April 15, 2021

• SB 6 Brings back the failed SB 1385. Empowers developers to override cities, buying and destroying stores and businesses to build dense market-rate housing. SB 6 targets commercial buildings that have had vacancy problems for 3 years, a gentrification slapdown harming businesses just starting to recover, such as in Crenshaw in South LA, and Riverside and other key cities in the Inland Empire. This bill cites the failed theory that density somehow results in “affordable housing.” This is wrong. The opposite occurs: displacement, gentrification and astronomical rents. Strongly Oppose. Link to LC Position Letter

• SB 9 Revives the hated SB 1120. Ends single-family zoning to allow 6 units where 1 home is now. SB 9 is not a “duplex” bill. State law allows two units already (AB 68), letting homeowners add a house in their yards, or turn their homes into duplexes. SB 9 encourages investors to bid against families, such as the pension funds now gobbling up homes. Facing withering criticism, SB 9’s author, in a Sacramento Bee op-ed, said her bill gives “homeowners the opportunity to reimagine their property.” But few families can finance full-sized homes in their yard. SB 9 is a copycat of SB 1120, the false “duplex” bill misreported by most journalists in 2020. It goes against 21M people living in homes they own. Strongly Oppose. Link to LC Position Letter

• SB 10 (Wiener) An SB 902 lookalike bill, warmed over from 2020, lets city councils ignore CEQA to allow 14-unit pricey market-rate apartments almost anywhere — state Sen. Scott Wiener’s obsession for years. This strongly anti-environment bill also allows a City Council to override voter-approved land-protection initiatives including urban boundaries and open space, an attack on our 108-year-old right to initiative. Wiener is wrong. Strongly Oppose. Link to LC Position Letter

• SB 478 (Wiener) Amended on April 12, 2021 after severe criticism, SB 478 overrides city zoning to let developers gentrify and destroy older, modest, multiple-unit housing to build dense market-rate housing. Wiener’s claim that SB 478 will create “affordability by design” will never happen. Until the Legislature reverses its tragic 2011 defunding of affordable housing, legislators’  claims of achieving “affordability by design”are wrong and an impediment to change. Strongly Oppose.

• AB 1322 – Voters are under attack in AB 1322. AB 1322 creates an unprecedented and divisive path to let city councils override voter-approved housing laws. AB 1322 will fuel a statewide war over voter rights and the corrosive impact of developer money pouring into city councils.  Strongly Oppose. Link to LC Position Letter