Affordable Housing

New State Housing Supply Legislation on the Horizon: Déjà Vu All Over Again?

Published on: January 22, 2021 | By Margo Bradish, Scott Birkey and Amy Y. Foo

Despite a promising start, last year’s state legislative session was a relative bust for housing legislation as the Legislature justifiably focused on the pandemic in 2020. Although we expect the Legislature will continue to grapple with legislative relief measures to address COVID concerns, there is some potentially promising housing supply legislation on the horizon for the 2021-2022 session.

Below is a summary of recently introduced state housing supply legislation to watch this session. Perhaps not surprisingly, the theme for this year’s housing legislation seems to be, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Continue reading

Santa Clara County Trial Court Upholds Another Housing Project Using SB 35

Published on: May 11, 2020 | By Scott Birkey, Margo Bradish, Linda Klein and Eric J. Cohn

When Senate Bill 35 (SB 35) was enacted in September 2017, the streamlined ministerial approval process it created for eligible housing developments was optimistically viewed as a powerful tool for developers to create more housing, especially in NIMBY jurisdictions loath to approve additional residential development. Over the past two weeks, two decisions on SB 35—both decided by the Honorable Helen E. Williams of the Santa Clara County Superior Court—solidified just how powerful a tool SB 35 can be. Continue reading

Will California Ever Adopt Real Housing Reform?

Published on: March 27, 2018 | By Andrew Sabey

Californians could be forgiven for becoming cynical about our State Legislature’s willingness or ability to tackle the ever-worsening housing crisis. California’s rising home values, outpacing people’s ability to afford to buy or rent decent housing close to the job centers, is not a new phenomenon. But it has worsened. While our Legislature has repeatedly recognized that there is a housing crisis, nothing in the past legislative cycles has emerged that will actually stem the tide.

Could that be changing? In the current session, there are two bills sponsored by state senator Scott Wiener that are worth watching: SB 827 and SB 828. These two bills follow on Senator Wiener’s successful introduction of SB 35 last year. While SB 35 was intended to make certain types of urban infill housing “by-right,” Senator Wiener himself has recognized that SB 35 alone (with all of its qualifications and conditions) may not yield much in the way of new housing.

Inside CA Legislature’s Housing Package: HCD Releases SB 35 Eligibility Determination for Project Streamlining

Published on: February 20, 2018 | By Christian H. Cebrian, Margo Bradish and Ashley Weinstein-Carnes

On February 1, 2018, the California Department of Housing and Community Development (“HCD”) released its much anticipated determination regarding the local governments that are now subject to streamlined entitlements for housing development under Senate Bill 35. HCD’s methodology for this determination utilizes pro-rated Regional Housing Needs Allocation (“RHNA”) targets for the local governments that have not yet reached the statutory reporting period. Overall, the HCD release underscores the scope and scale of the housing shortage in California, and the opportunity for housing developers to benefit from a ministerial approval process for qualified housing projects.

Los Angeles City Council Passes “Linkage Fee” Ordinance

Published on: December 29, 2017 | By David Waite and Julia Stein

On December 13, 2017, the Los Angeles City Council passed and Mayor Eric Garcetti signed a “linkage fee” ordinance that has been in the works for over two years and is projected to bring more than $100 million in annual revenue to the City. The ordinance was published on December 18, 2017.

Inside CA Legislature’s Housing Package: The “Palmer Fix” Inclusionary Housing Legislation

Published on: November 2, 2017 | By Erin Phalon, Monica Briseño and Margo Bradish

On September 29^th, Governor Brown signed a long-anticipated package of 15 housing-related bills, as summarized in our prior post, “California Legislature Passes Historic Housing Legislation in Effort to Tackle State’s Housing Crisis” (9/22/17). Collectively, these bills constitute the legislature’s farthest reaching action in years to address California’s ongoing housing crisis. Though the bills are expected to make only a small dent in California’s annual shortage of new housing stock, they are, at the very least, a resounding acknowledgment that the state’s housing crisis requires action at the highest level. This post highlights AB 1505, also known as the “Palmer Fix”.

Inside CA Legislature’s Housing Package: Funding and Streamlined Approvals for Housing

Published on: October 5, 2017 | By Margo Bradish, Ofer Elitzur, Ashley Weinstein-Carnes and Stephanie Straka

On Friday, September 29^th, Governor Brown signed a long-anticipated package of 15 housing-related bills, as summarized in our prior post, “California Legislature Passes Historic Housing Legislation in Effort to Tackle State’s Housing Crisis” (9/22/17). Collectively, these bills constitute the legislature’s farthest reaching action in years to address California’s ongoing housing crisis. Though the bills are expected to make only a small dent in California’s annual shortage of new housing stock, they are, at the very least, a resounding acknowledgment that the state’s housing crisis requires action at the highest level. This post highlights the core bills: SB 35 (which provides a streamlined entitlement process for qualifying projects), and SB 2 and SB 3 (both of which are intended to provide much-needed funding for affordable housing).

California Legislature Passes Historic Housing Legislation in Effort to Tackle State’s Housing Crisis

Published on: September 22, 2017 | By Margo Bradish, Stephanie Straka and Ashley Weinstein-Carnes

In an eleventh hour push at the tail end of the 2017 legislative session last week, California legislators passed a bundle of bills targeted at calming the state’s unprecedented housing crisis. Taken together, the bills address a wide swath of issues affecting housing production and affordability, including: funding for subsidized housing development, requirements for entitlement and permit streamlining, and tools for local and state agencies to enforce local planning obligations. This extensive legislative effort to reform California housing policy stands in stark contrast to the logjam that has vexed Sacramento lawmakers for years, if not decades. While the bills still require the signature of Governor Brown by mid-October, here is a first look at the pending changes to state housing law, including links to each of the bills. Continue reading

Surprise! California Has a Housing Crisis!!!

Published on: January 18, 2017 | By Tim Paone

In its recent draft assessment of “California’s Housing Future,” the State’s Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) made these observations, among many others:

California needs 180,000 new homes each year.
Over the last ten years, annual production has averaged less than 80,000 homes.
Californians overpay for housing, commute too far, and are overcrowded.
The existing system of land use regulation creates barriers to development.
The housing crisis makes it difficult for California businesses to attract and retain employees.
A smaller percentage of Californians own their homes than at any time since the 1940s.
The housing shortage disproportionately impacts California’s younger residents and the economically and physically disadvantaged.
California is home to 12% of the nation’s population and 22% of the nation’s homeless.
Funding for affordable housing is unstable.
High housing costs increase health care costs and decrease educational outcomes.
California’s population will grow from today’s 39 million to 50 million by 2050.

While this report is candid and open, its findings mean little if California’s elected officials at every level do nothing meaningful to counter these growing and disturbing – but hardly surprising – realities. The Legislature cannot continue to avoid reconciling legitimate environmental concerns, the challenges of climate change, the need for greater housing affordability, and the increasing demand for housing of all types by avoiding true CEQA reform and adopting ever increasing restrictions on new housing development. Nor can it simply decree that more affordable housing be built, ignoring the reality that those who build homes will not do so unless it makes sound business sense. At the local level, residents understandably want to avoid traffic jams and overcrowding and would like to define their own visions of their communities. Those who own their homes are thrilled by the increases in home prices resulting from the housing shortage. But when every community says “We don’t oppose more housing, just do it somewhere else,” there ultimately is nowhere else in California to go. Combine these factors with environmental solutions that, intended or not, produce elitist housing outcomes, and we have a housing crisis which no one denies, but the most powerful forces in the state are seemingly helpless to address. The challenges are complex and there’s no easy answer, but looking the other way only increases the cost of housing, makes doing business in California less attractive, and sends our young adults elsewhere. That, for sure, is not an acceptable outcome.

Public comment on the HCD draft report is open through March 4. Click here for the full draft report or go directly to the HCD website.

This post was previously published by Tim Paone in LinkedIn.

Commercial Development: A City That Thinks Outside the (Parking) Box

Published on: January 9, 2017 | By Tim Paone

Do Parking Formulas Deprive Cities of Revenue Opportunities?

When a city planning department proposes a change in the city’s development standards to address a specific planning concern, it often is asked by its city council “What are other cities doing?” This question is particularly likely when the proposed change, on its face, suggests that local residents might be inconvenienced. But in the face of increasing economic challenges, some California city councils are willing to pioneer creative planning approaches to stimulate economic activity in their cities, rather than let that activity land elsewhere.

One example is the adoption in late 2016 by the Lancaster City Council of an ordinance which eliminates specific off-street parking requirements (e.g., the number of spaces which must be provided based upon the square footage of the proposed development) for development in commercial zones. Instead of the arbitrary “one size fits all” approach for particular uses, Lancaster’s ordinance requires developers with projects in commercial zones to demonstrate that they are providing adequate parking for their proposed use without being tied to a formula which may or may not be a good measure of the demands of that use. One of the stated purposes of the ordinance is to maximize the City’s economic return from commercial development. In its report on the ordinance to the City Council, Lancaster’s planning staff expressed its belief that “the City’s minimum parking requirements were rooted primarily in a perception of convenience, and not in economic return.” The staff report recommending approval of the ordinance recognized that removing the “regulatory barrier” of formulaic minimum parking requirements in favor of requirements based on actual demand would give developers “the ability to maximize land use potential and value generation, with resulting long-term benefits to the City.” In other words, common sense planning can be a win-win.

From the perspective of the commercial developer, the adoption of Lancaster’s flexible approach to parking requirements is both enlightened and welcome. Most significantly, it reflects an acknowledgement of the many unintended consequences of the typical cookie-cutter approach to parking requirements. Perhaps most impressive is the recognition that rigid parking requirements dictate the design of buildings in ways that, ultimately, may contribute to vacancy and lost economic productivity for the city. Rather than an abstract, formulaic, or “this is how we’ve always done it” approach to planning, Lancaster’s approach reflects the uncommon understanding that what makes a project work for the developer also is likely to be what makes the project work for the city.

The City of Lancaster is located in northern Los Angeles County, relatively far from the hustle and bustle of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. While the remote location of Lancaster undoubtedly influenced its desire to take steps to enhance economic activity within its community, the logic of its new parking ordinance makes sense for any city competing for new economic activity. Beyond parking, this approach could open the door to merging planning and economic development considerations in other types of development. For example, the affordability of nearby housing for employees is a factor which impacts the decisions of businesses to locate within a particular community. For retail development in particular, more houses also means more customers which, in turn, generates greater economic activity for the city. Perhaps one day, California communities will see the wisdom of easing development standards and other regulations for housing to facilitate the production of desirable and affordable residential communities that will benefit home purchasers, tenants, the broader community, and even the city’s coffers. Stay tuned.