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SB610 - The State Legislature is considering a bill that would make it easier for developers to build housing in high fire danger zones. If Senate Bill 610 passes, expect to see a lot more scenes like this throughout California in the coming decades.
NOTE: As of August 15, 2024, SB 610 was suspended in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, meaning it will not proceed in this legislative session. However, the facts and background remain highly relevant. There is an excellent chance the bill will be resurrected next year.
YIMBY Tech Bro #1 Scott Wiener, the state senator from San Francisco, has at long last revealed his true colors. In front of the cameras Wiener poses as a woke progressive Democrat. In reality, he’s a Reagan Republican, the biggest proponent of trickle-down economics since the Gipper himself (for that matter, even Reagan would likely stare open-mouthed at Wiener’s audacity). He’s not a public servant, he’s an indentured servant to California’s monied elite. Thanks to his efforts and those of his YIMBY allies in Sacramento, California’s neighborhoods are now available to the highest bidders. “YIMBY,” which stands for “yes in my back yard,” is a national movement with scores of local branches that is deeply funded by big real estate, big tech, and big finance. Its goal is to pry open California’s neighborhoods to real estate speculators and financiers. Specifically, the movement seeks to eliminate single family homes, suburbs, and car-dependent cities, (claiming they want to) replace them with dense, transit-oriented urban cores. If they get their way. 330 million Americans will live in small apartments and commute via bus and bicycle in “15 minute cities.”
The YIMBYs preach sustainability, affordability, and equity. Those are the cover stories on the laudable issues they’ve hijacked. In reality, the interests who fund individual YIMBY organizations (more on that below) recognize the absolutely ungodly money there is to be made in the creation of these dense new Utopias. Mega-developers, architecture firms, and consultancies see a new Gold Rush in building millions of new units and the infrastructure to support them. Tech companies see 330 million captive customers dependent on drone deliveries and in-home streaming entertainment. Wall Street and Sand Hill Road see absurd returns on investment. Investing a collective few billion in useful idiot front groups and pliable politicians is a pittance compared to these rewards. And investing they have been.
So far, Wiener has gotten away with his ruse largely because identity obsessed California progressives cannot fathom that a gay man who attends the Folsom Street Festival is not one of them. After all, back in 2015 he literally slammed the door in the face of a Fox News reporter who had the temerity to ask him about the murder of Kathryn Steinke.
In reality, when he’s not bedecked in leather gear or metaphorically defenestrating unfriendly reporters, he’s enabling the selling off of California one neighborhood at a time, particularly lower income communities that thanks to his efforts are directly in mega-developers’ crosshairs. As others have observed, if they were honest, Wiener and the YIMBYs would call themselves WIMBYs, for Wall Street in my back yard. Because that’s who they’ve invited to dinner on your block.
Indeed, now that they’re embedded in the hide of the body politic, like Wiener himself, the YIMBYs as a movement recently started dropping the facade. They have launched an AI assisted initiative called YIMBY+ to assist real estate speculators. For example, the New York YIMBY website declares, “With YIMBY+, you can navigate the real estate landscape in the New York metro area like never before. YIMBY+ combines the rich dataset of New York YIMBY with Rebar Radar’s advanced digital twin technology stack, offering an immersive 3D experience and a wealth of real-time information at your fingertips. Experience a unique set of comprehensive data layers exclusive to YIMBY’s extensive knowledge base. YIMBY+ provides constantly updating, highly detailed information on everything from construction updates to permit statuses, and much more.”
The YIMBY+ “Enterprise” package starts at $2,000 a year. Any questions? Anyone still believe the YIMBYs give a fraction of a flip about housing affordability and struggling working Americans? No — the YIMBYs are about the almighty dollar. They are rapacious capitalists perversely masquerading as crusading social reformers. They’re Daniel Plainview disguised as Jefferson Smith.
Back here in California, that hideous new 15-story apartment building going up in your neighborhood is a Wiener special. The hundreds of cheap, ugly stack and packs sprouting like poisonous mushrooms throughout the state are his handiwork. Wiener and his Sacramento allies like the equally noxious Laurie Friedman have systematically stripped city councils and other local bodies of authority over everything from land use and development to narcotics enforcement and the hours bars can sell booze. He’s a political micromanager, sticking his fingers in every issue he possibly can. It’s anyone’s guess how much he’s lined his own pockets.
YIMBY legislation is enabling the wholesale destruction of entire neighborhoods, like Jefferson Park in South Los Angeles, a historically black neighborhood that was the locus of the modern Civil Rights Movement in the 1930s and 1940s. Over the last two years a single developer has applied for and been granted more than 200 demolition permits in 1.5 square miles. It’s gentrification in real time. Drone photo by Christopher LeGras
Now, in perhaps his greatest “fuck you” to his adopted home state to date, Wiener wants to make it easier for developers to force new projects into high fire danger severity zones (HFDSZs). In fact, he wants to get rid of cities’ authority to identify and designate HFDSZs altogether.
The bill, SB 610, has two main purposes. First, in typical YIMBY fashion it removes authority for fire severity determinations from cities’ hands and places it with the state fire marshal. In a word, this is insane. The state fire agency, CAL FIRE, is responsible for fire prevention on state lands. This bill would require the Fire Marshal’s office to familiarize itself with thousands of individual incorporated cities statewide, and to do so to a level of detail that the office can make the best decisions for affected people and lands. In response to emailed questions, Cal Fire spokesperson Kara Garrett responded that the bill had been held in suspension, and “We will continue to work with stakeholders to make improvements to prepare our communities for wildfires.”
Regardless of its status in this legislative session, SB 610 is a prime example of the extent to which Wiener has betrayed the progressive causes he rode into power. More than 90 environmental groups oppose the bill, led by the Sierra Club, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Center for Biological Diversity. In a July 25 letter to state lawmakers, the groups were blunt: “SB 610 perpetuates the false narrative that new large-scale development in fire risk areas is safe.” So what if tens or hundreds of thousands of Californians end up living in areas that are all but guaranteed to burn? When their homes burn down it’s just more work for developers. Build, burn, repeat. If a few hundred or thousands of them don’t make it out, well, you have to break a few eggs to make those 15 minute Utopian omelets. After all, thanks to earlier YIMBY legislation the state is mandating that the city of Paradise, which was obliterated in the 2018 Camp Fire that also killed at least 150 people, build at least 7,179 new units of housing by 2030 or face legal repercussions. These people are mad with power and greed.
The environmental groups’ letter also called out Wiener’s less-than-transparent political machinations. He introduced SB 610 via what’s known as the “gut and amend” process whereby lawmakers take an unrelated bill and completely rewrite it to cover an entirely different subject. The only thing that remains is the bill’s number and place in the legislative queue. In this case, SB 610 started life in February 2023 as an obscure measure to amend the reporting responsibilities of the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission. Wiener introduced the current version on June 14 of this year, giving the legislature (not to mention voters and the media) less than two months to respond. Can’t let pesky democracy get in the way of delivering for his monied benefactors.
Elsewhere, Wiener is leading an assault on the California Coastal Act, which limits new development along the state’s sensitive coastline. In February he introduced SB 951, which would — wait for it — exempt San Francisco’s Pacific coastline from both local and Coastal Commission oversight. Almost incomprehensibly, the affected land includes about 20% of Golden Gate Park. That’s right — along with encouraging speculators to build in fire zones, Wiener and the YIMBYs want to give away part of a public park to developers.
Just doing as he’s told: In an article in the Los Angeles Times last weekend, Wiener explained the rationale, such as it is, behind SB 610. He said, “If a city weaponizes the maps by classifying areas that are low-risk as high-risk, that could absolutely make it hard or even impossible, or unfeasible, to build housing in that area. That’s why we want to make it actually based on facts and science, and not on what a city council politically decides to do.”
This is the bizarro, breathlessly cynical world in which Wiener and his YIMBY enablers live. City councils that prioritize their constituents’ and residents’ safety in high fire danger severity zones aren’t actually concerned about saving lives and property. No, they are “weaponizing” those legal protections to thwart pure-hearted developers whose overriding concern is the state’s mythical, McKinsey & Company concocted housing shortage. Wiener’s developer buddies were making frowny faces, and so the good errand boy sprang into action with an assault not just on public safety but on democracy itself. Remind me which party is the threat to our constitutional republic again?
Of course, Wiener has not proffered any examples of cities actually “weaponizing” fire protections. Because it’s just another YIMBY fever dream. Again, these are the same people who wish California’s coastline looked less like Half Moon Bay and more like the Jersey shore.
Wiener is just doing as he’s told. According to public records maintained by the California Secretary of State, his donor list is a who’s who of real estate interests, tech behemoths, venture capital, organized labor, and big law — that is, the heart and soul of the YIMBY movement. Real estate developers, lenders, managers, and consultants have contributed $475,243 to his two campaigns. The California Real Estate PAC has donated $36,200 directly and spent more than $565,600 in independent expenditure support. Big law has donated $198,075. Other major sources are corporate and individual employee donations from Google/Alphabet ($79,550), Facebook/Meta ($62,385), the Silicon Valley venture capital community ($58,550), Airbnb ($48,500), Yelp ($36,700), Stripe ($33,950), Salesforce ($33,300), Netflix ($23,100), Lyft ($16,025), Uber ($14,160), Apple ($13,538), Microsoft ($13,350), and Tesla ($12,000). California YIMBY has ponied up $16,150, which can essentially be added to the Facebook total.
Screen shot of some of the special interest PAC expenditures in support of state senator Scott Wiener that are, of course, completely unrelated to his push to allow development in fire danger zones.
On one hand, it makes sense that a state senator from the Bay Area would receive largesse from the tech community. It would be surprising if he didn’t, just like it would raise eyebrows if a candidate for New York City Council in lower Manhattan didn’t receive any donations from Wall Street firms. What’s notable about Wiener’s donations, however, is that they come almost exclusively from corporations that have a vested interest in the YIMBY agenda and are known for their deep political entanglements. Their support for a supply side disciple exposes just how disingenuous the tech industry’s commitment to progressivism is. It’s just a cover story for good old fashioned capitalistic profiteering. The Big Four would be impressed with the brazenness. In this sense, Wiener is their perfect champion.
Wiener has issued contradictory statements about the intent behind SB 610. A week after telling the L.A. Times that SB 610 targets cities that have “weaponized” fire protections, he told the Modesto Bee that the bill is not intended to increase development in high-risk areas. It “merely ensures high fire protection standards for buildings in the wildfire mitigation area.” Well, which is it, Senator? His office did not respond to emailed questions about the bill, including a request to identify localities that allegedly are misusing fire protections to block development.
Those of us who’ve followed Sacramento over the last several years are all too aware that the New Jersey transplant hates most people in the state he’s chosen to call his home. But he’s benefited from fawning media coverage and millions in direct and in kind support from his YIMBY taskmasters in Silicon Valley, big real estate, and big law. His assault on the Coastal Act and his push to allow developers to profit by building in high fire danger severity zones have become too much even for the reliably woke Los Angeles Times, which has published several dissenting articles recently.
The only people who can bring Scott Wiener to heel are San Francisco voters. Perhaps his attack on their own beaches and parks will be the wake-up call they need. Then again, he is termed out after this session, and his immediate political future likely consists of a Quixotic run for Congress against Nancy Pelosi’s daughter, Alexandra. Californians should hope and pray that marks the end of Mr. Wiener’s California adventure.
(Christopher LeGras: Lawyer, journalist, muckraker, Californian. This article was first published in the all aspect report.)
