With so many cities unwilling or unable to ease local housing restrictions despite a long-standing shortage, California lawmakers in recent years have stepped in with new laws and more muscular enforcement.
One law that seemed radical at the time of its crafting was an end to single-family zoning that has kept much of California as a low-slung suburb. Also known as the California HOME Act, SB 9 took effect one year ago, and it allowed property owners to build up to four units on lots previously limited to one home.
After SB 9 passed and awaited Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature, however, proponents downplayed its potential impact, and one study backed up their claims with modest projections. Now one year into SB 9’s tenure, a new study from those same researchers at UC Berkeley’s Terner Center has just landed and shows the law has barely registered a blip.
In San Francisco, where sky-high home prices and rents might motivate property owners to double, triple, even quadruple the number of units on their parcels, there were a grand total of four applications for split lots through November. San Jose some 50 miles away only received 10.
Much smaller Bay Area cities like Danville and Saratoga counted more split-lot applications — 20 and 21 respectively — as did Los Angeles. But not much more.
The researchers, David Garcia and Muhammad Alameldin, also counted applications to build new units under SB 9, and they are just as underwhelming. (The only city with more than a handful — LA, with 211 — only approved 18 percent.)
In other words, it’s been a big shrug across the state, and the timing is inauspicious. State regulators are demanding that California cities show feasible plans to ramp up housing production this decade — with threats of financial and legal penalties if the plans fall short.
However, “it is still too early to say that SB 9 is not working,” according to Garcia and Alameldin, and they explore possible reasons. They speculate that the swanky enclaves of Danville and Saratoga have had relatively higher interest because parcels there are larger, with more space to add new homes.
They also note that cities that have more ADU activity — that is, construction of backyard, in-law, and “granny flats” allowed in California for nearly a decade — aren’t showing more SB 9 activity. San Diego permitted more than 800 ADUs in 2021, for example, but the SB 9 demand there has been nearly zero.
It’s possible that using the ADU laws to add density is easier, with less regulation than lawmakers wove into SB 9. “It may be more attractive for a homeowner to pursue an ADU rather than an SB 9 project,” the researchers note.
According to the Terner researchers, other factors behind SB 9’s tiny ripples to date could be staff shortages at planning departments and economic headwinds such as rising interest rates, inflation, and supply chain problems.
Just as the state ADU laws have evolved to create a boom — they are now nearly 20 percent of all new units permitted, according to the Terner researchers — SB 9 must evolve too.
“ADUs have become a California success story,” the researchers write. “This growth took time and persistence, with several rounds of legislation leading to the current ADU boom. SB 9 could benefit from similar legislative efforts.”
They recommend boosting the size and height limits of new units under SB 9, lowering fees, and loosening the law’s owner-occupancy requirement without making it easier for speculators to buy properties and evict tenants.
San Francisco’s own attempt to deal with the end of single-family zoning under SB 9 sparked a legislative saga that lasted well over a year. Last October, SF supervisors voted 10-1 for a “fourplex” bill that not only allowed up to four units on any city lot, but up to six for corner lots.
But the journey to get there also included a previous version, approved by a slimmer majority, that added a five-year ownership requirement and rent-control conditions that one dissenting supervisor called an “end run” around SB 9. It did not have enough votes to overcome a veto from Mayor London Breed.
The version that ultimately won near-unanimous approval scaled back the ownership requirement to one year, but on its own, it’s unlikely to usher more density into SF’s low-rise neighborhoods; 37 percent of city parcels were limited to single-family homes until recently, with 21 percent capped at two or three homes.
Meanwhile, state housing regulators are watching. They made a point of applauding Breed’s veto of the earlier fourplex bill, and they await SF’s new blueprint to build more than 82,000 new homes this decade, something all California cities must provide every eight years. The so-called Housing Element, expected to gain Board of Supervisors approval next week, must be signed and delivered to the state Housing and Community Development by Jan. 31.
If it’s not approved, or if HCD watchdogs find the final plan lacking, they can penalize SF in various ways. Even with a Sacramento thumbs-up, SF’s work is only beginning. Perhaps the biggest task, which could come in the next year, will require more rezoning of SF’s low-rise neighborhoods — beyond the incremental “fourplex” boost that just took effect.
As this week’s SB 9 update shows, however, a change to zoning laws is no panacea for the housing crisis. San Francisco and cities across the state must fix other conditions — like staffing shortages and red-tape delays — that are blocking the path to denser, more affordable places to live.