The Assembly Select Committee on Permitting Reform held its first hearing on June 18, 2024, commencing its efforts to address California’s housing and climate crises by reforming the state’s land use permitting regime. According to Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, housing and infrastructure projects “often face years of review, at multiple levels of government, in arcane and oblique processes.” Wicks stated that the Select Committee was accordingly formed to “systematically examine existing permitting processes and seek out meaningful solutions.” The Select Committee plans to hold additional hearings through the end of 2024 and release a white paper in early 2025 that will include findings and recommendations for subsequent legislative action.
As city officials expected, California Attorney General Rob Bonta is appealing a Superior Court ruling that has prevented enforcement of the state housing law Senate Bill 9 in Del Mar and four other cities. Authored by state Senator Toni Atkins, SB 9 allows qualifying parcels that typically accommodate only single family homes to receive ministerial approval for a lot split and up to two units on each lot. It took effect in 2022. Del Mar joined a lawsuit filed by four Los Angeles County cities to argue that the law violated the state constitution because it “is neither reasonably related to its stated concern of ensuring access to affordable housing nor narrowly tailored to avoid interference with local government.”
San Francisco, where it takes over two years to get a housing permit, could see a reduction to permitting times to just six months for qualifying projects under a new declaration from California Department of Housing and Community Development. With HCD’s declaration, San Francisco is the first city in California to be subject to Senate Bill 423 (see below). A UC Berkeley study found it takes 26.3 months to receive approval for multifamily housing in San Francisco, the slowest in the nation.
As discussed in our prior legal alert, SB 423, effective as of January 1, 2024, extends the sunset provision for and makes other substantive changes to SB 35 (Wiener, 2017). SB 35 provides for a streamlined ministerial (i.e., no CEQA) approval process for qualifying housing development projects in local jurisdictions that have not made sufficient progress towards their state-mandated Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA), as determined by the California HCD. SB 423 expands SB 35 to apply when a local jurisdiction fails to adopt a housing element in substantial compliance with state housing element law (regardless of RHNA progress), as specified and as determined by HCD.
A $10 billion statewide affordable housing bond has failed to make it to the November ballot, raising worries from housing advocates about funding after the state cut more than a billion dollars from such programs. Assembly Bill 1657, introduced by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, was poised to be the largest housing-related bond in decades and was widely supported by housing advocates and city officials across California. It would have authorized general obligation bonds to be used for affordable rental housing programs for lower income families and supportive housing for people experiencing homelessness, among other uses.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has introduced new limits to her administration’s program to streamline affordable housing. The changes will further restrict where low-income apartments can be fast-tracked in the city at a time when rents are rising further out of reach for many residents. The long list of new restrictions includes a prohibition on fast-tracking affordable housing in the city’s designated historic districts, an idea proposed earlier by City Councilmember Katy Yaroslavksy in response to plans for low-income apartments in pricey Windsor Village.
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© Allen Matkins
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