CommentsAFFORDABLE HOUSING BATTLE--The California State Assembly will soon be voting on SB 35, and United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles (UN4LA) urges local representatives to reject it. While it's being sold as a way to cut through red tape and accelerate the creation of housing, this bill is poorly conceived and will do more harm than good. SB 35 would create a streamlined approval process for multi-family projects that include a certain number of affordable units. We need to build more housing, but we can't abandon planning in the process.
The bill's author, State Senator Scott Wiener, who represents the Bay Area, argues that many of California's cities have outdated and inadequate zoning codes that have held back housing construction. His point is valid, but speeding up approvals and limiting public input is not going to make things better. The City of Los Angeles has been using "expedited processing" to rush projects through for years. The results? Rapid gentrification, massive displacement, declining transit ridership, and overburdened infrastructure. The City has also used this process to trample on the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), producing environmental assessments with shoddy analyses of greenhouse gas emissions, inaccurate traffic studies, and no meaningful review of impacts to public services. But SB 35 goes even further, effectively sidelining CEQA for qualifying projects.
While short housing supply is a factor, UN4LA believes that the onslaught of speculative investment is the chief cause of spiraling housing costs. Developers have poured billions into new construction across California, including Los Angeles, and politicians have repeatedly ignored common sense planning practices in order to advance ill-conceived real estate projects. Has this brought any tangible benefits to those in need of affordable housing? No. Instead we see luxury units (many of them vacant) replacing rent stabilized apartments and an ongoing wave of evictions that has devastated our communities.
To see the problem with SB 35, we only have to look at another bill that was supposed to help solve our housing problems, SB 1818. This legislation was intended to increase the production of affordable housing by allowing density bonuses to projects that included a certain percentage of affordable units, usually 5 to 10 percent. Has it worked? No, it hasn't. The number of affordable units approved under SB 1818 has been negligible. There is no central listing of these units, and there is no on-site inspection and certification of these affordable units. But SB 1818 has smoothed the way for larger projects that have accelerated gentrification and encouraged displacement. Has it lowered rental costs? No. Has it slowed evictions? No. All SB 1818 did was help developers by making it easier to build bigger and reap higher profits through a discretionary process that the City of Los Angeles treats as an automatic administrative (ministerial) approval.
SB 35 may be well-intentioned, but this draconian attempt to rush approvals by limiting public input is also anti-democratic. By limiting the power of groups with legitimate concerns about poorly planned real estate projects, this bill disenfranchises entire communities, and clears the way for those investors whose only interest is maximizing profits. We can't solve this problem by ignoring proper planning. In fact, UN4LA insists that the only way to create a real solution to the housing crisis is by embracing proper planning. In order for development to provide real benefit for the community, it must be the result of a holistic planning process that engages the community.
There are those who will say that to oppose SB 35 is to oppose more affordable housing. Don't buy it. We can build affordable housing without preventing citizens from having a voice in how their community grows.
(Casey Maddren is President of United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles (www.un4la.com), a grass-roots group that believes in empowering communities to plan for their future. Questions and comments can be directed to: [email protected].) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
-CW
