This week in affordable housing news…:

State Update:

• CHC’s sponsored bills continued to move this week, with SB 439 (Skinner), bill creating a new special motion to strike non-meritorious CEQA lawsuits, advancing 11-0 out of the Assembly Committee on Judiciary. The bill was added to the consent calendar in the Senate in May and was also put on consent in the Assembly this month—a positive sign of momentum.

• A note for CHC members: With this bill and others in their second house, now is the time to resubmit support letters from your organization to be considered in upcoming bill analyses. Sample support letters can be found here on the CHC website. Please upload your letters through the Legislative Position Letter Portal. Send copies to our Policy Associate, Jennifer Armenta: jarmenta@calhsng.org.

• The Sacramento Bee published a detailed roundup this week on the three main “social housing” bills moving through the Legislature: SB 584 (Límon) would pay for what it calls “laborforce” housing through a 15% tax on guests of short-term vacation rentals, such as those available on platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo. The bill was approved by the Senate last week with 27 votes, the required minimum. SB 555 (Wahab), also advancing from the Senate last week, would require HCD to craft a plan by 2025 for producing 1.2 million units of “social housing” within 10 years—with half of those units completed by 2030 and a third of the units affordable to extremely low and very low income households. AB 309 (Lee), which earned 55 votes last week in the Assembly, would create a new California Housing Authority, similar to a municipal public housing authority, to govern the production and acquisition of social housing. None of the three bills have been set for their next hearing.

ICYMI – Top news stories:

‘Godzilla next door’: How California developers gained new leverage to build more homes
CalMatters
Late last fall, a Southern California developer dropped more than a dozen mammoth building proposals on the city of Santa Monica that were all but designed to get attention. The numbers behind the salvo of proposals were dizzying: 14 residential highrises with a combined 4,260 units dotting the beachside city, including three buildings reaching 18 stories. All of the towers were bigger, denser and higher than anything permitted under the city’s zoning code. City Councilmember Phil Brock attended a town hall shortly after the announcement and got an earful. A few of the highlights: “Godzilla next door,” “a monster in our midst” and “we’re going to never see the sun again.” “‘Concerned’ would be putting it mildly,” Brock said of the vibe among the attendees. “A lot of them were freaked.” As it turns out, freaking locals out may have been the point.

Renters dominate California—but they are struggling to survive
Los Angeles Times
California is among the nation’s leaders in renter-occupied housing: 45.5% of housing units were occupied by renters in 2020, a small increase from the 44% rate in 2010, according to newly released data by the U.S. Census Bureau. This puts California second only to New York, where 49.7% of the housing units are renter occupied. Nationwide, the rate of renter-occupied housing units—36.9%—is at its highest point since 1970. Hans Johnson, a demographer at the Public Policy Institute of California, said the new data were “not shocking.” California’s high rate of renters can be attributed mostly to “the high cost of housing,” Johnson said.

L.A. asked Congress for millions to address homelessness. But getting the cash isn’t certain.
Los Angeles Times
With a broken elevator and a spotty HVAC system, the Gower Street Apartments badly needed some updates when the building’s owner received a surprising call earlier this year. A city housing official suggested that perhaps Congress could fund repairs to the supportive housing development for formerly homeless people. After a decade long ban in Washington, the rebirth of congressional earmarks could help address a common conundrum confronting that building and other affordable housing developments: Lenders and governments make lots of money available to construct new housing but not to refurbish residences that already exist.