This week in affordable housing news…:

State Update:

• CHC’s sponsored bill, AB 2334, will be heard in its first policy committee hearing on Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. and your support is critical! If you haven’t already, please submit support letters for AB 2006 (Berman) and AB 2334 (Wicks), through the Legislature’s Position Letter Portal and email copies to our Policy Associate, Jennifer Armenta, at jarmenta@calhsng.org. Sample letters are available here.

• Governor Newsom signed emergency legislation this week that will rescue UC Berkeley from a court-ordered enrollment freeze that resulted from a CEQA lawsuit filed by a neighborhood group opposed to new faculty housing in the city. Responding to widespread outrage around the court decision, the Governor said the Legislature’s quick action “sends a clear signal that California won’t let lawsuits get in the way” of educating college students. The Sacramento Bee editorialized that the state’s “fix” fails to address the real issue behind the Berkeley suit: The widespread abuse of CEQA to quash affordable housing. “The most pertinent difference between the Berkeley case and countless other CEQA abuses,” writes the Bee, “is that it caused an explosion of attention and outrage across the state and country.” “The Legislature and Governor showed how quickly they can act against unjust abuses of the law,” CHC said this week. “It’s time to bring the same energy to building more affordable housing.” 

• Attorney General Rob Bonta continued to move aggressively this week against cities the state believes are violating new housing laws—notifying the City of Pasadena that a local ordinance seeking to exempt large parts of the city from the requirements of SB 9 (Atkins, 2021) was invalid and must be repealed. The city approved its urgency ordinance in December, declaring its residential neighborhoods to be “landmark districts” in an effort to avoid the provisions of the new law, which allows homeowners to build up to four residential units on single-family lots. “Pasadena’s urgency ordinance undermines SB 9 and denies residents the opportunity to create sorely needed additional housing, under the guise of protecting ‘landmark districts,’” Bonta said in a statement. “This is disappointing and, more importantly, violates state law.” Bonta gave the city 30 days to repeal or amend its ordinance to comply with the law.

• The California Energy Commission launched its new Building Initiative for Low-Emissions Development (BUILD) Program this week, an effort to promote all-electric affordable housing development. The program, created by SB 1477 (Stern, 2018) was developed by the CEC in collaboration with the California Public Utilities Commission. It offers new incentives of up to $2 million per applicant for the construction of new single- or multi-family homes in which electricity is the only fuel for space heat and cooling, water heating, cooking, and clothes drying.  The program funds between $1,000 to $3,000 per bedroom. Incentives vary by building design and climate zone and are based on estimated emissions saved. BUILD technical assistance incentive applications are now being accepted. More information is available on the new BUILD website. 

ICYMI – Top news stories:

Californians behind on their rent can still get help. But you need to apply soon
Los Angeles Times
If you missed rent payments because of the pandemic, you have only two weeks left to apply for state help in paying what you owe. California’s Housing is Key program will pay all of the rent debt that eligible renters have run up since April 2020. Landlords can apply too if their tenants meet the program’s criteria and provide the necessary paperwork. The state announced this week, however, that the program will stop accepting applications on March 31. Alex Traverso, a spokesman for the state Department of Housing and Community Development, said the program is running short of funds, which is why it’s shutting down. As of Tuesday, the state had received more than 480,000 completed applications and distributed more than $2.3 billion on behalf of almost 206,000 households. The grants, which can cover unpaid rent and utility bills, are averaging $11,508.

A racist relic blocks affordable housing in California. It must go.
Sacramento Bee – Editorial
California legislators—Democrats and Republicans—are in rare agreement: It’s time for the state to repeal a racist, classist provision in the state Constitution that makes it harder to build affordable housing. Article 34 was adopted in 1950 amid a discriminatory backlash against public housing. It requires that cities get voter approval before they build “low-rent housing” funded with public dollars. And yet, lawmakers have been hesitant to put the Article 34 repeal on the ballot. An attempt was dropped in 2020 and revived this year for the 2022 ballot, but it may be postponed until 2024. The hurdle isn’t politics. It’s money. Advocates are struggling to raise the estimated $20 million necessary to run a successful statewide campaign to educate voters on California’s ugly history of housing discrimination.

Every city in California needs to do its fair share to create more housing
CalMatters – Oped by Courtney Welch, Emeryville City Councilmember
California currently has a deficit of more than 2.5 million homes across our state – and every city is going to have to step up and do its part to close that gap. That’s the key finding in the California Department of Housing and Community Development’s recently released housing plan, which sets a target for the number of homes we need to make sure that everyone in our state has an affordable, secure place to live. Sadly, too many of our cities are still resisting the opportunity and need to address our housing crisis collectively. While a few California cities are acting in good faith by meeting or exceeding their state housing goals, some cities seem utterly disinterested in the problem.