This week in housing news, a high-profile bill to increase housing density near major transit stops survived a crucial committee vote, after legislators reached a compromise that limited the bill’s impact on rural counties and small coastal cities. Despite the compromise, the legislation would still impact a majority of Californians living in the state’s population centers. Details on inclusionary thresholds and other key policy issues have not yet been resolved.

It was also an important week for tenant protection legislation. A bill aimed at preventing rent-gouging cleared a key committee and earned an unusual public show of support from the governor. The bill would limit rent increases each year to growth in the Consumer Price Index plus 5%. The State of Oregon recently adopted a similar policy.

While another bill to expand rent control was shelved for the year, the proponents of a 2018 ballot measure on the topic announced they would seek to put a new rent control initiative on the 2020 ballot.

STATE HOUSING POLICIES

Controversial California housing bill to move forward after compromise
Mercury News
A controversial housing bill that could bring taller buildings to certain California neighborhoods cleared its second hurdle Wednesday, scoring a decisive committee vote after several changes designed to make it more palatable to its many opponents. Senate Bill 50 gathered the votes it needed to pass out of the state Senate Governance and Finance Committee, but the bill looks different now than when it was first introduced by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco. Wiener’s bill has been heavily attacked by city leaders worried it would usurp their local planning control and apply one-size-fits-all zoning rules throughout the state, and by activists worried it would accelerate gentrification and lead to the displacement of more low-income residents.

California housing bill could have ‘far-reaching effects’ in Los Angeles, report says
Los Angeles Times
More than 40% of the developable land in Los Angeles could be eligible for homebuilding at a greater density under high-profile legislation working its way through the Capitol, according to a new city analysis. Senate Bill 50, which faces a key legislative committee hearing Wednesday morning, would require cities to allow four- to-five story apartment complexes near transit, and smaller apartments and town homes in wealthier neighborhoods close to job centers. The bill would have “potentially far-reaching effects” in Los Angeles, where its goals of increasing housing affordability, environmental sustainability and equity should be balanced against the loss of local planning and zoning standards, a report released Tuesday by the Los Angeles Department of City Planning said.

How Gov. Gavin Newsom is progressing on his key policy promises for California
Los Angeles Times
In his first 100 days in office, California Gov. Gavin Newsom quickly set about launching parts of the progressive agenda he promised during his campaign. Housing: Newsom proposed $1.3 billion in state funds for cities and counties as a financial incentive to plan for new homes and support local homeless housing efforts. He also launched an effort to build new homes on state-owned property.

HOUSING CRISIS

Bay Area paradox: We need housing, but we don’t want to build faster
Mercury News
Chronic lawsuits against new Bay Area housing developments. Loud, angry protests against pro-growth legislators and mayors. If the Bay Area has an all-season contact sport, it’s the recurring NIMBY fights against housing construction. And although almost everyone agrees housing prices are too high, few want to see faster development to tackle the problem, according to a recent Bay Area poll for the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and this news organization. In the midst of an expanding housing shortage, rampant homelessness and highest-in-the-nation housing costs, the poll suggests Bay Area voters haven’t reached the tipping point needed to demand action.

Southern California is falling behind on affordable home permits, UCR analysts say
Riverside Press-Enterprise
Southern California cities and counties have fallen way behind in approving new housing needed to keep up with growth, especially for low- and moderate-income households, a new analysis of regional homebuilding shows. With half the time needed to approve nearly 400,000 new homes already lapsed, local governments have approved 26% of the units needed in each income level under the state’s Regional Housing Needs Assessment process, according to a report by the UC Riverside School of Business Center for Economic Forecasting and Development

Opinion: California isn’t full; we could provide housing for everyone
Mercury News
The crisis is due to inability to acknowledge and attack the many ways communities resist change: California has long led the world in innovation, from Silicon Valley to Hollywood. For the last decade, it has also conducted a series of grand, and largely successful, policy experiments ranging from regulating greenhouse gas emissions to providing sanctuary for undocumented immigrants. When it comes to solving the housing affordability crisis, however, California seems at a loss. Despite enacting dozens of well-intentioned housing bills, and discussing hundreds more, the state Legislature has yet to identify and take the bold actions necessary to ensure housing affordability for all Californians. Housing policy seems to be the ultimate exercise in rocket science or brain surgery.

TENANT PROTECTION

State rent-gouging bill advances, but still no action on tighter rent control
CALmatters
A bill aimed at protecting California tenants from “egregious” rent hikes cleared a key hurdle in the state Legislature today, less than 24 hours after pro-tenant groups learned their latest try to expand tighter rent controls throughout California is flailing in the Capitol. The anti-rent-gouging bill, modeled after a first-in-the-nation statewide law enacted earlier this year in Oregon, would cap the amount that landlords could raise the rent year-over-year at 5% plus inflation. Authored by Assemblyman David Chiu, Democrat from San Francisco, Assembly Bill 1482 passed its first committee vote today on a 6-1 margin, marking a rare early victory for tenant groups who have struggled to get state lawmaker support in recent years.

Rent control could be back on California ballot by 2020
Mercury News
After a crushing defeat in November, the rent control advocates who brought you Prop. 10 last year are back — and they’re launching a new campaign to get the issue on the ballot as soon as 2020. The new initiative would allow individual cities and counties to impose rent control laws on residential properties that are at least 15 years old — a controversial move that would increase the number of rent-controlled units in the state. The proposed 2020 ballot measure, dubbed the Rental Affordability Act, is a scaled-back version of Proposition 10, which voters rejected last year. It’s already drawing opposition from critics who argue rent control discourages the production of rental units and will make the state’s housing shortage worse.

LOCAL HOUSING INITIATIVES

Bay Area favors sales tax for affordable housing, says poll
Curbed
The Oakland branch of polling group EMC Research released the results of an April voter survey finding that the overwhelming majority of Bay Area voters worry that other people won’t be able to find housing and favor a sales tax hike to fund more affordable housing. EMC quizzed 1,935 likely 2020 voters in all nine Bay Area counties between April 8 and April 17. Among its findings: The idea of a half-cent sales tax hike to create affordable housing passed muster with 66 percent of potential voters voicing approval—crucial, since new taxes must get at least two-thirds of the vote in California.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING CONSTRUCTION

Build 10,000 houses for homeless in 10 years? L.A. is closer, but it’ll have to stretch funds
Los Angeles Times
In 2016, Los Angeles voters approved a $1.2-billion bond measure to help fund housing for homeless people, with a goal of 10,000 new units in a decade. Now, after hustling to get as many housing projects started as soon as possible, city officials are coming to the end of the money available through Proposition HHH, and it’s not certain that promise will be kept. The city has committed two-thirds of the bond to secure a little more than half the units the measure was intended to subsidize. The new challenge will be figuring out how to stretch the remaining funds to make up the difference. It’s far from a sure thing.

SF Mayor Breed wants to use public land to build affordable housing
San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Mayor London Breed took office last July pledging to build more housing and to build it faster so that the affordability crisis wouldn’t empty the city of its working class. This November, she’s going to use the ballot box to try to do that. On Wednesday, Breed will announce her plan for a November ballot measure to eliminate restrictions that prevent housing from being built on public lands. If voters approve the measure, hundreds of government-owned parcels could become sites for 100% affordable projects and teacher housing. As mayor, Breed can put the measure on the ballot with just her signature, which she’s expected to do in the next few weeks.

HOMELESSNESS

The best way to help our homeless neighbors is to find them shelter ASAP
CALmatters by Senator Holly Mitchell
Housing is a basic human right. It’s right there in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was created by the United Nations in 1948 and has been signed by every U.N. member nation. This is not controversial, although we can see on our streets every day that thousands of Californians do not have access to this fundamental human right. Recognizing this as a fact, I authored Senate Bill 1380 which made California a housing first state, and Gov. Jerry Brown signed it into law in September 2016. “Housing first” is an evidence-based model that sees housing as a tool to help people recover, not a reward for recovery.