Bill would ease zoning laws, create dwellings

State Sen. Scott Wiener unveils measure to allow hospitals and churches to build on their property

Under a new proposal, churches, synagogues and mosques would be able to build affordable housing on their property even if zoning laws don’t allow it.

State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, this week introduced legislation that would allow faith institutions and nonprofit hospitals to build housing for low-income residents where local regulations long have created roadblocks that have left religious leaders searching for options.

The bill couldn’t come at a better time for St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco, where Wiener, faith leaders and members of housing advocacy organizations gathered Friday to express support for the idea.

“We are the very congregation this bill will help,” said the Rev. Elizabeth Eckdale, adding that the church wants to be part of the solution to the affordable housing crisis but has faced years of bureaucracy.

“We are really at a crisis point,” Wiener said. Building housing, he added, “is really, really hard, and we need to make it easier.”

The bill, Senate Bill 899, also could help the First Presbyterian Church in San Mateo. Located at 25th Avenue and Hacienda Street, the church straddles a residential neighborhood and a business district.

Church leaders would like to convert a parking lot into affordable housing for seniors and young people aging out of the foster care system, a cohort of people they already serve as part of their charitable work. But, said church leader John Tastor, they’ve run into problems because the lot is in a single-family residential area and they want to build a multistory, multifamily structure.

“This would be a perfect situation for us,” Tastor said. “This would be a major step.”

If the legislation passes, churches could build 40 units and up to three stories in low-density residential neighborhoods. In commercial or mixed-use areas, they could build up to 150 units and five stories.

The homes would be required to remain affordable for at least 55 years if they are rentals and 45 years if they are sold.

Wiener introduced the idea months after his much more sweeping proposal, Senate Bill 50, failed to gain enough traction to move forward. That proposal would have allowed denser housing throughout the state, but it drew pushback from both those who oppose increased density and some anti-gentrification groups who feared it would lead to displacement.

State leaders say California needs to add about 3.5 million homes to address its housing shortage. But zoning laws and other local barriers have made it difficult for

churches and other faith organizations — who often say they have a moral obligation to help and can be less focused on profit than corporate developers — to build homes.

The legislation is meant to complement a proposal from Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) that would eliminate residential parking requirements for housing projects built on property owned by faith organizations.

“Frankly, we are failing as a state,” Wicks said, when it comes to helping the most vulnerable residents of California.

A forthcoming report from the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley found that there are some 38,000 acres of religious land across more than 10,000 parcels of 10,000 square feet or more in California that are potentially developable.

“There’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to do it,” Wicks said.

Wiener said that the proposals are an easier lift than the controversial SB 50. And, he said, it will be “very hard” for groups who have fought more housing based on the idea that it will lead to displacement to oppose, because the bills center specifically around affordable housing.

“It’s a smart way to create more affordable housing,” said Pedro Galvao of the Nonprofit Housing Association of Northern California, which is helping sponsor the bill.

Reverend Arnold Townsend of Without Walls Church and the San Francisco NAACP said he also supports the idea, noting that faith groups have been trying to build housing for years.

“This opportunity,” Townsend said, “has been sitting and waiting for people with vision.”