Policy News :: Weekly Update for September 8, 2023

This week in affordable housing news…:

State Update:

  • With a week to go in the legislative session, all four of CHC’s sponsored bills are advancing quickly: AB 1307 (Wicks) was signed by the Governor yesterday, after receiving a 76-0 vote in the Assembly and 38-0 in the Senate. The bill reverses a troubling recent state court decision by clarifying that the sound of residents’ voices cannot be considered an environmental impact under CEQA. As noted by Asm. Wicks, in addition to reestablishing precedent in future CEQA cases, the legislation will also unlock 1,200 units of student housing near the campus of UC Berkeley, along with 160 units of housing for formerly homeless residents. “California will not allow NIMBYism to take hold, blocking critically needed housing for years and even decades,” Governor Newsom said in a statement after signing the bill: “I thank Asm. Wicks and all the legislative leaders for taking on the status quo and clearing the way for our state to build more affordable housing.”
  • SB 423 (Wiener), a CHC-sponsored bill strengthening and extending SB 35 for another ten years, also advanced out of the Assembly this week by a vote of 61-8. The bill now moves back to the Senate for a concurrence vote before it can go to the Governor. “With the strengthened streamlining provisions included in SB 423, we’re bringing California’s ambitious housing goals in reach,” Senator Wiener said in a statement. “SB 35 has proven one of the strongest tools in our toolbox for driving affordable housing development. That’s why a growing labor, business, anti-poverty, and environmental coalition has gone to bat to strengthen and extend this important law.”
  • Another CHC-sponsored bill, AB 1449 (Alvarez), is also on its way to the Governor after passing off the Senate Floor by a vote of 32-2. The bill will extend new CEQA exemptions to a range of 100% affordable housing project approvals, provided they included the “high road” job standards established by last year’s precedent-setting AB 2011 (Wicks, 2022).
  • In another noteworthy win for affordable housing this week, a CHC-supported bill seeking to lower vote thresholds for local housing bonds, ACA 1 (Aguiar-Curry), advanced off the Assembly Floor for the first time, passing by a vote of 55-12—just beyond the two-thirds majority (54 votes) needed to advance. The bill now moves into the Senate; if approved, as a constitutional amendment, it then needs to go to the voters. The bill’s passage was a show of strength by new Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister), who threw his support behind the proposal. A similar bill failed on the Assembly floor in 2019, earning only 44 votes. CHC and our affordable housing partners have championed ACA 1 as one of three key affordable housing measures making their way to the 2024 ballot, along with a $10 billion housing bond and the Governor’s $4.7 billion mental health reform bond.

ICYMI – Top news stories:

Affordable housing leader reflects on her journey and community impact
Yahoo Finance
Lisa Gutierrez is a Nor Cal resident to the core, but her passion for communities across the country in her day-to-day work is second to none. “I love my job because of the lives and communities we get to transform with our financing,” said Gutierrez, who serves as the director of business development, affordable housing, for U.S. Bancorp Impact Finance. Recently, Gutierrez received a phone call from the executive director of the California Housing Consortium (CHC), Ray Pearl, to let her know she is the recipient of a 2023 Hall of Fame Award in the private sector. “Hall of Fame feels like something you get inducted to at the end of an esteemed career, so receiving this honor now is so exciting,” she said. “I am humbled to be recognized by the folks I work alongside with every day to create more affordable homes in California and advocate for policy within this state and beyond.”

Over 40,000 eviction notices have gone out in L.A. this year, many to upscale apartments
Los Angeles Times
Across Los Angeles, more than 40,000 eviction notices, the vast majority of which were three-day notices to pay or move out, have been sent to tenants since late January. They were issued at roughly 8,400 buildings across the city, for amounts ranging from $0 to $561,700. The 10 buildings sending the most notices to their tenants—more than 150 each—were upscale apartments in places such as downtown, Hollywood and Woodland Hills. Details about the notices, which are a precursor to an eviction lawsuit, were collected by the city for the first time this year and made public by the city controller’s office. They shed light on a key step in the eviction process that until now has been shrouded in secrecy, offering a glimpse at how often tenants across the city are met with the threat of eviction.

This rich California city is using the affirmative action ruling to stop affordable housing
San Francisco Chronicle
NIMBYs sure know how to keep the surprises coming. Just when you think they might have finally run out of absurd arguments to avoid building new housing—such as a town declaring itself a mountain lion sanctuary or proposing to develop affordable housing on underwater eelgrass—they come up with something new. Meet the wealthy Los Angeles County community of La Cañada Flintridge, which—in a desperate attempt to avoid approving its first multifamily housing project in more than a decade—argued in court documents filed last week that a California law designed to desegregate historically exclusionary communities, known as “affirmatively furthering fair housing,” is unconstitutional due to the U.S. Supreme Court striking down affirmative action in college admissions. In other words: building affordable apartments where they haven’t traditionally been built is racially discriminatory — mostly against rich white people.

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