Single family zoning under threat by 7 Senate & Assembly Bills -- call for ACTION

Reprint from Livable California

The Infamous SB 50 is Hiding in 7 Bad Bills:

SB 6, SB 8, SB 9, SB 10, SB 478, AB 1322, AB 1401

Sacramento "trickle-down" housing proponents are trying to revive the divisive pre-COVID legislation SB 50 through a group of 7 bad bills. Without your intervention — meaning you contacting your own senator and your assembly member — many of the 7 bad bills may be approved in 2021.

The ugly SB 50 by Bay Area state Sen. Scott Wiener would have banned single-family zoning, allowed 10-unit luxury apartments on any residential block, and allowed big apartments in low-density communities, all with less parking. The 7 bad bills of 2021 attempt this all over again — by piecemealing.

You are the key to stopping these bills, mostly written by Bay Area legislators trying to fix regional problems by forcing their unworkable ideas statewide. Within the next week, please send a letter to, and set a time to meet with, your state senator and assembly member, or their district staffs via Zoom or the phone. Go here to look up their phone numbers and emails. If you ask, the legislator or their staff will very likely agree to speak/meet with you.

You haven't seen these 7 Bad Bills in the news, because our decimated media don’t cover Sacramento much. Yet these bills CUT the legislature’s commitment to affordable housing. They BAN single-family zoning statewide. They allow HIGH-END complexes next to your homes. They KILL parking and small businesses. They TARGET brown and Black areas with upheaval and destruction. They are the 7 bad bills.

Take an aspirin, and read on:

SB 6 (Kill the Mom & Pops, by Anna Caballero) SB 6 jettisons local planning, letting developers wipe out your business and shopping areas to wedge in MORE market-rate apartment blocs. SB 6 targets businesses that have had vacancy problems for 3 years, a gentrification come-on that will kill stores just starting to recover, such as in Crenshaw in L.A., San Bernardino in the Inland Empire, and old-time businesses in The Fillmore. SB 6 falsely insists that density creates “affordable housing,” when in fact density makes housing affordability an impossibility.

SB 8 (ATM for Developers, by Nancy Skinner) In 2019, Skinner got her outrageous SB 330 luxury housing law approved. SB 330 is so bad Skinner had to promise legislators it would “sunset” in 2025, and the bill passed by just 1 vote. Skinner absurdly called SB 330 “The Housing Crisis Act” of 2019. Today, fueled by developers, Skinner wants to extend SB 330 to the distant year 2030. Renamed SB 8, it will still cut down public hearings on controversial developments, still muzzle sensitive communities, still empower luxury housing developers to override cities, still encourage developers and “future residents” to sue taxpayers for $50,000 for each luxury unit denied by a city council, and it will still destroy urban open spaces. What’s not to love?

SB 9 (Let’s End Homeownership, by Toni Atkins and Scott Wiener) Crushes single-family zoning in California, a threat to 7 million homeowners at all income levels. Wiener has called yards and single-family homes “immoral.” SB 9 allows 4 market-rate homes where 1 home now stands (or up to 6 units, if developers use an obscure “two-step” that the bill allows). SB 9 requires NO affordable units. It clearly opens all single-family streets to the unchecked, greedy and disruptive investor speculation pouring into the single-family-home market today. SB 9 is the beginning of the end of homeownership in California.

SB 10 (10-Unit Buildings Everywhere, by Scott Wiener) Allows any city council to overturn voter-approved ballot measures that protect open space, shorelines and other lands — killing a 108-year-old California voter right. Equally horrifying, SB 10 allows any city council to rezone almost any parcel to allow 10-unit luxury apartments, overriding all zoning including single-family and commercial, inviting the demolition and gentrification of older, diverse, multi-family and single-family areas. It requires NO affordable units. Like SB 9 — it’s ugly cousin — SB 10 opens neighborhoods to unchecked speculation.

SB 478 (Baltimore Isn’t THAT Bad, by Scott Wiener) Wiener’s “tiny lot” bill enriches the rich by upending local planning and existing housing to enable his dream that developers should decide how small a lot can be. SB 478 lets developers build 3-unit to 10-unit luxury buildings on unprecedented new tiny lots in existing multi-unit neighborhoods. Los Angeles residents will notice the similarities to L.A.’s “small lot subdivisions” — promised to be affordable but now among L.A.’s most luxurious $1M+ condos & airbnbs. (For wonks, SB 478 mandates statewide “FAR” to allow big buildings on bits of land, with no transitions of building scale.)

AB 1322 (Voters are Fools, by Rivas and Ting) AB 1322 creates an unprecedented path for city councils to override housing laws that were approved by voter initiative. AB 1322 will fuel a war over voter rights and the corrosive impact of developer money pouring into city council — and legislative — coffers. It empowers any city council to “commence proceedings” to determine whether a local voter-approved initiative “conflicts” with state law, a role for which councilmembers are entirely unqualified. Voters would be forced to prove, in court, an “abuse of discretion” if a city council overrode voters’ successful housing initiative. That’s a major hurdle to prove. To say AB 1322 violates the constitutional premise of separation of powers is an understatement.

AB 1401: (Just Take the Bus! by Laura Friedman) By slashing required parking spaces, this bill theoretically forces people to use transit, a super-spreader of COVID. We respect this author’s environmental concerns, but we hope she takes a very close look at the tens of billions spent by BART in the Bay Area, and by Metro in L.A. County, only to see ridership fall long before COVID struck. Los Angeles is stuck at 1985 ridership levels. USC and UCLA have found that the poor and working-class buy a car the moment they can afford one because using transit robs them of family time, severely reduces job choices and makes chores a nightmare.