State Assemblyman Richard Bloom has morphed into Scott Wiener, even as Wiener loses support among Sacramento legislators due to his slyness and divisive war on homes, yards and neighborhoods.

In his AB 1279, Bloom (Santa Monica) would jam ultra-dense housing in newly defined “Opportunity Areas” — thriving middle-class areas that Bloom’s bill would seek to overrun with apartments.

Bloom would force 50-unit and 120-unit apartments into fully settled, stable communities. Which ones? AB 1279 will map them out later, then drop the mess on we, the public.

Your own city council has NO say over whether your neighborhood will be doomed-by-Bloom as an “Opportunity Area.”

The backstory to AB 1279? Bloom is punishing roughly 400 city councils he feels didn’t try hard enough to attract and approve housing proposals from developers.

Roughly 400 cities cannot meet the impossible growth goal called the Regional Housing Needs Assessment or “RHNA.” RHNA was once a helpful tool for cities to plan for housing needs. Today RHNA is used as a weapon against cities by “regional” housing officials who create absurd “housing approval” targets each year. Please see this brilliant Embarcadero Institute study and detailed pdf spreadsheets, here, to understand the RHNA problem.

Assemblymember Richard Bloom is obsessed with ultra-density, along the lines of Hong Kong, clinging to a pre-COVID-19 concept that will bring misery, displacement and instability.

We urge you to CLICK HERE to send an OPPOSE AB 1279 letter to key legislators. And please share the below bullet-points with your communities and city leaders, so they can join the fight against Richard Bloom’s outrageous AB 1279.

Bullet Point Analysis — Why You Should OPPOSE AB 1279: 

  •  In hundreds of middle-class and working-class communities, AB 1279 would jam in 50-units per ¼ acre and 120 units per ½ acre.
  • AB 1279 targets hundreds of cities with drastic upzoning because they were unable to approve enough housing units to meet badly inflated targets set by “RHNA” housing bureaucrats. 
  • Studies verify that cities fail to hit their arbitrary “RHNA” housing-approval targets because developers don’t bring them enough projects. Cities don’t “build” housing. Bloom is in denial.
  • Unsuspecting residents of working- and middle-class “Opportunity Areas,” yet to be mapped by state officials, would see their communities bought out, demolished and paved over. 
  • Under AB 1279, developers can pay a modest “in lieu fee” to avoid offering EVEN ONE affordable unit in any project, even while destroying existing housing. Bloom flunks in math.
  • Legislators created RHNA to help cities determine how much housing was needed — a good idea. Now RNHA is being badly abused to order cities to grow at impossible rates. 

Richard Bloom’s out-of-touch bill is unfair, punitive and will markedly worsen the housing affordability crisis at the worst possible time for California. Please oppose AB 1279.