Senate Standing Committee on Housing

All right, good morning and afternoon, everyone. I just wanted to highlight that we will be starting out as a Subcommitee first. And I want to highlight that we have two bills on consent. Final item three, SB 686, by Senator Reyes, as well as file item number four, SB 733, by myself. And we will begin as a Subcommitee.

So I think that we have File item number one, SB340, by Senator Laird. He will be presenting if. Senator, if you would like to. I do just want to highlight that for all witnesses. Please speak at that post. You will be timed for two minutes when appropriate. Thank you, Senator.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Senate Bill 340 deals with the subject of emergency shelters, and it clarifies that by right, approval of emergency shelters extends to all wraparound services offered by the shelter, as well as any expansion of services.

What's really happening is that there are some places that a loophole needs to be closed because an emergency shelter would be created by right. And then conditional use permits are required for the wraparound services that we all want to come with the emergency shelter permit.

They include housing, navigation, case management, outreach, access to basic needs like meals, showers, laundry, mail services, healthcare. They're all critical. So I think that simply explains it. Here to answer technical questions. Is it Anya Lawler representing the Public Interest Law Project. And whenever it's appropriate, I would ask for an iPhone.

Thank you. And do you only have one witness?

She's here for technical questions. Unless she wishes to say something. Okay. Would you like to say anything?

No. Anya Lawler with The Public Interest Law Project, one of the sponsors of the Bill here in support and happy to answer any questions, but I can read the room, so I won't give a statement. Perfect. Thank you.

Do we have any opposition lead witnesses? Seeing none. We're going to go with MeToos, both in support and opposition. Please state your name, your organization and whether you support or oppose. Mark Neuberger, California State Association of Counties. We are in support of this Bill. Thank you. Good afternoon. Divya Shiv from Housing California in support of this Bill.

Thank you. Do we have anybody else saying none. Committee Members, do you guys have any comments seeing. None. Senator, would you like to close?

I wish for hearings like this all the time.

Same here. Thank you very much. Same here. So can we get a motion? So Senator Padilla has moved, so we do not have a quorum yet. I apologize. We need one more, but that Bill is on call. Thank you. So now we have final item number two, SB486 by Senator Cabaldin.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Members of the Committee, today, qualified Californians are being denied admission from their public universities of choice in part because we have a lack of space to house them. I was taken aback.

A couple of years ago I was talking with the Chancellor at UC Berkeley about how sad it was that so many students want to go to Berkeley.

And UCLA and San Diego State and UC Davis, some of the world most popular, prestigious and high impact institutions that really drive social mobility in ways that no other state's been able to achieve. And it's just too bad that we're already maxed out. And she said to me, no, we're not.

We could add another 10 or 20% to our student body here at Berkeley. We just can't get any projects through the pipeline because we're constrained by some provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act. It piqued my interest and that's what this Bill is about. Now it's got a second half to it, which is.

I also used to chair the Sacramento Area Council of Governments, the regional cog and metropolitan planning organization charged by the state with achieving the state's climate goals as well as transportation, air quality and housing goals for our region. Do you need to establish a quorum? You have that. Look. Please finish. Okay, thanks. And we're struggling.

Every region in California is struggling to meet those goals. And it is essential that everybody be at the table. Not just the cities and the counties, but state agencies and importantly the public universities.

So what SB486 does is attempts to bring these two together and says, look, we, rather than requiring each University campus to analyze the enrollment growth as part of their CEQA analysis, that that enrollment growth should be analyzed at the regional scale.

And it should be based on the enrollment growth that is guaranteed to Californians by the Master Plan, guaranteed to the Californians by the Education Code, and guaranteed to Californians by UC CSU. UC's enrollment, overall enrollment, it's not.

You don't take Davis's projection plus UCLA's projection plus UC Irvine projections and put them together to figure out how it's going to be. No, those students are guaranteed, if they are in the top 12 and a half percent, the top one eighth of a seat at the University of California.

But CEQA treats each campus like it's independent, which it is not. So what this Bill says is that enrollment growth will be analyzed at the regional scale and in exchange the University must participate in the Regional Sustainable Communities Strategy, Transportation Plan and Housing Needs, the REHNA process.

The Regional Housing Needs Allocation as a full partner along with all of the cities and the counties.

So it will both accelerate the production not just of housing units on campuses, but also classrooms and student services centers and everything else, while also improving our capacity and our ability to meet the climate and transportation and housing goals that we have set for each of the regions. I have no witnesses today.

All of my higher ed friends don't think that they don't understand sustainable community strategies in regional transportation. All my regional transportation plans don't pretend to understand higher education enrollment forecasting.

But this is bringing two worlds together in order to solve both the problem of access to our top flight universities in California and also improve our accomplishment of the state's climate and transportation goals at the regional scale. Astronaut. I vote.

Thank you. Are there any witnesses, lead witnesses in support. Are there any lead witnesses in opposition? Okay, and now I'm going to ask for the me toos in both support or opposition. State your name, your organization, and whether or not you support.

Good afternoon, Madam Chairmember. Steven Stenzer with Brownstein on behalf of the Chamber of Progress in support.

Thank you. Anybody else? Seeing none. Before I move the comments to our Committee, I'd like to establish a quorum if possible.

[Roll call]

Okay, we have established quorum. Are there any comments on this Bill? Seeing none. Would you like to close, sir?

And I vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have a motion, Senator Ochoa? Boke. Look at that. Republican has moved the bill. Can we get a roll call vote, please?

SB486, motion do pass as amended to Environmental Quality.

Before that. Before that. I apologize. Do you accept the amendments? Wait, what are the amendments?

[Roll call]

All right, that bill's on call. Thank you. Can I get a motion on consent? Moved by Senator Durazo for consent. Items Both file item number 3 and 4. Can we get a roll call?

[Roll call]

All right, consent items are on call. And then can we move back to File item number one, SB340. Can we get a motion moved by Senator Arreguin?

[Roll call]

Thank you. So all the file items number 123 and 4 are on call. Thank you. For the Senators who are here. And we will wait for the other Senators to arrive.

Thank you. Can we call a recess, please, for five minutes out of recess.

All right. And we're gonna. We have four items. Two of those four are on consent, so we're gonna lift the call on consent first.

[Roll call]

That Bill is on call. Those two bills, I should say. Now we're going to go to file item one, SB340, by Senator Laird.

[Roll call]

Thank you. That bill's on call. We're going to move on to File item number two, SB486.

[Roll call]

That bill is on call. Thank you. We're going to go into recess again. Just waiting for a couple more absent Members. Thank you.

We're going to come out of recess, and again, we are going to start with the file items that are on consent. It's SB686. File item three and file item four, which is SB733. Can we lift the call?

[Roll call]

Aye. All right, consent has 10 eyes, 0 no's or 11 eyes. Is that 11. 11 ayes. That Bill is out. Those bills are out. We're going to move on to file item one, SB340 by Senator Laird. Please call the roll.

[Roll call]

All right, that's 11 to 0. That Bill is out. We're going to move on to File item number two, SB486, by Senator Cabaldin, who has also taken the amendments.

[Roll call]

All right, that Bill is out, 11 to zero. We appreciate everybody's work, and this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.