California Democrats are divided over public housing mandates

from Nadia LathanCalMatters

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Just months after lawmakers passed major reforms to speed up housing and apartment construction, a new proposal seeks to force even more cities to allow housing near major transit hubs. That has reignited divisions among Democratic lawmakers, who worry about the state telling cities how and where to build.

The Democratic senator from San Francisco Scott Wieneris Senate Bill 677 seeks to close a loophole that the bill’s supporters say some cities are using to get out of last year’s reforms designed to allow more apartments will be built near major bus and train stations.

A small group of Democrats who opposed last year’s law refused to support Wiener’s new bill aimed at forcing cities to comply with new transit-related building requirements. The bill expands the definition of passenger rail. It passed and passed the Assembly despite their objections.

The pocket of Democratic resistance contrasts with the Democratic-controlled Legislature’s appetite for sweeping housing reform, which it embraced last year. Last summer, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law that repealed long-standing environmental protections allowing many developments to bypass environmental reviews, which can lead to long delays and costly litigation.

Lawmakers last year also passed transit-oriented housing reforms, but some cities like Solano Beach are trying to get around the new requirements by saying they don’t have a major transit station, despite critics saying they do. Wiener’s bill seeks to expand the definition of what counts as a transit station and close the loophole.

That didn’t sit well with some Democrats in the Senate.

Last week, seven of them joined Republicans to oppose Weiner’s proposal, including Katherine Blakespear and Lola Smallud-Cuevasfrom Los Angeles. The two voted no in a rare and strong show of public opposition to a fellow Democrat’s bill.

“I come from local government and it’s hard for me to support this,” Blakespear said in an interview. She represents the beach town of Encinitas in San Diego County, where she served as mayor.

Local officials worry that building more apartments around transit hubs could change the character of their communities with the potential for more traffic and less parking, she said.

“A community like Solano Beach is a low-density community with residents who chose it for that reason,” Blakespear said, referring to a city in her district that opposed the legislation.

Los Angeles and suburban cities in San Diego County said the new requirements for transit-oriented buildings are vague and confusing and need clarity on which cities apply.

“We’re just concerned that changing the definition could be expanding where SB 79 applies,” League of California Cities lobbyist Brady Guertin told the January committee hearingreferring to the bill Newsom signed last year.

Wiener, who also authored last year’s bill, said he plans to introduce more follow-up legislation to decide how cities should implement the sweeping statute, which would affect parts of Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco counties.

Wiener’s office did not return CalMatters’ interview requests.

Reversing typical voting patterns

Blakespear’s decision to vote “no” contradicts her normal voting behavior.

Her votes historically matched the pro-housing group California YIMBY on bills 96 percent of the time from 2023 to 2025, according to the CalMatters Digital Democracy database.

California YIMBY is one of the bill’s sponsors, and the city of Encinitas, which was previously sued by the state for flouting state housing laws, opposes it. Many residents still attribute the city’s biggest problems, such as homelessness, to Blakespear’s tenure as mayor more than four years ago.

and, like most DemocratsBlakespear almost never voted against bills pushed by supermajorities in the legislature.

Out of 2,161 opportunities last year, Blakespear voted no just 14 times – less than 1% of the time.

Smallwood-Cuevas also did not support last year’s transit-focused housing bill. Smallwood-Cuevas also did not support last year’s transit-focused housing bill. She represents Los Angeles, where Mayor Karen Bass has expressed concern about the state’s dictatorship of housing policy.

“We must streamline housing for all Angelenos. But we must do so in a way that does not undermine local control,” Bass said in a letter urging Newsom to veto last year’s measure.

A spokesman for Smallwood-Cuevas said she was not available for an interview.

Five Democratic senators also refused to vote on Weiner’s latest housing measure last week. Abstentions count the same as a “no” vote and are a tactic lawmakers regularly use to avoid the wrath of colleagues or powerful lobby groups.

The tension over this latest proposal comes as lawmakers continue to debate measures this year to address the state’s housing crisis.

Democrats have already introduced a bill to a A $10 billion affordable housing bond measure they want to be included in the November elections.

Meanwhile, another housing bill faced even stronger opposition from Democrats. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee raised a a proposal to limit rent increases last month amid opposition from landlord groups and lawmakers who were wary of meddling in the rental market.

Digital Democracy’s Foaad Khosmood, Forbes Professor of Computer Engineering at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, contributed to this story.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.