The City of Berkeley once had a reputation as a progressive, environmental leader. But now some members of its city council seem intent on preventing new development in this transit-rich, low-carbon city — an attitude that is both exclusionary and bad for the environment. The result is fewer transit riders and homes near jobs — and more sprawl and pollution as new residents are pushed far from the city center.
This issue is once again put to the test when the city council tonight debates whether to oppose AB 2923 (Chiu), a bill to allow BART to develop its own properties near station entrances. Berkeley is barely affected by the bill, as it would only allow new land use rules at one BART station: the parking lot at North Berkeley. Still, the NIMBY forces are out in effect for this resolution tonight.
Together with my UC Berkeley colleagues Karen Chapple and Elizabeth Deakin, along with Paulson Institute senior fellow (and Berkeley alum) Kate Gordon, I submitted a letter today asking the council to support AB 2923. Let’s hope the members support this innovative bill to allow badly needed new housing adjacent to major transit, so that others may enjoy the benefits that current Berkeley residents have.
It would not only be the right policy choice but an affirmation of the welcoming and open-minded spirit for which the city of my birth was once known.
UPDATE: The City Council approved the measure opposing AB 2923. The bill heads to the Assembly floor this week for a vote.
SB 827 (Wiener) was the big effort to solve California’s housing shortage. When the state senate killed it in committee, the senators doomed California to more small-bore proposals. Still, it’s worth reviewing what might be possible this year to at least partially address the massive housing shortage. Here are three housing bills that could make a difference:
1. SB 828 (Wiener): This is Sen. Scott Wiener’s other big housing bill this year. It greatly strengthens the state’s regional affordable housing requirements on local governments. Under the law, cities and counties are allocated a certain number of affordable housing units they’re supposed to make available in their jurisdiction, by identifying sites where this housing could be built, in theory.
But the process is largely a paper-pushing exercise, with few real world consequences for locals that don’t ensure the new housing is actually built. SB 828 would greatly tighten the requirements. Under the proposed bill:
- Local leaders can no longer use prior underproduction of housing from previous cycles to justify a lower housing allocation from the state for the current cycle.
- The state must include past under-production numbers as part of the current cycle of requirements for local governments.
- Local leaders must identify actions to accommodate 125% of their share of the regional housing need that they could not accommodate without rezoning their identified sites.
- Local leaders must make at least 100% of their share of housing be available for multifamily housing in already-developed areas.
- Local leaders must demonstrate efforts to reverse racial and wealth disparities, including by showing a high housing allocation for households located within particular communities and for all income categories.
- The state must address the historic underproduction of housing in California, particularly in coastal and metropolitan communities, by completing a comprehensive audit of unmet housing needs for each region by 2020 and add the results to each region’s next regional housing assessment following that year.
If SB 828 passes as is, cities and counties would ultimately be required to rezone a significant amount of land for new housing, particularly to accommodate lower-income residents.
2. SB 831 (Wieckowski): Accessory dwelling units (ADUs), like granny flats, promise to add a lot of new housing units without changing the built environment much. They can be added on existing parcels quite easily and sometimes within existing building envelopes. In recognition of this potential, the state passed legislation in 2016 that preempted local restrictions on these units. But since then, anti-housing local leaders have used high fees, requirements on parking replacement, and “health and safety” concerns to block these new units. SB 831 would close those loopholes that have allowed local governments to find ways to kill ADUs.
3. SB 961 (Allen): This bill is unfortunately brought to you by some of the folks who helped kill SB 827. Move LA, the pro-transit group that is ironically opposed to much transit-oriented development (including SB 827), and State Senator Ben Allen, who voted against SB 827 in its first and only committee hearing, teamed up on an otherwise promising solution to help finance affordable housing near transit.
The bill builds on last year’s AB 1568 (Bloom, 2017), which improved infrastructure finance districts for infill projects. Using the acronym NIFTI (Neighborhood Infill Finance and Transit Improvements Act), it allowed these districts to capture future increases in revenue from sources like sales and occupancy taxes to pay for infrastructure improvements up front.
SB 961 takes the NIFTI model and would apply it specifically to areas within a half-mile of a major transit stop, with requirements to dedicate much of the funds to affordable housing. It also would expand the financing tools available by allowing the districts to authorize bonds without voter approval.
So while housing advocates mourn the defeat of SB 827, this year still offers some movement to boost housing production. And in the long run, the mobilization of YIMBY groups in California and beyond promises to bring more legislation like SB 827 to the fore. All of it will be needed as the state endures this significant — and artificially created — housing shortage.
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and ensuring environmental justice should go hand in hand. After all, residents of disadvantaged communities have the most to gain from a transition to a clean energy economy — and the most to lose from climate impacts.
Yet too often climate advocates and the environmental justice (EJ) community are at odds, particularly over policies like cap and trade and efforts to site new climate-friendly development, such as clean energy facilities, rail lines, or smart growth. EJ leaders may oppose large-scale climate policies that benefit the environment overall yet fail to protect specific neighborhoods from pollution, and they may resent changes to processes that leave disadvantaged communities without a seat at the table, among other concerns.
Given the dynamics, how can attorneys incorporate climate change concerns into their practice? Is there an ethical or professional responsibility to consider and discuss with clients the climate change implications of their decisions?
Join me at lunch today starting at 11:30am at the Alameda County Witkin Law Library for a talk on these questions. More information available on-line [PDF]. The event will take place at:
Alameda County Law Library
125 12th Street
Hayward-Union City Room, 4th Floor
Oakland, CA 94607
You can purchase tickets here for $45.00, with lunch included. One hour of participatory MCLE credit is available for attorneys. Hope to see you there!
Transit ridership is declining nationwide, while driving miles are up. Recent research indicates that increased access to vehicles by lower-income residents is particularly responsible for the transit dip, as lower-income residents tend to ride transit more than higher-income earners. And land use policies that encourage or force low-income residents to move far from jobs may be a determining factor.
First off, as Governing reports, poor people are increasingly able to access vehicles:
Only 20 percent of adults living in poverty in 2016 reported that they had no access to a vehicle. That’s down from 22 percent in 2006, according to a Governing analysis of U.S. Census data. Meanwhile, the access rates among all Americans was virtually the same (6.6 percent) between those two years.
In addition, lower-income earners are now able to get easy access to car loan services, including “subprime” auto loans.
But while economic factors play a role, so does land use:
“The country is becoming more car-oriented, because the country is moving south. If you’re moving from transit-oriented cities in the Northeast and moving to Texas, you’re going to become more car-oriented,” [urban planner and transportation consultant Sarah Jo Peterson] says.
Urban planners who want to push for walkable neighborhoods and transit-oriented development can still make a compelling case for certain areas, particularly urban centers, she says. “What they don’t have is wind at their backs.”
This migration of poor families to the suburbs, where housing is cheaper but transit service is weak, requires them to purchase an automobile to get access to jobs.
In Los Angeles, the Southern California Association of Governments commissioned a study by UCLA researchers on the causes of the ridership decline. The numbers from the report [PDF] are striking in terms of how concentrated transit ridership is in L.A.:
Ten percent of all of the people who commuted to and from work on transit in 2015 lived in 1.4 percent of the region’s census tracts, which covered just 0.2 percent of the region’s land area; the average number of transit commuters in these few tracts was almost 12 times the regional average. Fully 60 percent of the region’s transit commuters lived in 21 percent of the region’s census tracts, which occupied 0.9 percent of the region’s land area. Overall, the most urban and transit-friendly neighborhoods in the SCAG region comprise less than one percent of the region’s land area.
Areas that were heavily populated with transit commuters in the year 2000 became, in the next 15 years, slightly less poor, and significantly less foreign born. Perhaps most important, the share of households without vehicles in these neighborhoods fell notably. All these factors align with a narrative where a transit-using populace is replaced by people who are more likely to drive.
So while researchers are still analyzing the various causes for the ridership decline, the fact that low-income residents are moving to exurban areas may be a prime reason. And that displacement is likely due to high housing costs and gentrification in our prime transit areas. Until we solve that problem, we may not be able to resuscitate the nation’s transit systems anytime soon.
The killing of SB 827 in committee on Tuesday received a lot of media attention, which hopefully furthers this important dialogue. Here are some noteworthy pieces:
San Jose Mercury News: Why did California’s major housing bill fail so quickly?:
The proposal was not the typical stuff of wonky housing policy. A new analysis by the data firm UrbanFootprint found that if every parcel of land along the 45-mile El Camino Real corridor was redeveloped according to the new height limits allowed under SB 827, the number of homes along the route — from San Bruno to San Jose — would triple to 453,000.
But it also found that a potentially less contentious alternative, adding homes to commercial developments along the same corridor, would nearly double the housing stock.
E&E News: Plan to build housing — and cut CO2 — fails in Legislature:
Other housing bills this session that are still moving include Wiener’s S.B. 828, to tighten regional planning requirements for affordable housing, and S.B. 829, which would streamline permitting for farmworker housing. Another that environmentalists are watching is A.B. 2923, which would require the Bay Area Rapid Transit system and local jurisdictions to up zone land within a half-mile of station entrances.
San Francisco Chronicle: Yelp CEO calls on Google, Facebook to help housing crisis:
Wiener vowed to bring it back next year. He wouldn’t say in what form, except that “I don’t believe the bill should be further scaled back in terms of density and geography.”
KPCC AirTalk: Senator behind California’s most ambitious housing bill debriefs on its defeat in committee
Interestingly, Sen. Wiener describes in this interview how he was really just one vote short in committee, as one of the “no” votes would have favored it if the votes were otherwise there to pass it.
New York Magazine (Jonathan Chait): The Urban Housing Crisis Is a Test for Progressive Politics:
“The zoning crisis is ultimately a question of whether the most prosperous parts of blue America can be opened up to new entrants, or whether they will remain closed off and increasingly unaffordable.”
Gimmme Shelter housing podcast with Matt Levin and Liam Dillon:
Yesterday afternoon, SB 827 was killed in its first committee. Though a number of legislators acknowledged California’s severe housing shortage, few were willing to risk the political backlash of taking on the local government lobby.
The bill needed 7 votes on the 13-member Senate Transportation and Housing Committee but only got 4. Here were the votes in favor, from the San Francisco Chronicle tally:
- Sen. Ted Gaines, R-El Dorado Hills: Yes
- Sen. Mike Morrell, R-Rancho Cucamonga (San Bernardino County): Yes
- Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley: Yes
- Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco: Yes
Notably, the bill pulled in two Republican representatives (Sen. Gaines and Morrell) from inland areas, as I suspected. Politically, they should have an interest in keeping displaced liberal voters from moving into their districts for super-commutes and cheaper housing. Meanwhile, Sen. Skinner was a bill co-author and Sen. Wiener of course authored the bill.
Then the “no” votes:
- Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose (chair): No
- Sen. Anthony Cannella, R-Ceres (Stanislaus County) (vice chair): No
- Sen. Benjamin Allen, D-Santa Monica: No
- Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa: No
- Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg: No
Most of these senators represent upscale areas with affluent homeowners. Most are Democrats. Surprisingly, Republican Sen. Cannella voted against it, even though the bill only affected 2.4 square miles (or 0.0%) of his entire district. Sen. McGuire and Dodd’s districts were also barely affected by the legislation. Notably, Sen. Allen represents transit-rich Santa Monica, a predominantly wealthy homeowner enclave, while Sen. Beall represents some exclusive neighborhoods in the San Jose area.
And for reasons that are unclear to me, these senators did not vote:
- Sen. Cathleen Galgiani, D-Stockton: Not voting
- Sen. Richard Roth, D-Riverside: Not voting
- Sen. Andy Vidak, R-Hanford (Kings County): Not voting
- Sen. Bob Wieckowski, D-Fremont: Not voting
Given these votes, it’s clear SB 827 has a long way to go (politically speaking) to convince state legislators that even a relatively modest check on local zoning authority to allow more housing near transit is needed.
The fallout from the vote should be obvious. Any hope for big sweeping changes in local restrictions on homebuilding will not happen anytime soon. I’m sure businesses around the state and country have taken note, when it comes to deciding whether to stay in California or locate a new business here. The message from the legislature is now clear: California is not serious about solving its housing shortage anytime soon.
And it’s a tough message for those struggling to pay rent or start a life here. It was always going to take years to repair the damage from decades of under-building homes in the state. And now we’re delayed yet another year or longer from getting going on real solutions.
The displacement problem will also worsen. Despite opposition from tenants rights groups, SB 827 was their best hope at addressing the root causes. The bill would have helped reduce regional housing shortages that push wealthier residents to buy up existing units in the absence of new ones, and, as this letter from noted fair housing experts explains, it would have helped open up wealthier, racially homogeneous enclaves to more diverse residents. Instead, tenants rights groups focused on boosting rent control as a solution. But this policy is really just a last-ditch effort to protect the dwindling low-income renters left in our cities, hanging on against the tide of gentrification unleashed by the regional housing shortage.
The result is the further exodus from the state of middle class residents, as well as the displacement to the fringe of our megacities of our working class residents. From these exurban areas, they’ll continue “super-commuting” into job-rich city centers, spewing air pollution from their cars, congesting our freeways, and sprawling out in cheap housing over former farmland and open space.
And this isn’t some dystopian future. This dynamic is already happening right now. The failure of SB 827 just means we’ve locked this future into place for years to come.
So what is the path forward? Big reform is likely dead. Incrementalism will replace it. But the basic approach shouldn’t change, because the problem (housing shortages with high demand) and its cause (local government restrictions on housing) will persist.
Here are some options:
- Focus an SB 827-type approach on allowing more housing on commercial and mixed-use zones near transit. Since these lands are commercial in nature, there won’t be any concerns about displacement of existing residents. Think redevelopment of strip malls and parking lots to allow housing and mixed-use development as the highest and best use.
- Narrow the scope of SB 827 to major rail transit stops only. The original bill included high-quality bus stops, which greatly expanded the geography of the bill, thus expanding an opponent base of hostile local governments. Conceivably, a narrower scope might help the chances of passage (although the “no” votes of representatives with almost no land affected by the bill in their districts should provide some caution on this point).
- Move forward incrementally with parking and density relaxations near transit. The bill originally included these provisions but also allowed higher height limits. Neighbors tend to react most reflexively against taller buildings, in my experience. A focus on parking and density may be less controversial (although previous efforts to deregulate local parking requirements failed, so this would by no means be an easy lift).
I’m sure other ideas will come forward in the days and months ahead. Pro-housing advocates will only grow in rank and intensity as the housing affordability problem worsens, and they’ll be back with new proposals. The setback yesterday was decisive but temporary.
Credit is due to Sen. Wiener and the co-authors: they have finally gotten Californians to focus on the true source of the housing problem. And the first step to solving any problem is identifying its cause. With all the national attention and conversation, SB 827 certainly accomplished that goal.
SB 827, to relax local restrictions on home-building near transit, faces a big test this afternoon at its first Capitol committee hearing. As the hearing draws near, it’s worth noting how disappointing the reaction to the bill has been from some advocacy groups that are supposedly in the pro-climate and transit worlds.
Scott Lucas at San Francisco Magazine has a lengthy piece exploring one of those groups’ opposition to the bill: the Sierra Club California. The article features this exchange with the head of the organization:
Although [Sierra Club California director Kathryn] Phillips says she supports infill development around mass transit, it’s hard for her to locate an actual place in California where she supports new buildings. This is also true of the Bay Area chapter, which in recent years has opposed the 8 Washington condo tower near the Embarcadero, the redevelopment of Treasure Island and the Hunters Point Shipyard, the expansion of Park Merced, and the new Golden State Warriors stadium. Recently, the chapter opposed a 66-unit development in the Western Addition because it would replace an auto repair shop it deemed historic.
With regard to upzoning near transit, Phillips rules out Sacramento, where some neighborhoods, she thinks, would use upzoning as an excuse to block new transit, concealing what she calls “racist” reasons under a civilized veneer. Nor does she think it’s appropriate in more outlying areas like Folsom, where a transit stop under the bill would lead to an upzoning too near wilderness areas. She doesn’t think it’s a good idea in San Diego, where taller buildings would block views of the ocean, nor does she support it in major cities like Los Angeles or San Francisco, where “people who live in rent-controlled buildings worry about bigger and bigger buildings coming toward them.”
As she finishes enumerating those exceptions, she adds, echoing the national organization’s policy line, that “we see the value of infill higher-density development around transit.”
SB 827 has revealed a lot about the politics behind our current housing dysfunction in the state. We knew wealthy homeowners and their allies in office would oppose allowing more homes built in their transit-rich communities. But the bill has also pulled the curtain back on the hypocrisy, confusion and cowardice within much of the climate and transit advocacy community about how to deal with the massive housing shortage in the state.
If SB 827 is successful, it will unfortunately be in spite of many of these advocates. And that’s not a good sign, given how much work needs to be done to improve California’s land use policies in an era of climate change.
California can’t meet its long-term climate goals without reducing its overall driving miles, per a state analysis of greenhouse gas emissions through 2050. This point was echoed in a recent New York Times article on SB 827, the measure to lift local restrictions on transit-adjacent housing. In the Times piece, bill author State Senator Scott Wiener said:
We can have all the electric vehicles and solar panels in the world, but we won’t meet our climate goals without making it easier for people to live near where they work, and live near transit and drive less.
Wiener isn’t just making that claim up. According to the California Air Resources Board’s staff report on regional greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, the state will need a reduction in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) through 2035 and 2050, even with more zero-emission vehicles sold and renewable energy deployed. They have a simple chart showing the calculations:
Basically, if by 2035 half of all new cars sales are zero emission, with half of all electricity (and thus transportation fuels) coming from renewable sources, we will still need a 7.5% reduction in baseline VMT.
The good news is all that clean technology means there would be slightly less pressure to reduce driving miles. But as the staff report pointed out:
The GHG emissions reduction contribution from VMT is a comparatively smaller in share than the GHG emissions reductions called for by advances in technology and fuels, but necessary for GHG emissions reductions in other sectors such as upstream energy production facilities and natural and working lands, and are also anticipated to lead to important co-benefits such as improved public health.
My one critique of the analysis is that it is conservative on the renewable mix by 2035. California has a statutory requirement to achieve 50% renewables by 2030, and we’re already over 35%. I would guess we’ll be at 60% renewables by 2030 and maybe 65% by 2035, not including greenhouse-gas free hydropower. In addition, bullish estimates of zero-emission vehicles could have the state at 75% battery electric vehicle sales by 2035.
Still, the point remains that VMT reductions are crucial. And worse, these VMT efforts could be badly undermined by autonomous vehicles, which could encourage more driving as people take advantage of having robot chauffeurs for every little errand and trip.
All of this analysis points to the need for much more housing production near transit and jobs — an outcome that SB 827 would directly promote. Because clean technology alone won’t be sufficient when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
