Just 13% of the 3.5 million homes Gov. Gavin Newsom campaigned on building have been permitted, let alone built. He’s walked back the goal many times, settling on a new target earlier this year: Cities need to have planned a combined 2.5 million homes by 2030.
Assembly Bill 2011 and Senate Bill 6 will allow developers to bypass some local zoning to turn underutilized and empty commercial buildings into housing.
One law will let developers build housing on some commercial land without having to ask permission from local governments, as long as a certain percentage of the housing is affordable.
The Planning Commission’s 4-1 vote came after multiple members of surrounding communities objected, saying it is the last big parcel of land along the LA River that could be used for park space.
After weeks of negotiation, two major construction unions didn’t reach a compromise on bills about turning commercially zoned land into housing. Legislators congratulated each other anyway.
The report paints a complex picture of Long Beach, noting that while housing discrimination “was a fact of life for all people of color,” it also details how the city was a central player in later efforts to bring about fair housing in Southern California.
By enacting SB 9, the state “eviscerated a city’s local control overland use decisions and a community-tailored zoning process,” the petition states.
In the Washington neighborhood, Habitat LA has 10 homes under construction that are slated for completion by June and 36 more that are underway in the area this year, Habitat LA President and CEO Erin Rank said.
A California Association of Realtors study found fewer than one in five Black and Latino households were able to buy a median-priced, single-family home, underscoring California’s income inequality and high housing costs.
Most everyone in the Capitol agrees the provision should be repealed, both for its racist roots and because it makes it much harder to build affordable housing in a state where the median price for a single-family home is nearly $800,000.
