With less than two weeks left in the legislative session, last week saw a flurry of action on housing legislation in the Capitol. Perhaps the most noteworthy event was from a housing-related bill that SFHAC is currently neutral on;, Assembly Bill 1482 from Assemblymember David Chiu. As Liam Dillon explains, the bill will set a 5% cap on annual rent increases across the state of California. A deal came together late last week between the governor and other advocates and it does include a 10 year sunset. We’ll be sure to follow in order to measure its impact on new housing production.
Of the slew of housing bills held on the Suspense File in the Appropriations Committee, nearly all of our endorsed Senate bills are continuing to move forward through the Assembly. The only two that were ultimately held as two-year bills are the contentious SFHAC-endorsed Senator Wiener’s More HOMES Act (SB 50) and SB 248 from Senator Glazer.
The list of HAC-endorsed Assembly bills included many more that were either held in Senate Appropriations or were moved early to the “two-year bill” list. AB 10, AB 11, AB 1487, AB 1534, AB 1717, and AB 1743 will not move forward this year. Some of the better news comes from Assemblymember Ting’s office as his ADU bills (AB 68 and AB 69) and surplus public land bill (AB 1486) all moved forward for a full Senate vote.
Two proposed amendments to the state Constitution; Senate Constitutional Amendment 1 and Assembly Constitutional Amendment 1, have both passed Appropriations and are awaiting floor votes. SCA 1 removes barriers for building subsidized affordable housing, and that bill looks like it is moving forward this year based on our vote counts. ACA 1 would lower the threshold of voter approval from a supermajority to 55% for housing bond measures; the proposal hit a speed bump when it failed to get the votes it needed on the Assembly floor, and while still eligible to be called for a vote this year, its close failure was a discouraging sign of the grip of deeply-entrenched special interests.
There are two weeks left before the September 13th deadline to have all bills move through the legislature to the governor’s desk. Stay tuned; we’ll provide another update once the Sept. 13th deadline passes.
