Bill Text: CA SB6 | 2019-2020 | Regular Session | Introduced

California Senate Bill 6 (Prior Session Legislation)

NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft

Bill Title: Residential development: available land.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 3-0)

Status: (Passed) 2019-10-09 - Chaptered by Secretary of State. Chapter 667, Statutes of 2019. [SB6 Detail]

Download: California-2019-SB6-Introduced.html

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2019–2020 REGULAR SESSION

Senate Bill

No. 6

Introduced by Senators Beall and McGuire

December 03, 2018

An act relating to housing.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

SB 6, as introduced, Beall. Housing production.

Under existing law, various agencies administer programs to preserve and expand safe and affordable housing opportunities and promote sound community growth throughout the state.

This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation that would help encourage housing production throughout the state, including streamlining approval processes, identifying sufficient and adequate sites for housing construction, and penalizing local planning that restricts housing production.

Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: NO Local Program: NO

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.

The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(a) California is in the midst of a serious housing crisis. A major factor in this crisis is the state’s housing shortage. From 1954 to 1989, inclusive, California constructed an average of more than 200,000 new homes annually. Since then, however, construction has dropped significantly. The Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) estimates that approximately 1.8 million new housing units, 180,000 new homes per year, are needed to meet the state’s projected population and housing growth by 2025. Even when housing production rose in the mid-2000s, it never reached the 180,000 mark, and over the last 10 years construction averaged just 80,000 new homes per year.

(b) California’s housing shortage disproportionally impacts lower income families. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, while needs vary by region, California has a statewide surplus of above moderate market rate housing (about 300,000), but suffers a shortfall of about 1.5 million units for extremely low and very low income households (those households at or below 50 percent of area median income). As a result, HCD estimates that approximately 2.7 million lower income households are rent burdened (meaning they spend at least 30 percent of their income on rent), 1.7 million of which are severely rent burdened (spending at least 50 percent of their income on rent).

(c) The lack of affordable housing also works against the state’s environmental goals, as people “drive until they qualify,” which results in longer commutes to the workplace when people seek housing that they can afford.

(d) While a critical component to an overall solution, funding for housing alone cannot solve the statewide housing crisis. California needs additional subsidized and unsubsidized housing to rein its housing prices in the long term.

(e) A variety of causes have contributed to the lack of housing production. Recent reports by the Legislative Analyst’s Office and others point to local approval processes as a major factor. They argue that local governments control most of the decisions about where, when, and how to build new housing, and those governments are quick to respond to vocal community members that may not want new neighbors. These issues pose challenges to constructing market-rate and affordable housing developments alike.

(f) Therefore, the Legislature intends to enact state-wide policy changes that would help encourage housing production, including streamlining approval processes, identifying sufficient and adequate sites for housing construction, and penalizing local decisionmaking and planning that restricts housing production.