Senate Standing Committee on Housing

All right, folks. Welcome and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Senate Housing Committee. This will be our very First Committee of 2025. I'd like to highlight a couple of updates. We have a Member replacement. Senator Gonzalez will be replacing Senator Reyes, most likely temporarily, but just making these announcements.

I also want to flag that today's consent calendar consists of of just one final item. Number two. SB233 by Senator Seardo. That is on consent. And I do believe we have a quorum, so if we can ask for a roll call.

Wahab.

Here.

Present. Syarto.

Here.

[Roll call]

Here. Say here I'm present.

Padia. Present.

Even if the caffeine hasn't kicked.

And we have Senator Durazzo on her way. All right, so we have a quorum. I would like to just. Just. I like to wrap things up pretty quickly. So can we get a motion on consent moved by Senator Cortese? File item number two. SB233, motion to approve. Can we get a roll call?

Wahab, Aye. Wahab, Aye. Sierto.

Aye.

Sigharto. Aye. Araguin. Araguin, Aye. Cabaldin.

Aye.

Cabaldin. I. Caballero Cortese. Cortese I. Durazzo. Durazzo I. Gonzalez. Correct. Grayson. Grayson. I OO Pad. I.

All right, we're going to put that Bill on call just to wait for a couple of more Members.

If is CA is absent.

Right.

Today she's absent. Okay. Do. Do we have. Is the to absent today?

No, she'll be.

We'll put that Bill on call. All right. I'd also like to adopt the Committee rules. Each Member of the Committee were given a number of rules of how this Committee operates. I just want to make sure that everyone had an opportunity to not only have it, but take a look at it.

And so I just want to adopt Committee rules. We actually do not need a motion, but we. Yeah, we are going to just formally adopt it. So thank you all. And then we are going to begin with our very first Bill.

And I guess I will do it, since I am here and Senator Seardo, as Vice Chair, will take over.

All right. We're going to be hearing SB262 by Senator Wahab.

Welcome, Chair Senator Wahab.

Thank you.

You may present.

Thank you. Um, Vice Chair, colleagues and members of the public, I want to thank the Committee for their hard work on this Bill. I will say that this may potentially be a spot Bill for the time being, um, but I will move forward with this Bill as is.

SB 262 expands the Pro-Housing Program and definitions to include policies that protect all individuals, in regards to, uh, their existing communities. The three Ps of housing is Production, Preservation, and Protection, which are the best framework for addressing our housing crisis. The state has spent years focusing on production: streamlining efforts, expediting permits, and much more.

Um, and we have also seen a little bit more of an investment in preservation of existing housing, with things such as the L.I.H.T.C. funding and much more.

But protecting residents by preventing displacement is a key tool in order to meet our housing and homelessness goals and ensure that people can access the resources and services they need to achieve economic mobility.

Um, I want to be very, very clear that this Bill does not require any city or county to enact these policies or programs. This just leaves how these additional policies and programs are weighted up to the agency. Each city is very different. I have historically very much supported local control.

And again, um, I want to flag, as much as possible, that this just expands the opportunity for cities to say, "Hey, we are housing people, we are protecting people, we are making sure that we tackle housing in a more holistic approach."

So, with me, I have Rand Martin for—uh, from—the AIDS Healthcare Foundation to testify.

Thank you sir. You can go ahead.

Members, Rand Martin on behalf of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and its 'Housing is a Human Right' Division.

Um, for those of you who don't know, A.H.F., in addition to all the work they do for people with HIV, is also a major developer of low-income housing in the city of Los Angeles, with over 1,500 units currently provided to low-income people in, in that city.

I'm here in support of SB 262. I think it's really important for people to recognize that the pro-housing is not just about constructing housing.

Pro-housing is making sure that people have a roof over their heads. Whatever that roof looks like. Maybe it's a mansion's roof and maybe it is the car roof. But it is important to make sure that they are um, that they are, protected and housed, and that people who do have housing are protected in terms of their tenant rights.

Um, we think it's really important that the Pro-Housing Program at the state level acknowledges that it's not just construction, that it is these other factors, as Senator Wahab has pointed out, that are also critical to making sure that people, that, making sure that people are housed. We urge your support for this Bill. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Are there any other primary witnesses?

No, not, not, not in support.

Is there anybody who wishes to come to the mic in support of the Bill? And just state your name, in support?

Oh, we had Debra come up. Come on up. [Laughter] CAA. Come on.

Okay, so we'll go to opposition witnesses. Is there anybody in primary opposition witness? Coming up. You have two minutes and 35...No, I'm just kidding. I was going to give you the exact amount of time the other gentleman spoke. No. You have five minutes. Thank you.

Thank you. Debra Carlton with the California Apartment Association. I'm sorry, this is our first oppose as Chairman, for you. We're asking for a "No Vote" today. As you probably know, under existing law, in order to be considered "Pro-Housing," local government must adopt, uh, policies that promote housing construction.

The examples provided in the current statute include local financial incentives, adoption of zoning laws that also help with the, uh, promotion of housing. Unfortunately, 262's counter to the housing element and Pro-Housing Statute. It would allow local government to gain a Pro-Housing designation, or a portion of it by adopting rent control.

This is not what the law was intended to do. Rent control does nothing to incentivize housing construction. In fact, hundreds of studies have demonstrated that rent control is counter to housing construction.

Even the state's Legislative Analyst Office has opined that, "Expanding the number of housing units covered by rent control would not increase the supply of housing, and in fact would discourage new housing construction."

And even in the City of Berkeley, their Planning Department found that under the city's strict rent control, private apartment construction was effectively brought to a halt, in Berkeley. Berkeley lost housing under rent control.

And as you know, over the past eight years, on three separate occasions, the citizens of California have rejected rent control, by an overwhelming majority in nearly all of your districts. Senate Bill 622 is counter to what the voters have told you, as well as the hundreds of studies that have found the negative effects of rent control.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your testimony. Is there anybody else who wants to speak as a primary witness? Are you speaking as a primary witness, sir?

Yes.

Okay, then. You have two minutes. Thanks.

Thank you. Chair and Vice Chair, Adam Regele, on behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce, in respectful opposition. I won't rehash a lot of what AB 101, uh, was intended, as my colleague from the Apartment Association outlined.

But it was a unanimous bill that effectively created policy that incentivizes, uh, local jurisdiction to compete for a very limited amount of state dollars for, "Pro-Housing," which is defined as, uh, "Production of housing."

And as my colleague noted, adding rent control into this incentive structure is going to have a perverse outcome of folks—or really local governments—competing for a limited amount of dollars, with policies that should be promoting more construction of units. And embedded inside AB 101 is, in the regulations, a reflection on preservation. And so that's built in.

But to create a, really a, a definition, that's directly contrary to the entire framework of AB 101, which is rent control ordinances almost unanimously are found to stifle production.

In a housing crisis, we need to promote more housing units, and to incentivize local governments to pass rent control to gain points, to then get limited state dollars, really sets up other jurisdictions to erase the bottom on housing. So, we respectfully oppose changing AB 101 in this manner. Thank you.

Thank you very much. So, at this time we'll go to any opposition, uh, to this Bill, who would like to come to the mic and state their name, uh, their affiliation, and just simply that you oppose the Bill.

Bernice Jimenez Krieger with the California Association of Realtors, uh, respectfully opposing the Bill.

Thank you very much. I don't see anybody else racing up to the mic, so we're going to bring it back to the dais. Any of my colleagues who would like to speak. Mr. Padilla, go ahead.

Mr. Chairman, if I might, questions for the opposition.

For the opposition? I guess you can.

For the author.

For the author, yes.

All right. Um, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator, I mean, fundamentally, isn't the public policy purpose that undermines the Pro-Housing Designation Statute grounded in affordability?

Yes.

All right. And is there anything in your view, in the proposed language here, that would prohibit or restrict other jurisdictions from achieving that designation, whether or not they include your proposed language or not?

Not at all.

All right. Thank you. Mr. Chairman.

Any other questions? Senator Cortese.

Just a comment, uh, before we get to the motion. Um, I heard the author loud and clear that, um, uh, you know, the, the word she chose was that this was akin to a spot Bill. Um, but that just telegraphs to us, I think, that it's a Bill that's going to be changing.

So, um, I'm, you know, happy to put up an "Aye" vote today, but the concerns raised by the opposition, which I had not heard directly before this hearing, but um, that I shared when I read the analysis and sat down with my own staff, um, um, are real in my mind. So, I'm, I'm happy to cast an "Aye" vote today.

But depending on what direction this goes, and whether or not, you know, in my judgment, um, something happens here that would stifle production, which I think is the extraordinary issue right now in housing, both in terms of owner occupied housing and rental housing, um, you know, will deter my vote later on.

But um, appreciate that it's early and you need to work on it and, you know, happy to give my support at this time.

Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Cabaldon.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. First, first can I ask what the analysis, uh, describes? Authors, Amendments or Committee Amendments, and can, and summarizes them, but can you share with us...?

Minor wording, just the spelling.

Actually, there's the technical amendment, but earlier in the analysis, it describes very substantive amendments. Can we get a description of what that language is?

Sorry, give me two seconds.

You want to read through those and we'll come back to you.

No.

Overall, it basically states that. Which particular area are you concerned with?

On page four of the analysis notes in the two paragraphs that aren't the technical ones. First is the addition of blank level language that says that the definition is currently planning approval and construction. This would expand it to include policies that keep people housed and programs assisting the homeless. And it wasn't clear what that.

That's a very broad. That second one in particular is. Well, they're both broad, but the second one's incredibly broad. So I was curious as to what that. How that would be operationalized. And then second, the language about following on navigation centers and non congregate shelters, that wasn't in the original.

Yes.

So overall, basically it says it establishes an application or enrollment process for the program that may include a background check, but establishes rules and regulations for the program, a safe camping program that provides safe camping locations for families experiencing unsheltered homelessness, funding for legal services to also help residents as well, and the creation or operation of a Low barrier navigation center or other non congregate shelters, which are usually what we're seeing right now is some of the tiny homes and much more kind of going forward and tenant protections and those are to be listed out.

But like I said that this is a up to the individual cities. It just allows them to be able to help with their pro housing designation, which many cities are looking forward to.

And it also broadens the scope in the sense of, you know, we need to kind of move away from just development, development development, which is very much needed in the State of California. But we also need to ensure that people are housed and kept housed longer.

Our fastest growing homeless population is our senior community that are on fixed incomes. And there's a lot of cities that are trying to do rental assistance, different types of programs.

And we're just trying to also say, hey, if you guys are interested in doing those things too, we are also going to try to help as much as possible because you guys are trying to tackle the three Ps of housing.

Thank you. So the challenge here for me is the. And I think Mr. Martin, when he described it, that the pro housing designation has sort of taken on a very broad sort of yelp, sort of are you a good person designation.

And so we all want it in that respect, but has a very specific purpose in the law, which is to assign points for programs that are about constructing housing. So it isn't. We were. My city was one of the first seven to achieve the pro housing designation. So I get it and we definitely press released it all.

Long beach is the number one is that we were saying Senator Gonzalez. So I get it.

But we do need a way to identify essentially for the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities grant program, for the Transformative Climate Community program and for the infrastructure grant program, which jurisdictions are the most capable, the most likely of actually delivering on the project, who have the necessary financing systems, who have the right zoning, who, you know, who are doing the things that are currently listed under the pro housing definition in order to figure out what are the.

Who should get this dollars in some sense.

So this approach is sort of the flip side of what the Governor is proposing, which is that we use pro housing to figure out what to do with the homeless, the homelessness money, which has the same exact the opposite problem that's not telling us who's got good development impact fee kickbacks, is not telling us who's going to provide good homeless services.

And so I think for me that the challenge as this Bill moves through is really maybe we need to, maybe we need more than one designation that covers what are pretty fundamentally different if it's going to be useful to us.

Personally, I think the pro housing designation should be used for a lot more things in the housing space, but on a lot of things that we agree on in terms of the policies that we've done before to provide more flexibility and more grace to places and communities that are, that know what they're doing.

But so that's my fundamental concern about the approach. I do think I know the author you spent a lot of time getting, trying to get this right and I'm going to vote for it today as well. I think it's an important part of the conversation that we're having.

I kind of agree, I'm not prepared to commit long term, but I think it is important and particularly on the issues around housing preservation, which was the start of the Bill, I think are very worthy. So thanks for sharing.

The amendments, they don't go as far as I was concerned, which is what the analysis had suggested in terms of opening that up.

But I do think fundamentally through this year, as we're working on this, as you're working on this, that really making sure that the designation continues to be a powerful prioritization tool for the state to determine where to send those very, very, very precious affordable housing development and construction dollars. Thank you, Senator Arreguin.

Thank you.

Following up on Senator Cabaldon's comments, it states clearly in the Bill under 65599A that the intent of the pro housing program is to provide incentives for jurisdictions that have compliant housing elements and have enacted pro housing local policies and that would make them eligible on a competitive basis for the affordable housing Sustainable communities program through our cap and trade program, the transformative Climate Communities Program infill incentive grant program.

I think the idea was to ensure that jurisdictions that have policies that will actually be able to build housing and leverage these very limited state dollars to boost affordable housing and market rate housing that they would be rewarded and be eligible for these critical state funds.

And so I think the issue is the expanding of the definition of what are per housing local policies, because right now the definition says that these are policies meant to facilitate planning approval and construction of housing. The clear legislative intent of the program was to focus on production.

I certainly support expanding the scope of it as this Bill proposes to include other affordable housing strategies. I do think programs, quote, to assist the homeless. That is an entirely separate policy matter from housing production and housing affordability and preservation. And I agree with Senator Cabaldon that may be appropriate for a different program.

And so, you know, as this Bill moves forward, I want to just make sure we're focusing on housing production and housing affordability and protection and not expanding the scope of this for programs to address homelessness, because that's an entirely separate issue and a separate policy matter.

I want to make sure that these limited state funds are being prioritized to incentivize production of housing in California. I understand that HCD ultimately sets the criteria and decides the points in the scoring system for, you know, how jurisdictions will be competitive based on these different criteria.

And I just, I will certainly be voting for this Bill today, but I want to make sure as this moves forward that, you know, that we're also giving greater weight to policies that incentivize production of new homes and streaming in the process to make sure that homes get built in California.

I have to address the comments that were made in the letter in opposition and the comments that are made in testimony today by the California Apartment Association because Berkeley was specifically mentioned.

And as the former mayor of Berkeley, as the former chair of the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board, I have a lot of knowledge and perspective around Berkeley's housing policies. I will note that Berkeley has some of the strongest rent control in the State of California and is seeing the biggest building boom in 50 years.

7000 homes were approved during my time as mayor. And even while having an eviction moratorium, having strong rent and eviction controls. So I disagree with the assertion that having strong rent control means that it's going to. It's going to curb the production of new housing.

What actually was the biggest impediment to building housing in Berkeley was the neighborhood preservation ordinance and the down zoning of our city, which actually made it difficult to build multifamily housing. And I was proud to lead an effort in the City of Berkeley to end single family zoning and to maximize production in our city.

And that's why we're seeing an increase in housing production. Rent control, I disagree. Is not a barrier to producing housing is critical to ensure that we have housing stability for families in California. And for that reason, I'll be voting for the Bill today. Thank you, Senator Gonzalez.

Yes, thank you. Already a great conversation here. I just also appreciate the author's approach to this. These are the Senator Wahab specials that invoke a lot of discussion. But I say that with all due respect, they invoke a lot of discussion and these are the discussions we absolutely need to have.

I'm going to throw out an example in my district because I never want anyone to forget about Catalina Island. You cannot build any housing on Catalina Island. And it is an overcrowding nightmare right now in terms of housing, There are about 4,000 folks, mostly service workers, that live on the island.

And half of the island is conservancy, so it's protected lands. And then you've got this housing overcrowded situation that does need some sort of rent stabilization. Absolutely.

So I appreciate poor putting this conversation into this discussion in terms of the other approaches with the safe parking, which we all believe in, and ensuring that there is other options to get people into this temporary, into permanent housing. It all depends too on enforcement.

We can see when homes are built, but you can't necessarily in some cases know when a parking program might be successful or not. There have been really good approaches in Los Angeles, but, you know, other cities may utilize that in name only in lieu of building homes, which I'm also afraid of.

So I know you know that I just want to make sure that we're discussing this and, you know, look forward to more discussions with you on that. So thank you.

Senator Durazo.

Okay, thank you.

And then Again, thank you, Mr.

Chair. I think I understand the concerns about where who would be given, who would be given advantages or who would be given sort of extra points for certain grant programs. But I do think it's also our responsibility to keep developing the definition of pro housing policies.

We have tried certain things for years and Years and years and years and many things are not getting us anywhere. And so I think that taking a different approach and not being, not holding back from a different approach is important because I do believe pro housing policies as much, much more than just the construction. Now, that's me.

That may not be specifically what the law says right now, but I do believe that we have to take a much more proactive and include these other issues like rent stabilization and eviction defense and the other things that were included in this. So I'm very supportive. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and colleagues. Again, I support the Bill out, and I know it's an evolving conversation and it may end up looking like something totally different, but I just think it's important, based on this conversation, to put in the record.

Again, fundamental premise of pro housing policies is often oriented, at least for the most part, around affordability and achieving incremental savings through production. In other words, a scarcity problem.

And I've said this in many venues and many committees and some of my friends in the industry want to throw stuff at me when I say it, but productivity production alone does not equate to affordability. And the fundamental underlying public policy purpose for pro housing policies in the state in recent years has been to get at affordability.

In short, we're not going to build our way to affordability by itself just by producing more product. There are many other elements that contribute to what is affordable for people in California, what isn't. And so I find it very much aligned.

And to echo Senator Durazo's comments, I think it's appropriate to think about this from a multidimensional standpoint, not just from trying to equate production with achieving affordability, because by itself, it won't for many Californians. And so I'm happy to support the bill.

Thank you.

Okay. Anybody else? There are no others. I will offer my. Great. Allow me to apologize in advance. No, I do have concerns about the Bill. Some of them align with what the speakers had got out.

But you know, when you're talking about housing in the region that I live in and the region that I represent, that region is the one that is going to be supporting the most growth in housing.

And so communities out there already struggling to try to keep up with infrastructure and keep up with some of the things that if you were a pro housing designee, you'd be able to compete for those dollars. However, the more stuff we add into that, the less likely they are to be able to join the pro housing designation.

And therefore you're making the areas that have the capability of growing the most, the least able to support it with the infrastructure needs that go on. And so that's my concern about what I see is piling on more. And they're controversial in some aspects, parts to being a pro housing community.

I know lots of communities, they'll be fine with the pro housing designations that they have now, but if they have to keep adding and some of that is not stuff that I think their communities are able to deal with from infrastructure wise. And so, you know, for me, this kind of approach doesn't really work.

I think when we're looking at our housing policy in General, it's all geared towards entry level housing. What about the housing that the entry level people want to move into afterwards? That's where people are getting stuck and that's where we're losing our younger generation. They're all moving out. Not all, just a lot.

And my kids included are moving out of state because they can't get that house that they want to raise their family in. And none of these rules are helping that at all. And instead we're front loading affordable or entry level housing. Entry level housing used to be the affordable housing period.

But we have got ourselves in such a state due to some of the regulations over the years that now we're trying to build as much of that as we can. But I can tell you they're not filling up as fast as people thought they would.

And so the developers that are building those in our region are struggling a little bit when it comes to filling their properties. But what's interesting is something that was brought up. The rates aren't going down. Something else is at play here.

We have to figure out what that something else is before we apply more solutions to our housing issues. Right now, lots of housing building going on, lots of multifamily housing going on. We have our affordable housing that's being built like gangbusters out in my area.

But something is, something is amiss in the affordability part of market level housing. Market level, multi level housing. And that's what we have to figure out.

We're going to have to figure that out before I support a bunch of more restrictions or what some people might think are incentives for communities to join a more, you know, a more focused effort on trying to make housing affordable going forward after they've moved in.

So it sounds like you have support for the Bill, your spot Bill, I hope, and I'm not going to join that support today. But I wish you well on this and you may close.

Thank you. I want to be very clear here. The state has prioritized development, development, development. It has not actually translated to cost savings to a purchaser in any respect. Number one, the streamlining efforts of the state have also not translated to mass development. Right.

If we actually want to take a look at last year alone, we barely developed a little over 100,000 units. Transit oriented Development doesn't necessarily work. I'm going to be very clear about that.

The types of developments that are going up with zero parking and all these giveaways to developers have also not translated to housing that has dignity, that people want to stay in and raise their families. It.

The reality is that tenants and renters, when they're first moving out and, you know, living their life, they are being choked by a number of different fees, the high cost in putting a down payment, the competitive market, and much more developers.

And like I said, I do believe that developers, you know, we should be trying to invest in them to make more housing. However, interest rates are really high, and they've been high for a number of years. The cost of material has been extremely high.

The aspects of building as a whole has been difficult for many developers to overcome. And what we have seen in the state has not necessarily translated, again, in more development. As much as this body works to help the industry, it has not equated to better housing for all residents.

And I highlight this as much as possible because this is one of my concerns as a renter who hopes to be a homeowner. I do also want to say that these state programs are for us to manipulate, however we see fit to meet the demands of the community again, not the demands of the industry.

And I wholeheartedly want to highlight the fact that in some counties, for every one household that has moved out of homelessness, roughly almost two others become homeless right now. We see a high cost of insurance. We see a number of other restrictions for housing as a whole.

And the reality is that if we can keep people off the streets and keep people housed, that is pro housing. That is pro housing, and that's what this program is about. So I respectfully ask for an aye vote and enjoy the full year with you all.

Thank you, Madam Secretary. You can call the roll. zero, you know what? We have to get a motion first. I forgot in all this talk, we have a motion to move the Bill by Senator Padilla. So now you can call the roll. zero, did you accept the amendment?

Yes.

Thank you.

Motion do pass, as amended to appropriations. Wahab aye. Wahab aye. Sierto? Aye. No.

I was giving her the. I was giving her. Too late. He likes the Bill. I know that.

[Roll call]

So that bill got seven, two. And that bill's out. Thank you. We are going to move on to file item number one, which is SB 92 by Senator Blakespear regarding housing development density bonuses, mixed use developments. Yes. You can begin anytime.

Okay. Thank you, Chair and colleagues. SB 92 will close a loophole in state density bonus law to ensure density bonus projects contribute meaningfully to the state's affordable housing supply. Specifically, my bill will stipulate that density bonus projects dedicate at least 2/3 of their total floor area inclusive of all density bonuses to residential uses.

Last fall, a project was proposed in the community of Pacific Beach, which is located in my district, that exposed a flaw in state density bonus law. In exchange for only 10 affordable housing units, the law entitles the developer to floor area ratio and height limit zoning concessions that allow it to build a 240 foot tower with 139 luxury hotel rooms. This community has a 30 foot height limit.

So for only 10 affordable housing units, the project is able to exceed the local height limit by 210ft. It is a 22 story building. This is an abuse of the law and is not consistent with the law's intent. As the Department of Housing and Community Development put it in their letter, an interpretation that a project with the minimum of five residential units is entitled to an infinite amount of non-residential floor area is an absurd outcome and does not further the purpose of the law.

To address this issue, SB 92 aligns density bonus law with the Housing Accountability Act, requiring density bonus projects to be at least 2/3 residential based on their floor area. We do not have a luxury hotel shortage in the State of California. We have a housing shortage, particularly a shortage of lower cost affordable housing.

SB 92 will ensure the density bonus law encourages developers to add security significant affordable housing to their mixed use projects. And with me today, I have Moira Topp, representative of the City of San Diego. If you don't mind if she comes forward.

Yes. You have two minutes.

Thank you, Chair and Members. I am Moira Topp, here on behalf of the City of San Diego. We're the sponsors of this measure. As Senator Blakespear noted, this bill has a very narrow purpose. It's really just to address what we think is an unintended application of the density bonus law.

It was originally established of course to incentivize affordable housing. It wasn't created to incentivize hotel development. The project that the Senator mentioned is in the City of San Diego, and, again, it is a project, a 23 story building in our city's coastal zone. We do support additional housing. We support mixed use housing in the city.

But this type of. We think aberration of the of the density bonus law does need some correction here and we believe this bill does that. San Diego is a pro-housing city, but, as you discussed earlier, but San Diego has consistently led in efforts to address these affordability crisis.

We're committed to creating more affordable housing at all levels for all San Diegans. However, proposals like the one that we saw in San Diego this past year don't align with, we think, the city's policies or the state's policies aimed at increasing the supply, the actual supply of affordable homes.

We think SB 92 ensures that pro-housing policies are not used for projects that do not meet their intended need and public benefit to respond to the pressing housing affordability crisis the state seeds. So on behalf of the City of San Diego and Mayor Todd Gloria, we respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. Do we have any other witnesses in support? Seeing none. We're going to move on to witnesses in opposition. You will have two minutes.

Thank you. Sorry, let me. I'm a tall person. Good afternoon, Senator and Members. We are not lead opposition on this, but I do want to mention we are opposed unless amended on behalf of the Housing Action Coalition. Wanted to take the time to thank the author for her office's ongoing conversations with us, and we look forward to continued discussions. So thank you.

Thank you. Any other lead opposition? Lead opposition. All right, we will move on to me toos in support or opposition. Please state your name, your organization, and whether or not you support or oppose.

Madam Chair and Members. Matt Broad here on behalf of Unite Here. We don't have a formal position on the bill. Just wanted to say that we've offered a friendly amendment to to the author to clarify that hotels should be excluded from streamlining purposes under state law. This is consistent with what we've gotten in AB 1893 and other streamlining bills, and we urge her to take those amendments.

So again, either you support or oppose.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members. Raymond Contreras with Lighthouse Public Affairs on behalf of SPUR and Abundant Housing with an oppose unless amended position. We would like to thank the author that we are in conversations with amendments. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no other speakers, I will move on to Members of the Committee. Senator Grayson.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I want to thank the author for bringing this bill forward. Having gone on a statewide housing tour that was 22 nights on the road, starting in Chico, and interestingly enough, ending in San Diego, I can tell you through every single, 100% of our discussions all up and down the state, when it came to density bonus law, density bonus, it was clearly about housing and not about anything else. And so I'd like to keep it aligned with that. And I think your bill righteously does that. So thank you very much. I do trust that you'll continue to work with opposition to work out details and things of that sort. Thank you.

Senator Cabaldon.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I also think this is a really important issue that you're, that you're picking up here and appreciate the hard work you've put in to try to solve this. This is also a reason why we need strong pro-housing designations, quite honestly, because cities, these kinds of rules, with all their complexities, treat all cities the same. And when you have a city like San Diego that knows what they're doing, they're doing what we're trying to accomplish, they shouldn't be treated like they're Huntington Beach, essentially.

Sorry to Senator Strickland, wherever he might be in the building. We need to be able to see better and calibrate the depth of our regulations to what the capacity and the record is of the folks that are doing it. In this particular case, though, I want to encourage you, I know we've talked about this offline as well, in communities like the ones I represent that are not deeply urban, but they're also... And I represent a lot of rural places, but also semi-urban places, Vallejo, Fairfield, Dixon, even my own city in West Sacramento.

These 75% thresholds or 2/3 thresholds or 50% thresholds, we don't have a large menu of property projects just waiting to come. And we're like, ah, we would love to do that project, but, you know, forget the one, that one's only 48% residential. So we're going to move on to the next one.

Like if somebody is ready to build a mixed use project in Woodland or in Dixon or American Canyon, and it's, you know, we want to build it right. And so I think that those kinds of thresholds can be very problematic outside of the areas where there are just aren't, there's not the financing.

And a lot of the issues that have been raised in this hearing earlier are present. And when it seems like the underlying problem is that the density bonus itself is keyed off stuff that's not residential in the first place. And so we've talked about this, and this is what's happened here, is the density bonus is calculated on the entire project. And so you do get, as you said, Senator Blakespear, the infinite density bonus.

But I hope you'll consider, as you go forward, calibrating the density bonus to the residential or something that is more proportional as opposed to a strict yes or no based on an artificial arbitrary threshold, even though it's in the Housing Accountability Act, that's for a different purpose. So that we can continue to move forward righteous, well designed, well thought out projects that are significant residential even if they're not at that threshold and continue to use this law.

Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Durazo.

Yes, just thank you to the author. I appreciate that the clarification for more residential, I think is really good and really important, and I appreciate that. I do also raise the concern about hotels being excluded or not excluded. So I want to continue to work with you on that since that's going to be coming to my Committee next. So with that I will support today.

Thank you. Okay. Seeing no other... Yes, Senator Seyarto.

You didn't see. So this is an interesting bill. I'm inclined to support it. And the reason I'm inclined to support it is it doesn't necessarily prevent a commercial developer from building a commercial development. It just doesn't give them a by right, basically development approval by doing something that really wasn't meant for them in the first place.

So from a local control perspective, which I'm a very strong advocate of, it does not prevent them from going through the local control process to have whatever development, whether it's a hotel or any other commercial development. And I see how doing just the minimum of the density bonus law somewhere might allow them to skirt that process.

That's one of the concerns I had with the density bonus laws. The more we take out of local control, the more issues we have locally with infrastructure development, things like that, and keeping up. So anyway, I'm actually probably going to support your bill today with that in mind. So thank you. Appreciate your thoughtfulness on this bill.

Thank you.

Thank you. So I do just want to highlight. I find this bill fascinating in the sense that, in my local district, we've actually had a little bit of a concern that just popped off this past week. We had some residents talk about how this original bill, not your bill in play, but the one that it's based off of, restricted them from being able to develop commercial space in a mixed use facility. We believe that to be inaccurate and an inaccurate application of the law in a local jurisdiction.

We're still digging through the details of that particular project, but I just wanted to highlight that this is important. I do believe that, when we're talking about development, our focus should be housing and there should be an effort for housing. Mixed use developments have had a mixed bag of success in the sense that it has not necessarily translated well in certain parts of my district and in one particular part is done pretty well. Brick and mortar has also been dwindling.

So when people assume what they're trying to create is going to be residential at the top and shopping centers at the bottom, that has not been the case. Right. Just across the board, it has not been the case. So my recommendation is do pass to Senate Local Government Committee. I really appreciate the work that you're doing. I think that some of the concerns that were raised here should be addressed, and I know you're more than willing to work on it. So I would like for you to close and also ask for a motion. And do you close?

Thank you. Thank you for all the comments, the supportive comments and the things that we'll continue to work on. The point of this bill is to make sure that density bonus projects are actually maximizing housing. And we are seeing, as you can expect with laws that have been in effect for a while, that there are places where there is abuse or exploitation of the law for other purposes.

So we know with density bonus, what density bonus allows is the density bonus itself, but also waivers and concessions that allow for height to be waived or zoning to be waived. A lot of different things that the developer might want in order to make the project pencil. And in many ways that's the flexibility that's built into density bonus law is to say that the developer in that community can work with that community to figure out what is the best project.

But we also want to make sure that when we are giving these bonuses and these waivers and concessions, that they're actually achieving the goal of housing. So in this case, this project is on a ministerial path, and it never does get voted on by people who are elected. So this is really prescriptive.

So it's looking at what will happen in the future with this law and saying what is the right balance and aligning it with the housing accountability law makes a lot of sense. There are also things to continue working on, like calibrating for different communities, and also the concerns from Unite Here and hotels. So we'll continue to work on those things. And I very much appreciate your support.

Thank you. We have a motion by Senator Gonzalez. Can I get a roll call on this bill?

Yeah. Motion is do pass to Committee on Local Government. [Roll Call]

All right, that bill is out. Final vote is 10 ayes, 1 no. Thank you, Senator. I would like to, before we all leave, lift the call on consent.

Today's consent calendar consists of file item 2, SB 233. [Roll Call]

So consent is out. 8 ayes or 10 ayes, 0 nos. I also just want to highlight that this is Jacqueline's first time with us, so congratulations there, and that this meeting is adjourned. Thank you.