Published
4 years agoon
When the year began, the Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom had just two must-do jobs – pass a state budget and do something meaningful about the state’s chronic and corrosive shortage of housing.
While proposals have been floated about both issues, neither one seems to be moving toward resolution this year.
The most ambitious housing measure, Senate Bill 50, was unilaterally stalled in the Senate Appropriations Committee, apparently due to stiff local government opposition to its provisions that would override local zoning laws for high-density projects in “transit-rich” and/or “job-rich” communities.
The author of the bill, Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat, offered multiple concessions to the opponents – perhaps too many – to make it more politically palatable, but they didn’t save it from being held in the Appropriations Committee without explanation.
Housing developers and labor union officials have been privately discussing a compromise deal that would streamline CEQA procedures in return for promises to hire more union construction workers.
However, CALmatters housing writer Matt Levin reported this week that those negotiations have not borne fruit, quoting Dan Dunmoyer, president of the California Building Industry Association, as saying, “In my humble opinion, (the negotiations) weren’t close then (earlier this year) and unfortunately they’re not close now.”
The Legislature should reform CEQA because it’s the right thing to do, not because labor leaders need to be enticed not to misuse the law to compel employment of union members.
Newsom, meanwhile, has often declared the housing shortage to be a crisis, but so far has not – publicly at least – pushed very hard for the admittedly difficult political actions to alleviate it. His response to SB 50’s burial was, at best, tepid.
Dan Walters has been a journalist for nearly 60 years, spending all but a few of those years working for California newspapers. He has written more than 9,000 columns about the state and its politics and is the founding editor of the “California Political Almanac.” Dan has also been a frequent guest on national television news shows, commenting on California issues and policies.
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