In what’s become an annual ritual for California YIMBYs and their fellow travelers, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed dozens of new laws in September aimed at producing new homes and squashing local attempts to stymie new development.
The laws could have big ramifications for San Francisco in the new year. “These new laws remove some of the senseless barriers holding back housing production,” state Sen. Scott Wiener, who represents San Francisco, said in an emailed statement.
Not everything on the wish list, including one of Wiener’s bills, made it past the governor’s desk. Two that failed were aimed directly at San Francisco’s struggling downtown.
For years, Wiener and his allies have maintained a firm grip on California’s housing policy. At a YIMBY event this weekend, Wiener even boasted that the pro-housing movement, born here, had spread nationwide.
Density skeptics in SF and beyond hope that Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin’s mayoral campaign and some board races will reverse the momentum and prompt SF to strike a defiant tone on state housing mandates.
At the same time, Sacramento has just made it harder than ever for cities to flout state authority. Consider some of the critical new laws just signed.
The ‘Everyone Counts’ Rule
Every eight years, California hands down a new set of housing goals to cities – known as the Regional Housing Needs Assessment, or RHNA – and each city must produce a new blueprint to meet those goals.
San Francisco’s most recent blueprint, or Housing Element, plans for some 82,000 new homes this decade, and more than half must be affordable.
For decades, this exercise was mostly for show, but now it has teeth – and a new state law adds even more. AB 3093 says a city’s Housing Element must now include homes to bring homeless people off the streets. Previously, calculations were based on population projections but didn’t include an estimate of unhoused people.
The law comes from San Diego-area Assemblymember Chris Ward, who feared that California’s aggressive housing mandates were overlooking the homelessness crisis.
SF won’t produce a new Housing Element until 2030, but its sizable homeless population (a one-night count in early 2024 tallied more than 8,000) will likely mean more ambitious housing goals for the lowest income levels.
The city is already struggling to hit those marks in the current cycle, which include nearly 21,000 homes for “very low-income” residents (earning less than 50 percent of the median SF income), and another 12,000 priced for residents earning between 50 and 80 percent of the median.
Remedies to the Remedy
If California housing enforcers find a city isn’t serious about creating a Housing Element – for example, Woodside calling itself a mountain lion sanctuary to avoid new development – the state can temporarily suspend regulations and give developers nearly free reign.
When Santa Monica fell under this so-called builder’s remedy for a few weeks in 2022, a single developer fast-tracked 16 new projects.
Newsom just signed two new laws to strengthen the builder’s remedy. AB 1886 cleans up ambiguous language and makes clear that in disputes over the penalty, regulators at the California Department Housing & Community Development get final word. Assemblymember David Alvarez is the author.
Newsom also signed AB 1893 from East Bay Assemblymember Buffy Wicks. The bill outlaws countermeasures such as extra hearings and fees that cities have wielded against projects using the builder’s remedy.
These bills could be consequential for San Francisco, because last year’s momentum around the Housing Element – unanimous (albeit grudging) Board of Supervisors support, plus aggressive zoning revisions – has fallen into the meat grinder of election-year politics.
There’s no guarantee that SF’s race for mayor and more than half the supervisor seats will produce a density-friendly City Hall. Of all the mayoral candidates, Sup. Aaron Peskin has staked out the most defiant position, in alliance with anti-density neighborhood groups. Turning that stance into city policy could open SF up to a Builders Remedy-fueled development boom, now that the law’s loopholes have been tightened.
The ‘Hit them Where It Hurts’ Rule
Wiener, fresh off his move from SF supervisor to Sacramento, was just hours into his first term in 2017 when he announced plans to force California cities to abide by mandated housing goals for the first time.
With those laws and others, Wiener has turned housing politics on its head, but he’s still pushing for more aggressive crackdowns. With Attorney General Rob Bonta, Wiener has successfully passed SB 1037, which allows Bonta to level new fines, up to $50,000 a month, on cities that drag their feet on creating and enforcing housing laws.
The ‘No, Really, We Meant It’ Rule
More loophole closures come with SB 450 from state Senate president Toni Atkins.
Atkins was behind 2022’s HOME Act, aka SB 9, which was meant to help homeowners split their properties into duplexes or fourplexes. As with other laws to speed more housing, some cities have found ways to throw nails under SB 9’s wheels.
The new bill says cities cannot delay SB 9-related applications longer than 60 days and must adopt “objective zoning, subdivision, and design standards” so that applications will be less likely to get caught up in regulatory disputes.
Commercial appeal
More cleanup of older bills. Wicks passed a law in 2022 to make it easier to build multifamily housing in commercial areas such as parking lots and old shopping malls.
A new law, SB 2243, clarifies ambiguities in the older law that have stalled some projects. Even contentious sites and uses, such as “housing conversions, regional malls, and additional high-rise districts,” are now applicable.
The ‘Open Your Books’ Rule
California’s landmark 1970 environmental law, known as CEQA, has often been invoked to delay or kill housing projects. Newsom was so peeved by recent shenanigans to block UC Berkeley housing in 2023 that he vowed CEQA reform.
“A small handful of individuals or loosely affiliated local organizations have succeeded in slowing the progression of the development of several high profile affordable housing developments in recent years,” according to the language of SB 393.
From Sen. Steve Glazer, who represents parts of the East Bay, the bill is supposed to discourage frivolous CEQA challenges by forcing those who repeatedly lodge losing cases to put up a $500,000 bond. If they lose, they lose the money too – it pays the defendant’s legal fees.
A plaintiff bringing a CEQA suit can avoid posting the bond, but only if they prove to a court that they can’t afford it.
Glazer predicts this will help cut down on frivolous CEQA challenges, but given that Newsom seemed to throw down the gauntlet, it’s a minor change. A much bolder attempt from Wiener – exempting downtown San Francisco projects from environmental review – died in committee.
Whack-a-mole
With a steady flow of state housing bills in recent years, closing loopholes to combat foot-dragging cities is becoming a cottage industry.
“It’s so common we even have a term for it: ‘Clean-up laws,’” says California YIMBY spokesperson Matthew Lewis. He compares it to the old Whack-A-Mole game.
In addition to Wiener’s downtown bill that died in committee, another attempt to reshape San Francisco failed. Unlike Wiener’s bill, however, Assemblymember Matt Haney’s proposal to fast-track conversion of old office buildings made it to Newsom’s desk.
Newsom struck it down with a veto. In his message, Newsom essentially called AB 3068 a good idea. But he warned that language around labor standards for conversion projects was too vague and “could lead to delays and increased costs,” potentially sinking affordable housing projects.
Haney has said he’ll press the issue again in 2025.
So far, San Francisco has accepted the state’s marching orders on new housing. Despite this friendlier attitude toward development, economic doldrums and high interest rates, which have just begun to drop, have conspired to keep much from getting built.
November’s election could set the stage for San Francisco’s next building boom. A few key supervisor races could shift the board away from historic resistance to denser SF neighborhoods, where many of the thousands of new homes required by state law – including affordable housing – are supposed to go.
But if the tides turn the other way, SF could join up with cities like Norwalk, Brentwood and Atherton, which are closing ranks against housing mandates even as state lawmakers curtail the ability to fight back.
