California rebellion against housing density mandates is on

If any California information media had really lined these two strongly-related tales, it could have been tough to keep away from seeing the irony in them.

On the identical July day that California Legal professional Normal Rob Bonta issued a stern warning to cities and counties across the state about alleged misuse of native “urgency” zoning guidelines designed to frustrate the elevated housing density legal guidelines Bonta likes to push, the insurrection in opposition to these very legal guidelines formally started.

This occurred when Bonta’s personal workplace acquired a brand new initiative designed to make native governments — not the state — supreme in setting housing insurance policies and patterns. Bonta’s warning cited legal guidelines handed within the final two years similar to SB 9 and AB 2011, each of which demand that native governments approve a number of flats or condominiums in areas that now characteristic single houses solely on discrete properties.

Nevertheless, the brand new initiative — which Bonta should formally identify and summarize earlier than supporters can search signatures to put it on the November 2024 poll — would give native officers or voters energy to override these new legal guidelines and others that the Legislature passes or has handed to manage housing and land use.

In brief, if handed, this initiative would take lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom to a figurative woodshed and cease them from attempting to reshape California right into a far denser place than it ever has been.

A two-year delay in placing ahead and passing one thing like this initiative now means the myriad buildings underneath building or just lately accomplished will survive and stay standing even when the brand new measure passes.

This initiative displays a change in techniques for native governments and their backers who initially sought to cross a referendum canceling 2021’s landmark SB 9 and 10 legal guidelines that permit, amongst different issues, as many as six new housing items on nearly each lot now occupied by only one dwelling.

The referendum that by no means certified for the 2022 poll failed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic drove the price of gathering signatures to unprecedented heights – as a lot as $16 per signature in some elements of the Bay Space.

There was additionally the truth that it focused solely SB 9 and 10, which have for the second all however ended R-1 zoning in California. Even when these legal guidelines had been canceled, referendum backers got here to appreciate, decided lawmakers like state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, might reply by writing new ones that may be solely barely completely different and nonetheless get the density they need.

These lawmakers, aided by threats from Newsom and Bonta to chop off nearly all state funding to native governments, pay no heed to native preferences or the character and atmosphere of particular person cities. They deal with Altadena the identical as Atherton, San Dimas like Santa Cruz. Their guideline: everybody, all over the place should welcome high-rise residing. By no means thoughts that they do little to advertise housing affordability and by no means thoughts the truth that nearly half of what’s been constructed to this point stays vacant.

Reasonably than going after simply two particular legal guidelines, the brand new initiative states that its objective is to “defend the power of native communities to make land-use planning and zoning selections,” that “one dimension doesn’t match all” and that “native land-use planning or zoning initiatives accredited by voters shall not be nullified or outdated by state regulation.”

In brief, native governments would make land-use and housing selections in perpetuity if this passes. Bonta would in impact change into a paper tiger making empty threats.

It’s attainable the sponsors, together with present and former leaders of cities across the state, might compromise with die-hard densifiers within the Legislature earlier than this measure reaches the poll, however that appears unlikely as a result of some sponsors consider the brand new state housing legal guidelines are an assault in opposition to democracy itself.

“Taking this discipline away from native authorities is a method of wiping out democracy,” mentioned Dennis Richards, a former longtime member of San Francisco’s planning fee. “Folks like Wiener are saying it doesn’t matter what native residents take into consideration their cities or how they’ve voted.”

Which means the insurrection is on, and satirically it’s Bonta who now will get to make the primary transfer.

E mail Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com, and skim extra of his columns on-line at californiafocus.internet.

Cookie	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.