Cities build because they have to
Until recently, anyone planning to build apartments in the expensive Bay Area communities that need them most could count on being frustrated. The obstruction is grounded on one of a few dubious theories reliably advanced by the most vocal neighborhood opponents of any proposed housing: that the people living in a new development might have more than a negligible net effect on Bay Area traffic; that the inscrutable “character” of any given California suburb is so sacrosanct as to deserve government protection; or that a small empty space in the middle of a vast, paved metropolis just might be home to one of our nation’s most irreplaceable natural ecosystems.
It’s a sorely needed bit of good news that this is no longer uniformly the case, as The Chronicle reported this week. In recent months, local governments have approved major projects in such antigrowth suburbs as Lafayette, San Bruno and Castro Valley despite the familiar neighborhood objections.
Why? For the only reason most Bay Area officials will approve such projects: because they had to.
State laws enacted over the past few years have made it harder for local governments to deny housing on a whim. Chief among them is SB35, which requires cities and counties falling short of their housing needs to streamline approval of multifamily residential developments that meet certain criteria.
Championed by state Sen. Scott Wiener, DSan Francisco, and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2017, the law has also loomed large in recent court rulings allowing developments to go forward in Cupertino and Los Altos despite staunch opposition. Berkeley alone has approved three affordablehousing projects under SB35 since December.
Wiener’s bill was among the most important pieces of legislation approved since 2017 to address the state’s ruinous housing shortage, which has helped deprive over 150,000 Californians of a home and drive more than a sixth of the state’s population into poverty. Another, the Housing Crisis Act, prohibits cities with housing deficits from using rezoning, moratoriums, fees, delays, parking requirements and other means to further impede residential construction. Authored by state Sen. Nancy Skinner, DBerkeley, it was passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last year over the objections of a host of Bay Area and Southern California cities.
Sadly, legislators lost their nerve this year and killed SB50, Wiener’s bill to overrule local barriers to apartment construction near mass transit and job centers. Lawmakers are still considering — and should pass — more incremental measures to ease smaller multifamily developments.
Even in 2019, before the pandemic-induced downturn, California housing construction was headed in the wrong direction, with permits down from the previous year’s anemic numbers. The spate of recent approvals demonstrates the need for more legislation that recognizes housing as a statewide policy problem that cannot be abdicated.