RHNA allocations will continue to increase market rate housing
  • RHNA will require — but not advance — affordability.
  • Unelected bureaucrats will continue creating policy with no accountability

THIS IS HAPPENING FAST:
SB7 is being rushed through without due diligence.
This “gut and amend” bill bypassed normal deadlines, and showed up at the last minute. In the Senate it was an innocuous bill about group housing.

June 10th: Amended in Assembly
June 18th: Passed Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee
June 26th: Up for a vote in the Local Government committee

your message can be this simple: I OPPOSE SB 7.
Contact for direct representatives are below, they also need to hear from us.

First Last Email Phone
Chair, D Juan Carrillo juan.carrillo (916) 319-2039
V-Chair, R Marie Waldron marie.waldron (916) 319-2075
R Bill Essayli bill.essayli (916) 319-2063
D Matt Haney matt.haney (916) 319-2017
D Ash Kalra ash.kalra (916) 319-2025
D Blanca Pacheco blanca.pacheco (916) 319-2064
D James Ramos james.ramos (916) 319-2045
D Chris Ward assemblymember.Ward (916) 319-2078
D Lori Wilson lori.wilson (916) 319-2011
Chief Cons. Angela Mapp angela.mapp (916) 319-3958

SB 7 Sample Verville letter

Oppose SB 7 or download the editable doc file: Oppose SB 7
Recipients: juan.carrillo@asm.ca.gov, marie.waldron@asm.ca.gov, bill.essayli@asm.ca.gov, matt.haney@asm.ca.gov, ash.kalra@asm.ca.gov,  blanca.pacheco@asm.ca.gov, james.ramos@asm.ca.gov, assemblymember.Ward@assembly.ca.gov, lori.wilson@asm.ca.gov, angela.mapp@asm.ca.gov

CEQA, deregulated housing bills, Housing, Politics

OPINION: What the Judges and the LA Times Got Wrong About The Venice Median Project (and Why it Ain’t Over Till it’s Over)

Opinion By Charles Rosin : westsidecurrent – excerpt (includes audio)

VENICE – We seriously doubt whether the Op-Ed writers who penned last week’s editorial for the ideologically-driven LA Times praising Judge Richard Fruin’s dispiriting dismissal of our CEQA case have ever opted to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon in summer exploring what a recent poll in Travel and Leisure described as ‘America’s Favorite Beach.’

How else can you explain the Op-Ed writers’ description of our area’s last parcel of open space– a large, 2.65-acre, parking lot designed to accommodate carloads of working-class families from Inglewood, DTLA, and other land-locked enclaves who flock to Venice Beach to make memories and find relief from the swelter– as “one of those rare open swaths of land that city officials dream of using for homeless and affordable-housing”.

Really? That’s what these people dream about? No vicarious images of little kids at the shore with a shovel and pail? Or proud grandparents pushing strollers down Ocean Front Walk? Or couples unloading their canoe for a romantic paddle down the Linnie Canal?

It makes us wonder if any of these city officials ever wake up in the middle of the night from a recurring nightmare; tracking what could happen when you build a massive (and massively expensive) 140-unit “affordable” housing project, on an environmentally-fraught juncture on The Venice Median, one half-block from the beach, predicted by the EPA to be particularly vulnerable to sea-level rise?

And while dreaming, do the city officials who enabled this project ever get swamped by visions of coastal flooding impacting their newly constructed Venice-Dell Community? (Ironically, designed as a fortress to be cut off from its surrounding communities which would provide “shelter from the storm”). …

And since The Times insists affordable housing is “desperately needed” in our part of town, how about assigning one of the few real reporters left on its staff to delve into how 1200 units of taxpayer-funded projects can sit empty in a city that is ostensibly “all-hands-on-deck”, as first reported in a stunning bit of investigative journalism provided by Chris LeGras and Jamie Page for the Westside Current…

As with its previous editorials, what passes these days as the Times’s Braintrust opted to give Venice Community Housing’s Executive Director, Becky Dennison, free-reign expressing her frustration with City-Attorney Hydee Soto Feldstein’s decision to halt all work on the project by the city’s Department of Transportation and its Bureau of Engineering until the two law suits we filed on behalf of The Coalition for Safe Coastal Development had been resolved, or settled in mediation…

Mayor Bass does not deserve to be attacked, but praised for her tireless commitment to work with numerous City Council Members, to reduce encampments on our streets, parks, and public spaces while transitioning the willing into shelters and other arrangements.

We here at Safe Coastal also have great admiration for Mayor Bass’s role as a prime supporter of a new and improved replacement to the state’s soon-to-expire and problematic CEQA exemption. AB785, which the Governor signed into law in 2023, includes many of the exemptions housing advocates want, while excluding construction within a mapped FEMA 100-year flood zone. (**)…(more)

 

 

 

CEQA, deregulated housing bills, Politics

California Coastal Commission responds to report it worsens housing crisis: ‘Disgraceful’

By Jenavieve Hatch, themodesto : yahoo – excerpt

The California Coastal Commission Thursday said a soon-to-be-published report alleging it has worsened the affordable housing crisis has “profoundly dishonest and offensive” claims.

Circulate San Diego, a Southern California think thank, asserts in a study to be published Friday that the commission has worsened the affordable housing crisis, and “has made the coast the least accessible part of California.”

The findings were published in Thursday’s Bee, and later in the day, the commission fired back.

“This disgraceful excuse for a report intentionally distorts and misrepresents actions taken by the Coastal Commission,” said Coastal Commission Chair Caryl Hart in a statement to The Bee.

“It even goes so far as to say the commission is manipulating the law to promote racial segregation in the Coastal Zone, which is profoundly dishonest and offensive.”

The report, which The Bee has reviewed, cited research showing that the Coastal Zone is twice as white as the rest of California.

“The report is clearly a developer-backed hit piece masquerading as an academic endeavor,” said Hart…(more)

If this isn’t enough to get your blood boiling I don’t know what is. The State of California has declared war on the pacific Coast. What are we going to do about it? Ready to fight back against these accusations. Read the below article and see why the only way to deal with these lies is to support the ourneighborhoodvoices initiative, and replace the representatives in California who are selling our state.

RELATED:
Report accuses California Coastal Commission of adding to racially segregated housing…   A Southern California-based think tank, Circulate San Diego, published a report this Thursday morning that highlights the need for reform at the California Coastal Commission…(more)