This week in affordable housing news, the Los Angeles Times takes a closer look at the longstanding “cultural divide” between the Bay Area and Los Angeles on housing issues—and how it continues to shape state policy, including playing a major role in the demise last week of the Senator Wiener’s high-profile density legislation. “Nearly unanimous opposition from senators from L.A. County last week dealt the decisive blow to Senate Bill 50,” says the Times, noting the “disconnect” between two regions of the state that have adopted their own affordable housing strategies but have struggled to find common ground in Sacramento on key housing production issues.

The Sacramento Bee reports that rent control will once again go before California voters in November, after a new measure supported by the proponents of the failed Proposition 10 qualified for the ballot. Like the 2018 measure, the new initiative takes aim at the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act—seeking to expand local governments’ powers to control rents in newer buildings and single-family homes. Proposition 10 was rejected by 59% of voters, after a $100 million campaign, one of the most expensive in state history. In January, a new state law crafted by the Governor and Legislature went into effect, prohibiting rent-gouging and unjust evictions for the next 10 years. 

A major new local affordable housing ballot measure in San Francisco moved a step closer to the ballot this week, with Mayor London Breed announcing the launch of a signature-gathering campaign for an initiative aimed at accelerating housing production in the city. “Our broken process for approving new homes has delayed and blocked housing from being built for decades, which got us into the housing shortage we face today,” Breed said in a statement. “It takes an average of nearly four years to shepherd a housing project with more than 10 units through the city’s permitting process,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle. “If voters pass Breed’s measure, it would require the Planning Department to cut that time down to six months.”

STATE HOUSING POLICIES

Suburban sprawl wins again in the battle against California’s housing crisis
Los Angeles Times
It’s fitting that major legislation to fight urban sprawl by forcing denser housing was killed by lawmakers from Los Angeles County, the nation’s sprawl capital. Particularly fitting is that a leader of the L.A. death squad represents the San Fernando Valley, the epitome of sprawl.

Caltrain board signs off on building affordable housing near tracks
San Francisco Chronicle
Caltrain already planned to build a more modern commuter railroad with new trains and electrified rails, but directors decided Thursday that it should also include trackside housing — and much of it will be affordable. The three-county board that runs the 156-year-old railroad unanimously agreed that it’s time to develop housing where it can be squeezed in along Caltrain’s 51-mile right of way.

SB 50 didn’t pass. But California is still considering these housing bills.
Curbed Los Angeles
The California Senate voted to reject Senate Bill 50 last week, ending (at least temporarily) a high-profile debate about housing development and density. That heated conversation has taken center stage at the state capitol since Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) unveiled SB 827, a more dramatic predecessor to the more recent bill, two years ago. But the housing issue isn’t going away.

California cities and counties required to make housing more fair
Mercury News
Where a person lives can affect everything from their health to job opportunities. For generations, local governments have created zoning rules and other policies that have limited housing options for people of color. Now, as key deadlines for a state housing law passed in 2018 loom, cities and counties are grappling with how to undo the resulting segregation and economic inequality.

California’s big housing bill fell short. A push for backyard cottages is moving ahead
San Francisco Chronicle
Thursday’s defeat of SB50, the state Senate bill that would have required cities to allow dense residential development near transit, shows how housing policy can be a flash point in California politics. But state legislative efforts to spur new housing at a much different scale — one unit at a time, in the backyards of existing homes — have generated a multiyear string of bills that could end up making a sizable impact with relatively little fuss.

California Housing Crisis Podcast: Why did Senate Bill 50 fail for the third time?
Los Angeles Times
For the third time last week, California lawmakers turned down high-profile legislation that would have allowed for the construction of mid-rise apartment complexes near transit stops and job centers. The failure of Senate Bill 50 is a blow to Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), the bill’s author, as well as to Gov. Gavin Newsom and Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego).

Column: Does it have to be so hard to pass a housing bill? Not really, and here’s a bold path forward
Los Angeles Times
Rents, up. Homelessness, up. Housing bill, down. Senate Bill 50, which could have produced a massive amount of desperately needed new housing in California, didn’t even die a humane death last week in Sacramento. It was clubbed, kicked to the ground and pecked to death. So now what? I’ve got answers, but first a quick review.

Editorial: SB50 failure puts pressure on Newsom and Bay Area naysayers
San Francisco Chronicle
It’s been a rough winter for senators, and not just the Washington Republicans who staged the least substantial impeachment trial in American history. The Democrats who dominate California’s Senate refuse to be left out of the legislative fecklessness sweepstakes. Consider their latest abdication of duty to address the state’s most pressing problem, the housing and homelessness crisis.

Editorial: Senate Bill 50’s dead? Time for son of Senate Bill 50
San Diego Union Tribune
This week, Senate Bill 50 — one of those unusual pieces of legislation that’s well known outside Sacramento by its number alone — fell a few votes short of passage on Wednesday and again on Thursday. The close call marked a third strike in three years for a measure the Associated Press dubbed “the most ambitious housing bill in memory.” It would have allowed small apartment buildings where single-family homes stand now across much of California.

HOUSING CRISIS

L.A. versus S.F.: How the ‘cultural divide’ is determining housing policy in California
Los Angeles Times
The push to remake California from a state of single-family homes and suburban sprawl into one of apartments near transit stops and jobs has run into a brick wall: Los Angeles. Nearly unanimous opposition from senators from L.A. County last week dealt the decisive blow to Senate Bill 50, which would have forced cities and counties to allow mid-rise apartments near mass transit and fourplexes in single-family neighborhoods.

A CA school district is using bonds to build an affordable housing complex for staff
Sacramento Bee
A California school district says it’s the first in the nation to use bonds to build affordable housing for its employees. The Jefferson Union High School District broke ground Wednesday on the new housing units, the district said. “The four story development will have 120 units offering below market rent to eligible faculty and staff,” the school district said on Facebook. “The first residents may move in as early as Fall 2021.”

Column: Where California heads next on affordable housing crisis
San Diego Union Tribune
Efforts to address California’s affordable housing crisis may have hit reset with the demise of a disputed bill that would have scaled back local zoning laws to increase density. There’s no doubt the approach embodied in Senate Bill 50, which failed for the third time last week, will be central to the discussions, but so will alternatives.

Opinion: Wanted: An ‘all-of-the-above’ housing strategy
Capitol Weekly
There is general agreement that California remains in a housing affordability crisis that is hitting the state’s working families extremely hard, forcing long polluting commutes and causing spiraling rates of homelessness. But opinions differ markedly on the appropriate response to the increasingly dire situation. The only proposal that was remotely scaled to the size of the challenge SB 50 (Wiener) suffered another legislative setback.

TENANT PROTECTION

Rent control will be on the California ballot again. Here’s how it’s different this time
Sacramento Bee
California voters will get the chance to consider a statewide rent control initiative on the November ballot, just two years after they soundly rejected a similar initiative. The Secretary of State’s office announced on Monday it had reviewed and validated a sample of the nearly 1 million signatures submitted in December to qualify the initiative. The measure only needed 623,212 signatures, 5 percent of the votes for governor in 2018.

LOCAL HOUSING INITIATIVES

L.A. leaders weigh a new idea to halt rent hikes: Force landlords to sell their buildings
Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles leaders have relied on different strategies for slowing the growth in housing prices — limits on rent hikes in older buildings, new restrictions on Airbnb and incentives for developers who build affordable housing. Now, City Councilman Gil Cedillo has another idea for keeping rents low in his district: Force a landlord in Chinatown to sell its building to the city.

SF Mayor Breed wants to take battle for housing to voters, amping up fight with supes
San Francisco Chronicle
In the midst of an unrelenting housing crisis, Mayor London Breed is turning to San Francisco voters for help in her crusade to “build more housing and build more housing, faster.” On Wednesday, Breed will announce the launch of a signature-gathering petition for a November ballot measure meant to simplify and accelerate housing production in San Francisco.

HOMELESSNESS

California’s rising rents, severe housing shortage fuel homelessness
NBC News
Just a few blocks from the tidy cul-de-sacs of Los Angeles’ Studio City neighborhood, a young couple sleeps propped up against a mountain of bags stuffed with their belongings. The bright light of a Rite Aid pharmacy shines next to the pair dozing in the shadows. Customers walk in and out of the store, some glancing at the dark shapes, some looking away.

Seniors on the streets: Growing number of older people in Sacramento are experiencing homelessness
ABC 10
There is a growing problem on the streets of California, and it could be the canary in the coal mine for the rest of the country. Seniors are increasingly finding themselves homeless, priced out of highly competitive housing and rental markets. After working for years, many are living on fixed incomes that simply cannot compete with the rise in the cost of living. Without adequate familial and community support, some of these individuals are finding themselves without a home while simultaneously trying to navigate the struggles that accompany aging.