SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) — California Governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday signed 56 bills he said will help people access housing and assist in building more affordable homes.
Two of those bills — Senate Bills 4 and 423 — were written by Senator Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat. San Francisco is one of the most expensive places to live in the nation, with its housing and homelessness issues making headlines.
“California desperately needs to ramp up housing production, and the Governor’s action today helps put us on a path to achieve that goal,” Wiener said in a statement. “The era of saying no to housing is coming to an end. We’ve been planting seeds for years to get us to a brighter housing future, and today we’re continuing strongly down that path.”
S.B. 4 — dubbed “Yes In God’s Backyard” (YIGBY, a play on NIMBY) — lets religious institutions or an independent institution of higher education construct housing “by right.” That means the project needs no conditional use or planned unit development permit, or local government review, and that the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) doesn’t apply to it.
“This law unlocks over 171 thousand acres of land strictly for affordable housing production, creating a game changing opportunity to house more veterans, seniors, people with disabilities, and other community members who need support,” said Abram Diaz, policy director for the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California, in a statement.
Some local governments and neighborhood groups opposed the bill over the loss of local control and said the bill would cast aside local land use plans and zoning.
S.B. 423 extends a sunset to 2036 for one of Wiener’s previous housing bills — S.B. 35 — that lets a developer use a streamlined approval process if the project meets certain criteria.
S.B. 423 also requires streamlined projects to have at least 10% of their units be affordable for very low-income households, if the jurisdictions with those projects don’t meet certain housing targets.
Wiener said S.B. 35 has led to the construction of more than 18,000 units of affordable housing in areas that need it the most.
Some opponents of the bill disagreed with a 10-year extension of the sunset. They also said it forced cities to accept some housing projects with no regard for local needs or community input.
Newsom said that since taking office he and the Legislature have put $30 billion into affordable housing production and made dozens of reforms to CEQA. Focus like this has helped cause a 15-year high in housing for the state, he said.
"It’s simple math — California needs to build more housing and ensure the housing we have is affordable,” Newsom said in a statement. “In partnership with the Legislature, we have advanced billions of dollars to that end. These 56 bills build on that work, supporting tenants and ensuring cities are held accountable to plan for and permit their fair share of housing.”
Other housing related bills signed by Newsom include A.B. 976 — written by Assembly member Philip Ting, a San Francisco Democrat — which focuses on accessory dwelling units. Currently, local governments cannot require a primary unit that has an accessory dwelling unit to be owner-occupied. However, that expires in 2025. Ting’s bill removes the sunset date.
Newsom also signed S.B. 789, which moves three measures to the November 2024 ballot — Assembly Constitutional Amendments 1 and 5, and Senate Constitutional Amendment 2.
ACA 1 would drop the threshold required at the polls to pass certain local tax measures. Currently at two-thirds, the threshold would drop to 55% in local elections for general obligation bonds and some taxes for supportive housing projects, affordable housing and public infrastructure.
SCA 2 would remove a provision in the state constitution that requires a majority of voters in a local election to approve the development, construction or purchase of a publicly funding affordable housing project.
Unrelated to housing, ACA 5 would repeal a section of the state Constitution which states that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid and recognized.
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