CEQA, Housing, Transportation

New State Amendment Announced

Californians for Community Planning Initiative
New site: https://www.communitiesforchoice.org/
A ballot measure to STOP Sacramento Centralized zoning like SB9, SB10 and AB1401.  By Californians, for Californians is

Actively looking for donors, supporters and volunteers.
Read all about it. https://www.communitiesforchoice.org/

The Community Choice Initiative will amend the State Constitution to make zoning and land-use municipal affairs, and bring a halt to the centralized land-use and zoning coming out of Sacramento. One size does not fit all.

We are working hard to appear on the Nov. 7th, 2022 ballot by submitting the initiative to the State Attorney General for title and summary, and gathering the required signatures from registered voters to appear on the ballot. This is a grassroots effort by regular residents like yourself to make this happen and we need your help…(more)

Summary Text

 

Housing

Forget the suburbs, the ‘exurbs’ are the place…

By Ben Winck :  insider – excerpt

After years of being overshadowed by city centers and chic suburbs, “exurbs” are winning over Americans. Think, less suburb, more rural; fewer sidewalks, more country roads; fewer mega malls, more strip malls.

These areas — characterized by more affordable housing and greater distance from cities — emerged as the districts du jour for well-to-do Americans during the Great Migration of the pandemic. The biggest population shift was from urban areas to rural neighborhoods and exurbs, Jefferies analysts said in a note citing USPS mail-forwarding data. Areas like Kenosha County, Wisconsin, likely benefited from people leaving Milwaukee and Chicago, which sit 40 and 66 miles away, respectively. Similarly, Sussex County, New Jersey, is an exurb 55 miles from New York City…

The jump in exurb occupancy likely boosted wealth in these once-ignored areas. Median household income in exurbs stood at $74,573 in 2019, according to data from The American Communities Project cited by The Wall Street Journal. By comparison, the median income in the New York metro area was more than $83,000 and the measure neared $115,000 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The last year’s moves by city-dwelling Americans likely helped close that gap…(more)

Housing

Wiener supports giant project pushed through with no neighborhood input

By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt

I went to State Sen. Scott Wiener’s virtual town hall tonight, and nothing he said should have surprised me. But for the record, he said that the “best thing that’s happened” in San Francisco and California politics is the rise of the Yimbys.

He also expressed strong support for a giant project in Potrero Hill that is a case study in what can happen under state legislation he sponsored.

Wiener encouraged everyone attending (and because of the way his office controlled the Zoom room, I was unable to count the people online) to join a state or local Yimby group.

“I encourage you to get involved in the Yimby movement,” he said.

And he kept saying that cities like San Francisco and areas like West Los Angeles “haven’t built enough housing.”

For the record: Cities right now don’t build housing. Developers do… (more)

Not surprising that people want to recall Wiener.

 

Housing

SB 9 & 10 Polling: California Voters Strongly Oppose 2 Housing Bills

By Housing is a Human Right : yahoo – excerpt

In poll by David Binder Research, both bills start with strong opposition: 63% oppose SB 9 and 67% oppose SB 10, with opposition increasing to 71% for SB 9 and 75% for SB 10 after messages and endorsers

And—as Governor Newsom faces a recall election September 14th—pluralities of 46% polled say they would view the governor less favorably if he supported either of these bills.

LOS ANGELES, August 09, 2021–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Polling commissioned by Housing Is A Human Right (HHR), the housing advocacy division of AHF, on two real estate development bills now making their way through the California Legislature, suggests overwhelming voter sentiment against both bills. The poll also found that a plurality of 46% surveyed would view Governor Gavin Newsom—who faces a recall election September 14th—less favorably if he supported or signed either bill.

The two bills, California Senate Bill 9 and California Senate Bill 10, are ostensibly intended to ease the state’s housing crisis but in fact are extremely harmful. Many housing justice advocates, city governments and homeowners’ associations oppose both pieces of legislation, noting that the bills don’t provide affordable housing and homeless housing requirements, will fuel gentrification, and will take away the ability of communities of color and working-class residents to build wealth through homeownership. Instead, it is yet another multi-billion-dollar giveaway to deep-pocketed real estate interests.…(more)

Uncategorized

A Drought So Dire That a Utah Town Pulled the Plug on Growth

By Jack Healy and Sophie Kasakove : nytimes – excerpt

Groundwater and streams vital to both farmers and cities are drying up in the West, challenging the future of development.

OAKLEY, Utah — The mountain spring that pioneers used to water their hayfields and now fills people’s taps flowed reliably into the old cowboy town of Oakley for decades. So when it dwindled to a trickle in this year’s scorching drought, officials took drastic action to preserve their water: They stopped building.

During the coronavirus pandemic, the real estate market in their 1,750-person city boomed as remote workers flocked in from the West Coast and second homeowners staked weekend ranches. But those newcomers need water — water that is vanishing as a megadrought dries up reservoirs and rivers across the West.

So this spring, Oakley, about an hour’s drive east of Salt Lake City, imposed a construction moratorium on new homes that would connect to the town’s water system. It is one of the first towns in the United States to purposely stall growth for want of water in a new era of megadroughts. But it could be a harbinger of things to come in a hotter, drier West.

“Why are we building houses if we don’t have enough water?” said Wade Woolstenhulme, the mayor, who in addition to raising horses and judging rodeos has spent the past few weeks defending the building moratorium. “The right thing to do to protect people who are already here is to restrict people coming in.”… (more)

 

Housing

Op-Ed: The absolute wrong way to solve California’s affordable housing crisis

Opinion By Christian Horvath,  Olivia Valentine, Drew Boyles : latimes – excerpt

In recent years, a group of California lawmakers has been pushing for legislation to override locally approved zoning rules and permit denser development in residential neighborhoods. At the moment, a bill is rushing toward passage in the state Legislature that would dramatically and undemocratically rewrite land-use rules in California.

The bill is SB 9, written by Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego). If approved, it would effectively eliminate single-family zoning in wide swaths of California’s cities. Under its provisions, the owners of parcels currently zoned for single-family use would be allowed by right (subject to very limited environmental and other exceptions) to split their lots in two — and then to have up to two residential units on each lot.

In other words, a parcel currently zoned for only one family could soon have four families squeezed together.

These changes in the rules would be imposed on local governments but would not provide true solutions to the state’s affordable housing crisis. That’s why a bipartisan group of 120 locally elected officials from 48 cities across the state — including not just wealthy communities but also low- and middle-income communities — have signed on to this article, agreeing that adding density to neighborhoods in such a broad and haphazard manner lowers quality of life for all communities…(more)

Housing, water

More housing and more drought calls for more thought

By Rick Johnson, Special to CalMatters : calmatters – excerpt

Legislators promoting high-density housing need to meet up with state and local water agencies to hammer out realistic approaches to our changing reality.

Although 41 of California’s 58 counties are in drought conditions, legislators are debating bills, such as Senate Bill 9 and Senate Bill 10, that address the construction of housing to meet the state’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation.

Between 2023 and 2031, the state mandate for the nine-county Bay Area is 441,000 units, representing an expected population increase of 1,102,500. The allocation for Los Angeles County is 1,327,000 housing units to accommodate an expected population increase of 3,317,500.

The state’s propensity to accept the RHNA numbers ignores our drought conditions. Nowhere does the legislation indicate where the additional water for these units will come from, nor does it address impact on infrastructure, such as sewer lines.

Furthermore, none of these bills make mention of the California Department of Water Resources water plan through 2050.

The current version of the plan forecasts an increase of 10 million people by 2050. It also predicts multiple droughts and considers a triad of ways to deal with the state’s water needs.

First, the plan suggests the transfer of agricultural water to urban use. But what effect would that have on farm economy, food supply and prices? A good deal of agricultural land already is lying fallow due to decreased or suspended water allotments…(more)

 

Uncategorized

State legislators write more anti-single family housing bills and add more threats and punishments for non-compliance

New documents that describe the growing number of threats the state is using to override the constitutional jurisdiction of local government. Share them with your city and county councils.

Forward the docs below to your City Council or neighborhood association. Use public open time during a CC meeting to distribute and talk about your concerns re: top-down mandates.  Write about them in a Letter to the Editor of your local paper. Circulate them along with the video of the RHNA Town Hall.

3a 1 RHNA Appeals

3a 2 Consequences of Non-Compliance with Housing Laws 

CEQA, Housing

The West’s Water Restriction Nightmare Is Just Beginning

By Dharma Noor : applenews – excerpt

Oakley, Utah placed a moratorium on any new construction projects that would tap into the city’s water system.

A small city in Utah is taking an unprecedented step to adapt to megadrought conditions in the West: halting any new construction projects that would tap into the local water. It’s the first municipal ordinance of its kind.

Last month, officials from Oakley, Utah—a city of 1,500—finalized a moratorium on new development extending through November. The ordinance prohibits the “erection, construction, re-construction or alteration of any structure” that needs new water connections.

“The city is concerned that the current drought conditions will result in critical water shortages and require further drastic curtailment measures that would be detrimental to the entire city and cause significant public harm,” it says…

Oakley is hardly alone, though. The West’s water resources have come under increasing pressure from rising temperatures tied to the climate crisis…(more)