Cities scramble to comply with or fight major state housing law
For California’s local governments hoping to have some say over where and how large apartment buildings get packed near major transit stops, it’s crunch time.
Last fall, state lawmakers made it legal for developers to build mid-rises — some as tall as nine stories — in major metro neighborhoods near train, subway and certain dedicated bus stops.
But the final version of Senate Bill 79, which goes into effect on July 1, offered local governments plenty of wiggle room over the where, when and how of the new law.With the summer deadline rapidly approaching, cities across the state are starting to wiggle.
Los Angeles opted for a strategy of maximum delay last month when the city council voted to overhaul a portion of its zoning map in order to buy itself a few more years of planning time.
The move took advantage of a set of escape clauses written into the state law: Transit-adjacent areas that already allow at least half of the housing required under SB 79 can hold off on changing the rules until a year after the next state-mandated planning period.
For Los Angeles and much of Southern California that’s 2030.
Likewise, many lower income neighborhoods, those at risk of wildfire and sea-level rise or sites listed on a historic preservation registry also qualify for that temporary delay.
L.A.’s city council mashed every pause button it could.
Along with temporarily exempting zoning changes in poorer neighborhoods, known fire zones and historic districts, the council preemptively voted to allow modest multiplex buildings as tall as three or four stories in dozens of higher-income neighborhoods currently restricted to single family homes. That will bring those areas up above the cut-off needed for the four-year reprieve, according to the city’s planning staff.
By swallowing a little more allowable density in the short term, the city was able to ward off a whole lot more — for now. Backers of the measure said that will give the city more time to come up with a better alternative that still complies with the law.The vote “adds meaningful housing capacity now and gives us time to decide where the rest of density should go within our own communities,” Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky said before the vote.
When 2030 arrives, the city will either have to come up with its own plan that meets the overall density requirements of the state law — but with some allowable flexibility over where all the potential growth goes — or belatedly accept SB 79 whole cloth.
The L.A. vote came as a disappointment to many pro-development advocates, who have called upon city officials to speedily accept the state-imposed densification immediately, or barring that, to take more aggressive steps in the meantime.
“We’re pretty concerned that this is not actually going to produce housing,” said Scott Epstein, policy and research director with Abundant Housing Los Angeles, a “Yes In My Backyard” oriented advocacy group.
He noted that smaller apartment buildings are less likely to be financially feasible in areas where land costs are exceptionally high. The city’s ordinance achieves its increase in allowable density by permitting modest apartment buildings in relatively affluent neighborhoods.But even some of the state law’s fiercest defenders see a silver lining in the city’s delay tactic.
“On the one hand, it’s disappointing because we’re delaying the full potential of the law,” said Aaron Eckhouse, local policy programs director for California YIMBY, one of the sponsors of SB 79. But in Los Angeles, he noted, city officials have long been fiercely resistant to proposed zoning changes in neighborhoods dominated by single-family homes.
Now Los Angeles council members are effectively saying, “‘okay, we will do this on our terms rather than on the state’s terms,’” said Eckhouse. “But it is still happening, because the state forced the issue.”