Assembly Standing Committee on Natural Resources

Rivas? Here. Rivas, here. Flora? Here. Flora, here. Addis.? Here. Addis, here. Friedman? Hoover? Mathis? Here. Mathis, here. Muratsuchi? Here. Muratsuchi, here. Pellerin? Here. Pellerin, here. Ward? Wood? Here. Wood, here. Zbur? Here. Zbur, here.

Second.

Okay, we have a quorum. We have a motion and a second for the consent calendar. Secretary, please call the roll.

Consent calendars are SB 306: Caballero and SB 755: Becker. Rivas? Aye. Rivas, aye. Flora? Aye. Flora, aye. Addis? Aye. Addis, aye. Friedman? Hoover? Mathis? Aye. Mathis, aye. Muratsuchi? Aye. Muratsuchi, aye. Pellerin? Aye. Pellerin, aye. Ward? Wood? Aye. Wood, Aye. Zbur? Aye. Zbur, aye.

Consent calendar has nine votes. We'll leave it open for absent Members. Okay, next, we have--we're taking bills in sign in order. Senator Wiener. We're starting with SB 4.

We prefer to start with SB 423, if the Chair is okay with that.

I'm okay with that.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Whenever you're ready.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Colleagues, I'm here today to present Senate Bill 423 regarding--which is an extension and refinement of Senate Bill 35 which is the law that the Legislature passed and the Governor signed in 2017. Unfortunately, we've been unable to come to full agreement with the Committee on all amendments, but I want to outline for the Committee what I am committed to, and so I'll do that.

First, I have agreed that we will take an amendment relating to the wildfire language in the bill. We will remove that language, and we will replace it with a temporary placeholder intent language with the idea of working over the course of the summer to have refined fire language, engaging experts, departments, stakeholders, the relevant committees, and so forth, and I just want to read that one sentence, which is the following quote.

'It is the intent of the Legislature to consult with HCD, CAL FIRE, and other appropriate experts and stakeholders to identify whether and or to what extent streamlined ministerial approval projects under this section will apply in high and very high fire hazard severity zones, taking into consideration topographies physical circumstances and uses.' And so that's the wildfire amendment that we would agree to, not the one that's in the analysis. In addition, relating to the coastal zone, the analysis has an amendment to reinstate the full exemption.

I'm not agreeing to that. However, I want to thank the Chair and the Committee for engaging with some shuttle diplomacy between myself and the Coastal Commission. At the request of the Chair, the Chair asked me to engage with the Coastal Commission after they opposed the bill, which I did. We proposed a compromise. The Coastal Commission then submitted an alternative compromise to the Chair, which the Chair was kind enough to provide to me. We then came back with a modification of the Commission's proposal and I understand that we are very close with a couple of loose ends that I am optimistic we'll be able to resolve.

And the proposal that we've put forward, which is the Coastal Commission's proposal, as modified, would provide the primary aspects of it are that SB 423 would only apply in areas of the coastal zone with a certified local coastal program or a certified land use plan.

It would provide a one year delayed implementation in the coastal zone to the extent to the areas that it does apply. It would exempt the Commission's geographic appellate jurisdiction as defined in Public Resources Code 30603 A1 and 2. It would exempt areas in the coastal zone vulnerable to three feet of sea level rise, as defined by NOAA or by the Ocean Protection Council, whichever calculation the Commission prefers.

It would apply the Coastal Commission's definition of wetlands and prime agricultural land in terms of the exemption that's already in the bill but we would use the Coastal Commission's definition, which is a little bit different than the general definition. In addition, and the Commission did not ask for this but we are including this because I think it's good policy, we would also exempt a 100 foot buffer around wetlands so that no one's building right up to the wetlands line.

The Coastal Commission, I think, would prefer a different level of sea level rise and a different method of calculating. We're happy to have those conversations, and like I said, I'm optimistic we'll reach a resolution on those issues. I also want to note there was a letter or there was concern from the trades and from IBW and so forth about a technical language change that had been made to the 85 foot definition and I've agreed to revert back to the language that was there before the amendment and as I understand, that that assuages the concerns from the trades.

So this bill, having said all that, this bill extends the sunset on SB 35 to 2036. SB 35, Colleagues, has been a successful California housing law. It has streamlined nearly 20,000 new homes in the few years that it's been in effect. Three quarters of those new homes have been below market rate homes. We know, Colleagues, that for decades, California has profoundly underproduced housing. We are short millions of homes.

We are almost dead last 49 out of 50 states in homes per capita and we can see the results every day with people living in cars, with overcrowded housing conditions, with people being pushed out of the Bay Area or LA or other parts of the state, or being pushed out of the state entirely.

This bill, what it does is for cities that are behind on their housing goals, they become streamlined, meaning that if a project complies with local zoning--and this bill does not change zoning--complies with local zoning and with objective standards as enumerated in the bill, then it receives ministerial approval. So approval in months instead of years and years.

We also in this bill--and I want to thank our partners in labor for working intensively with us. While the Coastal Commission and wildfires have dominated the debate in this Committee, in the Senate, it was all about labor standards and I'm proud to say that I want to thank our partners, the carpenters and the laborers, operating engineers, cement masons, SCIU for working with us and also those who were opposed to the bill: building trade and SUBCRAFT, for being willing to work with us and I think we'll be hearing some good news today. So, Colleagues, SB 35 is a successful law.

This bill will extend it and improve it and I respectfully ask for your aye vote. I want to first of all, thank my legislative partner in this endeavor, Assembly Member Wicks, who's been a true leader on housing and the Legislature. So I want to give her an opportunity to speak, and then with us today are Jay Bradshaw, the Executive Officer with the Nor Cal Carpenters Union and Marina Wiant, the Vice President of Government Affairs with the California Housing Consortium.

Thank you, Senator Wiener. Thank you, Madam Chair, for letting me co-present as well, and thank you, Committee Members. I know that there were a lot of conversations over the weekend and last week on this bill, and rightfully so.

This has been one of the most impactful laws on the books in the State of California to actually build affordable housing and I know that every single one of us, when we go back to our districts, the number one thing we hear about in our districts is the housing issue, whether it's homelessness or rent burdened families who are leaving California, we all know that we need more housing and this bill and this law has enabled us to actually solve a problem. So we should extend the sunset on this current law. This is current law that we want to extend the sunset on and getting here hasn't been easy.

I know many of you were around last year and in years prior when we were dealing with the challenges around the very passionate conversations around labor standards that I and the Senator have been a part of as some of you have been, and we've landed in a good place on those. And it hasn't been fun, but we've gotten there and we've got strong support from the Carpenters Union, we have the laborers, the operating engineers supporting this bill.

I believe the trades are removing their opposition. I know IBW, I believe has. That's a huge testament to the work of all of us saying that we can no longer say no to housing. Saying no to housing is no longer an option in California. It can't be. So let's extend the sunset. Let's extend this current law on the books. We can continue to work through some of these issues that I know are important to many of us, but building housing is what we need to do here in California.

We have a large, diverse coalition of folks who are supporting this bill because they know what is at stake here in California. So, as a principal co-author, as Chair of the Assembly Housing Committee, I stand in strong support of this bill, and I would respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Good afternoon. Marina Wiant with the California Housing Consortium. At its very core, SB 35 is about holding communities accountable to their housing plans. If a proposed project is consistent with the general plan, and it's not on protected, environmentally sensitive sites and is consistent with objective design standards, an affordable developer should be able to have the assurance that when they come forward with that project, that there's going to be a path to approval.

And this is why SB 35 has been such a successful tool for affordable housing developers in promoting, in getting their projects approved. As the Senator said, 75 percent of the units that have used SB 35 have been affordable to low and very low income households, and it's particularly powerful in communities with complex approval processes that might be supportive of affordable housing or in communities that are communities of opportunity.

Many of those communities of opportunity are meeting their above moderate income housing goals, and therefore are subject to a 50 percent affordable housing requirement. That's huge, and that's why we're seeing a lot of sites that use this are projects that are 100 percent affordable.

By extending SB 35 sunset date, SB 423 will ensure that our affordable housing providers continue to have access to this streamlined process until 2035 and allow affordable housing developers to plan their pipeline beyond the next two years, which is critical, and we've learned from the past five years of implementation.

We want to make sure that the bill works as well as possible and that's why we have made the tweaks that we've made and that's why I commend the author and the Committee for working so hard and figuring out how do we make sure that the bill can apply in areas that, again, are areas in the state where we're still protecting the environmentally sensitive sites but ensuring that when there is an affordable housing project being proposed that is a mile from the coast but happens to be in the coastal zone, it can still move forward with this process.

SB 423 is critical to helping us close our tremendous affordable housing gap. We have over 1.2 million shortage of homes for California's most low income families and it's time that we ensure that all Californians have access to safe, affordable homes, and for these reasons, I urge your support today. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Committee Members. Sorry if my back's kind of to you. Not my preferred, so let me say hi to everyone. Jay Bradshaw, Executive Officer, Nor Cal Carpenters Union. I'm very honored here to represent this broad coalition of labor, particularly talking on behalf of the statewide California Conference of Carpenters also the Operating Engineers, Laborers' Union, Cement Masons in Nor Cal, and Service Employees International Union.

So wanted to really make it clear this is a labor friendly, labor positive bill, starting there. You know, not going to give you a data dump. A lot of it's already been said but I want to talk a little bit about what the effects are on working class folks. When we talk about we need 2.5 million housing units as fast as possible, we talk about 1.2 to 1.4 million affordable, quote unquote, units needed right away.

What that actually means for the working class, from our perspective in our state, and why we're in strong support of this and asking you to help us move another solution towards housing, what's happening in housing production in a 90 percent unorganized industry that's 90 percent of the workers in private, residential wood frame construction are unorganized and subjected to what we call is a crime scene of cash pay, tax fraud, and now we're up against cartel-managed workforces, human trafficking, et cetera.

And it's a tremendous drain on the State of California resource wise, but it is crushing on those construction workers and also has a negative impact on workers who are organized not being able to work in that type of construction. So our strong position here today is to ask for your help, to pull up those workers, help us produce housing across the state, not stand for exclusion in any manner, and move forward together.

The housing unaffordability crisis for our membership and the membership for unions across the board and workers across the board has created the transportation crisis which is talked about as a super commuter problem, which is really service workers, construction workers it's crushing. It's made childcare unaffordable, et cetera. So just wanted to illuminate those points. It's a lot of important issues. It touches the state statewide, but the workers in housing have been left out for 35 years easily and the production of housing for working class people is not happening anywhere near a scale.

It needs to happen. So we say, please give us your strong support today to help workers rise to produce housing at every income level and to bring long term solutions to our state to help build wealth for those who are most at risk right now. It's an honor to be here today. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Next, we're ready for additional witnesses in support. Just a reminder, please just state your name, affiliation, and position on the bill.

Let's do the first four rows, please, and we'll sit back down and call the next four.

Mike Dennis, United Way of Greater LA. We support.

Bob Naylor for Fieldstead and Company. That's Howard Ahmanson Jr, an Orange County Philanthropist in support.

Jan Moran, Social Justice Alliance of the Interfaith Council of Contra Costa County. Support.

Good afternoon. Daniel Gray, Carpenters Local 2236 in Oakland, full support.

Dan Branton, Drywall Lathers Local 9109 right here in Sacramento. Urge your strong support.

Donita Stromgren, volunteer with California AARP Capital Response Team. Seniors are the largest number of first time homeless due to economic reasons. Ask for your support. Thank you.

Charles Deffarges with Episcopal Community Services of San Francisco in support.

April Atkins, business rep, Local 22, strong support.

Matthew Miller, Drywall Lathers Local 9068, Livermore, in strong support.

Carl Sworns with Carpenters Local 35, 751, 180, and 152 in strong support.

Jaime Minor on behalf of Salesforce, headquartered in San Francisco, in support. Thank you.

Ray Lawson, Local 562, Southern California, Long Beach, in strong support.

Izzy Swindler on behalf of Mayor London Breed of San Francisco in support. Thank you.

Madam Chair, Chris Micheli on behalf of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, in support.

Anthony Lavisse, Local 2236 out of Oakland, in strong support.

Brian Ants, Southwest Carpenters out of Bakersfield, Kern and Mono Counties, in strong support.

Manley McNinch, Southwest Carpenters out of the San Luis Obispo, Santa Maria area of the Central Coast. Strong support.

Josh Christensen from Southwest Mountain States Regional Council of Carpenters, North LA County. Strong support.

Kyle Patterson, Southwest Mountain States Regional Council of Carpenters from South Los Angeles. We are in strong support.

Reverend Daniel Tamm, Deacon in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles covering five counties in Southern California, Chair of Interfaith Solidarity Network, and a proud member of the Our Future Los Angeles coalition in strong support.

Chris Snyder, Political Director for the Operating Engineers Local 3, and on behalf of our 40,000 members in Northern California, strong support.

Diego Hernandez from Laborers Local 261 out of San Francisco. Strong support.

Abram Diaz with the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California in support.

Olegario Guzman, member of LiUNA Local 304. Strong support.

Star Bradshaw, Oakland resident, strong support.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. Matt Cremins here on behalf of the California-Nevada Conference of Operating Engineers. Proud to be here in strong support.

Mahdi Manji with Inner City Law Center, Skid Row's Pro Bono Legal Service Provider in strong support.

Sean McGarry, Carpenters Local 22, San Francisco, in strong support. Thank you.

Good afternoon, everybody. Francisco Nunez, Laborers Local 304, Alameda County, in strong support.

Victor De La Torre, Local 261 out of San Francisco, strong support.

Good afternoon. My name is Taryn Sandulyak with Firm Foundation Community Housing in strong support.

Reverend Dr. Penny Nixon, San Mateo County Housing Leadership Council and also Peninsula Interfaith Solidarity Cohort in strong support.

Good afternoon. Ed Evans, Carpenters Local 217 in strong support.

Marisa Lopez, Local 9109 here in Sacramento and strong supporter.

Good afternoon. My name is John Belperio, Carpenters Local 180 out of Solano County in strong support.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. I'm Traci Stevens representing the Construction Employers' Association in strong support.

My name is Seth Howard, member of Carpenters Local 1789 out of South Lake Tahoe. Strongly support this bill.

Good afternoon. Jose Amador, Southwest Mountain States Regional Council of Carpenters, Whittier, California, and we support. Thank you. Strongly support.

Hello. My name is Victor Mabelli, President of Local 751 in Santa Rosa. My 1,500 members--all are voting yes on this. Please.

Omar Cobian out of Local 951. Live out of Riverside, California. Please vote yes.

Steve Harris, Local 751, Santa Rosa. I'm asking for your support.

Good afternoon. Jimmy Elrod with Carpenters Local 951 on behalf of the 6,000 members out of our local. Strongly support. Thank you.

Jason Martinez, Local 701, and voting in favor of it from Fresno, California. Thank you.

Mitchell Vinciguerra, Carpenters Local 2236 from Oakland, California. Please vote yes.

Dan Nuncio, Carpenters Union. Please vote yes. Thank you.

Onassis McFarlane in Carpenters Local 180 in Solana County. I urge you to vote yes in the bill. Thanks.

Dan Watson, Carpenters Local 1789 out of Truckee, California in support.

Antonio Vasquez out of Local 1109 by Visalia. Please vote yes.

Chuck Knauer, Carpenters Local 1599, Redding, California. Please vote yes.

Brian Baker, Carpenters Local 1599. Please vote yes.

Tim Reyff, Carpenters Local 22 field rep. Please vote yes for this measure. Thank you.

Dan Calamuci, Carpenters Local 22 out of San Francisco. Here in support.

Juan Dominguez, Local 701 out of Fresno. Please vote yes.

Carlos Valdez, Local 46, Sacramento. Please vote yes.

Bryan Shields, Local 34 Pile Drivers, Northern 46 county, in support.

Andrew Dawson with the California Housing Partnership in support.

Good afternoon. Tim Valderrama with The Weideman Group on behalf of SEIU State Council in support.

Nico Molina on behalf of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group in support.

John Hanna, community college trustee from Orange County and a member of Carpenters Local 714 in support.

Alonzo Quintana Drywall Lathers Local 68L in support.

Pedro Mendez, Carpenters Local 22 in San Francisco in full support. Thanks.

Good afternoon. Juan Espinoza, Carpenters Local 217 in San Mateo County. Please vote yes.

Good afternoon. Francisco Martinez Nor Cal Carpenters Union Local 180, Vallejo. Please vote yes.

Jose Toscano, Carpenters Local 713, Alameda County. Please vote yes. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Moises Vieira, Carpenters Local 217, San Mateo County. Please vote yes. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Harvey Mccuen, Carpenters Local 713, and I support this bill.

Yan, Carpenters Union, in support.

Ruhama Tereda, Carpenters Local 713, in support of this bill.

Michelle Flores, Pile Drivers Local 34, and I fully support SB 423.

Anthony Carroll. I'm with Carpenters Local 22 out of San Francisco. Please vote yes.

Stephen Gomes. Carpenters Local 9109 out of Sacramento. Vote support yes.

Good afternoon. I'm Andrew Dodkins out of Local Carpenters 46. I support this bill. Please vote yes.

Hello. My name is Emilio Trevino from Local 46, Sacramento. I'm carpenter and I support this bill.

Good afternoon. Arturo Rodriguez Carpenters Local 2236 out of Oakland. Please vote yes.

Good afternoon. My name is Jose Cabrera. I'm Carpenters Local 405 in San Jose. Please vote yes for this bill.

My name is Aaron Hadzess. Carpenters Local 22, San Francisco. Support this bill. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Gerardo Blum and I am from Oakland, Carpenters Local 2236. Please vote yes on the bill.

Good afternoon. Isravele, Local 713. Please vote yes.

Ed Gable, Millwrights Local 102 in support of this bill.

Benjamin Lopez, Carpenters 1109 in Visalia. Please vote yes.

Good afternoon. Chris Arteaga, Carpenters Local 701, Fresno County, in full support. Thank you.

Hi. Mar Tiaga, Local 505, Santa Cruz County. Please vote yes.

Cesar Sanchez from Oakland. Please vote yes.

Chad Dutton, Local 405, San Jose, California. I urge you to vote yes on this. Thank you.

Mauricio Chavez, Oakland, California, Local 713. Please vote yes.

Sean Hebard, Carpenters Local 505, Santa Cruz County, urging your support.

Jonathan Yeremia, Local 34 Pile Drivers, strong support.

Megan Shumway from Sacramento representing Sacramento Area Congregations Together in strong support.

Thank you. Madam Chair Members. Beverly Yu on behalf of State Building Construction Trades Council of California, we have a supportive amended position. We look forward to working with the Committee and appreciate the author's commitment to working with us on skill and training provisions to return back to the May 23 language. Thanks so much.

Good morning, madam. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members. Gracia Castillo-Krings, here on behalf of one of the sponsors, California YIMBY. Also here on behalf of Silicon Valley at Home Action Fund and also here on behalf of Bay Area Council. Thank you.

Holly Fraumeni from any day history is the lighthouse. Public affairs here in support today on behalf of Civic Wells, Spur, Habitat for Humanity, California sandhill Properties, Buckeye Properties and Vildecasa in support.

Good afternoon, Todd David on behalf of the Housing Action Coalition and abundant San Francisco in strong support.

Good afternoon, Norlyn Asprec with Axiom Advisors on behalf of Meta in support.

Good afternoon, madam. Chair Committee Members. My name is Ron Roulette. I'm the political Director for the NorCal Carpenters Union. I still have 200 folks standing out there wanting to come me to this. But out of respect for you, for you all and your time, I'm just going to say, on behalf of the carpenters, operators, laborers, cement, masons, plasters, we ask for a yes vote. Thank you.

Madam Chair Members, Mcweener, Scott, Wedge, on. Behalf of the California State Pipe Trades Council, the State Association of Electrical Workers, The California Coalition of Utility Employees, the Western States Council of Sheet Metal Workers and the Elevator Constructors Union with the Senator's commitment to return the language to its state as it left the Senate. We are agnostic on this Bill.

Thank you, thank you. And thank you to the carpenters that are still outside. We hear you and we appreciate that you are allowing someone to represent your voice in this hearing. Next, we're ready for opposition. Witnesses in opposition. I think if you can move the witnesses in support, we can have you back up here if there are questions. But since we have several people in opposition, just want to make sure they have a seat. Okay. So I'll let you decide who goes first.

I'll go. Great. Thank you. Madam Chair and Members. I'm Sean Drake, senior Legislative Analyst for the California Coastal Commission. The Coastal Commission respectfully opposes SB 423 unless it is amended to maintain the Coastal Act in the coastal zone. The Coastal Act does not preclude multifamily housing and affordable housing. It does require that housing be built in ways that would not be vulnerable to sea level rise or block coastal access, among other policies.

To that end, we have circulated compromise amendments which are before you, which we have offered over the weekend and which the author referred to. They allow the ministerial process to apply in the coastal zone with modifications to avoid legal climate and resource issues. With these amendments, we're prepared to remove our opposition. I want to use the rest of my time just to address the offer that we heard from the author at the top.

One point that we did not hear, just as part of the summary of the latest compromise offer, something that was in the author's previous offers was to in the coastal zone limit application of the build to areas that are already zoned for residential or multifamily. This is important in the coastal zone for protecting existing low cost visitor serving areas.

That is, the bike rental shops, the surfing shops, the little restaurants, the things that make the coast enjoyable for everyone to visit, those that live there and those that don't. Without that protection, this Bill would allow for those naturally affordable businesses to be bought out, demolished, and replaced with largely high end housing, with nominal amounts of affordable housing mixed in.

We didn't see that in the package, but we understand it to be there, and we would hope that it would be there as part of reaching a resolution. And then I want to respond to a couple of points from the author's latest offer that are simply unworkable. We appreciate the author's offer to retain the exclusion of areas where there is no certified local coastal program. That is important.

The author, however, carves out of that exception the bill applying in areas that do have a certified land use plan. That's important because a land use plan is only the first half of a local coastal program and it is the half that is not objective. It has broadly applicable policies. Those are then made specific and objective through the other half of a local coastal program, the implementation plan.

If this bill applies in areas that only have a land use plan, all of the policies in that plan will be waived because they are not objective. For that reason, limiting that carve out and retaining the exception of LCP jurisdictions is important. As for the benchmark that we use for excluding areas vulnerable to sea level rise, the Commission is not willing to accept anything under 5ft because when we're looking how long we want structures built today to last, we're looking out to 2100.

And the low and moderate projections for sea level rise, looking at state numbers and looking at federal numbers are 5ft or more. We've not heard any science based basis for a three foot benchmark. We would be curious to hear it. But in looking at the data, 5ft is the lowest benchmark that we think is acceptable for ensuring that housing will actually be protected for its useful life and that we're not locating affordable housing in sacrifice zones that will be impacted by sea level rise.

And the final point, we appreciate the author's willingness to look beyond the NOAA standard. That is critical because NOAA's sea level rise viewer does not look at bluff erosion, which is going to be how sea level rise manifests in much of the state. However, the proposed addition of the Ocean Protection Council standards is not workable. The Ocean Protection Council doesn't do sea level rise mapping. Their standards are for when sea level rise is going to occur, not where.

And so that's not the sort of resource that we would look at. We insist that a best available science standard is the best way to capture our collective intent. It is the phrase used frequently in the law on a number of climate and resource related issues. It allows for us to wholly look at the body of science on the table now and also to take into account evolutions in that science as new resources and tools become available.

All of those points are captured in the amendments that have been circulated before you. We hope that the author will reconsider them as we are willing to remove our opposition should they be agreed to. Thank you.

Good afternoon, chair and Members. Laura Walsh with the Surf Rider Foundation. We are also opposing the Bill unless the full Coastal Commission proposed amendments before you are accepted. Our number one concern is that we as a foundation cannot support bypassing review for sea level rise vulnerability in the State of California. I got my master's at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. I've been working with local governments and state agencies planning for sea level rise ever since.

Local governments are not well equipped to plan for sea level rise. The Coastal Commission is facilitating the use of best available science to keep development out of harm's way while protecting our coastal resources as the mean high tideline moves in. I couldn't agree more that 5ft is a very conservative estimate that anything less would be a loss of our coastline. Additionally, I think the other aspects, the difference between a local coastal program and the lup kind of spells the difference on the effectiveness of this Bill.

We are very concerned that the Bill could act as a Trojan horse that will, instead of solving the problem of affordable housing, instead deregulate qualified housing development along a very thin strip of land that contains some of the nation's most lucrative real estate. Surfrider has 30 years of experience attending almost every Coastal Commission meeting. We feel very confident that this deregulation will contribute to housing interests for multifamily housing that includes ocean views and luxury condominiums.

And we want these amendments to ensure that we're not just selling off the coast to developers and instead ensuring that there is minimum standards of affordable housing that actually result in changed market prices. We do know that in this process, streamlining will to some extent sacrifice the Coastal Commission's ability to uphold the Coastal Act and provide mitigation for lost coastal access, mitigation for erosion caused by armoring of coastal development. We can't afford to lose the Coastal Act again voter approved initiative.

I think the amendments apply the proper jurisdiction so that we're not losing that. And I just want to say, living in San Francisco, working for a nonprofit, I couldn't agree more with the goals of this Bill. We just want it to function properly and we really hope to work together and support the full amendments made by the Coast Commission. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members, Peter Papadopoulos with the Mission Economic Development Agency out of San Francisco's Mission District, which works to build equity among Latino and other BIPOC communities through the development of small business workforce and affordable housing. And we appreciate the conversations that are ongoing with the author's office staff that we've had and conversations we have with a number of your staffs.

We remain in a pose and less amended position along with numerous San Francisco affordable housing developers, tenants'rights groups and Homeless Advocacy Coalitions. And it's for a principal reason that the reason why we wanted to do this handout is we think it is not fully understood what effect this could have across the state, which is after cities across the state have spent upwards of sometimes two years developing their new housing elements in response to the new Rena goals, which touches this very closely.

This Bill is now based on uniform streamlining and would override a lot of that community planning that just went into those scenarios. Whereas if you look at the map in front of you, this is an example of the San Francisco housing element on the upper left, the TCAC high resource areas are intended for selective streamlining. They're intended for upzoning and streamlining.

If you look at the map on the upper right, that area is the areas that are intended for community stabilization, prosperity, affordable housing, and some continued market rate housing because those are the areas where we're already building nearly all of the market rate housing.

And what this Bill does is incentivizes people to stay right in those same low income communities of color with the vast majority of their building overriding their affirmatively furthering fair housing central framework, which is these two top maps known as the Equitable distribution of housing. And it also overrides existing cultural stabilization tools that we've passed.

And it overrides the toolkit of our housing elements set of stabilization and prosperity tools which are on the back of the map, which you can see apply to the two lower areas as well. Each of these provisions on the back of the maps are overridden or made silent by SB 423 in its current version.

Now, that to say, number one, we want to say we strongly support the affordable housing component and our agency itself has used it once in the form of SB 35 to build 100% affordable housing project. But if we're allowed to streamline and invert our central affirmatively, furthering fair housing framework of our housing element, we're very concerned about small business displacement on our cultural corridors, tenant price pressures, the demolition of not yet landmarked historic sites, which we're working on.

So we would ask for your support in looking at some of these amendments that are detailed here and which you have on file, including can we exempt or delay even some of these priority equity geographies? Could we also grant HCD who worked closely on these housing elements? Can their teams be granted the authority to make sure that the affirmatively furthering fair housing frameworks are left intact? That would be something that would be incredibly helpful as well.

Or we could look at a nuanced approach to the entire Bill, which is maybe we're only market rate streamlining in cities that are trailing their peers and their Rena goals by a prorated 15%. And we understand that that's a proposal that's been put forward by a lot of statewide groups. So those are requests along with, we think, the environmental requests that we've been hearing to ensure that we're not abutting industrial zones seems very reasonable to us.

And we would look for your support with trying to move those amendments forward. And we look forward to continued conversation with the author.

Thank you. Are there additional witnesses in opposition?

Yes, ma'am, I'm sure. David Jones, on behalf of the town of Truckee, San Marcos, Stockton, and the cities of Marin County in opposition.

Good afternoon. Matt Roman, on behalf of the town of Apple Valley and City of Downey in opposition.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Committee Members. Paul Gonsalves, on behalf of the cities of Bellflower, Carson, Gino, Elk Grove, Fairfield, Fontana, Glendora, Indian Wells, Europa Valley, Kerman. Lamarata, Lakewood, Norwalk, Palm Desert, Paramount, Rancho Cordova, Redding Rosemead, Santa Clarita, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Whittier and Wildemar all in respectful opposition.

Good evening, Assembly Members. The following organization submitted a letter dated July 3 in respectful opposition to SB 423, unless the Bill is amended to preserve the applicability of the Coastal Act in the coastal zone.

These Organizations are the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin, the California Coastkeeper Alliance, the Center for Biological Diversity, Stewards of the Arroyo Seco, Orange County Coastkeeper, Community Clean Water Institute, Napa Sierra Club Executive Committee, the Pavunga Wetlands Protectors, Forest Unlimited, Resource Renewal Institute, Sonoma County Conservation Action, SoCal 350 Climate Action, Coastal Lands Action Network, Crenshaw Subway Coalition, Defend Bologna Wetlands, California River Watch, the Environmental Center of San Diego, Protect San Antonio Valley, The Friends, Artists, and Neighbors of Elkhorn Slough, California Coastal Protection Network, Wine and Water Watch, Smith River Alliance Russian River Keeper, Save Sonoma Coast, Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation citizens Preserving Venice, Ocean Conservation Research, Azul, Bologna Wetlands Institute, the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, Surf Rider Foundation, the Public Trust Alliance, the Turtle Island Restoration Network, Pasadena Audubon Society, the River Project, Sierra Club California, and The Los Cerritos Wetlands Land Trust thank you.

Sylvia Solis Shaw, on behalf of the City of Beverly Hills, in opposition.

Good afternoon. Alex Lopez and representation of California Environmental Justice Alliance in opposition. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Reina Tello with people organizing to demand environmental and economic rights in San Francisco and Communities United for Health and justice. We strongly align with the opposition and we stand with an opposed unless amended. Please, please take the amendments. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Maeli Soto. I'm a future environmental justice attorney, and I oppose unless there's amendments that provide safeguards for our health and environment. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Jennifer Ganata of Communities for a Better environment. We represent communities in Southeast, LA. Wilmington, Los Angeles, Richmond, California and East Oakland. Thank you. Opposition opposed unless amended. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Sheena Cabal, Los Angeles resident and opposed unless amended, to include environmental and public health safeguards.

Good afternoon. Madam Chair Members, cammie Martin. On behalf of the cities of Concord, Pleasanton, Tracy, Tustin, Mission Viejo, Chino, Hills, Asperia, Fullerton and Placenta, and respectful opposition. Also here on behalf of the cities of Dublin, Livermore, San Ramon, Danville, Pismo Beach, Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, Del Mar and Half Moon Bay. All in respectful opposition unless amended. To address the concerns listed in their submitted letters. Thank you.

Good afternoon, chair and Members Erin Woolley on behalf of Sierra Club California, with an opposed unless amended position. Thank you.

Ethan Nagler, on behalf of the cities of Corona, Rancho Cucamonga, Eastville Rancho, Palace verde and Carlsbad, in respectful opposition.

Good afternoon. My name is Cynthia Castillo on behalf of Western Center on Law and Poverty. We submitted a letter of concerns and would like to align our comments with Peter and ensure that there was proper guidelines. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Brett Gladfelty, on behalf of the California Surety Federation, we were opposed unless amended, but given the recent amendments, on June 19, we've removed that. So thank you.

Suzanne Hume, educational Director and founder of Clean Earth for Kids. In opposition. We echo the comments of the Surf Rider Foundation. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll bring it back to the Committee and we'll start with Assembly Member Ward.

Thank you. I want to start by maybe reciting some observations that we had talked about in the Housing Committee, which I also sit on, and just commend the author as well for his leadership several years ago and introducing SB 35.

Very difficult sometimes as we think about trying to meet the crisis that we have out there, to deliver on more housing opportunities, much of which actually includes affordable housing as part of the project as well, to realize that when we're having these conversations for state legislation, does it actually produce, and SB 35 has produced. And here we are looking to be able to extend this as well, because when something is working, we want it to work well.

And I think it's also the right time that we talk about making sure that we are looking at any of the reservations that happened at the time of that inaction to make sure that we are reaching as broad of an opportunity zone for this very kind of model. And so where the coastal zone was previously excluded. What is the makeup of that?

What is the makeup of these communities, much of which are in my region, by the way, to make sure that the same opportunities are afforded there while we are digging into and reflecting in the intent and the respect PCB the voters of what we want to see on our coastal zone, making sure that we have people that are of all socioeconomic income levels, being able to afford to live in the same communities that they work requires us to be able to think about producing the housing models that are going to be able to actually locate them there as well.

And so I had several questions here that I know are really germane to sort of getting clarification and trying to fine tune what's before this Committee here today as we're deciding whether or not to move forward on the Bill and amendments to a Bill for this Committee's consideration. First, I want to go into the question about the Coastal Commission's proposed framework and then your response to that, which I want to sort of maybe start there as a basis. And I didn't know if that's as scripted, something that's been passed out to Committee Members.

Yeah, actually, before you hand it out, I want to say this diplomatically. When the Coastal Commission decided to oppose the Bill and we were notified of that, that was in the second House, it was only a month ago or whenever that was. And then we had a whole laundry list of environmental, very respected environmental organizations pile on in opposition who had not met with us ahead of time.

I'm just going to say that I said that in Housing Committee and I'm going to say it again here today. I want to thank the Surf Rider Foundation for calling my office afterwards to acknowledge that they had not engaged with us before opposing the Bill. After that happened, we immediately I got on a zoom with leadership at the Commission. I talked about, let's try to work this out.

As I noted after I met with the chair, and the chair said, can you please engage with them and work it out? And I committed to do that. And we promptly sent a proposed compromise, actually several versions of a compromise over our substantive interaction with the Commission in terms of the Commission's proposals have been through the Committee and now today. And so we took the Coastal Commission's proposal and worked off of that proposal instead of off of our proposal, made some modifications.

They don't like some of those modifications. I am happy to sit and talk directly, my office and the Commission to work it out. And I'm optimistic we'll be able to work it out, but I would prefer that we do that face to face and not through a Committee or not at a Committee hearing.

The Committee makes the decision. And I just want to make sure I called you on we talked on Saturday. I said, look, the Coastal Commission came moved from excluding the coastal zone to something very close to I'm the one that told you, you guys are actually very close, right?

Yeah.

There has been an opportunity. I feel like my team and I made that happen. And that's what a chair and a Committee does. Right? And you can't exclude the Committee. Right. It's our decision. And I just want to make sure that that is clear. And I've been trying to facilitate this, and I just want to make sure that we do make this decision.

If I may, Madam Chair, I just want to acknowledge I think you're both right. And this happens to us as well when we are dealing with our bills in the second house, and conversations come late, and we figure that out. And you've been very adept at doing that through all of your very difficult pieces of legislation. But I know that our chair is also trying to make sure that there is some ownership of responsibility in this Committee's jurisdiction for the work that we're doing as it passes forward. If you could. Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you. I think, Madam Chair, first of all, as I acknowledge at the beginning, I'm not sure that we would have any of this had you not engaged, which I appreciate that. And it's always the decision of the Committee. What I'm saying is that normally, as an author, and for any of us as authors with bills, if someone has a big issue, you want them to come to you to have an opportunity to work on it before it becomes a public thing.

But I'm committed to because I think we are rather close and I think there can be a resolution, and I very much want there to be.

I know that you are, again, so that this is a very important conversation that we're having here today. Do Members of the Committee have the potential amendments that we are in draft form? Because I think that's a good starting point for everybody to be able to see some of the detail that we want to discuss here today. So on the first area of detail, as we're talking about three foot versus five foot, I'm certainly sympathetic.

Based on the science that we have through National Research Council, our own seed agencies, Coastal Commission, that 66 inches, close to 5ft, is sort of the best available science that we have available at the time today that we believe is likely to be the impact of sea level rise by the year 2100.

And so if that is the case and we also have been having very broad conversations about what we want to do in response to that in terms of not just bolstering our seaside infrastructure, but also thinking about putting more structure in harm's way. And if that is an area, three foot versus five foot, I would just be encouraging of the author to think about maybe meeting the Commission and potentially even my interest as well on that.

I don't think in the grand scheme of things, we're talking about a lot of lay of the land if we're looking at a three foot by five versus five foot elevation. But I think it does resolve a fundamental issue that's at play here right now, which is are we going to be encouraging more intense development in an area that is likely to be subject to sea level rise?

So I am open to the 5ft, but it also is tied to whether there's a standard to measure that. And the Commission has said they want to use, quote unquote, best Available Science, which is not an objective standard we've suggested NOAA. If there's a different measurable objective standard, we're happy. I'm open to that.

And I agree with you that I guess I wanted to ask the question back to the Commission. A lot of the work that's been done, even some documents that have been adopted by some of my local agencies that have done sea level rise vulnerability assessments using the Ocean Protection Council's guidance, using NOAA as a reference point as well. These do seem to be, to date, good standards that we're looking at. What is the objection today from these? And do you have a superior mapping agency that we could use or consider?

I wish I had one. Silver Bullet Assembly Member unfortunately, a singular referral objective standard simply does not exist. I pointed to the deficiencies of the NOAA viewer when I was testifying, talking about how that excludes large areas that are going to be affected by sea level rise.

And so just in practice, to use the example that you referred to with local governments that are looking at how sea level rise are going to be impacting their specific jurisdiction, what they do is they take the lay of the landscape in terms of multiple data and policy sources that are out there. They also convene additional information about the specific circumstances of their jurisdiction. What is the geography, what is the geology, what are the oceanic processes where they live.

They accumulate all of that together and they come up with what's going to work for them. That is what best available science allows you to do. It doesn't wedge you to one necessarily incomplete resource. There is no one comprehensive, complete resource that's going to work for the whole state. And so Best Available Science allows you to assemble the combination that works for that area and also to take into account evolutions in the science so that this law doesn't become immediately outdated.

So I'm going to say something that's actually going to contradict itself. But on one hand, I agree that by having Best Available Science there as a sort of standard in the statute here, it's too squishy of a definition that how do we actually determine whether or not something applies or it doesn't apply? Who determines what is best available science. I think it opens you up to a lot of interpretation down the road.

And I do like the idea that we could find some kind of metric, agency mapping tool, whatever we can, to be very specific about when this does or does not apply. Hopefully, if this moves forward, that's an area that actually can't be resolved. Because I agree we're close on this on this subject, but I would just caution that we don't use maybe best available science.

On the other hand, I am nervous that as sea level rise may or may not play itself out and as time goes on, if we are being so specific as to limit ourselves to three foot or five foot, that we could be in even worse case situation here down the road.

And so whether or not there is language as this conversation might continue that allows for flexibility 20 years from now, granted the market might actually determine that flexibility for us because if something were to be so catastrophic, these would not be very amenable properties to development. You wouldn't be able to actually probably secure the resources necessary to be able to and the loans necessary or the insurance necessary to be able to develop. So that might actually take care of itself.

Just things that need to be kind of worked out in ongoing conversation, which leads to the next point. I appreciate and agree very strongly with the need to work out wildfire conversations. I think most of us and myself included with some of my legislation have been very sensitive that we've been not smart about building in areas that are more and more prone and more and more hazardous to dangerous conditions.

And we've seen that manifest itself over the last decade into tens of thousands of homes lost or at risk of loss. And so this does need to be worked out. I would hopefully encourage you to include our chair if this again does move forward in those conversations over the next couple of months, knowing that the interests of this Committee and our very talented staff here need to be able to get this right for the safety of those potential.

Absolutely.

Okay, thank you. And then lastly, this was just brought to my attention this morning again was the amendment that you took on redefining 85 foot applicability. I guess it's interesting because the way that I see it here, you're just kind of clarifying in the amendment that you took in Senate Appropriations, that's 85 foot above with habitable or with residential occupancy. It seems to read the same way to me.

But the analysis jumps ahead and says that it would only apply to a higher level of intensity of development. Could you clarify?

Yeah. So in Senate Appropriations and I want to publicly thank Senate leadership for really engaging and all the various labor parties to try to come up with to broker some peace and. So what we came up with was that one standard up to 85ft, a different standard above 85ft, which tends to correlate with steel construction. It's a different construction type, and I think it's a really good approach.

What came out of Appropriations as an author amendment when the language that defined 85ft, I think some of our folks felt like that it could be clarified in terms of compliance, conformity with the building code. So the amendment that we took before it even went to Assembly housing what we viewed as just clarifying amendment, the trades and Mr. Wetz's clients did not agree and wanted it to revert back to what came out of Senate Appropriations.

In the end, we just decided as a matter of peace on Earth, we can do that because I don't personally think it makes a huge difference one way or the other. And so we decided to revert it back.

I think we're talking about the same thing, which is a technical clarification. I think when you're talking about the intensity or the scale of a building development.

It doesn't change that. It's only about the threshold for which labor standard applies. Because 85ft triggers a different labor standard.

Right?

And so this is simply about how do we phrase that sentence that triggers the 85ft. And there was just a dispute about which language it should be. And so we reverted it back in order to not create that kind of, I think, conflict. That wasn't necessary.

I don't know if Mr. Wetch is still in the office, but in the audience as well. I would look forward to maybe in the future, like more clarification, how this actually would change again the framework of a potential development right now, because I see it as one and the same. And if we are subsequently changing language, that is going to also change the agreement that you very carefully negotiated as well. That would be of concern. I'm just not convinced that we've actually changed that. Would you agree?

I can speak to it courtesy of Chair and the Committee. For all intents, it means the same thing. One tracks Cleaves closer to the Uniform building code and the California building codes. I think there was some concern about involving human occupancy or use in it, clarifying so they're more comfortable, which we believe it gets to the same place. The short answer is 85ft and a quarter inch. Your high rise construction, it's going to be usually type one construction.

There are places where there's type one and lower, so maybe that's part of it. But where we're standing, it means exactly the same thing that at 85ft it goes to a higher labor standard.

Okay, I'm going to explore that a little bit more just to see if there's something that I'm missing in how that actually maybe changes the applicability to different kinds of projects. I don't think that it does, but this issue was raised, and so I'd like to hear a little bit more from that.

To that end, Madam Chair, if not already, I'd like to make a motion to move this Bill with the inclusion of the author's amendments for purposes of discussion and open it up to the rest of your leisure.

The Wildfire? Or sorry.

The wildfire amendment include your right for the amendments to government code Section 65913.4, as well as the draft amendments here for the intent of the Legislature to consult on wildfire issues. And I will use that as a basis for starting the motion.

I haven't had the chance to talk to in this hearing. I plan to object to those amendments.

Okay.

And so I'm just being clear about that. We have a list of Members that also want to speak on behalf, want to ask questions.

I'll make a motion which is in order and happy to see how it goes.

We already had a motion from Assembly Member Mathis.

Okay.

I know.

So under our rules, I'd like to make a substitute motion if it is going to receive a second.

Can you clarify what your motion is exactly?

To move the Bill forward with the authors drafted amendments as presented today on wildfire intent language, as well as the amended Coastal Commission authors amendments to government code Section 65913.4.

I'd rather.

What? Yeah.

To to clarify, Madam Chair, I rescind my first motion, and I will second Mr. Ward's motion to accept Mr. Weiner's amendments to move the Bill forward.

Language is not in these pages.

Not at this time? Not at this time. We would take this draft as it's.

Currently drafted, then, correct? Because I know the Senator mentioned in the beginning that he was reverting back to the labor language that came out of Senate approach. I'm correct, right? That's not currently the way what's in print right now and the pages that he gave us does not include the labor language. Just want to make sure what we're voting. I want to be clear with everyone what we're voting.

The writing for the labor language, we had been intending to take that in approach. That was, I think, what our plan was, but I don't have a problem taking it at any point in time because we've committed to it.

So the analysis has raised this language. We just discussed this language. So what is your ultimate intent of the Bill?

I am committing that we're reverting that 85 foot language, period, end of story. It doesn't matter to me when it's.

Also, like, as a part of my motion. If the seconder agrees, I would like to accept that as well at this time.

Agreed.

That's what we have.

Without the labor language with yes. Currently in print. I'm sorry, I missed this.

No, as in the analysis, the changes in section f shall be reverted to the version prior to the June 19 authors amendments.

It's not listed as a Committee among those.

Just want to make sure that we're all very clear on what your motion is, right. From this Committee. I believe that Senator Weiner has committed to reverting to the labor. We discussed this. I have no issue with his commitment on that.

Just with regard to the motion that you made. There's still a lot of Members who want to discuss the Bill. And so I would just request that you keep open the option that we might want to make suggestions or changes so like normal practice. I wouldn't want us to call the question until everyone's had a chance to discuss the Bill and the suggested amendments. Because the Committee we may decide to do something different, right?

Absolutely. I'll be listening.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, next. I have assemblymember Pellerin.

All right, well, first of all, thank you to the author and the co author for being incredible housing advocates in this state. I definitely support the goal to build affordable housing so people who are working in our communities can't afford to live in our communities. But I do have some concerns with the Bill. First, I want to speak to the importance of making sure the high fire hazard severity zones are accurately referenced in this Bill.

As you know, the state, especially my district, were severely impacted by the wildfires a couple of years ago, and these are only going to become more intense. So I think if we're going to streamline housing, we need to pay careful attention to make sure that new developments won't be burned out shortly after. And I'd like to see these provisions tightened up. Second, I'm very concerned about setting this precedent for the Coastal Act.

We need to look at how to meet both state goals of more housing and strong coastal protection in an era of climate change and sea level rise, not pitting these goals against each other. While I appreciate the author's efforts to find a middle ground, I'm not convinced that amending the Coastal Act in this way is the right approach, as this approach doesn't address the restrictions that were enacted in 1981 when the Legislature took Affordable Housing Authority out of the Coastal Act.

This Bill appears to be focused on market rate multifamily housing, which means more high end development without a strong requirement for workforce and affordable housing. I appreciate the author, the Commission and some of the Members of the Committee were in negotiations over the weekend. Thank you to our chair and your staff for all the work you did. But negotiating major changes to the Coastal Act over the weekend doesn't provide the public an opportunity to review these changes.

And it was the public who passed this law to protect our California beaches and coastal resources. As far as sea level rise goes, I think the Commission has made the case that there is no objective way to determine statewide what will be safe for the life of a structure without taking multiple factors into account. The Coastal Commission is the agency that has had more direct, real world experience dealing with how to site and design safe development on the coast than any other agency or organization.

So why we would want to take the best available science and the medium estimates for sea level rise on a question this important greatly concerns me. The Coastal Commission advises and guides most of the local governments in our state on these matters. They also give them grant funds to update their local coastal plans in order to account for sea level rise impacts. As legislators, we should not be quick to substitute our judgment for the expertise of technical planning staff.

I don't want the burden on my conscience if we pick the wrong number. As Semi Member Ward said earlier, if the Commission says 5ft should be the standard, then that should be based on the best available science at specific factors, at site specific factors. And I defer to them. Earlier this year, I watched parts of my community get destroyed in the atmospheric storms. Sea level rise, flooding, and coastal erosion are not theoretical to me or my community.

It is a reality and it is very important to me. So as much as I appreciate all the work you're doing, and I am a huge supporter of affordable housing and building more housing in our state, I don't think we should do this at the cost of our coast, which needs our stewardship and protection. So thank you.

Assemblymember Marisucci.

Thank you. I also want to thank the Senator for and his co author, the chair of the Housing Committee, and the Assembly for their leadership. And I do support building more housing, but like my colleague just stated, not at the expense of protecting our coast. I represent a coastal district of Los Angeles County, and just two days ago, there were, at last count, 12 homes that just collapsed because of land erosion.

And while it's still being investigated, there's a lot of suspicion that this is also related to climate change, that it's related to the torrential rains that we had in our district, like we've had throughout the state, and that these homes were zoned in a residential zone.

And it's my understanding, I'd like to ask the Coastal Commission to confirm this, that part of the Coastal Act the purpose of the Coastal Act is to require all new development to minimize risk to life and property in areas of high geologic hazard, and that neither creates nor contributes to erosion or geologic instability. Is that correct?

That's correct, Assembly Member. And I would add that SB One, by Protem Atkins several years ago, doubled down on those policies, adding stronger language to the Coastal Act to that effect.

So it concerns me deeply that we're even considering a Bill that's going to weaken in the name of building more housing faster. Again, I support not only the building more housing, but also all the jobs, the union jobs, to build more housing. I support those goals, but we should not be pitting building more housing at the expense of protecting our coast. Last time I checked, this is the Natural Resources Committee and not the Housing Committee.

And I want to remind this Committee that the Coastal Act is the the primary tool for us to protect this precious California coastline that we have.

And so I just wanted to make sure that I stated that for the record. Thank you very much Madam Chair.

Assembly Member Addis.

Thank you so much. And before I start, I just want to come back to one of the very first conversations with the author that I ever had when I was still a candidate. And I applauded you for your bravery when it comes to housing. And so I just want to echo that here today and say I applaud the author, the co author, all of the folks who came up from District. I know what it takes to drive up here and really appreciate that.

But also, this chair and staff and our colleagues, many of us spent hours thinking about this, talking about this, texting, calling one another, trying to figure out where we're at on this, because it's so important. I would say it's so important to myself and to every single Member of this Committee that we get housing right when it comes to the coastal zone. And so I think every one of us has our hearts and our minds in the right place and have been thinking deeply about this.

I also want to say that I absolutely support SB 35. It's a phenomenal Bill. It extended affordable housing. It's done wonderful things for our state. It would be very easy for me to say yes to 423 if the right things were in place, which I don't believe they are at this time. I think we need more time on this to make sure this gets to the place where we can all feel really solid behind it.

And I want to share a little bit of info about my personal story, and then I'll tell you why it's so difficult for me to support this. We raised two kids in the coastal zone in an 800 square foot house as a teacher and a construction worker on those salaries as middle class people. I have a mother in law who would very much like to live in the coastal zone. She does right now, but she's on a three year waiting list for affordable housing.

I have constituents that are coming to me and calling my office and telling me, I'm 80 years old, I can't find housing. Right? These are serious, serious problems for our district. But when I look at this Bill, what this feels like to me is a trickle down approach to affordable housing. What it's saying is if we just build more market rate, we will build enough market rate that eventually prices will come down. And that might be true in some parts of California.

It very well may be. I don't think that's true in the coastal zone that I represent. Market rate housing. Where I represent is $1.0 million housing. It's $2.4 million housing. It's incredibly expensive market rate housing. And I'm not seeing enough in this Bill to let me know that it's actually not going to be a giveaway to developers that it's actually not going to increase income inequality by relaxing standards for developers.

And I'll get to why those standards are so important to actually increase affordable housing, which really at its crux is what I've been told this Bill is about getting affordable housing into the coastal zone. So I have an issue there.

I would also say I'm incredibly concerned after the February storm excuse me, the January and March storms that we experienced in our district, where we saw absolute destruction of the coast, we saw cliffs falling into the water, we saw 100 year floods that we're being told are going to come now every 30 years. And the homeowners that were most affected were those that have the least amount of resources. And it was devastating for people.

And so I have a lot of concern around Eroding, the Coastal Act that is meant to protect us against floods, against sea level rise, against groundwater incursion, against crumbling bluffs, but also protect public access and increase affordable housing. And I just don't see that in this Bill at this time. I would say a third issue that I have difficulty with is I have a number of areas in my district that would love to build, but they don't have water.

They're under stop build orders because of water. And I don't see penalizing these areas for not meeting their Rena numbers when the water district is telling them that they can't build. So they are feeling between a rock and a hard space and they're asking for help. They're not asking for more unfunded mandates. They're asking for help to increase water so that they can build.

I will add to this that I also have local electeds telling me, dawn, we're building, we want to build, we're putting money behind affordable housing. We're doing everything I can. And as a Council Member, I personally have a project that's almost done. It's just kind of waiting on a couple of things because of supply chain issues and affordable housing development that is almost done, but we also approved market rate housing.

I do believe that developer is going to make millions and millions of dollars, and I don't believe that developers should have gotten any kind of shortcuts to be able to do that development. And so these things are happening, building is happening. For my particular coastal district, though, these are very difficult issues to say. We should give up the Coastal Act with no guarantee that we're going to get affordable housing from it. So I again want to reiterate my support for SB 35.

I think everything I've said here is no surprise to anybody today, but I think there's some easy solutions, we just haven't gotten there yet. So that's why I'm having such difficulty and probably won't be able to support this today.

Thank you, Assembly Member Wood.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you to the authors for bringing this forward. I supported SB 35. And I think the work that's come of that, I think, has proved its case. I represent 300 miles of coastline, more than any Member in this room. And very little of that land would be subject to this. Very little. And yet we still struggle with housing in those areas that would. And so I have a couple of questions and then a couple more comments.

I see in your amendments you mentioned, in lieu of best available science, having Noah be the arbiter of what the appropriate height is. And so I'm going to support you on that and maybe have you consider something in addition to that as well. For me, best available science, I think, could be in the eyes of the interpreter and not necessarily inclusive of all science there.

And I would be a little more comfortable if there were organizations named and it doesn't have to just be Noah, but other organizations possibly as well, where there is actually a consensus. I just feel like that best available science could be used by somebody. Let's talk healthcare.

Somebody might feel that maybe vaccines or some other health condition, in their mind, the best available science that they have access to could skew the way they looked at I thought healthcare was complicated until we started some of these discussions. So my hat's really off to you. So, anyway, that's my consideration there. I am confused and not unusual, but in the Coastal Commission compromise amendments, there's, the number 1235.

It says, in the coastal zone, only partial zone for residential or multifamily will be eligible for this streamlined process. The way I read your Bill, that's what your Bill says. So help me clarify, why are they asking for an amendment when it's already in your Bill? From my interpretation?

Yes. So thank you for that. Assembly Member SB 35 only applies to multi unit residential. Period. That's what the Bill is about. SB 35 does not allow commercial conversion. There are other laws that this Legislature has passed, including two last year, that in some circumstances, SB 35 does not allow for conversion from commercial or anything else to residential. It applies to land where you are allowed to build multi unit residential. So that would be a superfluous amendment because the Bill is already about residential multi unit.

Thank you, because that's the way I was reading it. So I am confused. Can you explain why that amendment, which mimics his language? Because I don't get it.

Happy to. Yeah. The language of this Bill and of SB 35 speaks when it lists out the eligible areas where the streamlining process would take place. It applies to residential zones, applies to mixed use zones, and it contains a reference to the Housing Accountability Act and areas where multifamily housing is allowed under that act, which includes office, retail, commercial, and other lists or other zoning designations.

So, no, this Bill does not involve converting the zoning designation of a site, but it does refer to the Housing Accountability Act, which makes multifamily a permissible use on those other zones.

Go ahead.

First of all, the Housing Accountability Act does not change any zoning. That's a 40 year old law that says you basically can't change the rules in the middle of the game. And if you zone for something, you have to allow people to build to that for housing. I think there has been some confusion because Senate Bill Six, which Legislature passed last year by Senator Caballero, was signed into law, which does allow for conversion from commercial to residential in certain circumstances.

That law refers to SB 35 streamlining. It's a cross reference. But that's not SB 35. In addition, SB Six, as I understand it, has a savings clause. So the Coastal Act still fully applies. And so I just don't agree with that. And I'm stating here that SB 35 and it's our intent, and I think it's what the Bill does, is about residential multi unit. When I say that mixed use, you can have up to one third of the building be non residential.

And that's standard in the Legislature for housing bills.

Thank you. I'm going to move on now. I'm very protective of the coastline. It's a huge part of my district. It's a huge part of what is so important to the people who live there and call it home and those people who come and visit. So I'm very protective of that. So this is a difficult balancing act for this. But I go back to the fact that what you're asking for is in areas that are already zoned for housing. You're not asking to expand zoning. You're already looking at areas that are already zoned for housing. Correct?

That's correct. And if you analyze the entire geography of the coastal zone under what we have currently in print, I'm not even talking about any compromise. What's currently in print in the Bill, our analysis is that 85% of the geography of the coastal zone would still be excluded because it's not zone residential, it's not zone multi unit. It's not infill because the Bill only applies to urbanized infill areas. So the large majority of the coastal zone on the natural is simply not part of this. The amendments, even the ones that we're proposing, exclude even more of the coastal.

Am you mentioned. And I'm kind of surprised too, because I know you, and I know how hard you work your bills, that in the Senate, the issues were all around labor. And suddenly in this House, suddenly it became very different. I think had you known that there were going to be objections, I know you would have been working on. So I want to give you the opportunity to continue working on this.

What troubles me about the negotiations and the process here is that once the Bill leaves a Committee, the only opportunity the Committee Members, individual Members, will have to engage will be in a subsequent Committee or on the floor. So I'd love for it to come back for us to see the final product, but I don't know that there's no mechanism for that as far as what I'm aware of. But I'm not blaming you for that. It's just the way this has worked out.

As I said, I think had you known this was going to be a major issue, you would have begun addressing this when the Bill was introduced. So I appreciate the quandary that you find yourself in and I want to thank you. We've had discussions about the fire zones. I think my community was one of the first to experience absolute catastrophic wildfire. And my concern about the maps and the effects of the maps on how and where housing might be built takes to the next level.

There are historic areas in my district that are fire prone, and we've built and then burned and then rebuilt. Maybe at some point it's not appropriate to build again and watch it burn again in the future. So I recognize that CAL FIRE will have recommendations for mitigation and so forth, but that doesn't always consider the fact that there's a funnel there and when a fire gets started, it just moves through there quickly.

But the other issue of concern is that and we see just this over the weekend or today, that insurers are now backing away from insuring. We've now had three carriers who are saying they're not going to write new policies. And so for us to authorize and build housing in an area where insurers are not going to insure means that the people who people aren't going to be able to buy that or they're not going to be able to occupy that, and it would be hugely problematic.

So that's part of the consideration as we go forward. So I just want to thank you for working with us on that.

Thank you.

If you have something else.

The insurance issue, obviously it's a huge one in the wildfire zones. We're even now seeing it outside of wildfire zones for different reasons. Even in San Francisco, we're seeing there's an insurance meltdown happening in terms of homeowners insurance in particular. But it started in the wildfire zones and it's most acute in the wildfire zones, and that affects housing globally.

It's a broader issue than any one Bill, but I agree with you that it is a big problem and I pray that it gets fixed because it's impacting a wider and wider swath of California.

I think it extends far beyond just wildfire. I think it extends desire to not write policies in the state, period. So that's my interpretation.

I'm getting calls from my district about that too. Homeowners are getting canceled.

I'm going to be supporting your Bill today because I know you're going to continue to work on this and come to a resolution. I just wish there was a mechanism for us all to come back together again and hear that, but I guess it'll be on the floor. So thank you.

I mean, there is I mean, usually the Committee can pull the Bill back or for discussion.

Or for discussion.

I'm just talking about a know, as, you know, we can pull it.

Well, okay, thank you. I appreciate. Thanks.

Assembly Member Zbur.

First of all, thank you. I really appreciate the amount of time the author spent with me and folks for the Coastal Commission this weekend, as well as a whole host of folks in your Bill sponsors and folks in the pro housing and pro affordable housing community. And this Bill is a really important one.

And as is the case with bills that tackle important and complicated issues, getting to the right place is complex, and it requires that we do a lot of work to sort of get to the right place. And I think what's sort of shaping my thinking about the Bill is that California has the highest functional poverty rate of any state in the know.

A lot of people think that the functional poverty rate is one that takes into account the cost of living and the cost of housing and the cost of, you know, it's higher than West Virginia, it's higher than Arkansas, it's higher than a lot of these states that we thumb our noes at. And the reason for that is because the cost of housing in California is so high.

So I do think that we need to do everything we can to incentivize and remove the barriers to building more housing and more affordable housing in particular. Of course, this Bill, the thing that's different than SB 35 is that it removes the exemption in the coastal zone. And I've had robust input from every side, more than two sides on that. I've heard from inland cities that I represent and housing advocates arguing that every part of the state should be contributing to solving our housing crisis.

And I agree with that. I've also heard significant concern from the environmental community and the Coastal Commission and the Hillside Federation worried about unintended consequences of this Bill. And contrary to the charged rhetoric that's coming from some of the housing advocates that was directed at me in particular, I think it's important that we move forward understanding that it's really important that we get this right in the coastal zone. I believe that we all share the same goals.

And that is and I think even the most ardent housing advocates want to make sure that housing isn't being built on eroding coastal bluffs or areas that are going to be subject to inundation because of sea level rise. I don't think anyone wants developers to be able to bulldoze sensitive habitat areas or wetlands or riparian corridors. And no one, the housing advocates included, want to take away protections that afford more, that protect public access in the coastal zone. When I look at these two.

I want to say this came from, I think, Senator wiener's office and this that came from the coastal staff. They seem very close to me. I mean, really, we're talking about this one issue related to sea level rise and the 3ft versus the 5ft. My own view about that is that I'd rather have the more protective number in there, but I also think that it does need to be something that's more specific.

So I'm hoping that as we move forward, that we will try to get to the more protective number and that we get to something that is more specific. I've looked at the Bill with two objectives advancing housing, including in the coastal zone, but also protecting our most sensitive coastal areas. And I say that the devil's in the details. I spent a lot of time over the weekend thinking through really every bad outcome that could happen with this Bill, including with the exemptions in place.

And I got to say that I think that there were a lot of guardrails that were already in place in the Bill, and I really appreciate the fact that you've moved for even further on those things. There are better protections in the Bill for wetlands and riparian corridors. Appreciate the fact that you've actually moved to the Coastal Commission's definitions for that. And agland the Bill already applies only in infill areas, in fact, has to have development on all three sides.

It's, I think, a really important improvement that the Bill doesn't apply in appeal jurisdiction of the coastal zone. That's really important because that's what the Coastal Commission needs to protect public access along the coast. And there's a number of other improvements as well that make me comfortable, I think, voting for this today. I do say I do have two really important continuing concerns, and that's related to the wildfire risk. Spent a lot of time with the Hillside Federation.

That is a really important group in my jurisdiction, and I do not think that the current language in the Bill related to wildfires is protective enough. I'll just sort of say I've shared that with you already. I appreciate the intent language that's being put in, and I appreciate your offer to make sure that folks from the Hillside Federation in particular are included in some of the dialogue with CAL FIRE.

Those areas are ones that if you went to Topanga canyon and you know, the way that the Bill is currently structured, we have an exemption for high and very high risk fire zone areas. But then it's sort of taken back and says unless you're complying essentially with building codes that are applicable in these jurisdictions, doing something like putting on a fire retardant roof or Sprinkler systems is not going to basically protect people from the ingress and egress areas in these areas.

So I think it comes down to are there parcels in these areas that are subject to the law we could not figure that out over the weekend. I appreciate all the time you took with that. And that's why I'm comfortable with the intent language. Not that I'm comfortable taking out protections.

I hope that we're going to have very strong protections related to these fire zone areas as well as in the Coastal Commission, where I think we really do need to have the more protective standards with respect to sea level rise. But I know that you share these goals as well. Goals of both making sure we can advance housing and protect our coastal zone adequately. And I trust that you'll do that. And with that, will be supporting the Bill. But really want to make sure that you take seriously these concerns that I think are being raised by me and others that are on the dais today. Thank you.

Assembly Member Friedman.

Well, I don't want to be redundant with everyone else, but I do want to thank the authors for their work and also their willingness to engage on the issues with many of us over the last several days. And also the sponsors. I think there's actually a lot more agreement, even with people that are opposed than disagreement. It seems to me that the issues are surrounding some of our areas that are the more problematic areas in the state because of climate, quite honestly.

And we've been having a discussion for a number of years in this Committee about are there areas that are just too hazardous to build in? Are there areas in the state that are too risky for people? We had this discussion when I was chair of this Committee about paradise, when one of the Members wanted to expedite rebuilding in that area.

And we had these conversations about, are there areas where we don't want to be encouraging people to move back into and areas where we want them to actually move somewhere that's more defensible? Are there places where we've already had discussions in the state along the coast of trying to get communities to actually start the process of maybe starting to move people inland and to sort of try to dehouse some of the areas that are most vulnerable to sea level.

And a lot of the discussion that I've heard is around those areas. And I do think that we can come to some sort of an agreement. And I think we've certainly been getting closer over the last few days. There's been a suggestion with the high fire severity zones of just exempting them completely out of this Bill. And I'll tell you why I'm not for that. And the reason is because I was representing one community.

That where 100% of the city is in a high fire severity zone. And this is a city that's been very reluctant to add any multifamily housing whatsoever, even though there's also a highway within the city and areas that are, frankly, fairly defensible, that have good ingress and egress. And so the issues where the city has been not wanting the multifamily housing, in my mind, is not really about safety. It's about remaining an exclusive enclave and forcing people to commute into those areas.

And there are areas like that that there should be an objective standard where we can look at them and say the ingress and egress is good. They're far enough away from Chaparral. There are enough infill that we should be able to expedite and streamline housing in those areas even though on the map they are high fire severity zone, as is the rest of the community.

And yet on the other hand there are areas in the same community where you can't get a fire truck up the hills because it's windy and narrow. And so trying to come up with a way where you satisfy the concerns of the very rightful concerns of not creating more building in areas that you can't get people evacuated out of easily that is important and people have raised that as an issue.

But I think a blanket exemption on high fire severity zones with communities that I've represented actually would give communities a pass in allowing multifamily and senior housing which was proposed from areas that are just as offensive as other parts of Los Angeles. So I think that there's more conversation and I agree the process is hard because right now there's only the floor and there's only appropriations and this is really where we'd like to see that work done.

So I don't quite know what to do about that. But I know that your intent is good in terms of the coastal. I think that you guys are so close on language that I can see I'm more comfortable with 5ft than 3ft because I feel like you're splitting the difference. And I don't know that anyone on your side is saying, like, no, it's got to be three and not five.

I also feel like maybe there's a way with this nola question to say NOAA and other best science so that you kind of open the door to having more maybe there's a way of doing that.

I do think that a lot of us here would feel more comfortable passing the Bill out with at least some of these amendments even if we're going to keep working on mean I'm going to allow you to I'm going to ask you what you think in a second but go ahead if you want to jump.

I was going to say I just want to be clear if we can have an objective way of measuring the sea level rise we thought NOAA was a good approach. If the Commission has other objective ways of doing it that aren't sort of a nebulous subjective way of doing it then we would be willing to go to 5ft. But the best available science, I agree with colleagues is just not tight enough.

But if we're able to work that out and make it an objective standard we'd be willing to go to 5.

I think their argument about this being evolving. And I know that there's more than one group that looks at this. I have NASA JPL in my district, they've done a little bit of mapping. So maybe the best available science is a term of art and less squishy than we think that I don't know.

And maybe there's someone who can decide going forward, even if we say best available science as agreed to by the Natural Resources Agency or some group that we think is able to say, yes, that's a group that can do this, or this is not a group that's capable of doing this. I mean, maybe there's something along those lines, but it seems like to say it has to be only one group and one group only, that also seems pretty restrictive.

Well, we put two groups in and I don't care if there are five. I would be fine with that. I don't have a problem with the Commission being able to choose which standard it is as long as it's objective and verifiable. And so that someone who's building housing can know ahead of time as opposed to it being after the fact, someone just sort of says, well, I think the best available science is this. So that's all we're asking for, so that someone can know ahead of time. So we're flexible in that.

I understand and maybe even adding language like that objective and verifiable. Because I do think, though, that we only have a few more weeks and I think the comfort of the Committee of passing it out of this Committee with some a little bit more in there, even if it's going to be changeable later, I would love to see Coastal Commission be comfortable with the Bill. I think a lot of us would like to see them be comfortable.

They certainly have come to the table with very good offers and they're no longer standing by the let's exempt Coastal Zone Lane, which was their original position. And I feel like they've been moving quite a so I don't feel that you have a group here that's wanting to be opposed, just to be opposed. I think that they're raising legitimate concerns and offering solutions on how to address that.

And I agree with that and I'm appreciative that they came forward with those. We received them on Saturday and so we've not had it for a long period of time. Again, it is what it is. I understand they were opposed, so I'm not criticizing them on that timing, but the reality is it was received Saturday. We sent ours back, I believe yesterday, if I'm recalling correctly. And so there's just not been a lot of time. But I'm committed to working with the Commission, to trying to get to a place where the Commission is comfortable.

I understand. I'm more comfortable with at least the five foot language for today. Even if that gets changed, I just think that they'll be more comfortable with that. But I understand that there'll be more conversations.

And then one other issue that we spoke about was, I'd like to see your commitment to putting something into the Bill that makes it very clear that whatever the underlying zoning plus the law allows in terms of the number of units is what is allowable that there's not streamlining to where you can put more units on than what the zoning plus whatever other laws like density bonus would allow. And you had told me you were willing to add that going forward.

Yeah. So the answer we'll work with you on that. SB 35 only does not change the underlying zoning. Period, end of story. It never has. SB 423 doesn't. However, I know you raised a concern just about making something crystal, crystal clear, and we're willing to work with you on whatever refinement it needs to.

And I understand that that's the understanding that people have had about the Bill. I look through the language, and it's not clear in my mind when I look through. And so I think it's very easy to add a line that clarifies that. And since it's already the intention to not upzone anything through the Bill, I would like your commitment that you're willing to do that.

Just to be clear, I think the language does already do that, but I'm happy to make an extra clarification, and we're happy to work with you on that.

Wait, as an amendment today?

What?

As an amendment today?

No, not as amendment.

Because I want to know what we're going to be voting on.

No, not as amendment today. So we've had some conversations, Madam Chair, and I think we think that the Bill is already clear. It doesn't change the zoning.

However, it does upzone, right?

No, it doesn't upzone. It streamlines whatever the existing zoning is. The existing zoning. If it's zoned for 10 units, this Bill does not change it from 10 units. I'm sorry, with something? Was there a joke?

Just to be clear, I believe it's sort of the way it's drafted. Because I know you sent me something about density bonus. But when I looked at the other language, what it seems to say to me, what it literally says is it needs to be a residential property, and then it needs to be more than two units. It doesn't say that the zoning has to be a multifamily zoning that I saw.

Now, I could have been missing it somewhere, but I think that just clarifying that, given that that's the intent, I think that that would certainly make those who have brought this up more comfortable.

Yeah. I agree and I will speak later about my wildfire concerns. And what I've been told over the weekend was this won't override a single family, R1 that are near in the high fire severity zone, but it's not clear in the language. I know the development has to be multifamily, and I've always known that. But if it's zoned R1, then can it be used for more than one unit? Can it be developed?

No. I mean, if there are other laws. But in terms of this law, the answer is no. And it says that it has to be consistent with objective zoning standards. And so this Bill does not change the zoning in any way. Again, this Legislature has passed other laws that do change zoning. No, but this is not one of them.

So the line that you're pointing to says, consistent with objective zoning standards. But again, I think that just making it clear that that means I don't think that should be a difficult thing. And I know that that's not your intent. I'm just asking for a drafting.

Clarification we're happy to do that and we're happy with you. We're happy to work on that clarification yeah.

And just to be clear, I'm going to support the Bill. I would like to see. I think that coming out of this Committee, we're looking to just make sure that we address some of these concerns and tighten it up so that as it goes forward, it does everything that we want without any unintended consequences, where people later are going to come and say, that's not what we voted for, or how could I know?

That what I think what you envision, what I envision, what your sponsors envision, is that infill housing gets streamlined, that communities like the one that I represented, that did block housing and try to ministerially stop housing, can't do that any longer. That when they have something that's zoned for multifamily, they have to allow people to build multifamily. They can't just keep throwing roadblock after roadblock so that they also do their fair share. That's what I want to see.

Part of the incentive to do this is because we need more infill housing to stop people from building in high wildfire zones and in fragile areas. That's the promise of this Bill, that we will get the housing that we need in the places that are the safest to build and the least environmentally sensitive. So that's why I'm supporting the Bill. And that's what I think. That's really the great promise, and we just want to make sure that what it does right.

Since we're on this topic and I will move on to the next speaker. Is there someone from representing the cities that has an opinion on this? Whether this does change the zoning, I'm not sure if anyone is here to address that.

Okay. So next, Assembly Member Friedman, you're done or I just want to make sure.

I'm done, and I may have to run out to go to another Committee. But I will be returning.

I understand. Okay. Assembly Member Hoover.

Thank you. Madam Chair, just a quick question before I make some comments for the Coastal Commission on, I guess, just the timing of your opposition and why you didn't engage sooner in the process.

Thank you for that question. The Coastal Commission has been in conversation with the author's office for multiple months on this Bill. We initially offered as our response to this pursuit to find an objective standard, the same sentiment that I'm saying today, which is on sea level rise that just doesn't exist. We're not obfuscating. We're just counseling that that does not exist. And so that is a fraught exercise.

In response to those meetings which were with the author's staff, we received several additional proposals which attempt to take the same frame, and in doing so, did not resolve that underlying issue that there is not an objective approach for sea level rise. That is why it took some time for these conversations to become substantive as it was recognized.

Part of the reason that it finally did become substantive is because the Coastal Commission moved its position to find more nuanced ways for the streamlining process to take place in the coastal zone. But that does not resolve this issue around being able to find an objective standard to sea level rise, which is why it has continued in discussion to this point.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I just want to thank the author for taking on this important know we talk a lot about affordability in our state. And as my colleague from Los Angeles mentioned, we have the highest functional poverty rate in the highest. We also have the second highest unemployment rate. We have the second most expensive state in the nation to live. And at the end of the day, I truly don't believe we'll fix this without additional supply. And my district is building.

I think there's a lot of districts in our state that are building, but we truly need an all hands on deck approach in communities across California to solve our housing affordability crisis. I also strongly believe, as a parent, that this is about our next generation, that we have to make California a place where our kids can afford to live. Where their kids can afford to live. And so I believe that SB 423 helps us do that. And I'm happy to support the Bill today. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions or comments from Committee Members? Okay, then I would like to start by saying that if I didn't agree with the goals of this Bill, I wouldn't have spent as much time as I did with you and others in the past few last week. I would say we met about two weeks ago in my office to discuss concerns. One of them was wildfire, and one of them was related to the coastal zones. So it's not a surprise, right, that these were issues.

I think I was very clear that those were my concerns. And there's been a lot of discussions about affordable housing, and I would love to see more aggressive, affordable housing targets in this Bill. Regardless if this Bill goes through, my constituents are still not going to be able to afford the housing that's built through this Bill. I represent families that make $30,000 for a family of four, right?

I don't think anything that's built on the coastal zone or wherever is still going to address a family that makes such little in our state. I'm from Los Angeles, the San Fernando valley. I represent a very Low income district, and it's still not going to help, especially when people are saying that, zero, we're not opening the coastal zone. This is not for my constituents at all. But I know that California needs more housing. I don't object to that.

I probably wouldn't have heard this Bill if that were the case. But today we were here at the natural resources Committee to hear about the issues related to the resources Committee's jurisdiction, and that includes the coastal zone, the wildfire issues, and others that were raised that are related to environmental justice. You've presented amendments, and like I told you on Saturday morning, I don't want to walk into the Committee and negotiate from the dais because there's multiple papers going around.

Which language it's which is this in here? We're not sure. Something's crossed out. I don't know. I have all these papers on here. I have emails, too, that include more amendments that you didn't present today that I assumed that we had agreed to. And so I feel like that's what happens when we're trying to negotiate here. I've spent a lot of time with you, and I commend you on especially the labor standards.

I think getting all labor that has agreed to this is great for us, for our state. I was happy to hear from you on Saturday morning that you were going back to the language that the trades wanted. I don't know the details of that, but I know that you're committed to that language in a negotiation. I feel that we have to be honest. I never try to trick an author. I only talk to the author and other stakeholders, and I try to bring them together.

I feel like I did that with the Coastal Commission. It was very late Friday night. We were trying to convince them to come closer to you, and I believe that we did that. But now you don't want to take their amendments, right? And so that's where we are there. I was really trying, and I just feel like there's so many amendments going around on pieces of paper that because of that, right now, I'm not able to support the Bill.

One of the issues that's very important to me is addressing the wildfire. What I want to do is put in the stronger language, the amendment that's proposed in the analysis and commit to continue talking to you. I told you this already on Saturday. I'm not surprising the author let's put in the amendment and that we commit to continue these discussions just like you want to too.

But for this Committee to be brought in, I feel the stronger amendment allows there's more of a sense of urgency for all the stakeholders to get together and to make sure that a discussion does happen before this Bill is voted on on the floor. We have the whole summer to discuss this. Lots of stakeholders, agencies, my Committee, Committee Members want to be a part of this. This is something that's very important to us.

And I don't want cities, I agree with you, I don't want cities to zone their whole city as a high fire severity zone just so that they won't build and be exclusionary. But in Los Angeles, everyone thinks Los Angeles is dense and just downtown know the San Fernando Valley is surrounded by mountains and we've had several wildfires. And my concern is that we will be developing in a very dangerous area. And I want to be clear on what parameters we will be putting there.

And I feel that this Committee will have a say if we put in that amendment that I had proposed. And the same as you're committing to that we continue this discussion over the summer. Intent language is very weak, you know that. As a Legislator, as a chair, would you do that, right? Put an intent language on something that was very important to you, to your district, to your county, to lots of parts of the state, right?

But I am willing, I don't want it to stay that strong. I want it to be in there so that we're for sure at the table and that there will be a sense of urgency, like I said, to come to a resolution because intent language we spoke, intent to speak, intent to consult. You checked the box if you talked, not if there was a solution. And that's what I'm asking you for today.

Out of respect to this Committee and to myself as a chair, I'm about to go to your Committee to present a Bill after this hearing. And I would be willing to sit down and work with you if you wanted me to take an amendment. And that's what I'm expecting also. But like I said, you have my commitment to continue working and that's what I'm asking for you today. If you take that amendment, I will support today. Yes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And we did sit down two weeks ago and I very much appreciated that. We talked about the Coastal Commission and we took your direction and we're going to continue to work on that. So I've introduced, I don't know, 140 bills since I've been in the Legislature, including some very hard ones. I have negotiated and accepted big amendments from chairs. In fact, tomorrow in Mr. Wood's Committee, I'm going to be taking a rather large amendment on a totally unrelated Bill.

I think I take significant amendments from chairs and negotiate big been, I calculated, I think, four and a half years since I have walked into a Committee without having full agreement with a chair as an author for four and a half years. It's a lot of bills and a lot of committees because it's usually multiple committees per chair. I have come into Committee with five simple words. I think it's five. I accept the Committee's amendments. Right.

I like to say that, and I work very, very hard to make that happen. As chair, I have never, to my recollection, had a fight in my Committee because we've worked it out. And sometimes I, as chair, have given on significant things and I have put bills out of housing Committee that I'll be honest, I have not been in love with.

And so it's not something that I take lightly to walk in the Committee and to say respectfully, Madam Chair, there are certain amendments that I cannot take. The wildfire amendment to have a categorical exemption or exclusion from the Bill for these zones would be a massive body blow to this Bill. It's not just a minor amendment. It would be a massive body blow to the Bill. It is not what these maps were intended for, to exclude state housing law.

And it's just not something that I am able to accept. I do think that there is a middle path. I think there is a way to craft this, to take into account that there are certain areas because of the topography that we would all agree are inappropriate to build in while not mass excluding these entire zones. And that's why I think the intent language is a good approach.

And you have my commitment that I very much want to be able to work with you as we move forward. This is not like we're out of Committee and you don't matter. That's not the approach that I would ever take. And so I just want to explain why we're not able to do that. It's not out of disrespect to you as chair or to the Committee. It's because that would be extremely damaging to the Bill, in my opinion and the opinion of our coalition.

No, I don't believe any chair would accept an intent language on something that's very important. Right. And at least I won't. And I hope that you do continue to address this issue, but it's just an intent to speak, to consult. Right. Continue the conversation. This is the policy Committee in the second house, and we have very little time left. And I would like to see a stronger commitment. And if it's not in there. I won't be supporting this Bill.

Don't do we have a motion and a second? Mr. Ward? Okay. We have a motion from Assembly Member Ward. Second.

Thank you. And so to be clear, I appreciate a lot of discussion today. I know we want to let the author have time to close as well. And I just wanted to state on what the motion was is to accept to move the Bill forward with the author's modified amendments as presented in draft form here today to Government code section 65913.4 to paragraph C with the wildfire language. Although if it's okay with the seconder, I would also, in addition to HC CAL FIRE, add the language and the Assembly appropriation, excuse me, the Assembly Natural Resources Committee as a kind of Codified consultant to this conversation as it moves.

Forward over the summertime as well, which may not get you to yes, but addresses, I think, your concern, as you stated. And then as well for the author reverting the labor language, which is on the Committee's analysis on page nine back to the version prior to the June author's amendments.

Madam Chair, if I may ask for a clarification?

Yes, go ahead.

The June 19 amendments had a whole bunch of labor amendments that are not at issue here. There's only the one sentence about the 85ft that was in dispute. So I want to make sure we don't want to revert the other labor amendments because that will cause which is.

Outlined in page nine of the Committee's analysis.

Mr. Ward, can you clarify the bringing back using natural resources as, like, a consultant? Can you clarify that?

So the intent language says the Legislature will consult with HCD CAL FIRE. I was proposing to add in the Assembly Natural Resources Committee as well. That gives I think you a stronger seat at the table to guide this already.

I mean, it's a natural resources Bill, but.

Mr. Ward, that's fine, because we're consulting right now through the process.

If it's not necessary, then I'll just rescind that and reset the motion as originally seconded.

I don't think it's necessary. Okay, so everyone is clear on the motion then, right? Do you want to repeat it just in case? No. Okay. I already know what I'm doing. Okay. Senator, would you like to close?

Thank you, Madam Chair. And again, I do want to thank you for, especially over the weekend, our various conversations and for your, as I think I described in my opening, your shuttle diplomacy between us and the Coastal Commission. I am committed to resolving dispute with the Coastal Commission. I do think that Madam Chair, I think because of your efforts, we are rather close on that. And I believe that we will get there.

And I wanted to note for the record, I do not have the same coastline that Mr. Wood or Ms. Addis have. I also represent a coastal district. It's a much smaller district in General. We also have climate change problems on our coast as well. And so I am someone who, if you look at my voting record and the bills I'm authoring, and another Bill I'm presenting today, I'm deeply committed to environmental protection and to climate action.

I want to note for the record the problems we're talking about today, the ones we focused on the most, sea level rise and wildfires, why are they happening? Because we're putting too much damn carbon into the air.

And when we don't build dense housing in our communities in places like San Francisco and places like Los Angeles and places like Santa Cruz and so on and so forth, we are forcing people to drive long distances and putting more carbon in the air and making wildfires worse and making sea level rise worse. And it becomes a vicious cycle. And so we need to make sure that we never, in the name of environmental protection, make climate change even worse.

And that is something that California has had a history of doing, saying, we are environmentalists, so we're going to make it impossible to build housing here. We're going to make it impossible to build housing there. We're going to make it possible to build there because there's always a good reason. There's always a reason to say, this particular location, we shouldn't build there because it's too coastal. This is too close to a wildfire area.

This is an area that has had a history of displacement, so we shouldn't build anything there. When you add it all up, it becomes like 85% of the state. I'm making that number up, but a lot of the state is off limits. And then we end up making the problem worse. And more people are living in poverty, and more people are homeless, and more working families are being completely pushed, not just off of the coast, but out of the entire state.

I want to be very, very clear. This Bill I respectfully disagree with any suggestion that this Bill is not about affordable housing. 75% of the homes streamlined under SB 35 have been below market rate. Every single one of the major nonprofit affordable housing consortiums in the State of California is supporting SB 35. The inner city law center, which works with some of the most impoverished human beings in the State of California on Skid Row, is a co sponsor of SB 35.

We actually changed the inclusionary to make it not just Low income, but very Low income. This is a Bill that will accelerate all kinds of housing, including affordable housing and including market rate housing. Because, let's be clear, 90% of Low income Californians live in market rate housing. 90%. 99.0 something. Percent of middle income Californians live in market rate housing. And if we don't build every kind of housing, we are pushing people out. This Bill is an all of the above approach.

I am appreciative for all of the support, I'm appreciative for the constructive engagement, and I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

We have a motion and a second. Secretary, please take the roll.

The motion is do pass as amended to appropriations. Rivas not voting. Flora aye. Addis not voting. Friedman. Hoover aye. Mathis aye. Muratsuchi not voting. Pellerin not voting. Ward aye. Wood aye. Zbur aye.

That Bill has six votes. We'll hold it open for absent authors.

Thank you.

So next, we have SB 4 by Senator Wiener. Please go ahead.

I got hard knuckles.

Alright, Senator, we're ready when you are.

Okay, thank you. Mr. Vice Chair. Colleagues, I'm here to present Senate Bill 4. In terms of, I want to just acknowledge... In terms of the amendments and the analysis, similar to SB 423, we are proposing the same fire intent language, identical language that was placed in the 423. So that's the same issue in this bill. In terms of the Committee amendment regarding industrial uses, which we received on Friday.

In the analysis, we have indicated, the Committee, that we believe that there is a middle ground to distinguish between the most noxious industrial uses and other industrial uses, and to go with the Committee's approach to the most noxious categories and with the current bill in print approach for the other industrial categories. And we're looking forward to working with the Chair and her staff on crafting those contours. We are not accepting the remaining amendments in the bill.

So this bill, colleagues, allows faith institutions and nonprofit colleges to build 100% affordable housing on their land. And this bill is similar to previous bills that we've attempted to pass. Churches, synagogues, mosques, other places of worship have a long history of partnering with nonprofit developers to utilize their surplus land to build affordable homes. However, it is too hard because of various zoning and approval processes. Many of these faith organizations very much want to create affordable housing, and this bill will facilitate that process.

I respectfully ask for an aye vote. With me today to testify are Abram Diaz, the Policy Director with the Nonprofit Housing Association of Northern California, and Regina Banks, the Director of the Lutheran Office of Public Policy.

Thank you, Committee. My name is Abram Diaz, and I'm the Policy Director for the Nonprofit Housing Association of Northern California. As we all know, the shortage of housing has created a desperate crisis for our state and California's families. As large property holders, faith based institutions, and private colleges are in a critical position to help us meet that need. These organizations, as long standing community anchors, have come to us to express their wish to help in addressing our housing and homeless crisis.

Our faith partners see this as an extension of their mission and moral calling. This bill exclusively supports the construction of deed-restricted housing, the kind of affordable housing many of us universally support. The bill has enormous potential to help us build affordable housing for seniors, low-wage workers, people with disabilities, and low-income families. And I'll reiterate, this bill is targeted exclusively at affordable housing.

As was noted in a previous Committee analysis, if we make a conservative presumption that only a quarter of our faith land is developable, at a typical density of about 30 units per acre, these sites could yield nearly 300,000 units of affordable housing. This bill ensures that we apply reasonable streamlining principles so that our religious communities can open their doors to Californians in need. We balance this approach by including strong environmental protections and reasonable density and height limitations.

We want to respect the community and ensure we're supporting affordable housing at the same time. The bill is supported by hundreds of groups from across the state, including labor, equity, business groups, housing groups, various faith leaders, and we all collectively urge your support, and I'm happy to help answer any questions as needed.

Thank you very much. Next witness, please.

Good afternoon, Committee. My name is Regina Banks, and I serve as the Policy and Legislative Director for the Lutheran Office of Public Policy California, where we lead a community of 400 congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on issues of public policy such as housing and environmental justice. I also serve as the board chair of Lutheran Social Services of Northern California, a nonprofit social service agency focused exclusively on the services that prevent and end homelessness. As a community, we are proud to support SB 4.

We are people of faith who feel called by our God to serve our neighbors in need. For some time, congregations, individuals, social agencies, and synods of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have called attention to the plight of homeless people. Many members have worked with other churches and groups to provide food, shelter, and care, and to study the social causes of homelessness and to advocate for policies that respond to the housing crisis.

People in our congregations who are homeless and potentially homeless remind us of the urgency of the situation. And some of our congregations and institutions, blessed with an abundance of space, have attempted to house our neighbors. In fact, I spent the weekend with the pastors of St. Andrew's Lutheran Church in San Diego. Pastor Sarah Sumner Eisenbraun broke down in tears as she told me the trouble her congregation has endured...

Attempting to house the vulnerable in her congregation. They have resorted to housing families in the Sunday school room to honor their call to serve their neighbor. We do this work in love, but often encounter unnecessary local regulatory restrictions. Local laws are particularly onerous in some places in the state. Last year, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Chatsworth in Los Angeles County tried to convert nearly two acres of its land to affordable housing and were told by county officials that it would take upwards of three years for clearance.

They became discouraged, and rather than wait and struggle with their local government, moved forward with other ministries. And Emmanuel Lutheran Church in San Jose just broke ground on an affordable housing project on their campus after two and a half years of red tape. That project will create new affordable homes for residents referred directly by the County of Santa Clara, an area of tremendous need.

I can ask you to wrap up your thoughts. Please.

It was a protracted and frustrating journey for that congregation and council. Communities of faith such as ours are long standing community anchors and wish to lead in addressing our housing and homeless crisis. We all collectively urge your strong support of Senate Bill 4.

Thank you so much. Anyone else in support of SB 4?

Mike Dennis, United Way of Greater LA, in support.

Bob Naylor for Fieldstead and Company. That's Howard Ahmanson Jr., an Orange County philanthropist, in support.

Thank you, Chair and Members. Cliff Berg, here on behalf of the JPAC, the Jewish Public Affairs Committee, in support. Also the LA Jewish Federation, LA Jewish Family Services, San Diego Jewish Family Services, JCRC of San Francisco, AJC of LA. Thank you. Appreciate your consideration.

Good afternoon. Silvia Solis Shaw here on behalf of the City of Los Angeles, the City of Santa Monica, and on behalf of City and County of San Francisco Mayor London. Breed, all in strong support. Thank you.

Marina Wiant with the California Housing Consortium, in support.

David Azevedo, AARP California in support.

Madam Chair and Members, Rand Martin, here on behalf of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and its Healthy Housing Foundation, in strong support of this bill. Thank you.

Charles Deffarges with ECS, Episcopal Community Services of San Francisco, in support. Thank you.

Dan Branton, Drywall Lathers, Local 9109. I'm out of Sacramento right here, urging your strong support.

April Atkins, Local 22, San Francisco Carpenters Union. Strong Support.

Matthew Miller, Carpenters, Local 680 in Livermore. Strong support.

Anthony Levice, Carpenters Local 2236 out of Oakland. Strong support.

Ryan Nance, on behalf of over a thousand Carpenters in Kern, Inyo, and Mono Counties, strong support.

Manley McNinch, Southwest Mountain States Regional Council of Carpenters. Strong support. Thank you.

Joshua Christensen, Southwest Mountain States Regional Council of Carpenters, North LA County. Strong support. Thanks.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members, Traci Stevens, on behalf of the Construction Employers Association, also in strong support.

Madam Chair. Chris Micheli on behalf of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, in support.

Matt Cremins, California Nevada Conference of Operating Engineers, in strong support.

Chris Snyder with the Operating Engineers Local 3, strong support.

Rachel Mueller with the WEIDEMAN Group, SEIU in support.

Laborers Local 261, Diego Hernandez. Here in strong support.

Mahdi Manji with Inner City Law Center, Skid Row's pro bono legal service provider, in strong support. And also in strong support on behalf of the Our Future LA Coalition.

Good afternoon. Victor De La Torre with Liuna, Local 261 in San Francisco. Strong support.

Good afternoon. Oligaria Guzman, LiUNA Local 304. Strong support.

Reverend Penny Nixon, Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo, Peninsula Interfaith Solidarity Cohort, in strong support along with several congregations who want to build affordable housing.

Omar Cobain, on behalf of over 10,000 Carpenters from the Inland Empire, in strong support.

Savannah Jorgensen, Lutheran Social Services of Southern California, in strong support.

Jan Warren, Multi-Faith Action Coalition, Contra Costa County. Happy to support.

Hi, I'm Taryn Sandulyak with Firm Foundation Community Housing, in support.

Francisco Nunez, LIUNA, Laborers 304, Alameda County, Oakland, California, in strong support. Thank you.

John Hanna with the Southwest Mountain States Regional Council of Carpenters and a 55 year member and parishioner at Holy Family Catholic Church in Orange. Support.

Madam Chair, Members of the Committee. Louis Brown, on behalf of the American Council of Engineering Companies California, in support.

Sean McGarry, Carpenters Local 22 in San Francisco, in strong support.

Hi. My name is Carl Sworns, a field representative in the North Bay, in strong support.

Afternoon. Ed Evans, Carpenters Local 217, San Mateo County, in strong support.

Scott Littlehale, Richmond resident and member of Local 152, Carpenters Union representing Contra Costa County, San Joaquin County, and several Central Sierra Nevada Foothill Counties in strong support.

Jose Amador, Southwest Maintain States Regional Council of Carpenters, Whittier, California Local 721. Strong support. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Daniel Gregg, Industrial Carpenters, Local 2236 in Oakland. Full support.

Richard Burns, Southwest Mountain States Carpenters, Local 213. Thank you for your support. 100%.

Megan Shumway, representing Sacramento Area Congregations Together, in support of this bill.

Thank you. Mirza Lopez. Local 919, Sacramento in support.

Melanie Morelos on behalf of the Green Lightning Institute. In support.

Norlyn Asprec on behalf of the California Building Industry Association with a support if amended position. Thank you.

Corey Smith on behalf of the Housing Action Coalition, in support.

Todd David and on behalf of Abundance San Francisco in support.

Gracia Casio Krings on. Behalf of California YIMBY Silicon Valley Action Fund and all home in support.

Louis Mirante, on behalf of the Bay Area Council, in support. Thanks

Holly Fraumeni De Jesus with Lighthouse Public Affairs, on behalf of Habitat for Humanity, California Spur, as well as civic well in support.

Hello again. Ron Roulette, Carpenters Union. We have again 200 folks out there would love to come and meet too, but out of respect for the Committee, we're just going to say that's enough, and we hope we get your support. Thank you very much.

Thank you for doing that. Next, do we have any witnesses in opposition?

Good afternoon, Chair members of the Committee. My name is Sean, the pruitt. I'm with the California Environmental Justice Alliance, or CEJA. CEJA respectfully opposes SB Four unless it is amended to include environmental justice safeguards and equitable public process requirements. This Bill would expand current law to streamline the housing development on religious and nonprofit University land without sufficient protections to safeguard public health and displacement, especially for residents in disadvantaged communities. And we've appreciated our conversations with the author's office and the Bill sponsors to address our concerns. And we really want to thank the chair and the Committee for their work on the amendments and strongly recommend that they be included in the Bill. SB Four, in its current form, does not ensure the sufficient separation between housing projects and potentially polluting uses like industrial facilities, oil and gas, and freeways, which can lead to adverse health effects such as respiratory problems and cancer. Therefore, we would like to see an SB Four, a sufficient setback requirement of housing development from freeways, a sufficient setback requirement of housing development from industrial use, and from oil and gas facilities. We support the build analysis amendments which we believe strengthen SB four. We urge the Senator and the sponsors to accept all of the Committee's proposed amendments that will protect current and future residents health. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there additional witnesses in opposition?

Yes, Madam Chair. David Jones on behalf of the City of San Marcos in opposition.

Ethan Nagler on behalf of the city of Rancho Palos Verdes in respectful opposition.

Good evening, Madam Chair. Members of the Committee. Paul Gonsalves, on behalf of the cities of Thousand Oaks, Jurupa Valley, Santa Clarita and Chino, in respectful opposition.

Izzy Swindler on behalf of the City of Beverly Hills in opposition. Thank you.

Cynthia Castillo, on behalf of Western Center on Law and Poverty. We have a supportive amended position and are appreciative of the Committee's work on amendments and would support the Bill. With the amendments presented by the Committee. Thank you.

Tiffany Eng on the behalf of Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability. We're aligning our comments with the California Environmental Justice Alliance. Thank you.

Good afternoon again, Reina Tello with Bover and Communities United for Health and Justice. And we certainly align ourselves to CEJA.

Thank you, Alex Lopez, on behalf of Esperanza Community Housing. And we support SEJA's Comment. Thank you

Jennifer Ganata of Communities for a Better Environment and we support CEJA. Also, I'm doing a too for Stand LA, which is the Stop Neighborhood Oil Drilling in Los Angeles. Thank you

Sheena Cabal with Physicians for Social Responsibility, Los Angeles. Also on behalf of Stand Together Against Neighborhood Drilling, LA and Redeemer Community Partnership in opposition and aligned with CEJA's comments.

Good afternoon. My name is Mayelisoto and I am from Center for Poverty, Race and Environment and I'm in alliance with CEJA's comment. Thank you.

Next, we'll bring it to the Committee. Assembly Member Zbur.

Thank you Senator Wiener, for being here today. I was wondering if you can explain whether the amendments that you are taking are those that are ones that CEJA has requested. And second, if you can respond to whether or not if they're not in those amendments, whether or not you'll consider setbacks from some of these industrial uses that could have impacts on health.

Yes. So thank you for that. I based it off of the Committee proposed amendments. So, as I indicated at the beginning on the industrial week.

Do you mind repeating which since I absolutely I missed your opening and apologize. I was trying to add on it.

It was brilliant, Madam Chair.

So I'm sorry, I just happened to miss it. Please repeat it. I just want to be clear, it.

Was not brilliant, actually.

Which amendment, I hope you say? All amendments. Right.

I indicated that the wildfire issue is the same issue and that we're proposing the exact same intent language. I indicated that on the industrial that we are currently in conversation, I believe, with your Committee because the Committee amendment that came out on Friday lists a number of different types of industrial uses. Some of them we thought the language was not tight enough. But we also had indicated that our approach in the Bill has to do with not allowing it on an adjacent lot to an industrial use. The Committee has suggested a 1200 foot buffer. And my view is that there are for some of the very toxic industrial uses, like a chemical plant, for example. I would support the 1200 foot buffer, but there are other industrial uses that are not particularly noxious. And so we think that the no adjacent lot is the appropriate one. And so it would be a two category approach. I don't think we've resolved that with the Committee yet, but I'm committed to resolving that because I think that the Committee's approach is the correct one for the particularly noxious industrial uses.

I think that's what we sent you. We just haven't heard back. But I'm just trying to understand that then you're accepting the latest one via email, right? We just haven't heard back. And I'm just trying to be clear on what we're voting for because we might be an aligned with Environmental Justice Alliance on some of this.

So we just received that not that long before the hearing. It was tightening up some of the language. We think we're probably close. So I'm committing that we will take an amendment, but I think there's more work to do on that.

Do you want to recess?

If you want to recess so we can talk about that and firming that up? I have no problem with doing that because we're in agreement on that. But I don't think we're there yet.

How about the others? I missed your opening.

Okay. As I've indicated, the freeway one, and I'll explain why we're not accepting and I want to explain on the freeway and the oil piece. So on the freeway piece, after the initial feedback from CEJA and other groups, we put in into the Bill that if you are within 500ft of a freeway, you have to have a certain level of air filtration. We actually took that from the Los Angeles Building Code. So this is what LA uses for housing that's within 500ft of a freeway. So we imported that into this Bill. We don't think it's appropriate to say the Bill cannot apply within 500ft of a freeway because that in parts of Southern California in particular, wipes out huge amount of geography. There are some wealthy areas that would be very much knocked out of the Bill. And I guess it also raises the question that if you are a community that's been impacted by freeways going through your community, does that mean you also don't get affordable housing in your community? And Mr. Diaz perhaps could comment on that more on the oil issue after Mr. Muratsuchi. He was number one. I was number two in carrying the oil setbacks Bill. We worked together on that. Ms. Gonzalez and Ms. Limon finally were able to get it across the finish line. So that's something I've strongly supported, that we should not be enabling drilling oil near schools, homes, et cetera. But the question is this is the opposite direction. If there is oil drilling happening in a neighborhood, does that mean that that community, which has already been deeply impacted often by environmental racism because that's where the oil drilling goes, does that mean they also should not be able to have affordable housing in their community? I think the answer is they should be able to. And so to have that blanket exclusion, we think goes too far.

We have indicated to the chair that we would be open to a smaller circumference, but that circumference would also wipe out a lot of Beverly Hills and Yorba Linda and Huntington Beach and a number of very wealthy cities and so we think it is too broad, but Mr. Diaz may be able to add more.

Yeah, happy to add on for the Committee. I'll note we strongly believe our current language strikes a proper balance between environmental protection and affordable housing creation. The standard, as was noted by the author, is inspired from the City of LA's. Building code, very progressive city that holds very high standards for environmental justice and is very familiar with construction around freeways simply because of the way it's been developed. I'll say also on our end, the air filtration system that we have included is a very high standard, one that a lot of builders of ours are very familiar with. And we know that it protects the best interest of the residents in that community. I myself live at the crossroads of I-5 and highway 50 right next to it. And our community is a bunch of apartments and townhomes, and we have air filtration systems. And this is market rate housing, although it's condos, it's a little bit more affordable for young couples. And it's a standard that we also think works very well in the affordable housing world. And just as a last point, the Bill does include a mandate to complete a phase one environmental assessment, as well as a phase two if warranted, and a requirement that if there's anything found there that is not above board, you have to mitigate to state and federal standards. And we know we pride ourselves on our state standards being very strong. And if I could note just at the end as well, I think in principle we're going to follow, of course, the lead of our author and the Committee, but we really think that affordable housing builders are very risk averse. It costs a lot of money to build affordable housing. As we very much know, these pennies are very precious. We want to ensure what we build is safe and habitable and will last for the full tenure of that building. So we will ensure that everything is safe and above board for our residents and our project managers, and we take that responsibility very seriously.

Thank you. Next, Assemblymember Muratsuchi.

Thank you. So, Senator, I thought finally a Scott Wiener housing Bill that I can vote for.

You voted for once. There was one that you voted for in the past, I remember.

Until I realized that your Bill, I support all affordable housing, great stuff. Building on religious institutions, educational, private educational institutions, land, great stuff. But notwithstanding any local planning or zoning. So they can build whatever they want, regardless of any local zoning or planning.

That overstates it. Respectfully, Assembly Member, what the Bill does what the Bill does is it rezones the land and grants ministerial approval. You can't build whatever you want. There are some significant limitations. The density is governed by what we call the Mullen densities, which are the default baseline densities under state law, which are different from an urban to a suburban to a rural area in terms of the number of homes per acre that's existing state law. And we utilize that in addition, that it's limited in terms of you can go a little bit above the local height limit, but not significantly above. In addition, in terms of the type of non residential use, if you're in a residential area, you can't put like a Starbucks there, but you could put a childcare center. If you're in a commercial or mixed use area, you can put whatever retail the local city's rules allow. So a lot of the Bill does key off of local requirements. But yes, one of the challenges that these particularly religious institutions face is that their land is not even zoned for housing, let alone multi unit. And so the Bill rezones it and then grants approval if they meet all of the requirements.

So I'm not sure I understand, but I get it that if it's zoned for a church that it's not zoned for residential. That's kind of what you're getting at, right?

Often that's the case, yes.

But I appreciate the Chair's attempt to try to identify at least the concerns raised by the environmental justice groups because I think the basic concept of incompatible land uses being next to each other is to try to protect people from incompatible land uses. And I'm just concerned that, notwithstanding the Chair's attempt that she is not going to be able to foresee and identify every single incompatible land use that your Bill appears to be presenting. For example, going forward, my baseline at this point is going to be that situation in Palos Verdes where those homes collapsed. If a church in Palos Verdes wanted to build homes on a church property that was at risk of collapsing because of land erosion, what would prevent that from happening?

Well, there's the building code, first of all. And so I think there are General constraints on where you're allowed. In addition, the Bill is also limited to infill with that definition has to be surrounded on at least three sides with development. So if you have a church that's in very isolated rural area where it's like that classic church by itself, surrounded by no other development, that wouldn't be eligible. And so it already because of the infill urbanized area requirement that limits the types of spaces. I don't know if you have more to add on that.

Yeah, I'll just briefly add from the Bill, at least 75% of the perimeter of the site has to adjoin a parcel that's developed with urban uses. And this is residential, commercial, transit oriented. So it's our effort to ensure that we are within the community in a way that's responsible. And as the author mentioned as well, we do have those densities that vary if you're an urban, rural, suburban area. And also the one story above the existing allowed height there too, that was a pretty strong discussion we had with the California Association of Realtors to ensure that we respected a lot of the varying types of communities we have across the state. And we came to agreement around that piece as well, very much in the vein of trying to respect the local community that we're going to try to hopefully partner in and do something that will fit in very well and address the affordable housing needs of the state as a whole.

I appreciate, especially our religious institutions, attempting to be compassionate, to provide to house the unhoused, but it just seems to why not give more deference to local zoning and planning?

We've done that for many years in this realm. It hasn't worked. We hear over and over again from churches, synagogues, et cetera, up and down the state that they gave up. It's not worth it for them to even try because the process for rezoning is so cumbersome, and you may never even be able to get it done because there could be local opposition saying, we don't want affordable housing in our community, we don't want Low income people in our community. And then after the rezoning, you have to get the actual project approved. And that could be the same result if you happened to get it rezoned. And so we wouldn't be doing this Bill if everything were going peachy keen. But it's not, and so that's why we're here.

I was wondering if CEJA had any comment

Well, in terms of land uses, it's clear we try to be consistent with bills like AB 2011, bills like the one currently Alvarez is doing, AB 1449. And so, yeah, as CEJA's overall, our whole Members, we agree that we are in support of the Committee's proposed amendments. All of them. We would like to sort of see that.

All right. Thank you.

Assembly Member Pellerin.

Thank you. So I love the goal of this Bill. I think it's very important that we're building housing. But I want to echo the concerns of the environmental justice community who requested the amendments that make sure that the affordable housing developments get built on lands that are found to be safe. And building affordable housing in unsafe locations is unjust. And I'm recalling the 10,000 homes that were built around the former Exide battery recycling facility. And we're looking at hundreds of millions of dollars of later, 10 years later, trying to clean up the lead from that property. I'm just curious whether this Bill would have allowed that building to occur. I think that the concerns around freeways, industrial facilities, oil and gas exposure are really legitimate concerns. And so I'm just curious what your thoughts? Are you're not planning on taking those amendments that would do that?

Yeah, I'll defer to the author on the comments on amendments. I'll say in terms of what's in the Bill currently, we were very purposeful in ensuring that we had a phase one assessment included in the Bill. And actually we were having conversations with some of our environmental partners when we added in the phase two assessment as well to the Bill where needed. And that's to ensure that we properly test the site, analyze it, ensure we know what we're getting into so that we're not moving forward with any projects that may prove problematic. And within the Bill itself. We wrote that if there is an issue on the ground per these assessments, which are done across the board and a lot of different times of construction, you have to within the Bill, mitigate to state and federal standards, which I'll say for us here in California, I'm very proud that we have very strong state standards as well. So I think that is a very strong protection. I recognize folks may want to go in different directions too, but that's a protection we feel very strong and very proudly about. And also reiterate affordable housing are very risk averse. It costs a lot of money to do them. We're trying to work on that issue here today and with other bills as well, so we would not waste our own time or any of the public's dollars on a site that's just not going to work. We want to be very safe, very purposeful. And so I'll just mention that for what's in the Bill currently that we think is very strong.

And we think that case by case approach with the phase one and if needed, phase two assessment and the requirement for mitigation is a better approach than saying if you are 350ft from a highway, you're simply not allowed to build the affordable housing under this Bill. We don't think that that's the right approach, respectfully.

And the requirement for the air filtration systems that's in the Bill.

We put that in for if you're within 500ft of a highway, you have to have this enhanced air filtration system.

And if you are a Low income person, what's it cost to run a system like that in your home?

Well, these tend to be for rentals, so it would be on the operator. It's of the building. It's not like a filtration system per unit, but the building has the filtration system. And so it's building maintenance.

And if I could jump into since the Bill is restricted to 100% affordable housing, deed restricted affordable housing, it should not, to my knowledge, affect the rents of the tenants themselves, since it's a publicly funded, De restricted building. Those rates that are set depending on whether you have a voucher or what kind of setup you have, they're income limited. So on the nonprofit builder side, that's something we operate within and we have to calculate in the formula. So we work with that to fit it into our system. And in terms of the tenant side, they're going to pay what they pay because of what the income they have.

Thank you. Okay. Assembly Member Flora. Thank you.

Madam Chair, Senator, I just want to say thank you for bringing this Bill forward. And if there's anything that the last three plus hours have taught us about housing is it's complicated. And if we're looking for reasons not to build, we can find them. I think if we follow that logic all the way through I mean, the earthquake of 19 six in San Francisco, we've never rebuilt there if we followed that logic. But we work with our carpets.

We work with our trades, we increase our building codes. We fix these issues so we can fix this housing problem. Because if we continue to do nothing, what I know is a definition of insanity is continue to do the same thing over and over again. And we have a faith based community now stepping up, ready to have their part of their property to build housing on. That is something to be commended, and it's something that we should take very, very serious.

So I am incredibly proud of you for bringing this forward. I'm happy to support it. And these are the kind of solutions I think we need. We talk about housing all the time, and we do very, very little to actually get it done. So thank you for bringing us forward. And I understand that there is a lot of concerns, but I'm more solution based, because if we always look at the glass half empty, we're going to be a problem. So thank you for bringing us forward and thank you for your support on this.

Thank you. So I want to support this Bill, and I'm going to propose something to you right now if you have one more Bill to present. And we have 14 bills left. And so we're going to be here for a few hours. And I would like to propose that when you're finished, that you and I and your team, we go out, and I think we can come to something today. These environmental justice concerns are very important to me.

My family did not have a choice on where to live when they came to the United States in the 1950s. We had to live in an area where there was toxic pollution, where lots homes are across the street from these industries that are polluting. Almost every kid in my elementary school had asthma, right? So I can't do this knowing that this is 100% affordable housing and that I'm going to vote to continue this environmental racism.

It's great that the churches or religious institutions are stepping up and want to build affordable housing for communities, and I support that. But I definitely want there to be some parameters, especially since they're 100% affordable. So it's okay to put us anywhere, but not you. I can't do that. But I'm willing to sit down if you said we're close and that you're closed to take an amendment. We're here for a few more hours, probably with 14 bills. And I think we can resolve that today.

I'm happy to do that, Madam Chair.

Okay, thank you. So for this Bill, then we will delay that the vote and come back to this Bill, and then we will move on to your next Bill. You have one more, right? Okay.

I apologize for one more.

Scott Wiener, Day in Natural Resources. Thank you, Environmental Committee. You know, I and I just want to be clear that I know there is a motion in a second, but we've agreed with the author to continue. Yes, I understand. We've all been working hard on all of these bills. There's 21 bills in this Committee today. Or 19. Right? Sorry, 19. Sorry. All weekend. And lots of Members have been in discussions, and we just want more time.

So next, we're moving to SB 253 by Assemblymember Weiner, his final Bill.

Thank you very much. One moment, Madam Chair. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. Presenting SB 253. I'm now going to say the magic words. I'm happy to accept the Committee's amendments in addition to the author amendments that are enumerated in the analysis. And we do appreciate the very strong work that the Committee did, and we appreciate those amendments. So, SB 253 is the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act.

It will require all US based companies with over $1.0 billion in annual revenue who do business in California to report their full greenhouse gas emission footprint to the California Air Resources Board. After this disclosure, CARB will be required to contract out a report on these entities in the context of state carbon emission reduction and climate goals. This Bill is about transparency. There are quite a few large corporations who are already doing this. Some of them go beyond what the Bill requires.

And it's time to have more consistency here. We have a growing coalition, including of large corporations, who are now supporting the Bill. And I want to thank them. And I respectfully ask for an ivote. With me today to testify is Christina Wyatt, the Deputy General Counsel and chief sustainability officer at Persephone, and Melanie Morellos, the California Strategy Senior program manager at the Greenlining Institute. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Okay, Chair Rivas and Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. My name is Christina Wyatt and I am Deputy General Counsel and Chief Sustainability Officer at Persephone AI. Persephone is a software firm that enables companies to measure, manage, and report their greenhouse gas emissions accurately and transparently. I'd like to address the feasibility of reporting carbon emissions. Before joining Persephone, I was Senior Counsel for Climate and ESG at the US. Securities and Exchange Commission.

I came to Persephone because I believe in the power of technology to radically simplify carbon accounting. Carbon accounting is the process of calculating the greenhouse gas emissions associated with company's activities. For example, a company might have trucks that it drives, which would be included in its scope one emissions facilities for which it purchases electricity, which would be included in its scope.

Two emissions and supplies that it purchases to manufacture its products, which would be included in its scope three emissions technology facilitates the measurement of all three scopes of emissions. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol, the emissions reporting standard used in this Bill uses emissions factors that enable different activities to be boiled down to a common carbon currency. SB 253 is not tied to one version of the greenhouse Gas protocol.

Rather, as the protocol and the tools companies use to calculate emissions continue to mature, SB 253 will keep pace with them. Software, AI, machine learning and predictive analytics are improving the speed, ease and Fidelity with which we calculate climate data. Keep in mind that climate reporting is happening now. The vast majority of companies already report climate data and countries around the world will require climate reporting. There is no region better suited to drive this in the US. Than California.

California has a history of forward thinking climate initiatives. It has the reach, scope and venture community that will propel this multi $1.0 trillion green energy transition. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you and happy to take any questions.

Chair and Members my name is Melanie Morellos with the Green Lining Institute and we are proud co sponsors of SB 253. We are a nonprofit racial equity organization that works towards a future where communities of color can build wealth, live in healthy places filled with economic opportunity, and are ready to meet the challenges posed by climate change. At Greenlining, we work in collaboration with community based organizations on the front lines of climate change to ensure their concerns and their demands are heard by advocates and policymakers.

SB 253 is important to us because the effects of GHG emissions in our rapidly changing climate are acutely felt by Low income and communities of color. These communities experience climate related impacts like flooding, wildfires and extreme heat. With less resources to prepare for and withstand climate catastrophes that are becoming more frequent, they are also far more likely to be living in areas exposed to excessive emissions, contributing to poorer health outcomes than wealthier white communities.

Creating solutions to climate change for Low income communities and communities of color requires unlocking the potential of the private sector to drive meaningful change as well as holding businesses accountable for their impact on the climate. This Bill takes a thoughtful approach to requiring these disclosures. Small businesses and farms will not be burdened with requirements to calculate and report admissions. There will be proxies and other mechanisms in place. Additionally, companies will have until 2027 to report this critical scope three admissions.

What we do know is that businesses are already calculating this data for scope three admissions and should be well on their way to meeting these requirements before 2027. SB 253 provides a critical path forward for corporations to support California's climate leadership and it will ensure that the public, including investors, policymakers and community residents, would have the critical information on on how our state's biggest companies are contributing to the climate crisis. Thank you and respectfully ask for your Aye vote.

Next, we're ready for additional witnesses. In support.

Hello, my name is John Pruitt representing Seha, and we are in support.

Good evening, Madam Chair. Nick Brokoff from Sacramento Advocates on behalf of Microsoft, in support.

Melissa Romero, California environmental voters, proud co sponsor of the Bill. And I was also asked to pass along the support of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Voices for Progress. Thanks.

Jan Warren, interfaith climate action network of Contra Costa County.

Rachel Mueller with SCIU, in support. Thank you.

Erin Wooley with Sierra Club California, in support.

Nicole Rivera with the Climate Center, in support.

Sylvia Shaw on behalf of the City and County of San Francisco and on behalf of the California Faculty Association. In support. Thank you.

Sarah Sachs with Series, proud co sponsor and supporter of this Bill. Also sharing the support of Grove Collaborative ecommerce retail company.

Cynthia Shallot for Indivisible California State strong 80 chapters up and down the state.

Christina Scarring with the Center for Biological Diversity and Support.

Aradna Tripati, I'm a Professor at UCLA and a climate scientist, and I'm in support.

Jamie Minor on behalf of Salesforce, in support. Thank you.

Megan Chumway on behalf of Sacramento Climate Justice Committee, in support. Good evening.

Isaela Gonzalez Potter with the Nature Conservancy, in support.

Liv Butler, Californians Against Waste, in support.

Savannah Jorgensen for the lutheran office of public policy in strong support.

Kim Delphino, representing Defenders of Wildlife California, Native Plant Society and Mono Lake Committee in support.

Robert Copeland, California Alliance for retired Americans in support.

Janet Cox climate, Action California Santa Cruz Climate Action Network and Indivisible California Green Team thank you.

Carol Van Sant, 1000 grandmothers for future generations and climate reality project San Fernando Valley climate reality Project Los Angeles and 350 Ventura County climate hub in support. Thank you.

I am Juliet Alio, in support. With 350 Sacramento, 350 Bay Area Action and Environmental Working Group, all in support.

I am Jonah Bluth on behalf of 350 Humbult and I support.

I'm Syria Lurie on behalf of Indivisible, California, and I support

Martha Turner Fossil Free California, in strong support. Thank you.

Stephen King with environment California in strong support.

Suzanne Hume, Cleanartforkids.org, strong support.

Thank you. Next, we're ready for witnesses and opposition.

Madam Chair, Members, is Brady Van England, here on behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce and a broader coalition of affected stakeholders. We remain respectfully opposed to this Bill, as it will actually not lead to the reduction of any emissions and in many ways runs counter to our existing emissions inventory accounting process. Our opposition is based on a couple of key points. First, the objective of the Bill seems to be centered on transparency and to drive down GHG emissions, which indeed is well intended.

However, the bill's requirements are misaligned and will only generate significant costs with little or nothing to show for in terms of transparency or in terms of emission reductions. Fundamentally, we think this is a misapplication of what is otherwise a useful tool that is used on a voluntary basis. Specifically, we believe this is misaligned because it calls for the use of WRI's GHG protocol, which is designed at a high level and used to support voluntary actions for corporations.

Even WRI itself notes that, quote, scope three emissions may be considered on where boundaries are drawn. End quote. Boundaries in this case simply means what emissions are and not included. This itself seems to be counter to the intent of the Bill, which highlights the need for rigorous accounting, tracking trends and corporate comparisons. On the topic of corporate comparisons, the GHG protocol provides for broad latitude on the calculation of scope three emissions with corporations.

This in itself could make comparisons between two companies in the same industry irrelevant. WRI itself notes that, quote, since companies have discretion over which categories they choose to report, scope 3 may not lend itself well to comparisons across companies. End quote. This observation by WRI itself seems counter to the intent of the Bill and in direct conflict with the notion of adding transparency when there is direct acknowledgment that any industry trends will be irrelevant because of the ability to select boundaries and where proxies are applied.

Further, the WRI technical Guidance for calculating scope three emissions contains references to dozens of data sources for emissions factors. These emissions factors can contain different numerical values for the same type of activity, resulting in substantial inconsistencies in reported data and again underscores the limited value of using this tool to make corporate comparisons a key concern. That is, this information will be used inappropriately and there aren't safeguards within this Bill to prevent that from happening.

This notion is further enforced by comments from the author referenced in Committee analysis, which they stated without the same requirements with these corporate entities, California is left without proper information and will need to be able to accurately regulate and reduce these emissions, end quote. First and foremost, these are most certainly not the same requirements as our existing emissions inventory.

And given the likelihood of double counting and inaccuracies embedded within the data itself, it is troubling that there's already expressed intent to use this data in a way that would inform future climate policy here in California, knowing full well that this data is inherently accurate. Ma'am, I have more, but I'm going to, in respect to where we are.

Give everyone the same amount of time.

Good evening, Members. Madam Chair rob Spiegel, senior policy Director for the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, also in staunch opposition to Senateville 253. And I want to be clear that environmental sustainability is a priority for California's manufacturing industry, and we are also the leaders in developing products to combat climate change and implement sustainable business practices, and we can provide that relevant and material information about these efforts to appropriate stakeholders.

However, Senate Bill 253 is a wide ranging mandate for all California companies and beyond to generate pages upon pages of information which will always carry with it inaccuracies, incompleteness and not relevant data or information to our most prominent operations within the State of California. So, depending on the sectors, impacted data does not exist to calculate a comprehensive and complete and accurate accounting of scope three. So for manufacturers, specifically, our scope three considerations will require third party information from thousands of suppliers and millions of customers.

For Committee, why are customers? Well, because downstream scope three emissions includes the use of our sold products and the end of life treatment of those same purchased products. So as a matter of example, for Committee, imagine if you will, a scope three calculation for a T shirt to accurately calculate the scope three emission. For that T shirt.

A manufacturer must provide information from multiple parties about the agricultural practices of the cotton fields providing the raw materials, the energy used in the fabric mills and the sewing facilities that assemble the garment and the fuel sources of the vehicles used at each stage of transportation and the choices the customer made regarding how to wash and how to dry the item over the product's. Lifecycle.

SB 253 is not limited to $1.0 billion companies, but will extend to all other businesses, small, medium and large, that are within a manufacturer's complex supply chain. The Bill calls for reporting at requirements that dramatically exceed California's existing GHG reporting requirements, the requirements that are considered to already be the most comprehensive GHD reporting regulation in the world and having been refined for over a decade.

As proposed, the Bill will yield reporting data that is highly variable, inconsistent, and include insignificant but undefined certainties, provided in numerous formats that also undermine transparency in this Bill. For these reasons, Members, CMTA is in opposition.

Thank you, thank you. Next, additional witnesses in opposition.

Good evening, Madam Chair. Chris Mckayley. On behalf of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce and respectful opposition thank you.

Izzy Swindler on behalf of the list, I do apologize. Specialty Equipment Market Association TechNet and Pacific Merchant Shipping Association. In opposition. Thank you.

Thank you. Madam Chair Members, David Gonzalez, on behalf of the California life sciences, as well as the truck and engine manufacturers Association, respectfully opposed?