Well it looks like the cabal between radical Leftists trying to end local control of zoning and permitting and the developers/donors is ending. SB9 which was to kill off single family housing has been amended, with a poison pill. If Sacramento took over the zoning and permitting, allowing eight unites to a lot where single family homes now exist, the seller would have to live in the slum housing for at least three years!
“That came just days after Atkins amended the bill to appease opponents concerned it would increase real estate speculation by adding an owner-occupancy requirement. Now, property owners who take advantage of the law’s changes will need to sign an affidavit attesting that they will live in one of the homes as their primary residence for at least three years.
The trade-off for that protection, though, is that it is likely to limit the number of new homes produced.”
End the Sacramento dictatorship—return local control to the community. Should SB 9 pass, if you live in Irvine, you would have to go to Sacramento, not city hall, to complain and oppose.
Sacramento Report: SB 9 Still Alive, But Its Impact Might Be Limited
Recent amendments and a closer look at SB 9 are raising questions about how significant an effect it could have in the first place.
Andrew Keatts, Voice of San Diego, 8/20/21
The Legislature’s biggest swing at tackling the housing crisis is headed to a floor vote in the Assembly next week, but recent amendments and a closer look at the bill are raising questions about how significant an effect it could have in the first place.
The bill, SB 9, written by Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, aims to chip away at single-family zoning across the state by letting landowners split their properties in two as a basic right, and to let them build duplexes on any lot, in effect making any property zoned for one home capable of hosting four homes instead.
SB 9 jumped one of the biggest hurdles in Sacramento this week when it advanced through the Assembly’s Appropriations Committee, setting it up for a floor vote next week.
That came just days after Atkins amended the bill to appease opponents concerned it would increase real estate speculation by adding an owner-occupancy requirement. Now, property owners who take advantage of the law’s changes will need to sign an affidavit attesting that they will live in one of the homes as their primary residence for at least three years.
The trade-off for that protection, though, is that it is likely to limit the number of new homes produced.
Already, the law was facing significant questions on that front. As CalMatters covered in an in-depth look at the bill this week, the highest-profile housing bill in the state is unlikely to realize the dreams of its supporters, or the nightmares of its opponents.
That conclusion is consistent with research last year from the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, which analyzed how many new homes could be produced in California if the state enacted reforms that legalized fourplexes on properties currently zoned only for single-family homes. Not exactly what SB 9 does, but close.
It concluded that such a change – and zoning reforms in general – don’t result in nearly the market-rate housing production supporters often hope, or detractors often fear. That’s because even after a property’s zoning is changed, only those on which development is economically feasible will even be considered for new housing. And on this property in which zoning is reformed and development is feasible, only a small portion are going to be sold or made available, because land transactions in general are infrequent. And properties that cross all three of those checkpoints still need to grapple with other issues like additional local development restrictions, labor supply, capital availability and whatever internal issues might arise for a developer.
“The result of the processes the funnel describes is that millions of market-feasible opportunities may yield relatively few built units, perhaps just a few thousand units every year,” the study reads.
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