This week in affordable housing news…:

State update: 

• Governor Newsom announced more than $923 million in awards this week for affordable housing projects through the state’s new California Housing Accelerator, the $1.75 billion program created last year to fund shovel-ready projects stalled in the state’s backlogged tax credit system. “We’re building more housing for people at risk of homelessness to prevent folks from ending up on the streets, and we’re doing it faster than ever before,” Newsom said. The Governor’s office reports 27 projects have been approved to date—totaling 2,300 affordable units—with nearly all expected to break ground this summer. HCD is currently finalizing project solicitation and guidelines for the next round of Accelerator funding, which will be released in mid-February. More information on awardees is available here.

• California’s Density Bonus Law got a major boost this week when a state appeals court confirmed that the statute, on the books since 1979, does in fact allow housing projects to be exempted from local zoning rules such as height and density limits when they include a certain percentage of affordable housing units. The court’s decision centered on a 20-story San Diego housing development near Balboa Park on vacant land owned by a local church. While local standards would normally limit construction to about 170 feet and 147 housing units, the city approved a plan for a 223-foot building with 204 housing units after the developer promised to make 18 of the units affordable for households with 50% or less of the local median income. Neighborhood groups sued to stop the project, but the court rejected their arguments.  

• It’s hard to believe, but it’s true: In response to a state law that streamlines approval of duplex construction in single-family neighborhoods, the Bay Area city of Woodside is seeking to avoid the new rules by declaring their entire city a mountain lion habitat. “We love animals,” Mayor Dick Brown said this week after the town council moved to stop all housing applications submitted to the city under last year’s SB 9 (Atkins). “Every house that’s built is one more acre taken away from (mountain lions’) habitat. Where are they going to go? Pretty soon we’ll have nothing but asphalt and no animals or birds.” Senator Scott Wiener was not the only person left incredulous by the town’s effort: “It’s a ridiculous argument,” said Wiener, who noted that the Mountain Lion Foundation itself has rejected the policy as an ineffective way to protect endangered species. “This is not really a loophole. If housing wasn’t such a serious crisis, this would be a joke.”

ICYMI – Top news stories:
Manchin, key Dem, says Build Back Better bill is ‘dead’
Associated Press
Sen. Joe Manchin declared Tuesday that President Joe Biden’s vast social and environment bill is “dead,” using his strongest language to date to underscore that any revival of Democrats’ top domestic priorities would have to arise from negotiations that are now moribund. The remarks by the West Virginia Democrat didn’t substantively alter the stance he’d taken in December, when he said he couldn’t support the legislation as written, essentially dooming it. But his latest comments illustrated anew the election-year challenges facing his party as it struggles to resuscitate parts of the package and win over voters weary of the two-year-old pandemic and coping with the worst inflation in decades.

California is auditing a key housing program — but NIMBYs could use it to undo progress
Sacramento Bee – Oped by Yousef Baig 
California doesn’t have a clear-eyed plan to address the housing crisis. Its financing system is so messy that it squandered billions in bond money, as then-State Auditor Elaine Howle detailed in a blistering 2020 report. For housing reform stalwarts, it was an almost cathartic read if it wasn’t so upsetting. Another major housing audit is underway that could inspire additional changes, or it could be weaponized by cynical policymakers and NIMBYs throughout California. The state watchdog agency is auditing California’s beleaguered “regional housing needs allocation” program. 

How Mayor Breed can finally disarm San Francisco NIMBYs’ most formidable weapon
San Francisco Chronicle – Oped by Chris Elmendorf
A San Francisco Board of Supervisors committee deep-sixed Mayor London Breed’s proposed charter amendment to streamline permitting of certain affordable housing projects. The amendment would have exempted qualifying projects from the city’s discretionary review process, which allows any objecting neighbor to force a public hearing on whether a project is really in “the public interest.” It’s a standing invitation for delay and empowers city officials to arbitrarily redesign or kill housing projects on the basis of any mad-hatter’s objections. San Francisco has spent 15 years wringing its hands about how to fix discretionary review. Time’s up. Strip it from the charter and be done with it.