NEWSOM chooses more homes over CEQA in support of Yimby’s plans

From Ben ChristopherCalmness

This story was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

The efforts of two MPs in the Bay area to release most urban housing developments from the most important regulation of the environment of the state -an idea that attracted some of the most powerful groups of interests of the state in A A Legislative debate – I just received valuable approval from governor Gavin Newo.

As he announced his Updated budget proposal In the next fiscal year, the governor called on the legislature to accept two housing bills and thanked his democratic authors, the member of the Assembly Akland Buffy Wicks and San Francisco Wiener Senator.

“It’s time to take this question seriously, a period, a full stop,” Newsom said this morning. “If you care about your children, you are interested in this. This is the biggest opportunity to make something big and bold and the only obstacle is us.”

Streets Assembly Bill 609 would release most of the “filling” of residential developments, projects built in or to existing developments, from review by California Environmental Law. This 55-year statute requires governments to study the environmental impact of all decisions they make, including the approval of the new home. Any person or organization – unions of construction workers, environmental defenders or neighborhood groups to name several – can challenge the validity of these studies, delaying approval.

Critics of the law claim that he is regularly abused for reasons that are not the surrounding reasons for slowing up urban housing projects, which are inherently better for the environment than the development of distribution. Defenders of the law say such lawsuits are relatively rarelyS

Wiener’s Senate Bill 607 is a high technical bag for picking up. Among other things, it would facilitate state and local authorities to approve projects – housing and otherwise – without conducting full, prolonged review and to release certain changes in zoning for projects for filling from CEQA in its entirety.

Newsom said it would include a language that reflects these policy objectives in the upcoming budget accounts.

“These bills are critical reform suggestions and I applaud the Newsom governor for their inclusion in his proposed budget,” Wiener said in a statement. “By clearing outdated procedural obstacles, we can deal with the outrageous costs of California’s life, grow California’s economy and help the government solve the most common problems for our country.”

The Governor also publishes proposed legislative language This would channel some environmental impact fees collected from development projects to build new homes at affordable prices near public transit stops. This mirrors Another bill Author of Wicks.

This proposed legislation will also give the California coastal committee, and frequent goal of the development legislation, deadline for response to proposals for the project.

This is not the first time the governor has loaded the legal environmental law. Two times For so many years, the administration has called for the legislature to deal with the law to facilitate the construction of infrastructure projects and to expand the capacity of the renewable energy of the state.

The legislature has not always listened to the prospect of a comprehensive “reform of CEQA”, a goal regularly advertised by the governors of California and resists ecological groups and many alliances, remains elusiveS

These more legislative efforts were “weak sauce” and “piddlywinks”, these bills are a much more significant change in the policy of housing and environmental policies, said Chris Elmendorf, Professor of Law of UK Davis and a frequent public critic of CEQA.

“The fact that the governor is ready not to speak only in general positions, not just to have Ezra Klein in his podcastBut to support specific bills and even go beyond their approval by binding them to his budget and putting pressure on the legislature, I think it is a very big development that we have not seen before from this governor, “he said.

His nod to these two bills comes at a politically important moment. Wix’s bill has sailed through the meeting so far with obvious support of the speaker Robert Rivas. Wiener’s bill has penetrated a committee, but only over Objections to the President of this CommitteeS
Both legislative leaders have promised to prioritize the legislation it encourages.accessibilityS “Rivas, closely union with the movement” yes in my backyard, “publicly approved a set of bills aimed at reducing the provisions and accelerating approvals for new housing. public fractures over housing policyis more unochised to articulate The specifics of his home programS

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.