Every week at All Saints Church we put our faith into action. This week we are asking everyone to send a message to their members of the California State Legislature supporting the Building Opportunities for All Housing Package.
California’s housing crisis is severe. It is the main driver behind increasing homelessness and people leaving the state. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, California lost population last year — the first time this has happened in over 100 years.
The lack of affordable housing is a major disincentive to starting new businesses or even holding on to the businesses we have. When we lose those businesses, we lose the job opportunities those businesses generate, up and down the income scale. We lose the income they generate. We lose the tax revenues they generate.
Last year when the legislative session ended in September, we were disappointed when another year went by without major housing reform from Sacramento. However, there has been an election and a new session of the State Legislature has begun. Therefore, many critical bills impacting housing that didn’t make it over the finish line in 2020 have been reintroduced.
Among the most important reforms on the table is the state Senate’s Building Opportunities for All Housing Package. This package of six bills would encourage strong housing production by reforming local land use restrictions, funding affordable housing and streamlining the housing production process.
These are the bills in the Building Opportunities for All Housing Package:
- SB 5 finances housing programs for Californians experiencing homeless and extremely low-income households
- SB 6 legalizes housing production in commercially-zoned areas
- SB 7 expedites judicial review of CEQA challenges for projects that meet defined environmental and labor requirements
- SB 8 limits’ cities ability to block production of affordable housing proposed under the State Density Bonus program
- SB 9 legalizes duplexes and lot splits in single-family residential zones
- SB 10 streamlines local rezoning to allow “missing middle” housing production
California must address its housing crisis. Failure to do so will have a severe impact on the quality of life in this state. These six bills of the Building Opportunities for All Housing Package represent major steps in the right direction, and they deserve to be law. Our representatives in Sacramento must move towards ending California’s housing crisis.
