The HomeWork: October 9, 2024
Welcome to the October 9, 2024 Main edition of The Homework, the official newsletter of California YIMBY — legislative updates, news clips, housing research and analysis, and the latest writings from the California YIMBY team.
News from Sacramento
Victory alert! After a busy year of policy negotiations, legislative lobbying, and grassroots advocacy, Governor Gavin Newsom has signed all of California YIMBY’s 2024 sponsored and high-priority bills into law. Our collective efforts – anchored by grassroots YIMBY activists and our coalition partners – paid off with one of our most successful legislative sessions to date.
We want to thank all of our legislative partners, authors, co-sponsors, and coalition partners – and especially Governor Newsom, who consistently signs pro-housing, YIMBY legislation into law, which this year includes:
Sponsored Bills:
- SB 937 (Wiener): This bill will authorize deferrals of impact fees and extends entitlements in order to provide developers tools to pencil out projects.
- AB 1820 (Schiavo): This bill will require cities to provide a precise estimate of the fees required for a proposed housing development at the time of building permit application.
- AB 2580 (Wicks): This bill will require local governments to monitor how new historic designations could impact their ability to meet housing needs under existing state law, and report new historic buildings and districts to the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) during the Annual Progress Report of the Regional Housing Needs Assessment process.
- SB 1123 (Caballero): This bill updates SB 684 (2023) to make it legal to build up to 10 homes on single-family zoned vacant lots.
- SB 1211 (Skinner): This bill will encourage more ADUs on multifamily properties by providing more flexibility around how ADUs can be built alongside existing multifamily housing.
- AB 3057 (Wilson): This is a technical fix to an existing law that will grant local Junior ADU ordinances the same exemption from environmental review that is already granted to standard ADU ordinances.
- SB 312 (Wiener): This bill fixes an error in SB 886 to ensure that projects that qualify for LEED certification receive streamlined approvals prior to their final LEED certification – which can not be granted until construction is complete.
High-Priority Bills:
- SB 1210 (Skinner): This bill will help to eliminate uncertainty around utility connection fees by requiring that fees are clear, transparent, and posted online.
- SB 450 (Atkins): makes a number of changes to SB 9 (Atkins, 2019) to improve access and certainty for homeowners to the streamlined housing options provided by SB 9.
To review all the housing bills California YIMBY has sponsored, supported, and tracked this legislative year, you can use our Abstract link to track with us.
Stay tuned to future editions of The Homework, and follow the California YIMBY Twitter channel, @cayimby, to stay up to date on developments on the legislative session and related news.
Housing Research & Analysis
The Roots of YIMBYism: A Journey Through Housing History
When did the YIMBY movement really begin?
In The Uneven March of Progress: The Past, Present, and Future of Zoning Reform in the United States, Stephen Menendian draws historic parallels between the modern YIMBY movement, which arose during the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007 – 2008, and the fair housing and open housing movements of the 1950s and 60s.
Key Takeaways:
- The modern zoning reform movement has strong parallels to the 1950s and 60s fair housing movements.
- Housing reforms tend to be more effective when pursued at higher levels of government.
- While zoning reformers have made significant progress in the modern era, it is still early days; and we should expect to see broader, stronger reforms in coming years.
When Wages Prevail: Assessing the Cost of Construction
In California, legislation to streamline housing production and to fund the construction of deed-restricted affordable housing often requires builders to pay “prevailing wages” to the construction workers who work on the resulting project. These requirements are based on the idea that streamlined and affordable housing should create well-paying construction jobs for union workers.
The tradeoff: paying higher wages can often raise construction costs. However, determining how much higher construction costs are with prevailing wage requirements is difficult, because almost all real estate development financial data is private.
In Low Income Housing Tax Credit Construction Costs: An Analysis of Prevailing Wages, the UC Berkeley Terner Center leverages public data from Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) applications to quantify the construction cost difference between prevailing wage and non-prevailing wage subsidized housing projects.
Key Takeaways:
- Per-unit construction costs for new-construction projects that paid prevailing wages are approximately $94,000 higher than for projects that did not.
- Per-unit costs for rehabilitation projects that pay prevailing wages are about $48,000 higher than for projects that did not.
- Leaving out high- and low-cost projects (like those in the Bay Area and in rural parts of the state), the prevailing wage price premium averages about $83,000 per unit.
Houser Headlines
- The YIMBYs Won Over the Democrats – The Atlantic
- Why Kamala Harris is a YIMBY – by The Ink
- Kamala Harris says America needs more homes. Here’s why that’s different.
- How long will L.A. shield its single-family-home neighborhoods from rezoning?
- Endorsement: Prop 33 promises a solution to the housing crisis. It would almost certainly make things worse
- Will Kamala Harris give YIMBYs a voice in the White House? | The Week
- Editorial: A test for Mayor Bass’ Planning Commission — support affordable housing or preserve single-family zoning?
- How the Cost of Housing Became So Crushing – The New York Times
- California Legislature Passes New Guidance on Controversial ‘Builder’s Remedy’ Rule – Commercial Observer
- How California NIMBYs are weaponizing historic preservation to stop new homes
- California Bill Seeks to Balance Preservation and Housing Demand | Planetizen News
- Beverly Hills is dragging its heels on a development with affordable apartments. The governor says: Build it
- This wealthy Bay Area community just blew past its housing mandate
YIMBY Social – Top Posts
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