It’s been a busy several weeks in (virtually) Sacramento as our team has been covering hearings, advocating for and against (but mostly for) 26 pieces of legislation, and closely monitoring numerous other housing and housing-related bills.
We are also especially excited to be cosponsoring our first-ever legislation, SB 649, and our Executive Director Todd David testified on its behalf two weeks ago. Authored by State Senator Dave Cortese (D-15), and co-sponsored by HAC, the City of San Jose, and SOMOS Mayfair, SB 649 is a neighborhood preference bill that would allow cities to prioritize subsidized affordable units for local tenants at risk of displacement. We’re optimistic that this proposal will continue to proceed through the legislature in the coming months.
HAC has also been speaking in support of pro-housing legislation at committee hearings, and we were pleased last week when nine HAC-supported bills continued through the Senate and Assembly Housing Committees. Some of these successes include:
- SB 8 – Updates and clarifies the State Density Bonus Law.
- SB 478 – Creates rules around floor area ratio to incentivize building more multifamily housing.
- SB 728 – Allows qualified nonprofits to purchase subsidized affordable units in density bonus projects.
- SCA 2 – Repeals Article 34 of the state constitution, which requires local voter approval to build public housing.
- AB 561 – Financing of ADU’s for low-income Californians.
- AB 602 – Nexus study on impact fees.
- AB 1095 – Requires state to treat proposed affordable ownership and rental projects equally in the application process. Currently, ownership projects receive far less state funding.
- AB 1322 – Allows state housing law to supersede local provisions that prevent cities from meeting their RHNA allotments.
- AB 1401 – Eliminates parking minimums near transit.
Last but not least, we’re continuing our active participation in the Home Builder’s Alliance (HBA), a coalition of home builders and pro-housing advocates working to get pro-housing legislation passed in Sacramento as these bills move to their fiscal committees, full floors, and then repeat the process in the other legislative house.
We’ll share more Sacramento updates in the coming weeks!