Cities are scrambling to comply or fight the state’s basic housing law

from Ben ChristopherCalMatters

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It’s a critical time for local governments in California hoping to have a say in where and how large apartment buildings are packed near major transit stops.

Last fall, State lawmakers made it legal for developers to build mid-rise buildings — some as high as nine stories — in major metro neighborhoods near trains, subways and certain dedicated bus stops.

But the final version of Senate Bill 79which goes into effect July 1, has offered local governments plenty of leeway over where, when and how to pass the new law.

With the summer deadline fast approaching, cities across the state are starting to falter.

Like a statewide game of Choose Your Own Adventure, local elected officials from the San Francisco Bay Area to Los Angeles to San Diego are exploring ways to either lean on the spirit of the law, come up with their own plan tailored to the city’s whims and needs, or delay the local rollout as long as possible while considering their options. Those who do nothing will be forced to accept the transit-oriented rezoning mandated by state lawmakers.

Los Angeles opted for a maximum delay strategy last month when the City Council voted to revise part of its zoning map in order to buy a few more years of planning time.

The move takes advantage of a set of escape clauses written into state law: Transit-adjacent zones that already allow at least half the housing required under SB 79 can delay changing the rules until one year after the next state planning period.

For Los Angeles and much of Southern California, it is 2030.

Similarly, many lower-income neighborhoods, those at risk from wildfires and sea-level rise, or sites listed on the Historic Preservation Register are also eligible for this temporary delay.

The Los Angeles City Council hit every pause button it could.

Along with a temporary exemption from zoning changes in poorer neighborhoods, known fire zones and historic districts, the council voted preemptively to allow modest three- or four-story multiplex buildings in dozens of higher-income neighborhoods currently limited to single-family homes. That would put those areas above the limit needed for the four-year deferral, according to city planning officials.

Absorbing a little more allowable density in the short term, the city has managed to push back a lot more — for now. Supporters of the measure said it would give the city more time to come up with a better alternative that still complies with the law.

The vote “adds meaningful housing capacity now and gives us time to decide where the rest of the density should go in our own communities,” said Council Member Katie Yaroslavsky before the vote.

When 2030 rolls around, the city will either have to come up with its own plan that meets the general density requirements of state law — but with some allowable flexibility about where all the potential growth goes — or belatedly adopt SB 79 whole cloth.

The vote in Los Angeles came as a disappointment to many development advocates, who had urged city officials to quickly adopt state-mandated densification immediately or, barring it, take more aggressive steps in the meantime.

“We’re quite concerned that this isn’t actually going to lead to housing,” said Scott Epstein, director of policy and research at Abundant Housing Los Angeles, a Yes in My Backyard advocacy group.

He noted that smaller apartment buildings are less likely to be financially feasible in areas where land costs are extremely high. The city ordinance achieves an increase in allowable density by allowing modest residential buildings in relatively affluent neighborhoods.

But even some of the staunchest defenders of the state laws see a silver lining in the city’s delay tactics.

“On the one hand, it’s disappointing because we’re delaying the full potential of the law,” said Aaron Eckhaus, director of local political programs for California YIMBY, one of the sponsors of SB 79. But in Los Angeles, he noted, city officials have long fiercely resistant to proposed zoning changes in neighborhoods dominated by single-family homes.

Now L.A. council members are effectively saying, “OK, we’re going to do this on our terms, not on the state’s terms,” Eckhaus said. “But it’s still happening because the state is forcing the issue.”

How can cities go their own way?

The approach in Los Angeles mirrors that pursued by officials in San Francisco. There, officials are considering a policy to exempt industrial zones and many of the city’s low-resource neighborhoods, while preemptively increasing the allowable density in certain low-rise locations to exceed the 50 percent threshold and meet the 2032 deferral requirements.

But unlike Los Angeles, San Francisco doesn’t plan to spend years coming up with a local, bespoke alternative. Instead, the city is proposing to launch its own version before July 1. That task was a little easier given that local officials had just completed a citywide densification effort last year as part of Mayor Daniel Lurie’s initiative “Family structure plan.”

Current proposal is scheduled to be heard by a Board of Supervisors subcommittee later this month.

For cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco that decide to come up with their own local plans, they will still need to get the approval of state housing regulators. California Department of Housing officials have yet to publicly comment on each city’s plans. But their boss has. In a handful of social media posts, Gov. Gavin Newsom lashed out Los Angeles and San Diego for their proposed efforts to protect certain parts of their city from the demands of the law. Newsom is not suggesting that either city is violating the law itself.

Some cities may simply decide not to bother. Sacramento, for example, will soon consider an ordinance that would make modest changes to how it accepts development applications subject to state law, but otherwise leaves state-mandated zoning rules are intact.

Other municipalities, with smaller budgets and fewer professional planners on staff, may have little choice but to accept the state law’s requirements, said Jason Rhine, a lobbyist with the League of California Cities, which opposed the bill as it made its way through the Legislature.

Rein said some cities are still struggling to understand the basics of the statute, such as how it applies to future transit infrastructure or as the law determines distance from a public transport stop.

“If you’re a planner trying to come up with an alternative plan that’s allowed by (the law), you don’t have the information to even get started,” Raine said. He said he is urging state lawmakers to consider extending the July 1 deadline. No one has taken him up on the idea yet.

“urgent matter”

In Oakland, the decision on whether to delay or accept the state’s redistricting played out at the neighborhood level.

Last month, city planning officials proposed an ordinance that would take the full range of possible delays to buy time and develop an alternative plan. This, city staff stressed, is not about opposing the state law’s goals, but about a preference among local planners to revise the city’s plan comprehensively and all at once, rather than summarily.

“There is no dispute about the outcome,” Oakland Planning Director William Gilchrist told the council. “I think it really comes down to when and how.”

However, three city council members objected, arguing in effect that they would like state government in their districts now, thank you very much.

Zach Unger, who represents some of the city’s more affluent neighborhoods in North Oakland, argued that lots that have already reached the 50 percent density threshold should not be exempt in his district, especially because most of them are along busy commercial corridors.

Change is coming one way or another, he told the council. “I’m suggesting, in a sense, that we deal with that reality right now instead of spending a year giving people the false idea that we can somehow get rid of state law.”

Two other members — Charlene Wang and Ken Houston — who represent some of the low-resource, delay-eligible neighborhoods, also wanted to pass the law in their districts now. “In an urban area like Oakland, we should be far exceeding the density minimums in (state law),” Wang said.

In a subsequent interview, Unger noted that the debate in Oakland may be more symbolic than in other cities. Coincidentally, city planners have been working for years to overhaul the city’s zoning map, which they aim to complete next year. In other words, Oakland will likely have an alternative plan that meets state law requirements by 2027.

“If we implement SB 79 on July 1 of this year instead of July 1 of next year, there will be no buildings blown off the street,” he said. “It’s just a matter of urgency — and a statement of values.”

Besides those cities racing to adopt the state law and those seeking delays or their own versions, there’s another possible category: Those resisting the law outright.

After California legislators passed into law in 2021 allowing homeowners to divide their properties into up to four separate units, with density-averse cities pushed out. Some took state to courtothers explored adoption of municipal statutesone flirted with the idea of ​​becoming a mountain lion sanctuary. None of the measures ultimately succeeded.

If SB 79 is met with a similar string of opposition, it’s unlikely we’ll see it before the July 1 deadline, Eckhaus told California YIMBY.

“The reason to do something now is to either lean on it or use the flexibility and deferral provisions of the law,” he said. “But if they just want to stand at the door and say no, we may not know about it until the zoning standards go into effect.”

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