Candidates for governor talk housing
SACRAMENTO — California’s housing shortage is a crisis that the next governor will have to fix, the six leading candidates for the job say.
But an attention-grabbing legislative proposal on housing — a bill by a San Francisco state senator that would make it easier to build apartment and condominium buildings in some residential neighborhoods — isn’t the answer, most of the candidates agree.
SB827 by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, would limit local governments’ ability to block construction of taller and denser apartment and condominium buildings near public transit stops. It’s been the
focus of gubernatorial candidates debates and goes before its first committee hearing Tuesday in the Senate Transportation and Housing committee, where it faces an uncertain fate.
The bill would override local height limits on five-story apartment and condo buildings in residential areas if they are within a half mile of major transit hubs, such as a BART or Caltrain station. It would also limit a city’s ability to block denser buildings within a quarter-mile of highly used bus and light-rail stops.
Wiener says he’s open to amending the bill, but that overcoming local obstacles is crucial to developing housing that will benefit a broader region such as the Bay Area. “For a long time, California has stuck its head in the sand and refused to grapple with this issue as the problem got worse,” he said.
California has added fewer than 80,000 homes each year over the past decade, while the need has been closer to 180,000, according to the state Department of Housing and Community Development. That lack of supply has driven up the cost of housing, the agency noted in a recent report, resulting in California’s lowest home-ownership rates since the 1940s.
In interviews with The Chronicle, the candidates staked their positions on SB827 and outlined how they would address California’s housing crisis.
Gavin Newsom, Democrat
Position on SB827: Declined to say Newsom, the former San Francisco mayor and current lieutenant governor, said Wiener is trying to “reconcile the fundamental reality that we are never going to achieve ... housing affordability in this state without a significant increase in production. That production cannot manifest without looking in and around transit corridors.”
But Newsom added that there are “understandable concerns about local control.” He left open the possibility of backing Wiener’s bill, depending on future amendments.
What the state should do: “There have never been statewide goals ... and no sense of real urgency to focus our energies on a consistent basis on results,” Newsom said. “There is no way you will meet your housing goals in the state unless we focus in and around transit corridors.”
Biggest housing obstacle: “There is no consequence for bad behavior,” Newsom said. “Mayors don’t have high incentives for housing construction. They are rewarded for big-box retail — that’s where most of the money lies for cities. We need to incentivize better behavior at the local level.”
John Cox, Republican
Position on SB827: Opposes “I don’t think a state-mandated one-size-fits-all is the right thing to do,” said Cox, a venture capitalist from Rancho Santa Fe (San Diego County). “We certainly need to revisit planning, but it should be done at a local level and not a state mandate.”
What the state should do: Reduce costs to housing builders. “I’ve been talking to developers who tell me that anywhere from $150,000 to $300,000 of a unit is spent on regulation and delay and interest and legal fees and environmental costs, things like this,” Cox said. “There is more than enough private investment in the world. But it only goes to places that treat it nicely.”
Biggest housing obstacle: One of Cox’s centerpiece proposals is repealing the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, which requires developers to identify and deal with the environmental impacts of their projects. The 1970s law has long been targeted by developers, and even Gov. Jerry Brown once said reforming it was “doing the Lord’s work.”
“There has to be a balance, and there isn’t much of one in California,” Cox said. “CEQA is a huge part of it. I’ve called for repealing it and replacing it with something that makes sense today.”
Antonio Villaraigosa, Democrat
Position on SB827: Opposes “This bill is something we can work with, but I want to give cities and counties an opportunity to meet the goal first,” said Villaraigosa, mayor of Los Angeles from 2005 to 2013. “I want to give them 18 months to start moving to make the changes they need to make. When they don’t make it, I’m on record, we are going to have to push.”
He added, “The state has been absent. ... You can’t walk in with a club when you’ve been absent.”
What the state should do: Villaraigosa wants to revive local redevelopment agencies “specifically to build affordable housing.” Such agencies oversaw urban renewal in blighted areas until 2011, when Brown abolished them and redistributed their funding to cities, counties and school districts.
“We give local agencies the power to adopt solutions that make sense in a particular market,” Villaraigosa said. “And we should streamline building affordable housing and create new affordable housing bonds.”
Biggest housing obstacle: Like Cox, Villaraigosa wants to change CEQA. “There have been times when CEQA complaints have been filed not for legitimate environmental reasons, but as part of a strategy to slow development or cause political headaches for a business,” he said.
Travis Allen, Republican
Position on SB827: Opposes “This bill is yet another example of California Democrats forcing Californians to live in densely packed urban cities,” said Allen, an assemblyman from Huntington Beach (Orange County). “It would eliminate local control and do nothing to address the real issue in California, which is the lack of affordable housing.”
What the state should do: Allen is another candidate who calls for changes to CEQA, “which was well intentioned but has turned into a weapon used by organized labor to stop building in California. We must cut taxes and dramatically decrease the excessive regulation that drives up the cost of building in our state.”
Biggest housing obstacle: “The median home price in California is over 50 percent higher than it is across the country,” Allen said. “There is no reason that building new homes should be as costly and time consuming as it is in our state.”
Delaine Eastin, Democrat
Position on SB827: Opposes The former state schools superintendent said, “the general concept behind the bill — that we need to create more housing and housing near public transit hubs — is something I’ve been talking about for two years . ... But the bill needs a lot of work. It really is too dismissive of local responsibilities and local entities’ processes.”
What the state should do: Eastin said there needs to be “a conversation about bringing back redevelopment agencies. That was a mistake to get rid of them. Yes, they needed to be fixed, but that doesn’t mean you get rid of them completely.”
Biggest housing obstacle: “For too long we have just been adding new rules and regulations and new conditions, and we don’t go back and review it to streamline it,” Eastin said. “Over time that can become a real hindrance, especially in the hands of a NIMBY community.”
John Chiang, Democrat
Position on SB827: Opposes “I do not support it in its current form,” said Chiang, the state treasurer. “I think it’s still important that you have local government and local community participation and input as to what the community looks like.”
What the state should do: Chiang is another candidate who supports bringing back redevelopment agencies, with an eye toward using “a greater portion of funds for affordable housing.”
Chiang added that he supports the affordable housing $4 billion bond measure before state voters in November. “I would come back with an additional bond authority so we have greater capacity for the state to contribute its share toward building more housing,” he said.
Biggest housing obstacle: “We know too much of the decision making here in regards to building affordable housing is a financial one,” Chiang said. “A lot of local government officials feel dissuaded because ... they frankly don’t get the same financial benefits by creating housing as they do by opening a mall with stores that sell products that trigger a sales tax that trigger additional revenues.”