Politics

Senate Bill 79 – Another Housing Rip-off from the California State Senate

By Dick Platkin : citywatchla – excerpt

PLANNING WATCH – Are your lying eyes still deceiving you? Do you see vacancy signs on unrented apartments and houses in your neighborhood, yet you are repeatedly told that Los Angeles has so much homelessness and overcrowding because of a housing shortage? No, your eyes are not deceiving you; those vacancy signs are for real, and the claims of a general housing shortage are fabricated. They are a ruse because the homeless and overcrowded do not have enough money to rent or buy vacant apartments or houses. Furthermore, once the Trump II tariffs take effect, the national and local housing crises will get even worse.

These deliberate deceptions about the worsening housing crises are on full display in Sacramento, in the state Legislature. The latest draft housing bill, Senate Bill 79, is another Senator Scott Wiener scheme to deregulate California’s housing market. If adopted, Senate Bill 79 would:

  • Permit developers to build seven (7) story tall apartment buildings up to a half-mile from high-frequency bus stops, train stations, and ferry terminals.
  • Transfer land use authority from cities and counties to transit agencies.
  • Allow ministerial (not discretionary) approval of all SB79 projects. In other words, SB 79 projects will not have any public hearings or approval votes by local officials.
  • Prosecute cities that deny a SB 79 project based on CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act
  • NOT apply CEQA to SB 79 projects, regardless of their environmental impacts, as long as the underlying parcel is owned by a transit agency.
  • NOT fund infrastructure improvements to serve the new apartments and residents it allows.

The author of Senate Bill 79 is Senator Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat who is supported by Big Real Estate and is a darling of California YIMBY (Yes in My Backyard) Movement. Wiener’s SB 79 bill pretends to be a grass-roots housing bill, even though the real estate and high tech industries pay the bills and reap the benefits from inflated prices for new market housing…

So, when you wonder why the homeless and overcrowding crises continue to get worse despite so much effort that claims to reduce them, this is the answer…(more)