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SB-79 Passed By The Barest Of Votes

On the very last day of the legislative session, Scott Wiener finally scraped together the last votes he needed in the Senate to pass SB-79 by one vote. Now the bill heads to Newsom’s desk for signature. If you’re still catching up on this bad bill, head over to TracyTC.com where I ran a series of articles over the last five months chronicling the bill’s advancement through this legislative session.

This article, written by local Westchester resident Tim Campbell, also provides a strong summary of the bill including the assertion that our current state-driven housing policy is based on the “theocratic belief that only certain officials have the intellectual and moral superiority to make decisions about where and how Californians should live.” And by the way, according to Wiener, we should all be densely packed renters without green space.

I’m not okay with Scott Wiener pretending to be that superior leader and neither should you.

Wiener was only able to cobble together the votes by exempting more cities than the bill includes. He also convinced labor unions to support the bill by giving labor concessions on the densest of projects that probably won’t even be built. Developers will go for medium density on the lot next door to you and me because those projects will be the cheapest and fastest to build and profit from.

How did this happen? There were thousands of bills this session and who can read all of them? I’ve heard anecdotally that many legislators were surprised to hear how bad this bill really is. They only knew the bill its cutesy name – Abundant & Affordable Homes Near Transit. Unfortunately every part of this title is a bald-faced lie.

Even major law firms call this bill “one of the most controversial” bills in California history.

Make no mistake, with our Westchester light rail stop, our community will get hit hard. Oh, and did I mention that habitable floor space in a unit is prohibited from exceeding 1750 sq ft? These are not units for families, even if families can afford market rate rent. These projects are “stack & pack” with no required parking.

Additionally, no unit needs to be “affordable” if there are 10 or fewer units in the project. This means 10 units next door. Oh yay! Not 11. And since the units aren’t affordable, multiple people will have to live in each unit to pay the rent.

One version of the bill also applied to Bus Rapid Transit lines, although I can’t tell for sure if this provision survived. If it did, we will probably see Sepulveda and Lincoln targeted under Tier 2 of the bill. Tier 2 allows 15,000’ on a 5,000’ lot.

Additionally, transit agencies magically now get to adopt any zoning they want for their own properties. I don’t know what is owned here in our community, but this part of the bill sounds like a breeding ground for corruption to me.

SB-79 is a tortured mess that ends up screwing LA and Socal more than anyplace else in the state. The Bay Area (where Wiener is from) is specifically exempted for a longer period for no valid reason that I can discern.

Newsom previously expressed support for this awful bill, but we still have a tiny chance of convincing him otherwise, but we need to act right now.

Please Take 5 Minutes

Newsom can sign the bill at any moment, and might even like the splashy headlines of this bill in his fight with our President.

PLEASE take 30 seconds to CALL OR EMAIL THE GUV NOW, and urge him to veto this bill!

Call 916.445.2841 and email leg.unit@gov.ca.gov.

Here’s an easy sample script:

Hello, my name is _________. I’m calling to urge the Governor to veto SB 79. SB-79 will benefit developers, destroy neighborhoods, and do nothing to address our housing affordability crisis.

Or choose any talking point from this list:

This bill only effectively applies to Southern California. Why is that? Follow the money.
This bill includes virtually no affordable units. I don’t support obliterating local land use control for a law that doesn’t even address our affordability crisis.
Southern California is not built to support random density and we can’t afford infrastructure upgrades on a random basis.
The unions are going to be very angry when they find out they supported a bill requiring concessions on projects that won’t actually get built.
SB-79 does not address Southern California’s vulnerabilities for natural disasters. We will not be able to hop buses in case of earthquakes, tsunamis and wildfires.
Local control works to address housing needs. LA has adopted a Housing Element with a housing incentive ordinance that already has 20K units in the pipeline in less than six months.
SB-79 is an illegal unfunded mandate pushing all costs on local government.

The pro-SB-79 forces are extremely organized and very digitally-savvy. We need every last one of us on this list to write in and say VETO SB-79 and tell 10 friends in CA to do the same!

It’s Go Time For Every One Of Us!!

Scott Wiener will stop at nothing to get this pet bill passed. Every one of us needs to call and write the governor. And then do it again tomorrow.

Your message has to be very clear – SB-79 is a one-size fits all bill that is wrong for California and Los Angeles.

Then tell 10 friends across the city and state to call the governor, too!

🚨 Please take 30 more seconds to share this post with 10 neighbors or local friends. 🚨

For more background on the Housing Element and CHIP, read this and this.

R-1 is already burdened with ADUs and SB-9 allowing four units on a lot via subdivision.

But that isn’t enough for the developers. They are still coming after our R-1 for even denser building, even though the City has acknowledged we don’t need additional R-1 densification to meet our current RHNA numbers or our AFFH obligations.

Why are developers so fixated on R-1? R-1 lots are cheaper than a commercial lot, and nobody asks for infrastructure improvement contributions when you build.

Currently working its way through the local legislative process is a completely redone Housing Element. Community Plan Updates (CPUs) (hyper local focus) are just one component of the Housing Element. Another is the builder incentives ordinance known as CHIP (Citywide Housing Incentive Program).

Yes, you read that right. CHIP is citywide, regardless of whether your community is undergoing a CPU or not. CHIP will apply to us no matter what we put in our CPU. In our case in Westchester Playa, the Housing Element & CHIP have been more of a distraction than anything, and maybe that’s the point. We didn’t even start talking about the Housing Element & CHIP until it was almost too late. Fortunately our friends at United Neighbors were fighting the good fight for us.

I urge you to read the “background” section of the city’s Housing Element program. The entire program is premised on the many times debunked theory that an overabundance of housing will make everything cheaper and attainable. Ask Vancouver how that theory worked out for them.

So that is all the background you need for this discussion here – “build baby build” doesn’t work and it’s what Los Angeles is trying to shove down our throats, to the detriment of our mature R-1 communities.

The first draft of CHIP included R-1 lots as eligible for incentives. There was a ton of pushback on this by R-1 homeowners led by United Neighbors. R-1 was dropped from CHIP with draft #2 and we thought we dodged a bullet.

I attended the public hearing on draft #2 and was absolutely shocked to hear the lead planner literally invite people to convince them why R-1 should go back in the ordinance. I had an opportunity to give public comment supporting the R-1 exemption, along with some of our neighbors, but we only represented about 10% of the comments. I was sweating bullets from the end of that meeting until draft #3 came out.

The third draft dropped last week. R-1 is still not in the main recommendations report, but buried in Exhibit D is a strongly worded argument why the Commission should bring R-1 back into the Ordinance and 7 strategies laid out like a pick and choose menu. 😱

The Ordinance heads to the Planning Commission this week for a public hearing. We need comments!! The official deadline for comments has passed, but we should keep pushing, especially in light of this new information. If you can attend the meeting on zoom and make a public comment, that will be even better. Find the agenda here with instructions.

Our Neighborhood Council wrote a Community Impact Statement supporting an exemption for R-1. Kentwood Home Guardians, a 3400 property HOA in our community, wrote a similar letter, but we need volumes of comments and letters.

If we lose this fight, CHIP is going to going to kill our Community Plan Update efforts. R-1 is already subject to ADUs and SB-9. We just don’t need the impacts of CHIP added to our burden, especially when the city admits they don’t need R-1 to meet the already overly aggressive rezoning mandate.

New Information

At first read, it appears that R-1 is still out in the recommendations report sent by the planners to the Planning Commission, but United Neighbors discovered a ticking time bomb in the details – as in page 830 of the 2050 page report! 😱😱 The planners suggest that putting R-1 back in will further support “equity goals” and offer 7 options to upzone R-1, any one of which will decimate WPDR. We will likely qualify for all 7 if they are all added.

I read that as a big fat Robinhood statement and a middle finger to single-family homeowners. The problem with my Robinhood analogy is that most of us are not rich and the city doesn’t need our neighborhoods to meet state mandated goals for housing. Does this make you mad? Sign our petition! And then submit your hearing comments and show up to speak if you can. It’s very empowering!

Tracy is active in a number of local community organizations including the Neighborhood Council PLUC, Neighborhood Council Ad Hoc CPU Committee, Kentwood Home Guardians and Emerson Ave Community Garden Club. The views expressed in this post are Tracy’s alone, and should not be construed in any way as an opinion of any other group. Are you planning a meeting with the planners? Have Tracy along to make sure you get the same information other community members get. Are you willing to host a group of your neighbors for a talk on housing policy and zoning changes? Tracy would be happy to join you.

About Tracy Thrower Conyers Tracy Thrower Conyers is a long-time resident of Westchester 90045. Tracy closely follows local politics, political players and social chatter relevant to Westchester. You’ll frequently find her at Neighborhood Council meetings, as well as on all the social platforms where 90045 peeps hang out. Tracy is a real estate broker and founding principal in Silicon Beach Properties. She is a recognized expert on Silicon Beach and its impact on residential and residential income real estate, and has been featured by respected media outlets including the LA Times, KPCC and KCET. Tracy is also a licensed attorney and accidental housing policy junkie.

Tag: housing

SB-79: LAST CHANCE – Please Help