The California governor approved the proposal despite fierce pushback from the Los Angeles mayor and City Council.
Gavin Newsom on Friday signed a contentious bill aimed at tackling California’s sky-high housing costs by spurring denser development near major transit stops in big cities.
“Housing near transit means shorter commutes, lower costs, and more time with family. When we invest in housing, we’re investing in people — their chance to build a future, raise a family, and be part of a community,” the California governor said in a statement.
The bill will require local officials in counties with more than 15 passenger rail stations to OK large housing developments — in some cases, buildings up to nine stories — located within a half mile of such a stop.
The group behind the bill, the pro-development California YIMBY Action, said the new housing rules will apply to fewer than 1 percent of transit stops in the state, and to only eight counties with large cities: Los Angeles, Orange, San Francisco, Alameda, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Sacramento and San Diego.
The bill, SB 79, weathered intense resistance in the statehouse, and its author, state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco, narrowed it significantly to exclude transit stops with less frequent service. It touched a nerve in wildfire-scarred, car-centric Los Angeles; Mayor Karen Bass had urged Newsom to veto the proposal over concerns about displacement and the loss of local decision-making authority, arguing in a letter it “risks significant unintended consequences for many of Los Angeles’ diverse communities.”
Wiener, a longtime champion of speeding construction to boost the supply of housing and lower costs, negotiated with powerful construction and hotel-worker unions to require the use of unionized workers in developments over 85 feet tall.
Those amendments and others were enough to win over some progressive Democrats who had originally panned the bill as a handout to developers, including state Sens. Aisha Wahab from Hayward and María Elena Durazo from Los Angeles.
But many statewide and local officials from Southern California have remained against the bill, which was the subject of frenzied lobbying efforts by both sides of the debate after its passage.
The Los Angeles City Council passed a resolution in August laying out its opposition, writing that the bill “further undermines local governance, circumvents local decision-making processes and imposes unintended burdens on communities.”
In her letter to Newsom, sent shortly after the bill passed, Bass wrote that she agreed that housing production must be streamlined in the city. But, she added, “we must do so in a way that does not erode local control, diminish community input on planning and zoning, and disproportionately impact low-resourse neighborhoods.”
Discussion around the bill also took on a life of its own online. When Newsom played Fortnite on a livestream to talk politics with one of his kids’ favorite Twitch streamers last week, the comment section was spammed with questions over what the governor would do with SB 79.
“We are aware of Senate Bill 79. Please don’t spam it!” pinned one user in the chat.