The new Housing Act may cause projects to cost more

From And WaltersCalmness

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

Two months ago, governor Gavin Newo and legislators on both sides celebrated Adoption of remarkable legislation To remove the Environmental Quality Act in California as an obstacle to new housing construction.

Omitted votes in the legislature for Assembly Bill 130 And the immediate signature of Newsom at first glance ended the decades of debate about how the Environment Act signed by the then government. Ronald Reagan more than 50 years ago has been used to delay or kill residential developments.

“Saying no” to the dwellings in my community will no longer be sanctioned by the state, “said A dispute by Assembly Buffy WicksDemocrat from Oakland, which has long been advocated for CEQA reform. “This will not solve all our residential problems in the state, but it will eliminate the largest obstacle to the construction of environmentally friendly housing.”

Newsom was enjoying the obvious pleasure of achieving what escaped from other governors, including the predecessor Jerry Brown, who once described a major overhaul of Seca as the “Lord’s Work”.

As the Newsom signed the measure in the law, he thanked the legislators and leaders of housing, labor and the environment, “who listened to my appeal and gathered around a common goal – to build more homes more quickly and to create strong, accessible paths for each California.

“Today’s Bill is a change of the game that will be felt for the next generations,” he said.

While the AB130 removes CEQA as a weapon for unions and opponents of high -density projects, there is a provision buried in a long bill that can create a new obstacle.

Two sections, 137 pages, declare that if a residential project has a “significant impact on transport”, local authorities or regional agencies may impose fees for “mitigating the impact of transport to less than a significant level, helping to fund or otherwise facilitate kilometers of vehicles traveling with affordable dwellings.

The so -called kilometers of vehicles or VMT fees are “new home taxes simply cannot afford”, the California Construction Industry Association has complained publicly, adding that the fees are impact are Already the main factors in housing costs.

Local traffic impact fees are not new. Actually a dispute over a trafficking mitigation fee of $ 23,420 imposed nine years ago for a Factory -built house in El Dorado County It is still in anticipation after going all the way to the US Supreme Court.

However, it seems that the AB 130 is expanding the potential use of these fees not only for the improvements to the lane, but also to the payment of low -income residential projects throughout the country, contributing to the state fund for the implementation of transit development.

The preparation of the CEQA language of the AB 130 was a complex process involving numerous stakeholders, not only home advocates, but also environmental groups that often hire CEQA to delay or kill large public and private developments that have used the threat of the CEQs for for reciprocity. The last issue was the main suspension, which required changes in the last minute to the measure.

The language for traffic fees has never been mentioned in the analysis of the bill, nor in the debate preceding the legislative passage. This is another example of how such Budget trailers are used by governors and legislators to adopt basic legislation on cunningWith little or no public broadcast of problems.

Trailer accounts often contain a language that has little or nothing to do with the budget and is often distributed only hours before application. Under the guise to be connected to the budget, the bills can be adopted by simple voices of the majority, to come into force immediately after the governor is signed and cannot be taken to voters by referendum.

These factors make accounts for trailers convenient vehicles for legislation that may not survive careful control. NEWSOM is especially ready to use them for its legislative priorities.

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