Consensus Builds on Need for Housing

After years of fractious debate, the stars of California politics are apparently aligning in support of constructing more and cheaper homes, with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and top Senate Democrats backing changes in state law to streamline the approval process.

Such longtime adversaries as California cities and the building industry are also discussing ways they can work together to address a state housing shortage.

Even some environmentalists say it may be time to consider revising a landmark law that requires stringent environmental analysis of even small projects, if change can lead to affordable housing in revitalized urban centers.

“A home of your own is part of the American dream,” Schwarzenegger said in his State of the State address last month. “So I will propose legislation that eliminates regulatory and legal hurdles that delay construction and increase the costs of new housing.”

The administration is expected to file a package of housing bills with the Legislature this week.

Leading Democrats are backing their own reform legislation because they say the current system is unnecessarily complicated and allows for opponents to delay needed projects for years.

“We’re trying to put some certainty in the development process,” said Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland). “It’s just too easy now to let NIMBYs drag a project out, and what you’re left with is something no one really wants.”

Perata said that while the state law has been used to block good projects, other factors have also proven to be obstacles to housing. The biggest, he said, is the political power of community groups that often object to developments, particularly those with small lots or high concentrations of condominiums or apartments. Projects are often approved with far fewer dwellings than the law and local plans allow, he said.

In Defense of the Law

Meanwhile, some defenders of the landmark California Environmental Quality Act said they would fight any effort to weaken its protections.

“It’s inaccurate to see CEQA as a barrier,” said Caroline Farrell, attorney for the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment. “It may slow down a project, but it ensures it will be designed in a way to minimize environmental damage. It holds developers accountable.”

But political analysts say a unique set of conditions has led to an emerging consensus that something needs to be done so the typical Californian can again afford a house.

Those factors are record median home prices that reached about $405,000 statewide in December; freeways jammed with commuters from increasingly far-flung suburbs; and a bipartisan desire to rebuild aging cities so workers can live closer to jobs.

California has one of the nation’s lowest rates of home ownership, about 60% of households, compared with a nationwide average of 69%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And for more than a decade, the state’s population has grown far faster than its housing supply.

About 210,000 new dwellings were constructed in California last year, the most in 15 years, but still about 40,000 short of demand, according to the California Building Industry Assn.

John Landis, a planning expert at UC Berkeley, puts demand at 200,000 to 210,000 units a year.

Either way, building industry officials say the cumulative shortfall has been several hundred thousand dwellings since the boom of the late 1980s faded to recession.

To fill that need, Dan Carrigg, a lobbyist for the League of California Cities, said municipal officials are trying to find common ground with their old rival, the California Building Industry Assn.

“We’re trying to start with an open mind and do common-sense stuff that can improve this process from both perspectives,” he said.

Cities are interested in providing more housing, and not just commercial projects rich in sales tax, because constituents are struggling to afford homes, Carrigg said. And cities are required to provide their fair share of new housing by state law.

“This isn’t a new issue,” he said. “But maybe there’s a bit more of an opening to deal with it.”

Another reason for the gathering momentum on housing issues is that Perata, along with state Sen. Tom Torlakson (D-Antioch), chairman of the Transportation and Housing Committee, and Sunne Wright McPeak, Schwarzenegger’s housing point person, all served years ago as county supervisors in San Francisco’s East Bay.

“We all know each other’s moves,” Perata said. “And I’m confident we will come together on this.”

It’s not yet clear precisely what changes Schwarzenegger and the Democrats favor. But there seems to be agreement on broad concepts.

There is wide support for new laws that would require cities to have long-term, detailed growth plans that would eliminate the need for some environmental reviews if new projects met the overall guidelines.

The growth plans would identify a 20-year inventory of land for new housing, encourage high-density projects in aging city centers and near job and transit centers. They would also make it more difficult to stop developments by lawsuit or ballot referendum if they fit into the overall plan. The 20-year land inventory has been pushed by the building industry but has gone nowhere.

Now McPeak, who is secretary of the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, has expressed support for it. She has also discussed amending the California Environmental Quality Act.

“There are a whole slew of regulatory barriers that make homes harder to get produced quickly,” said Lucetta Dunn, a former executive for an Irvine developer and now director of the state Department of Housing and Community Development.

Dunn noted that Schwarzenegger, in his recent budget message, said that every city is responsible for providing new housing for its natural population growth, and should do that “on the most efficient land-use pattern possible, minimizing impacts on valuable habitat and productive farmland.”

That means higher-density and taller urban housing projects, Dunn said. “If we choose to protect farmland, then we must also choose efficient land-use patterns to house our people. And the more units you have sometimes helps to keep the price down.”

UC Berkeley’s Landis said that there’s enough vacant land and reconstruction potential within cities to meet 30% to 40% of the state’s housing needs for the next 20 years, but that the amount of new housing appropriate for those areas is somewhat less. That’s because too many high-density projects could overload public services such as schools, parks, transit and fire protection.

Proposed Legislation

The only housing bill introduced so far, SB 223 by Torlakson, would provide loans of up to $1 million for cities and counties to draw new plans for high-density and affordable housing in aging communities served by public transportation.

“For the first time we’re linking the crisis in transportation with the crisis in housing,” Torlakson said. “We see more workers having to commute farther because they can’t find an affordable home near their jobs.”

On Friday, the 5,000-member California Chapter of the American Planning Assn. endorsed creation of a statewide housing plan with goals similar to the administration’s, including more affordable housing, farmland protection and changes in environmental laws to promote higher density projects on vacant urban land.

Critics say administration goals reflect the platform of the California Building Industry Assn. And they fear that efforts to streamline project reviews could lead to steamroller development. But some are also encouraged by the potential to address two real and intertwined problems -- a shortage of affordable housing and freeway congestion.

“It’s both a source of concern and of hope,” said Karen Douglas, of the Sacramento-based Planning and Conservation League. “When people just say, let’s get rid of barriers, we say let’s be careful. [The California Environmental Quality Act] is a tool that provides for greater planning and information for the community. And it has repeatedly led to projects being improved.

“But we also think maybe this is our opportunity to do something real about the [housing] problem.”

Some planning experts say it may be time to change state environmental law, but not to undermine it.

William Fulton, a senior scholar at the School of Planning, Policy and Development at USC and a member of the Ventura City Council, said the law needs to be changed to more easily allow so-called in-fill housing in older parts of cities.

“If you want to have in-fill development in a specific district, and everybody airs out that plan, why do you need an environmental review for every parcel?” he asked.

Still, any new law must make sure the public still has a strong voice in making overall decisions, and a way to express concerns about specific ones, Fulton said. “They use [the California Environmental Quality Act] now because they have no other lever.”