Senate Standing Committee on Environmental Quality

Our friends Scott Wiener and Anna Caballero to come down and present their bills. Secretary, please call the roll.

Allen here. Dahli here. Gonzales here. Hurtado. Menjivar. Nguyen here. Skinner.

Okay, so we have a quorum. I'm calling Senator Wiener right now. Apparently he was wandering the halls. Yeah. Thank you for rushing up here. I appreciate it. All right, so we've got Senator Caballero, who's here presenting SB 768. And we appreciate your flexibility this morning.

Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to present SB 768 today. First, let me say that I really appreciate the work of the chair and the Committee and the willingness to accept author amendments as Committee amendments due to the timing issues and also for what I think is a real robust discussion on something that, something that sets up two impossibilities at the same time. I know that inconsistencies in state law are rare, right?

But in my community, which is a rural agricultural region, the whole issue of vehicle miles traveled has a deleterious impact on the ability to create the housing that we desperately need. And part of the challenge is that we have communities that are begging for housing because that's how they get the stores and the pharmacies, the services that are really important for the residents.

A little history lesson is in 2013, the Legislature passed and the Governor signed a Bill by Senator Steinberg which established a special administrative and judicial review process under CEQA for the City of Sacramento to streamline the development and construction of the Golden One Center. The problem with doing infill development is that if you have urban streets that are impacted and are already serving at a level d or f, then you can't build. CEQA provides an obstruction to building infill projects.

And so as a way to address this, the Bill tasked the governor's Office of Planning and Research, OPR, with the task to develop new SQL guidelines. It's come up with something new so we can get these kinds of infill projects done, which are really important because that's how you meet the walkable community standards. That's how you get to an urbanized center and utilize the property better. So the guidelines were to replace the current criteria to measure transportation impacts.

Previously, that was called a level of service or Los, and the level of service because you couldn't improve them with infill projects stymied the development because it was impossible to mitigate under CEQA. So in 2020, OPR devised another methodology to satisfy CEQA for infill projects in transit priority areas. I want to emphasize that transit priority areas, and that was the vehicle miles travel. That's the genesis of vehicle miles traveled.

For infill projects that have transit priority, VMT is a measurement of how many vehicle trips are generated by a project. And for infill, like I said, to mitigate it, it allows the increased density, it allows urban development, and it was a way to pretty much get around level of service. But the tool was extended. The tool was extended way beyond what it was initially intended to in a budget Bill. What do we know about budget bills?

We're expected to go up on budget bills, and there's not a lot of question about policy and whether it works in the budget bills. And so VMT was extended to the whole world and level of service no longer became the measure that you would look at to mitigate development. And this is important because, number one is the Legislature voted for it through a budget process. And number two, the analysis at the beginning never included rural areas.

It never included small little communities, and it never included the fact that there are some communities that aren't building the housing that they need. And so people have to move further and further out, which is what impacts districts like mine, which is Los Banos has become a bedroom community of Silicon Valley. It's a good hour and a half, two-hour drive, but people can afford to buy a house in Los Banos, and they can afford to have a yard for their kids.

They don't spend any time with their kids, but they can have that. And so for communities like Los Banos to add the VMT requirement, now, Los Banos, Mendota, Fireball, Huron, doesn't make any sense at all because they are desperately looking for housing. And yet, when you look at the VMT mitigations, it is transportation passes, right? It's public transportation passes. It's bicycle lanes, it's walking paths. It's the kinds of things that you have in urban centers that just don't make any sense in rural California.

And they actually don't mitigate VMT because people are moving out there because they can afford. The challenge is the VMT overlay has really put a strain on local government who are trying to meet their housing needs.

And the strain is that the fees associated with reducing the vehicle miles traveled, which, again, these communities are not going to be able to do all by themselves, increases the cost of housing because it's passed on to the consumers, the developers have to pay for it, and it's passed on to consumers. And so to highlight how extreme the implementing VMT can be, and this is not even in a rural area.

The proposed VMT mitigation fee ranged from 50,000 to 2 million per new home for a recent housing project out of San Diego. county. It faced significant opposition and ultimately was not approved. But it's an example of the consequences of implementing this policy on a broad scale.

California's housing crisis is not only a supply issue, it's an affordability issue, and the median home prices in the state continue to soar, and many families are forced to buy or rent in the suburbs or rural parts of the state to find housing that fits their budget. The VMT mitigation has a disproportionate impact on rural California, which is home to over 50% of the state's disadvantaged communities.

In rural California, many residents have no choice but to commute long distances due to the lack of or unreliability of public transportation. And frankly, this isn't the Public Transportation Committee. But frankly, the way we've set up our transportation systems is that they're regional and so they don't stretch into the other region.

Like the Bay Area region doesn't really go south of Gilroy, which leaves out all of Monterey County and San Benito county, and it doesn't go over to Merced county, which is where Los Vanillas is located, and where you see the incredible amount of people that are driving over Pacheco Pass. In order to get into the mean, I could go on and on, kind of. Why not?

Kind of, but absolutely how this has an impact in rural areas and the disconnect between trying to work on two goals at the same time that have absolute impact on each other. Quite frankly, a colleague and I were thinking of doing a Bill that would restrict Gobiz investing in any of the communities that aren't building their housing, and they only invest in VMT impacted communities. But we decided not to take on the Administration on that, which would be fabulously unpopular.

But it's a reflection of how we set up these goals, and then we don't look at whether we're making it easy to actually meet those goals. So SB 768, as amended, will require CARB to work with the key partners, including the Office of Planning and Research, Department of Housing and Community Development, local and regional governments, and key industry stakeholders, to conduct a comprehensive study of how VMT has been implemented and any positive or negative consequences as a result.

I do have to say that OPR kind of left the door open by saying, well, locally you can take a look at it, and if you can come up with some mitigation measures, you can utilize those. The problem with that is you're talking to communities that have very little resources. Mendota, Fireball, Los Banos, they're all looking to maintain their basic municipal services, and many of them don't even have engineers to ensure water quality issues. They have to hire, they have to contract.

So to set up an escape hatch that is subject to litigation and that is unrealistic and doesn't work, doesn't make a lot of sense, which is one of the reasons that the discussion about doing a study may make sense. We need to understand what other methodology would work with VMT. What are some of the opportunities we have to look at the situation a little bit differently? Do I support the effort that VMT is trying to.

I mean, everything that is in your report I believe in the problem is its application. And so the question becomes, do we set up exemptions or do we look at a different way of trying to meet our VMT goals by requiring transportations agencies to work across lines or by saying we're going to put resources into these communities. And as you know, the air quality is among the worst in the Central Valley.

Fresno is rated number 9th as the 9th worst city in the country for air quality. It's a big deal. People want it solved. But we're struggling with also trying to build housing. And so the recommendation, I think there's some more things we're going to want to study in this. And if the study changes, I'm more than happy to come back. But one of the pieces of the list that's here in the report is a good start.

But I think it's important also to understand the intersection between VMT and if I could on e that should be zero emission vehicles, because we're not only talking about electrification, state has made a commitment to hydrogen vehicles, reflected in the fact that we have producers of hydrogen vehicles that have a robust presence in the state. So I think that should say zero emission. But we need to understand the intersection between VMT and housing priorities that we've established by law.

In other words, how does this work together in a way that generates the housing that we need, but also prioritizes reducing vehicle miles traveled? Because I absolutely agree we've got to prioritize that. But the reality of the situation is that most people in rural California don't live within 10 miles of where they work. They just don't. And one size doesn't always work for everybody. So I'll leave it at that. And summit. We're continuing to work on this. I know that the CBIA may be in opposition, and I'm going to continue to work with them as well.

Sure. Before we move on, just to clarify one of your comments, I know that due to timing constraints, you're going to be taking the amendments in Appropriations Committee as opposed to here in EQ. So the analysis is based on the Bill in print, but correct?

Yes and I believe that it may go back to housing.

Okay. It was the whole thing. Right. Okay, well, let's give anyone who wants to make comments and support, testify in support of the Bill. Come on up. Great.

Thank you, Senator. Steve Cruz on behalf of the California Building Industry Association, Senator Caballero mentioned our position. We've actually been working with her for, I think, about three years, over three different cycles to try to reassess the VMT.

Is it working or if it is working as intended, we need to reevaluate the underlying policy because clearly, as mentioned, it has had a huge impact on housing VMT, the mitigation fees that local agencies have established through VMT guidelines. We agree with her entirely on the origin, like where it started with SB 743. The discussion we were having at the time is how do you streamline infill?

And it sort of warped into now this tool that's making housing, in much of the housing that's built, we do a lot of infill housing. There's housing, outside of that, prohibitively expensive. You mentioned the San Diego example of 2 million. I think in your own district, there might have been 45,000 in Fresno. So clearly for us, you've heard the phrase like drive until you can afford. I mean, that's where most people in California are in that position.

They don't want to have to drive, but that's where homes are more affordable. So we want to spend the time with her and your staff. And then if it's housing, to try to work on it and see is the study the right way to come up with the information that we need to reassess, but clearly want to be partners in that conversation? So thank you.

Good morning, chair and Committee Members. My name is Mark Watts. Today I'm representing the Riverside County Transportation Commission. The Riverside Commission is in favor and concept of the language as we read it, and we do encourage movement of the Bill to continue the conversation and appreciate the opportunity to speak. Thank you.

Good morning. Tyler Munzing, on behalf of the American Council of Engineering Companies California, we're in support of the Bill and echo the comments of Mr. Cruz. Look forward to continuing the conversation as well. Moves forward. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, anyone who wants to raise objections or opposition to the Bill. All right. And now we're no longer going to the phone lines, so we're going to go back, bring it back to the Committee. So questions, comments, thoughts from the Members? Yeah. Anyone? Yeah. Okay.

So moved by Senator Hurtado. Appreciate all your comments, Senator, and look forward to working with you on this difficult and important issue. And, of course, you're absolutely right. One size does not fit all and very different communities around the state. And I know that's what you're trying to get out here. Look forward to working with you on this. So it's been moved by Senator Hurtado. Want the opportunity to close.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate all the work. I also want to recognize the Riverside transportation agency. One of these real quick examples is they had a traffic safety improvement to a highway that they needed to build, and they couldn't do it because it would increase vehicle miles traveled.

In other know, Riverside is housing a lot of residents that live in the LA area, and to not make a traffic safety improvement because it increases the potential for people then living out there to safely use the highway doesn't make a lot of sense to me. So I think there's some fixes. It's the unintended consequences of some of this stuff, but appreciate your patience and listening, and we respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. All right. With that, let's call a roll.

SB 768, do pass to the housing Committee. Allen aye. Dahle. Gonzalez aye. Hurtado aye. Menjivar aye. Nguyen no. Skinner.

Okay, we'll hold that open for Senator Skinner if she's able to make it back.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you.

Dahle aye.

All right, fantastic. Thank you, Senators. All right. Thank you very much. Let's go next to our colleague, Senator Wiener, who's here to present his bill. Item number one in your agenda is SB 312.

Great. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I want to appreciate you and the committee working with us on this bill, and I'm happy to accept the amendments outlined in the analysis. I also want to know, you and I have spoken about this extensively, that this bill is a work in progress, and we'll continue to collaborate with the committee as we move through the process with the goal of making sure that Senate Bill 886 is fully implementable by UC, CSU, and community colleges.

Colleagues, you'll recall, because you heard this bill. For those who were on the committee in 2021, Senate Bill 886 was now a law that I authored and this committee passed to create a CEQA exemption when UC, CSU, community colleges are building on-campus student housing, we know we have a massive shortage of student housing, particularly at our public colleges and universities. An outrageous rate of homelessness among college students, students who are living in their cars, who are hopping around at motels or couch surfing, and just it's extremely harmful.

It takes away from their education, and we need to change it. We know that our colleges and universities want to build on-campus student housing. We even have community colleges, which have not done so in the past, who are thinking about this and even moving in that direction. We also know that, unfortunately, there are times when NIMBYism gets in the way.

We've seen this most extensively at UC Berkeley, where we have had to intervene as a legislature multiple times to make sure that UC Berkeley can build student housing. I'll be honest with you, when I first introduced SB 886, I thought it was going to be intensely controversial. And I was prepared to deal with every micro-local community issue at every campus in the entire state.

And with the exception of minor opposition relating to a couple of UC campuses, there was really de minimis opposition to the bill because I think people really understand the importance of empowering our colleges and universities to quickly approve and build new student housing so that law is in effect. We have since realized that we need to do some cleanup to it to make it fully implementable. The bill before you today addresses one issue.

Under an amendment put in by this committee in 2021, the projects have to be lead platinum and have to be certified as such before they can invoke the exemption. That doesn't work in the real world because of how certification of lead standards works. So the bill will switch that to require that, you have to show that you would effectively be eligible for that lead status. But you don't get the certification. You don't need it until the certificate of occupancy.

Now, you're on the path toward it, but-

You're on the path toward it, you can show that you're going to get there, but you don't have to have it formally approved and certified until certificate of occupancy. And if any of the colleges or universities play games, there will be consequences for doing that. I'm sure they will not play games.

And so, just to be clear, we've talked about, we're working with the UC in particular to get more feedback from them about making sure it's fully implementable, and so we'll continue to collaborate with the committee on that. I respectfully ask for your aye vote, which with me today is Jordan Panana Carbajal from California YIMBY and Zenan Oyate Crow from the University of California Student Association.

Great. Let's hear from you.

Thank you, Senator. Good morning. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Jordan Panana Carbajal, legislative advocate for California YIMBY, here to speak as a proud co-sponsor of SB 312. The housing crisis at the California's Public Universities is an imminent threat to the success of the next generation in California. However, the cost of housing makes a college education infeasible for many students. It makes it harder for college faculty and staff to support a world-renowned public education system.

As the Senator mentioned, in 2022, the legislature passed and the Governor signed SB 886, which provided exemption from CEQA for student and faculty housing projects at UCs, CSUs, and community colleges. However, while the qualification for these projects require all buildings to meet lead platinum certification, which includes numerous provisions to determine if a building qualifies for certification, some of these determinants, however, cannot be made until building is occupied.

SB 312 is a straightforward bill that addresses the timing issue by requiring these buildings to qualify for lead planning certification, rather to receive the certification, which can be achieved before occupancy. And it's for these reasons, we respectfully request your support for SB 312. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Hello. My name is Zennon Ulyate-Crow. I'm a third-year at UC Santa Cruz, appointed officer on student housing with the UC Student Association and Co-chair of the Student Homes Coalition, which is a collective of higher ed organizations that are working to solve the student housing crisis. And I kind of want to take some time today to just talk about the student housing crisis and how insane it is. We know that it's getting worse.

Roughly 20% of community college, 10% of CSU, and 5% of UC students are experiencing homelessness. And according to recent data from the California Student Aid Commission, over half of college students are housing insecure, and that's up from 36% just four years ago. And so, recognizing the crisis, the state has invested $2.2 billion over the next five years in student housing, which is fantastic, welcomed investment.

And in addition to the 35 projects that have already been given funding, over 70 community colleges are currently studying building student housing on their sites. So we know there's going to be a lot of student housing that's going to be coming that's going to be really beneficial for folks in the pipeline.

But a point thing is that glaring issues still remain, namely, the duplicative environmental assessment and lawsuits that have held up projects at UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego, and UC Davis, and UC Santa Cruz, and which is what SB 312 is intending to fix. And to give some perspective on what this real-world impact looks like, I'm going to talk about my experience at UC Santa Cruz. There's a project called Student Housing West at UC Santa Cruz.

It's projected to add about 3000 beds, which is over 25% increase over existing housing capacity, which is much needed at the UC, where 9% of students are experiencing homelessness. And it's a project that's replacing an already existing family housing development and building development in an area that's located by roads and infrastructure on all sides. And that project was approved in 2019 when I was in 10th grade. However, that project has faced two separate lawsuits from nearby neighborhood, which installed the project for the past five years.

And in those five years, construction costs in California have risen on average by 44.8%, according to the California Construction Cost Index. And so UCSC finally announced that they're going to be able to break ground in string. But to give some perspective, I will have completed 10th grade, 11th grade, twelfth grade, my first year of college, my second year of college, and most of my third year of college between the time this project was approved to the time the project broke ground. That's absurd.

I'm going to actually be graduated by the end of this quarter. So between the time the project was approved and behind the project goes forwards, I will have been gone. And that thing has a really real-world impact on people. I was looking for housing in one of my classes because I was on the housing search, and the student behind me just this random guy was like, oh, you're looking for housing? Oh my God, it's a nightmare.

And he was talking to me and he was like, yeah, you know, I actually couldn't find housing in Santa Cruz because it was too expensive. So I commuted from my parents house in Redwood City every single day to get to class. That's 100 miles every single day this student was driving because they couldn't afford to live in Santa Cruz, and they did that for two quarters. That is insane. Absurd, and talk about the climate crisis.

We need to make sure students can live where they're actually going to school, let alone the societal cost of students not being able to actually attend the universities that they are being educated at. And so I just really think that we shouldn't be allowing a lot of NIMBY homeowners de facto veto authority over the ability for the next generation of Californians to access our public college systems, which is the greatest public institution of upward mobility we have in this state. Last year, only 65-

We're gonna ask you to wrap up.

Last year, only 65% of freshman applicants were admitted to a UC, compared to 84% in 1990. And we can see that the access to opportunity for students at UCS is declining directly as a result of the housing crisis and the lack of expansion there. And so we're going to solve this climate crisis by investing in people. And that starts with ensuring Californians can attend our world-class educational institutions. Thank you.

Thank you. Great. Thank you for your commentary. Let's hear next from anyone else who wants to weigh in in support of the bill. Any opposition or concerns about the bill anyone here wants to raise? Okay, we'll go to the committee. I just want to thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm an enthusiastic support of this bill. Quite frankly, we're all a little frustrated that this issue of platinum versus gold wasn't flagged earlier. It was certainly never the intent of this Committee to jam up these kinds of projects.

And I'm really glad you're working hard to remedy this issue. I think it's my strong feeling that a project meets such a high environmental standard, it really does merit an exemption. The sorts of scenarios that have been raised by the student. We have a major challenge with regards to housing on our campuses, as has been mentioned, and we need to get this housing online. So I'm big support of this Bill. I'm co authoring it.

And certainly happy to see you getting this issue remedied, Senator Dahle, I'll move the Bill.

I want to get it moving. I want to just say to the witness, we tried to build a reservoir for 50 years, and it finally, last year, we got it moving. So I'm hoping you'll stay engaged in the process because there's a lot of reasons why it costs so much in California, and a lot of those decisions are, in fact, all those decisions are made right here in this capital. So welcome to the process. Look forward to finding housing. So my grandkids will be in it. Thank you.

All right, so the bill's been moved. Any other additional comments, questions? Thank you again, Senator, for your leadership on this important issue, and thanks for the witnesses are coming in to speak. Good opportunity to close.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank our witness for coming up from Santa Cruz. Taking the train.

Go, Slugs. Oh, good.

There you go. Yeah. Great. Hopefully it'll be a faster train one day. But, Mr. Chair, I look forward to continuing to work together on this Bill as we move forward, and I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. All right, let's call the roll.

SB 312, do pass to Appropriations Committee. Allen aye. Dahle aye. Gonzalez aye. Hurtado aye. Menjivar aye. Nguyen aye. Skinner.

Leave that Bill on call. Okay. Okay. All right, let's open the roll for the two bills that we have on the agenda.

SB 312, due pass to Appropriations Committee. Chair voting aye. Vice Chair voting aye. Skinner?

This is 312. Wiener. Okay. Aye.

Skinner, aye. That vote is out. That Bill is out. SB 768, do pass to the Housing Committee. Chair voting aye. Vice Chair voting aye. Skinner? Aye. Skinner? Aye. 501 Bill is out.

Great. Thank you. Sorry, sorry.

Six to one. Dahle?

Voted for it. Great. All right, thank you, everybody. Appreciate it. And thank you, Senator. Let's adjourn the hearing.