Senate Bill 50 was the quickest way to encourage growth

The California Legislature has again proven powerless to adopt groundbreaking measures that might offer some relief for the California housing crisis. On Jan. 30, Senate Bill 50 failed to garner enough necessary votes in the State Senate to send the bill to the Assembly. Authored by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), the bill would have authorized denser housing developments along transit corridors. The bill was seen as a way to tackle the state’s persistent undersupply of housing and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by creating more opportunities for commuters to live near mass transit.

While the causes of the housing crisis are complex, the shortage of housing options plays an undeniably large role. California is ranked 49th among states in the number of housing units per capita. Analysts estimate that the state needs to build 3.5 million new housing units by 2025 just to meet the demand. Any meaningful attempt to reach this goal would require the state to quadruple its current rate of housing construction.

Despite the ubiquity of the housing shortage, all land use entitlements and approvals happen at the local level. Unfortunately, over the last half-century many local communities have resisted denser development in their backyards. Not only has this driven development out to rural parts of the state, but it has dramatically increased commute times, as homes are built further from job centers.

Senate Bill 50 would have added another tool in the toolbox to streamline the approval process for multi-family housing throughout the state. The bill would have streamlined the approval process for qualifying structures that contain up to four dwelling units. Parking requirements would have been prohibited. The bill would have authorized, by-right, small and medium-sized apartment buildings around public transportation. Depending on the type of transit and distance from the transit stop, height limits would be relaxed to accommodate buildings up to five stories. These developments would also gain some relief from certain local requirements, like parking and density. To be eligible for some of these benefits, new developments would have been required to include a certain share of affordable housing, depending on the size of the project.

To combat gentrification, SB 50 created a definition for “sensitive communities” and postponed the bill’s effectiveness until those communities had developed a community plan. Such plans would have protected vulnerable residents from displacement and promoted economic justice, among other priorities.

Senate Bill 50 would have dramatically upped the ante in the Legislature’s persistent struggle to encourage localities to approve more housing. Earlier bills, like SB 330 (2019), prohibited local governments from enacting policies that would lessen the intensity of housing or imposing growth moratoria. Senate Bill 330 also streamlined the approval process for developments that were in compliance with objective development standards. Other laws approved in 2019 prohibited certain restrictions on accessory dwelling units and streamlined the local approval process. Unlike these laws, SB 50 would have essentially rewritten some local zoning laws to conform to state standards.

Senate Bill 50 faced backlash from a unique coalition of interest groups, including suburbanites, social justice organizations, and affordable housing advocates. After stalling in the first half of the legislative session, Sen. Wiener was forced to offer major concessions to assuage some of their concerns. Notably, his amendment allowed local governments to adopt “flexibility plans” which would have allowed cities and counties to craft their own programs that achieve SB 50’s transportation and housing affordability goals. Amendments also imposed requirements that addressed potential community displacement.

Still, these amendments were not sufficient to win over crucial votes in the Senate. Activists argued that the bill did not do enough to increase low-income housing requirements or to prevent gentrification and displacement. Local governments viewed the bill as a usurpation of their land use authority. The governing bodies of San Francisco and Los Angeles, along with numerous other localities, voted to officially oppose SB 50. Officials in L.A. expressed concern that the bill would have affected zoning for nearly half of the city’s area.

Consequently, a majority of SB 50’s “No” votes or “No Votes Recorded” were from representatives from the L.A.-area. One critical voice of opposition was from Sen. Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles), who shortly before the bill was called for a vote, emphasized the bill’s potential to exacerbate gentrification and inequality.

Critics contend that this top-down approach from Sacramento defies local governments’ authority to plan for and respond to local conditions. However, when considering approval of new housing developments, city council members and county supervisors often face the most emphatic pushback from neighborhood NIMBY (“not in my backyard”) groups that have become fixtures at local government meetings. This NIMBYist culture, historically shaped by racial and economic prejudice, has contributed to the state’s deficit of affordable and transit-accessible housing. Senate Bill 50 would have permitted the objective appraisal of some land use decisions from local government hearings that would otherwise be clouded by emotion.

Despite SB 50, the state has already taken action to challenge the cities and counties that do not plan for enough housing. Shortly after his inauguration, Gov. Gavin Newsom authorized the attorney general to file a lawsuit challenging the city of Huntington Beach’s continuous failure to plan for new housing, in defiance of state housing mandates.

Still, development opponents have not proposed any concrete alternatives to addressing the state’s persistent housing shortage. The state estimates that we need to build 180,000 new housing units per year just to meet population growth — a number that, except for the years from 2003 to 2007, the state hasn’t met since 1989.

While local zoning policies are not the sole culprit in high home costs, the tools proposed by SB 50 would have been the quickest at encouraging growth. Addressing these challenges may require a cultural evolution — one that values transit-oriented housing over sprawling subdivisions. With the growth of new YIMBY (“yes in my backyard”) organizations in recent years, there is hope that more residents will push the State Legislature to address the structural problems contributing to the crisis. 