Senate Standing Committee on Local Government

Good morning. The Senate Committee on Local Government will begin in 60 seconds.

The Senate Committee on Local Government will come to order. Good morning, everyone. Welcome. Thank you for joining us for this meeting of the Senate Committee on Local Government. The Senate welcomes the public in person and we are holding our Committee hearings here in the Capitol building.

I ask all Members of the Committee to be present in room 112 so that we can establish our quorum and begin our hearing. We have 18 bills, easy, on today's agenda, five of which are on consent.

File item number three, SB392. File item number five, SB781. File item number eight, SB639. File item number nine, SB658, and file item number 15, SB595. Also file item 16, SB828 has been pulled at the request of the author. We don't have. We do not have quorum. Okay.

We're going to move ahead even without our quorum as a Subcommitee. Okay. Okay. We're going to hear from our first author. Our first first author should be Senator Blakespear, but she's not here. Senator Cortese, do you want to jump ahead? Okay. Let's see Your item number seven, SB545. Senator Cortese, you may begin.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee. Of course, I want to thank the Committee first and foremost for their assistance in drafting clarifying amendments that I will be accepting. I'm pleased to present the Bill, a work in progress for several months now.

As you can imagine, this Bill seeks to advance economic opportunities along the high speed rail corridor by requiring the Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation to Commission a study on developmental potential with significant residential and commercial growth expected along the nearly 400 mile corridor.

The study will help guide the state in leveraging these opportunities to support infrastructure funding. A new poll from Politico and UC Berkeley Citron Center suggests that California voters are still largely supportive of the state's $100 billion high speed rail project.

Roughly two thirds of registered voters said they support the effort, with the figure climbing to 82% among Democrats. The project's favorability among California voters remains strong despite recent efforts to eliminate federal funding. The project has already created over 14,600 high quality jobs, engaged 880 small businesses, and will prevent 142 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

At last count, there were 31 open construction sites active at this time. The Bakersfield and Merced line is 100% environmentally cleared 119 miles are under construction right now. These investments have generated over $22 billion in economic impact, primarily benefiting communities in California Central Valley.

However, private investment and partnerships have been lagged and haven't really been counted or projected. That's the idea with the Bill. When voters passed Prop 1A, the $9.9 billion bond to provide the nation's first high speed rail project, the vision was that the state would cover one third of the cost.

The Federal Government would provide one third of the cost. That hasn't happened, of course, and private investors would provide the remaining third. And that's really where this study comes in. That vision is yet to materialize, but it's why we introduced the Bill.

The Bill sets the foundation for leveraging commercial and residential development along the high speed rail corridor to create jobs, attract businesses and generate new revenue streams that will help fund construction and boost the economic opportunity for local communities. Just as final clarification on my opening, I'm more than happy to answer questions later through the Chair of course.

There's huge opportunity and it's actually very easy to see for those of us who've had the opportunity to go down and take a look at the site, take a look at the viaduct construction that's going on now.

And it's much, much different than the typical rail corridors we see in our urban areas, where you try to get station development, development around stations within a very small radius, relatively speaking. People's movement to and from the stations is a relatively short distance.

Typically in places like San Francisco, Los Angeles, even in San Jose, we try to keep our light rail lines, you know, 800 ft from pedestrian corridors, for example, so that people can get there. This is a completely different animal.

This is people in the first leg of this project more than willing to get themselves 15 minutes away, which could be 15 miles in place like Visalia or Hanford to the station for the opportunity to get on a train that's going to bring them at 220 miles an hour, you know, great distances. So there's scale.

And that scale tells us therefore that the corridor for development, for opportunities for development is much wider than we would normally see, if you want to think of it that way from an aerial view, than probably anything we've ever seen in the country, certainly anything we've seen in California.

So I can talk about that all day long as a professional developer by, by trade, now a Legislator, But I don't have the facts and figures. And you know, what will prevent us from having to talk about this in general terms in the future will be actual analytics that are in a study.

Today we have with us Joe Cruz, Executive Director of the California State Laborers. And she's not showing up in. Yeah. Keith Dunn is going to be our other witness today. I'll let them further self introduce.

Madam Chair, thank you very much for the opportunity and at the appropriate time, I'd respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Before we move on with your key witnesses, we want to establish the quorum that. Now I know we have sufficient Members on the Committee. Assistant.

[Roll Call] You have a quorum.

Thank you. Assistant notes a quorum has been established. Now we can proceed with Mr. Cruz.

Madam Chair, thank you for the opportunity. And Senator Cortese, thank you for your commitment to this transformational project. High speed rail in California will at some point change our transportation economics and employment opportunities in the Central Valley and across the state for generations to come. The laborers is comprised of 80,000 hard working men and women.

With projects like high speed rail, we're really changing lives. We're changing lives for people of color, for women and for second chancers. Every single day in the Central Valley we have 600 laborers alone working on high speed rail. And those are really good middle class jobs. Can we do better to improve efficiencies and transparency and product delivery?

Of course we can and we should. And I think our officials who run the project are committed to doing that. SB 545 sets the foundation for leveraging commercial and residential development along the high speed corridor.

It will attract new jobs, higher paying jobs in Central Valley and create and generate revenue streams to Fund the construction, operation and long term maintenance of the project. The Senator already went into details about the overall benefits as far as the economy.

And I'll just say it's important that we build this project out and we try to attract private investment, create new opportunities and continue to grow our state. We're now the fourth-largest economy in the world.

And it's because of our investment in infrastructure projects like high speed rail that will continue us to grow and be successful across the state. So thank you for the opportunity. I respectfully urge your aye vote for SB 545.

Thank you. Yes sir.

Thank you. Madam Chair, Members of the Committee, Keith Dunn here. I represent the California Building Construction Trades, the District Council of Ironworkers and today I'm here also for the Association of California High Speed Trains, which is a collection of labor and management and investors that are looking at California's opportunities with regards to high speed trains.

Sometimes we come and have tougher discussions about high speed rail and the future of the project of which Joe and I have been a part of for a very long time.

To me, this is one of the easier discussions to have because we're really talking about looking at opportunities where local governments and others can look to invest and attract investments to do transit oriented development last mile solutions.

And really as this project comes closer to laying rail and doing all the positive things that I think you're going to hear more about from the authority and others in the near future.

You know, talking about how we do these interconnections and really this Bill is about information so that investors and local governments and others can look at how they make these interconnections on those last miles. Because as the Senator mentioned, you know, sometimes these opportunities for investments are going to be a mile further away.

But talking about how we can make those interconnectivity connections with housing to get them to those mass transit opportunities, any of you that have been to the East Coast, Chicago, Europe, other places, see how well those systems work.

And really this is going to provide that opportunity to get the information not only to the private sector, but who I can tell you is interested in this project. Discussions are happening, I know, because we're part of them. They're very interested in investing in California, a state that's the fourth-largest economy in the world.

Providing those information and tools and opportunities is going to do nothing but help attract those investors that come in earlier. So we're really supportive and optimistic that as we continue to improve and adjust to deliver savings and efficiencies in the actual building of the system, that we're also able to provide information to potential investors.

And again, those are real, people are looking at those investment opportunities. I think you're going to start hearing more from them soon. So we think this is an easy build to support for everyone. I think everybody wants information and opportunities and this is what the Bill does.

We look forward to working with you and we ask for your yes vote.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone who wants to speak in support of SP 545, please, please come to the front and give your name and organization.

Thank you. Madam Chair Gus Khouri, on behalf of the San Joaquin Valley Regional Policy Council, which represents the eight cogs in the San Joaquin Valley, in strong support thank you.

Good morning Madam Chair. Felipe Fuentes here on behalf of the Associated General Contractors of California in strong support.

Thank you.

Good morning. Maria Gavedia on behalf of Climate Action Network in support.

Marc Vukcevich on behalf of Streets for All in support.

Thank you. Anyone else in support? Seeing none. Anyone in opposition to SB545? Okay. Nobody. Good morning.

Good morning Madam Chair Members. Nick Cammarota, on behalf of the California Building Industry Association. I guess I want to first say that we were one of the groups that supported the bond for high speed rail in 2008. Things have of course changed during that time, particularly in the housing market.

But they are supporting, excuse me, our support for the high speed rail continues. That said, I think I don't need to remind everyone that we're in a housing crisis and when we talk about raising more funds for anything, high speed rail or any other type of infrastructure, we get concerned.

If you're going to use homes, new homes for Californians who are seeking to rent or to buy because the data we receive daily from consumers is they can't afford what we have today. If we're going to proceed with this, we need to do it in a way that doesn't increase cost to produce housing.

Our opposition to this particular measure is very much informed by our experience with the Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation as they went through their VMT process. I will say politely that we gave them estimates for costs and politely they were ignored. Our estimates were $46,000 to $461,000. As it turns out, we were low.

They were $2 million. And I would say that not only have they been used in a way to deny projects, but especially projects that were promised to be benefited by this infill projects. And now the courts have reinforced that outcome. So having said all that, we have had some conversation with the author who we understand.

Begin to wrap up please.

Yeah. Who we understand comes from the development community and is not intending this outcome. But we need to come up with a solution that works for everyone. And for that reason we are opposed. But we wish to continue conversations with the author and even some of my friends who are the sponsors.

Thank you. Anyone else in opposition to SB 545? Okay, seeing none. We'll come back here to the dias. Any questions or comments? Anybody?

A little bit.

Senator Choi.

There we go.

Thank you, Chair. I know this high speed rail has been topic of the over 10 years since it was introduced, 2008. I know the initial cost estimate was 33 billion to now it's about four times more, 130 billion. And then also Federal Government has decided not to fund it anymore.

And enough study has been conducted before groundbreaking from Merced to Bakersfield. And now the progress report, this will add another cost. And then also how it will help actually, you know, putting the rails and train on the rail.

Now even this short distance is costing so much in the delay after what, how many, 17 years since it has been introduced. So from some original target from San Francisco to LA, when is going to be, you know, possibly developed. And it was interesting, the lead witness mentioned that there was some foreign interest for investment.

I was informed by the consultant originally there was approach from foreign government from France that they might be interested in working with California. But they found out too many regulations and they gave up and they left.

And so I would like to know more specifics about what the foreign interest, what dialogue is going on and how this report, what I heard report was that the current status without the study, it has been already, you know, some tracks, the ground has been laid, but no tracks, no trains anywhere.

So what, you know, this another study will benefit for expediting this process of putting the train on the rail. I'm curious if you can mention. You know, lead witness may have a. Yeah. Or you either one. Okay, go ahead.

Through the Chair and I'll turn it over to the lead witness.

Keep it focused on the Bill as well.

Yeah, you made a lot of certainly appropriate comments about the rail project itself. This study is with regard to the corridor around the rail project. And to figure out as this rail project continues to be built, it's under construction right now, what opportunities exist in terms of development, you know, throughout that 400 mile corridor.

I know you've traveled to Taiwan and you've seen the high speed rail there which the Taiwanese government, the Taiwanese government attributes the development of five Silicon Valley equivalents tied to the five destinations of the high speed rail triggered by the rail project itself.

That's what we're talking about here, economic development as something that's ancillary but extremely important to California that would be in the corridor of this project.

So I'm not here to tell you whether or not the past has been good or bad in terms of high speed rail investment, but what the future could hold in terms of economic development around it. I don't know if the witnesses have.

Through the Chair, thank you. First of all, I'd just like to say to my very good longtime friend from the Building Industry Association, you know, we support having good information so that the right economic decisions can be made. So we want good information. We want it to be processed correctly.

And I would argue that the reason that we want to have this Bill put forth is so that we can have that information. And we will work, and I will pledge to my good friend that we will work to make sure that that information is valid, accurate and used appropriately.

So let me first say that with regards to interest, you know, I can't speak to why the government of France may or may not have decided they want to put a pause on things, but I can tell you absolutely that as we sit here today, we have other interests from other countries.

Can you specify other country interests, which countries you are talking about, what kind of dialogues you are being made?

Well, I'm not going to get into specifics of conversations, but I can tell you that there are investors who have investments in European rail who are from Europe who are going to be in Sacramento this week. And those discussions are going forward. And I'm sure that the authority would be happy to get into more specifics of that.

But I'm aware of them because I've interacted with them in the past and visited some of their facilities. So I can tell you with certainty that they're interested and want to know more about how California works and what the opportunities are. Because California is still the fourth, as of recently, largest economy in the world.

And these other nations see and recognize that despite our troubles, despite our issues, they see that the new leadership at the authority is going to take those changes to heart, make adjustments, streamline the progress and program, and they're interested in looking at opportunities.

And bills like 545 are going to provide the information so that they can partner with the City of Fresno, potentially the City of Burbank and other places that the rail is eventually going to get to to look at opportunities. And I can tell you that those discussions are very real.

Yeah, Senator Cortese mentioned that Taiwanese high speed rail which I rode a couple of weeks ago, and Senator Cortese was supposed to come along with us, but he could not make it finally. But I know once that rail is laid, it is smooth and very operational and very well. Ride was very good. So there are some benefits.

But why in 17 years we have delayed, delayed and just let the cost keep on going up. And the current dialogue, that investment by foreign countries, is that like a stock market investment? What the return on investment? Is that what they are expecting or are they interested in taking it over, actually building more efficiently than we can?

And if you can give us some hope in that area because that is a very feasible direction we should take.

I think high speed rail offers lots of opportunities, and those are all questions that are way above my pay grade.

Okay, thank you, Senator Seyarto.

All right. I am not going to rail on rail. And we've had plenty of hearings. We do that. What I do want to talk about is the timing of a study now versus where we're at on timelines with potential rail. You know, just the one part of it is like 30, by 2033.

And I don't want to pay for studies that we're going to have to redo. But I also don't want to have an economic forecast study that turns into the reason we can do another bond and go down, you know, continue the cycle.

I want to see some train and real potential before we lay into and invest in a study, because once we really know that it's going to be there, then there's some of that talk. But I'd like us to see. I want to put everybody to work. I want everybody to work.

And we have so many projects in California where we can invest in infrastructure that will actually help an effort along whatever corridor is going to grow and build cities so that we can have housing and stuff. But right now we're so infrastructure poor that we cannot support the housing that we need.

And, you know, we need to start putting in those flood control channels. We need to start putting in the roadways where we need roadways and rail where we need rail. But we're kind of distracted from doing all that. And I want our workforce to go to work doing those things.

And in fact, I think we could probably hire so many people to do all those and get it done that we'd probably have to train more people to do it because there is a lot. I know in my district, we are certainly hurting for trying to accommodate growth.

And that's what, you know, at the end of the day, that's what this is all about and attracting those jobs. You know, there's a lot of whining about the national picture right now, but there's also some opportunity there. But California has to position itself to be able to take advantage of that.

And that means looking at our regulatory environment and looking at some of these other issues and saying, hey, we are a good place to come do business, and you set up your manufacturing or your chipmaker, whatever it is, in some of these regions and then we can start connecting them, whether by railroad or whatever it needs and providing housing and you know, it's that, that bigger piece of the puzzle that I think we need to be working on.

And perhaps this does have some merit, but I don't think 2027 is going to be helpful. In fact, it might. The study itself might be really premature in regards to what may happen between now and 2027 or 2033. So that's why it's hard for me to be on board with this. It's not because of the any.

You know, I agree, I want to put people to work, but it's. I think we have other ways to do that right now and allow the project to come to more fruition to gain the confidence in the public to be able to support more investment in other things related to it.

And so that's where I'm kind of at right now, especially with my district.

Madam Chair, just quickly.

You want to make this your closing?

Well, I can do it during the.

Can you save the, the answers on the questions?

I just wanted to say I appreciate the idea of where 2027 will land relative to what we need to know. In fact, we have discussed and we may end up amending the Bill, you know, to some extent to, to indicate what's first blush, high level analysis coming through.

So we have an idea if it's worth it to your point to through and spend more money chasing down particulars because it could very well be that we need early 2027 results and then essentially amendments and deeper dives in the study afterwards.

So we've discussed appreciate, actually appreciate hearing that interest from you because it kind of affirms what I was thinking myself. I appreciate it.

Senator Laird.

Just briefly, it's. There's been a lot of talk about infrastructure investment and I worked for a Governor who stood up on the transportation tax and it might have been a partisan divide, but he went to the voters and he won it.

And now goods are being moved, transportation is being boosted across the state and it's really that investment that makes the difference. And this is about investment.

When there are some local governments that lost the opportunity with redevelopment to do certain things, this gives the opportunity for them to do it next to stations in unusual places or around them and to plan for it and to demonstrate to people what the economic value is. And we didn't get where we were by constantly waiting.

We got where we were by investing. And I think this Bill is a piece of that and I would move the Bill.

Thank you. Any more questions or comments? Seeing none. Your closing remarks, Senator Cortese.

Thank you again to the Committee and to the Chair and the Committee staff for helping us and working very closely with my staff, particularly my office staff, my Chief of Staff on this. Appreciate the witnesses today and the support. You know, I know it's kind of traditional to try to address any opposition concerns in a close.

I know we don't have a lot of time. But I do want to say that in one letter I received from the opposition, I'll paraphrase, it was indicated that it's insulting to have folks who are not developers who haven't built residential talk to a study that has to do with residential infrastructure. I have invested.

I don't know if Mr. Cammarota has done that. I've given some thought to perhaps holding the press conference so we could both compare how many payroll checks we've signed each to contractors and construction employees over the years.

But I have developed in urban Santa Clara County, in San Jose, 67 acres, not square feet, acres that's covered with commercial and residential development right now. My family led the annexation efforts to get San Jose extended to its current boundaries. Led those efforts. All right. As private investors. Not as politicians, as private investors.

So I think it's insulting to come forward and say that an author doesn't know what it takes to build. I also think it's insulting to say that things like parcel taxes, property taxes and impact fees are in the Bill, which they're not. They are absolutely not.

We've had some inquiries as to whether or not fair inquiries, good inquiries, whether or not we are trying to dictate any changes in the code in terms of assessment districts as they are created now in statute. We are not. We've made all these things clear.

This is a study to determine whether or not the kind of success that turned the Valley of Hearts Delight in Santa Clara County into the richest county in the country and the top 25 Gross Domestic Product county in the country as compared in the nation, as compared to all countries, can be replicated along this corridor.

I believe it is because my generation led that effort in Santa Clara County.

My generation worked with Northern California Building Association Members, CBIA Members, to make sure that those opportunities existed, to make sure that little things like contributing your fair share to infrastructure, to streets, curbs, street lights and those kind of things, neighborhood parks and community benefits occurred.

So we would have fully developed communities at the end of the day, which I'm proud to say we do now in Santa Clara County. This is a greenfield development opportunity that the building industry hasn't seen in this state in decades. And I think it should be embraced.

I appreciate those folks who are here as witnesses and supporters embracing it. Madam Chair, I thank you for your own support and I look forward to getting this done. It's my first hearing with, .Transportation Committee hearing where the high speed rail authority presented.

I asked the question what have you done to evaluate the prospective billions of dollars worth of development along this corridor? And the answer was nothing. That was a year ago. We're moving as quickly as we can. Senator Seyarto, I know you are on that Committee to start answering those questions. That's what the bill's all about.

I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you, Senator. Thank you very much. The motion has been made by Senator Laird. Assistant, please call the roll.

The motion is do pass as amended to the Committee on Appropriations. [Roll Call]

Okay, we've. It's 32. And we will hold the Bill on call. Thank you all very much for. For coming today. We're going to go back. Thank you, Senator Blakes beer for your patience. We're going to go back to item number one, Senate Bill 92.

Madam. Madam Chair.

Oh, yes.

While the author is getting seated, I would move the five items on the consent agenda.

Thank you. Yes. Okay. Motion is made for the consent calendar by Senator Laird. Please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

The vote is 5-0. We'll hold the Bill on call. Senator Blakespear, thank you. Good morning. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Chair and hello, colleagues. I am here today on SB92 and I will be accepting the Committee amendments. I appreciate the work of Committee staff and the chair on this Bill. So SB92 closes a loophole in state density bonus law to ensure that density bonus projects contribute meaningfully to the state's affordable housing supply.

Specifically, SB92 requires that zoning incentives, concessions and waivers that allow for an increase in project floor area be used only for the residential component of density bonus projects. Last fall, a project in my district proposed in the Community of Pacific Beach exposed a glaring flaw in our density bonus law.

By adding just 10 affordable housing units to the project. The developer could use the density bonus law to exceed the community's 30 foot height limit and build a 22 story 240 foot tower with 139 luxury hotel rooms.

They were able to use the increase in floor area ratio that was allowed under density bonus law to build hotel and commercial space, not residential. This is not consistent with the spirit of density bonus law which is what's prompting this Bill.

The density bonus law was intended to encourage developers to build affordable housing as part of their project. It was not to, as in this case, give developers an easy way to supersede local restrictions to build a project that was large and commercial and had very little housing. That's the way it can be used.

Today, the Department of Housing and Community Development, or HCD, sent a letter to the City of San Diego in response to this project.

And one sentence from that said, 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 that's coming from HCD. In other words, this law should be incentivizing the building of more affordable housing.

We do not have a shortage of luxury hotel rooms in the State of California. We have a shortage of lower cost housing. SB92 ensures the density bonus law stays true to its original aim and is used to add meaningfully to projects. With me in support, I have a representative from the City of San Diego, Moira Topp. Chair. Is that all right? If she proceeds. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair and Members. I am Moira Topp here on behalf of the City of San Diego. I won't belabor the points that the Senator laid out very well about what the Bill is doing and what our intent is.

But I do want to say that the City of San Diego has been and is committed to addressing the housing crisis in its city. We have been a leader throughout the state implementing state statutes that you have passed, implementing our own local initiatives to really be a leader throughout the state and known as a pro housing city.

But the project that brought us here today, that was outlined by the Senator and is included in the Committee analysis, we just thought was a bridge too far. And so that's really what we hope this Bill does, is to close that loophole. We do know that there is opposition, there remains opposition to the Bill.

We've been having a lot of very good dialogue. In fact, we had, I think, a very productive conversation earlier this week on Monday where we're hopeful that we really can bridge the gap.

I think we're all trying to get to the same point, which is to build more residential homes for the full spectrum of need in our city and throughout California. So we're hopeful that we can find resolution.

We aren't there yet, but even with the amendments, we made an attempt here with the amendments that are before you, but we will continue to work on those. In the meantime, on behalf of the Mayor Todd Gloria and the City of San Diego, we ask for your aye vote.

You don't have another witness. Okay, great. All those who in support of SB92, please come forward. Give your name. zero, give your name. And organization. Okay.

Thank you. Madam Chair. Matt Broad here on behalf of Unite Here in support, wanted to thank the Committee on Getting us from opposing the Bill to a place where we could support it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair, Committee. My name is Rick Bates with the Unite Here International Union, representing more than 250,000 workers across the United States and Canada in support.

Thank you. Morning, Madam Chair and Senators Rosanna Carvacho. Elliott here on behalf of the City Of Alameda in support. Thank you.

Anyone else in support? Okay. Seeing none. Those who are in opposition, if you want to come up, I didn't mention earlier. zero, wherever you want is just to remind you you have two minutes each. Thank you.

Holly Fraumeni de Jesus with the Lighthouse Public affairs on behalf of SPUR and Abundant Housing Los Angeles. We still remain opposed unless amended, but. We're working with the sponsors. And thank you to the author. We're almost there. We had some great conversations this week. And we hope to be able to. Remove our opposition by the Next Committee. Thank you.

Corey Smith, on behalf of the Housing Action Coalition. Exactly what Holly said and also want o express our appreciation to Committee staff for helping getting us to a solution.

Thank you very much. Anyone else in opposition? Seeing none. Members, any questions or comments? Senator Seyarto? .

So I supported this before in housing. From a housing perspective, it makes a lot of sense, but also from a local government perspective, because that's what this is.

You know, we're kind of looking at losing control over a commercial production, which is a lot more intrusive sometimes into a community than affordable housing that they're required and supposed to be building anyway. And so that's why I kind of land on the, you know, I don't like locals losing control over anything. But especially when you.

We wind up with large, intrusive commercial projects as much as, I mean, if they want to have one, that's great. But not being able to control that as much concerned me when I heard about this situation. That's why I'm supporting it again.

Thank you. Yes. Senator Arreguin,

I want to thank the author for the work on this Bill. I did vote for this in Senate housing, but I did raise concerns around how this may impact the feasibility of housing construction in California since projects do often have a combination of commercial and residential.

But I think this addresses a very important issue, which is that our state housing laws, which are intended to streamline language regulations to produce housing, should prioritize producing housing and not hotels. So I really appreciate you bringing this forward and I will be voting for the Bill today.

Thank you very much. I also want to thank the author very much for the work that you've done the issue and to bring us back on track about what the goal here is should be affordable housing. But if you could clarify. I think I know the answer. But if you clarify that this isn't about prohibiting hotels from being built.

That's correct. If you could clarify that. Yes. So the previous version of the Bill that was heard in housing by some Members of this Committee, it would have required that density bonus projects be two thirds residential.

And to the point that Senator Arreguin made, sometimes it's possible that that would be overly restrictive because there might be reasons for a project that's mostly commercial that still adds a lot of housing, that that's a good thing, too. So we modified it here in your Committee. And so now what it does is that it me.

It says that the floor area that's added as part of density bonus law. So if there's a floor area ratio expansion, that that additional floor area has to go to residential only. So the additional floor area that would be coming from an incentive concession or waiver, that that has to go to the residential component.

It can't go to create floor area for hotels or for a big Costco or some other thing, whatever it would be. So, and to the point of hotels, there's no prohibition on hotels or otherwise disincentivizing it. It really is focusing the density bonus law, which is a housing law, onto housing floor area. So in, in many ways it's, it's much narrower now.

Thank you. All right. I think. Ready for your closing remarks with that?

I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you very much, Bill. Thank you. The Bill has been moved by Senator Arreguin. Assistant. Please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

The vote is 3-0. We remain on call. We'll move on now to.

Now with Senator McNerney. Are you ready? Okay. Yes. Does he need to go?

No.

Good. Thank you for coming. Thank you, sir.

Senator McNerney, you may start.

Thank you. Thank you. This morning, Chair Members, I'm here to present SB543, which is a bipartisan cleanup Bill that will clarify existing law. Really just clarifies existing law for accessory dwelling units and junior accessory dwelling units, which are ADUs and junior ADUs. ADUs now comprise the fastest growing sector of the California housing market.

About one in every four homes. New homes is an ADU. However, some of the laws governing ADUs and Junior ADUs contain confusing provisions. The Department of Housing and Community Development HCD has circulated interpretations of these provisions in an effort to help ensure that statutes are consistently applied across the state in different jurisdictions.

However, some local agencies have rejected the HCD's interpretation in favor of their own, resulting in conflicts of fees, permitting timelines, and other aspects of the home building process. According to HCD, over 50 local governments have incorrectly applied state law for ADUs and Jr. ADUs. SB 543 cleans up existing state law governing ADUs and Jr. ADUs,

to eliminate confusion and conflicts at the local level, including clarifying that local governments have 15 business days to conduct an initial review of the permitting application so home builders have time to fix errors in their applications. It also clarifies the size, safety and density standards for these units.

With these simple fixes, local governments across the state can follow a cleaner process for permitting ADUs and junior ADUs without falling into unnecessary conflicts or confusion. With us today, I have Jonathan Pacheco Bell. He's Vice President of Policy and Programs at Cosita Coalition. Thank you, sir.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Senators. My name is Jonathan Pacheco Bell. I serve as Vice President of Policy and Programs at Casita Coalition. We're a statewide nonprofit that removes barriers to building smaller, more affordable homes. My background is in local government as a municipal planner and code enforcement officer in Los Angeles County.

From over a decade of inspection experience, I know the challenges of navigating code compliance on the ground. I've seen both homeowners and municipal staff struggle to work with complex codes that lack clear intent. Casita Coalition is sponsoring SB 543 to add much needed clarity and consistency in the law.

Statewide, local agencies are encouraging more ADUs and JADUs to Meet Urgent Housing Needs. But California is a big state, and some jurisdictions inconsistently interpret ADU permitting requirements, resulting in uneven approvals and confusion that falls hardest on small builders, homeowners of modest means, and tenants in need of affordable housing.

SB543 will clarify frequently confused points so the intent of state law is clear. And specifically, SB543 will make application review timelines, potential fee impositions and size and safety standards for ADUs and JADUs easier for every local jurisdiction to understand and to implement.

This is a simple cleanup Bill that provides clarity and consistency to help community Members, local government planning staff, and small builders use state laws as intended. And for these reasons, Casita Coalition urges you to vote yes on SB543. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Anyone else in support of SB543, please come forward saying none. Anyone in opposition to SB543 saying none. I'll come to the dais. Any questions or comments? The Bill has been moved. zero, I'm sorry, Senator Choi.

Yeah, thank you. I know ADUs are very popular. In fact, I have added also ADU at my house. It was a little bit confusing. First of all, if you can tell me what the ADU and the junior ADU differences are, just for my curiosity.

Well, yeah, go ahead.

Yes.

A junior ADU is something you add on to your house, like converting a garage or a basement into a dwelling unit. But it has. This Bill doesn't change. It ensures that the requirements, the permitting requirements are the same. It's just a different designation. If you want to.

Junior ADU is more complete with garages.

Right, right. If you want to convert your garage or basement

or more independent

right an ADU would be an independent structure.

And your Bill says that it clarifies a lot of technical language in there. I don't know what you exactly are cleaning up. I don't know whether this Bill has anything to do with my situation. I ran into. I had the difficulty in getting the final approval because in two areas.

Number one was that it required a separate address for that ADU, even though mine was attached to my main home, not separate, with no garage added, simply about 700 square foot added, extended, and they still required me to have a separate address. You know, I didn't want that because I was, you know, intending to make it bigger.

We happened to have more space in the backyard. And the second challenge I faced was that also the... was the fire Department required me, I don't know which Department that was, required me to have a separate mailbox with a separate address.

And then also the difficulty was that my mailbox was not separate from my house as a traditional way. It was a community in large metal post boxes numbered. I was given one of them and there was no extra space in there.

Otherwise I had to bear the entire cost of entire mailboxes and by replace with a larger one, which would have been somehow I got the exemptions and I didn't have to do that. I don't know whether you know about this kind of a situation, whether that's a state requirement or local requirement.

So ADU concept is good, but actually when consumers try to implement that, this kind of challenges I faced. Just wanted to share through the chair.

I'll defer to the expert.

Yeah, if you have a

yes, ma'am. Thank you, Senator. The issue of the separate address and the separate mailbox sounds like a very uniquely local issue from that particular jurisdiction. I'm not aware of that being required statewide. It's not built into ADU law.

It sounds like it's something that the local wanted for their particular reasons, and it sounds like they also gave you an exemption. So that's not part of a mandate across the board to have those things. And it sounds like you got it resolved.

The previous question, the difference between an ADU and a JADU, I think the fundamental difference is that the JADU, the junior accessory dwelling unit, as the Senator said, is going to be enclosed within the main building.

And if the garage is within the main building, the accessory dwelling unit, the ADU can be attached, but it can also be detached as a separate house. So they are sometimes similar, if not the same. But the ADU is. The main difference is that it can and will be detached as an option.

detached housing. Are there different regulations?

Whereas the JADU is not.

Well, the construction is going to need to be done in the same way by the same code. And there are some provisions that define a JADU versus an ADU. So an interior connection, for example, for a JADU, that's one of the key differences. But for all intents and purposes, they are the same.

They're an additional dwelling unit on site.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much. If there are no further questions or comments, we have a motion by Senator Arreguin on SB543. Oh, I'm sorry. Closing.

I just want to say we want to do everything we can to increase the housing supply in the state. This will help that along a little bit. And I ask for an aye vote.

Thank you very much.

The motion is do pass to the Committee on Appropriations. [roll call]

The vote is 4-0 and we place it on call. Thank you. Senator McNerney, do you want to proceed? Senator Arreguin, you will be Presenting Senator Becker, SB 358, item two. SB358. Okay. Senator Arreguin, thank you.

Madam Chair and fellow Committee Members, I'm here to present SB 358 on behalf of Senator Becker and he is accepting the Committee amendments. With the Committee amendments, SB 358 modernizes the state Mitigation Fee act to ensure that traffic impact fees reflect actual automobile trip generation.

This encourages the development of housing that reduces car dependence and promotes more walkable transit oriented communities. The bill requires that any deviation from lower traffic impact fees be supported by substantial evidence promoting transparency and accountability in local decision making.

The bill also removes the vague convenience retail requirement and replaces it with a clear, measurable standard proximity to three or more key destinations, for example, a grocery store, pharmacy or restaurant. SB 358 complements state goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by promoting housing where residents are more likely to walk, bike or use public transit.

It supports a shift towards more sustainable urban development patterns, helping California meet its climate mandates. While local agencies will retain the ability to assess impact fees rightfully, so SB 358 ensures that those fees are tied to measurable impacts, not outdated assumptions.

And with me to testify in support of the bill is Michael Lane from the San Francisco Planning Urban Research Association.

Go ahead.

Madam Chair Members, Michael Lane with SPUR of Public Policy think tank in the San Francisco Bay Area. Existing law says that location efficient housing developments near transit and amenities shall receive a reduced traffic impact fee that reflects the lower rate of automobile generation associated with with such housing developments.

However, there is no other guidance for implementation regarding this provision in the statute and therefore it is often ignored.

We are grateful for being able to work with the Committee and the amendments will provide greater clarity for both local governments and developers with regard to one, specification of the qualifying amenities near the housing development that ensure walkability and two, the findings a local agency must make in order to deny charging lower fee to these developments.

And we respectfully request an aye vote.

Thank you. I'm just here to answer any technical questions. Okay. Okay. Wonderful. Members, any questions or comments? Oh, I'm sorry. Anyone who is in support, please come forward.

Holly, fraumeni with his use of the lighthouse Public affairs and support today on behalf of Abundant Housing, Los Angeles, Habitat for Humanity, California and Circulate San Diego. All in support. Thank you.

Good morning. Brooke Pritchard, on behalf of California yimby in support. Thank you.

Good morning. Allie Saperman. I'm a San Jose housing Commissioner and here on behalf of the Housing Action Coalition. In support.

Anyone else in support? Seeing none. Anyone in opposition to SB 358, please come forward.

Yes.

Yeah. Good morning. Chair Members, Brady Gurdon, on behalf of the League of California Cities, apologies, we weren't able to get a letter in on time and we've acknowledged we have let the office office know we are concerned about the bill. So we do have an opposed position.

But we'll look forward to the new amendments coming out of the Committee because we haven't seen them yet. So look forward to those conversations and look forward to the continued conversation with the sponsors of the bill. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else in opposition?

Ethan Nagler, on behalf of the cities of Carlsbad, Merced and Rancho Cucamonga, respectfully opposed.

Thank you.

Chair Members Max Perry, on behalf of the City of Camarillo, echo the comments from the League of Cities. Looking forward to reviewing the amendments in further detail, working with the author's office on those amends moving forward. Thank you. Opposition.

Thank you. Any questions or comments, Members? Yes, Senator Seyarto, thank you very much.

So while this bill works in urban areas that are already got their streets and roads and everything and do actually have areas where you have transit oriented development out in the regions that I develop, I represent communities that are master plan newer than 40 years old, most of them.

This doesn't work because we're taking money away from the ability to keep up with infrastructure based on a transit corridor that really isn't the type of transit corridor, but it meets the definition that they were talking about.

But we still have a bunch of commuters so they, you know, we have to be able, our communities have to be able to react to this.

So this is another one of these kind of one size fits the whole state and it doesn't these need to be really more prescriptive to the areas where they're going to benefit it benefit from them.

But areas like a lot of the cities that are newer and right now they're trying to accept more growth, but they are really struggling from a traffic perspective and especially since traffic has been taken out of the EIR as a, out of CEQA.

So you know, they're 50% less mitigation fee collection, which is one of the only pots they can get money from anymore to do these.

So anyway, I'll be opposing the bill based on what my community's needs are and would ask that future efforts at this and I know you're not the author, but future efforts towards this are take into consideration the differences between very urban areas that are attempting to do one thing and accept a lot of high density growth and accommodate that and other areas where we're trying to accommodate the demands of people across the spectrum.

Spectrum of housing. So it goes back to the local control thing. This is a local government thing, and that's why I'm opposing it.

Did you want to know if I.

May, I certainly understand your. We've had many conversations about this issue around the need to make sure that as we're setting housing policy for the state, that we're thinking about the fact that we have many different types of counties and cities in California.

I will say, and my witnesses can clarify this, that I think the language does focus on those types of developments that one, are in high transit areas and have reduced parking requirements.

And there still is an exception under subdivision B for a local government to impose these impact fees if they feel that the project would still have an impact. They just have to make specific findings based on substantial evidence. But I don't know if my witnesses can clarify that.

Yes, that's correct. So if the local jurisdiction wanted to provide evidence like a traffic study or something along those lines, they could take. Technically still charge the fee.

And I would just add, we actually, it's clear in the definition transit priority area, which has a very specific geography that's identified based on the robust level of service. And we're investing billions of dollars in our transit system.

So we want to make sure we're able to drive that ridership with these types of developments that are more walkable and access to transit.

Right. And I understand that the problem is the Transit Oriented Development, all of the Transit Oriented Development breaks, or whatever you want to call them, incentives are being taken advantage of out there. We have areas that kind of qualify barely as a transit corridor. So they're building them.

But if we're not and doing the traffic studies, those are. You do a traffic study for that to try to prove that. And there's somebody out there who's going to make money off that traffic study because they're going to challenge it.

And then that delays the project and then that delays the collection and the building of the roads. So that's why I'm saying for new communities, communities still putting in their infrastructure doesn't work. And whether you think the transit corridor that they have qualifies, and I can use Jefferson Boulevard as one of those.

It's already being qualified by the development and the lack of local control to control that development. Those developments are going in and we need to be able to. Our cities need to be able to collect the money. They need to offset the cost for the roads and things that need to accommodate those developments.

So I understand exactly what you're saying, but you got to come out to my my cities and check it out. Okay. Thanks.

Senator Choi.

Thank you. I also cannot support this bill in that this bill is requiring mandating local government to cut the traffic impact study at least by 50% any transit oriented Development through many, many years. We try to promote high density and high density means a lot more people.

And even though hopefully that the people living in that transit area will use the public transportation rather than owning their cars. But regardless, it's not going to be zero minimum. I would estimate that the 50% of the residents in that high density housing in the transit area will own the vehicles.

So it's going to be negatively impacting that area. So we do need to study and by asking local government to cut the fee. So this means the local government will have a lesser revenue. And Senator Ergan, you were the mayor of Oakland City and you, you so you own city's revenue will be reduced by this law.

So and unless a state reimburses the local government for that differences and which I don't think this bill says so. So for that reason, I don't think I can support that bill.

Madam Chair, can I respond?

Sure, unless you want to.

First of all, I was the mayor of Berkeley remarks. Although I represent Oakland, Richmond and 14 other cities and Senate District 7. And secondly, the existing statute under 6605.5.1 says that if a housing development satisfies all the characteristics, it shall be set at a rate that is at least 50% less than the rate for housing development.

The revised bill, the amendments that the author is taking strikes.

That 50% reduction that's being taken out of the statute under the amended version of the bill, first and foremost, the revised language would say shall be set at a rate that reflects a lower rate of automobile trip generation associated with housing developments in comparison with housing developments without all the characteristics. So it doesn't say 50%.

It's just going to be set at a low rate, recognizing that if you have these characteristics and being in a, in a transit priority zone or on a high frequency transit corridor, you have these other amenities, you have reduced parking requirements that, that should be set at a much lower rate and it's actually establishing more definition and prescriptive standards that local governments will use to determine the rate of a reduction of a fee reduction.

So, and moreover, as I stated in response to Senator Sierra's question, and I'm not the author, I'm just reading the statute, the local government can still impose a full fee if they make findings based on substantial evidence.

So I would argue, I think this provides more clarity and does provide local governments the flexibility in cases where they believe that there still will be a traffic impact to impose that fee if they have substantial evidence and make those findings on the record.

Thank you. Thank you, Senator Cabaldo.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Senator, for jockeying this one. I had concerns about the original bill, just as that were noted in the Committee analysis, and I appreciate the amendments that are being taken today, and that's because the 50% was very problematic.

I think we've had this conversation as well, that given the State of jurisprudence on mitigation fees, impact fees and other exactions, that it's really important that in our zeal to try to get fees down that, that we don't break the linkage between that the courts have mandated that we.

And So a blanket 50%, I worry, would undermine the entire notion of some of these fees and therefore the ability of local governments to be able to finance their project. So I'm very appreciative of both the author and the Committee for their work on this.

I did want to point out that in one of the amendments, which I really like the. The concept that, as you said, laying out some of the specific standards. So here it's the developments within a half mile of three or more of the following.

A restaurant, a coffee shop, a supermarket, a grocery store, a hardware store, a park, a pharmacy, a drugstore or a bar. I love this coming from City hall, paying attention to that. Housing and transportation and mobility are very much dependent on the other uses that exist.

I wish the author luck in trying to keep, you know, make this provision work over time, because I see like a bill at 10 bills a year adding one more thing. There's no movie theater on here. Really, one of the most important ones that you can't really put on here is where does grandma live?

I mean, these are the kinds of things that really determine mobility patterns at the local scale. But the only thing I would request that you convey to the author is that one area that is not on here that needs to be on this list.

And there's a lot of other things to be considered, but childcare must be on this list. So I love a bar and a pharmacy as much as the next Senator, but childcare, childcare should be at the top of this list.

And so I would encourage you to, if this bill moves forward with these amendments, keep the intent here, but by adding one of the most significant drivers of both mobility and locational choice and other things that we care about, and making sure that that child care is at the top of that list. So appreciate it. Thanks.

Madam Chair.

Thank you. Would you like to make closing?

I vote.

Okay. Okay. The bill has been moved by Senator Cabaldon. Take the vote.

The motion is do pass as amended to the Committee on Appropriations. [Roll Call]

The vote is 3-2, and we remain on. What a gentleman you are. Chivalry lives in the halls of Sacramento. We're moving ahead here to item 11. Senator Gonzalez, SB 827. Good morning.

Morning. And good morning, Madam Chair and Members. I'd like to begin by accepting the Committee's recommended amendments that will clarify the bill's intent, and I want to thank them for their work there. SB827 will require local officials to complete fiscal and financial training and update existing ethics training requirements.

In recent audit recommendations, the California State Auditor has repeatedly recommended that local government officials receive receive training on their fiscal and financial management duties. In California, local officials are entrusted with taxpayer dollars and have authority over budgeting, procurement, management and investments and pensions.

Yet there are no requirements that these officials receive training on best practices or how to manage these substantial financial responsibilities.

As a former Long Beach City Council Member myself, I understand how important it was and how this work involved quite a bit with finances was so pertinent to running a local government, and I ask that we certainly do so with this bill.

SB 827 specifically will encourage responsible governing and help prevent fiscal mismanagement by requiring training on financial and fiscal practices for local officials and require that ethics training be taken by senior staff level officials. Here to speak about. I'm sorry, excuse me. SB 827, we have Chris Applegate from the California State Auditor's Office.

Reminder, you have two minutes. Absolutely. Thank you. Welcome.

Madam Chair, thank you very much. Thank you. Chair and Members, Chris Applegate with the California State Auditor's Office. As the Senator mentioned, we made a recommendation related to provisions of this bill. We don't typically take positions on bills, but I can provide a little bit of background on our recommendation and our report.

So, as background, in 2022, as part of our local high risk program, we issued a report related to the City of Compton as a result of some of the things that we saw there in terms of deficiencies with City Council oversight, as well as similar issues that we saw in other cities that we had conducted audits and in the past.

We recommended to the Legislature that they consider imposing a requirement that recurring training occur for City Council Members related to fiscal management, budgeting, and the council's oversight of city operations. We believe that statewide this would improve city governance.

Again, this Bill does go beyond some of the recommendations that we made by requiring this training for some additional individuals. But in terms of the requirement that City Council Members have recurring training in this, in these areas, this would implement our recommendation. Happy to answer any questions about our report recommendation.

Great. Thank you. Anyone else in support, please come forward.

Good morning, Chair Committee Members Brian Miramontes with American Federation of State County Municipal Employees and support.

Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Anyone in opposition to SB 827? No. Okay. No one else? No one in opposition. I bring questions or comments from our Members. Yes. Senator Cuiardo.

Thank you, does this apply to state politics, political figures?

No, it does not.

It really needs to. I sit in budgeting. I can tell you we need it. If it's not going to apply to the state employees, I don't understand why we're just doing local employees.

As far as the ethics training is, do you have any statistics on this ethics training that it has made one shred of difference in what happens out there in these communities over the last, gosh, 20 years that it's been offered? Because, you know, my perspective is crooked people are going to be crooked.

Just because you teach them ethics training doesn't mean they're not going to be the people that are straight up. They get it. They don't need to be told every single year for. Because these training sessions cost a lot and they take a lot of coordinating.

And the more complicated we make them, the more days that it takes them to get through all of the training that they need to. And that costs money and it costs time and it causes delays in the jobs that they're doing, like permitting and things like that.

And so I hesitate very much to put more training that I don't know that it is, you know, other than saying, hey, we're providing training that it's really making an impact, because it's really not. I would say that people should.

If they don't understand the job that they got the citizens to vote them to do, then they need to go take some classes at the community college and learn it. And learn it, because you're not going to teach them financial management for government in an hour or Two hours.

So I understand and I would love to work with you on that. Absolutely. Senator Seyarto, I know that you're, you're very mindful when it comes to this, and I, I would just say, you know, I represent a southeast Los Angeles corridor that has unfortunately dealt with a lot of corruption.

Right now, as it stands, some of the city managers and city attorneys who are overseeing finances, who are overseeing ethics, are not taking this training, which we want to provide sunlight on these issues. We had just recently, the City of Huntington Park that mismanaged hundreds of.

Well, we'll see but like $20 million, let's just say that we know of in terms of not moving forward with a pull project. And so we need to provide additional sunlight. I think this bill will provide an avenue for that. But I agree with you. I think there needs to be even more that we can do to ensure. That the training is-

Voters are the ones who need to look at credentials and decide whether.

I agree.

But trying to send them to school or trying to teach them something that you need a whole semester class in just to start to understand it and then get experience in. That's not going to happen in our ethics training. All that is going to do is create more cost and time constraints for some.

Yeah, well, I want to make sure that some of these city managers, you know, they're overseeing $3 billion in a budget or $94 million in a budget, that they have the tools. So this is a good.

City managers usually come with master's degrees in public Administration. And if they don't know, it's not because they don't know if they're doing things like that. It's because they have issues with character and this isn't going to fix that. So, anyway, so we're. Yeah, we're. We're good. We're good on that.

Any other questions or comments, Senator Arreguin?

Well, I want to thank the majority leader for bringing this bill forward, which is really about ensuring that local government officials and staff who have managerial experience over local agency finances one have ethics training.

And I think it makes some important changes to the ethics training law to require that be done no later than six months from the first day of service that there be published records on a website indicating who is and who has not completed ethics training. So the scarlet letter of who has not completed ethics training.

I think it's important to hold people accountable so that any Member of the public can go and see whether their elected representative is in compliance or not. And this training is really important as you Noted.

I mean, there have been many high profile instances throughout the state where mayors and council Members and supervisors and staff have mismanaged funds or engaged in ways that are complete violation of the law. And this training is absolutely essential.

Moreover, having training around fiscal Administration and budgets, municipal finance, I think is important as well, because that's one of the most important functions that we have as local government officials. And you'll be surprised how many local government officials don't have a basic understanding of some of those essential aspects of their job.

So I think this is good for transparency, good for the state of California, and I'd like to move the bill at the appropriate time.

Thank you. I want to thank the author for bringing this forward.

While I agree with Senator Seyarto that it would take many more hours to do the kind of training that we should all have, but I think it raises the issue so that in those areas they might take it more serious and add or do whatever, or the individual person probably realizes, hopefully realizes they don't know enough and maybe they will go take a class.

So I think it's just raising the issue that is the most important and some the beginning of what kind of training that they should have with that. If you want to make any closing remarks.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I think the remarks here I just will say on the record, I've been meeting with folks, elected officials from the cities of Cudahay, Bell, as well as Southgate, who are very committed to this work. And I think that this is one start in the right direction for them.

I want to thank the city auditors team for being here as well. And I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you very much. Motion has been made by Senator Arreguin. Please call the vote.

The motion is do pass as amended to the Committee on Appropriations. Senators Durazo. Aye. Durazo, aye. Choi? Senator Choi?

Yeah. Which one?

SB 827.

Yeah. No. No.

Choi, no. Arreguin. Arregion aye. Cabaldon. Cabaldon, aye. Laird? Seyarto. Seyarto, no. Wiener, aye. Wiener, aye. 4:2 on call.

Vote was. The vote was 4:2. We'll put it on call. And we move now to.

Item 10, SB 815. Senator Allen, welcome. Good morning. Thank you for being so patient.

Oh, my pleasure.

It was always interesting bills coming before here this committee. Let me just thank the committee first for the engagement with us on the bill. You know, we of course, as everybody here knows, experienced terrible wildfires that now characterized as one of the most costly natural disasters in US history when adjacent, even when adjusted for inflation.

And in my district, nearly 770 rent stabilized units in the Pacific Palisades were burned down along with whole ci- whole neighborhoods. So tons of impacts. Now, the updated state hazard maps for local responsibility areas released this year identify 168% more land as higher very high fire severity zones.

I know that the chair has actually been working on legislation on this issue that's been affecting building codes, real estate disclosures, housing markets for nearly 4 million Californians. Of course, the majority of these homes were built before the adoption of the Wildfire Resilient Building Standards, the new OPR, I guess the LCI, right.

The Land Use and Climate Innovation Office at the Governor's office released their Fire Hazard Planning Technical Advisory in 2022, recommending that local agencies devote particular attention to addressing vulnerabilities of existing development located in the wildland urban interface.

The report emphasizes how policies governing land use and future growth provide opportunities to integrate resilience into long range plans and avoid or minimize risks in areas with elevated hazard severity that pose an- an unreasonable risk.

And so it's my- our strong feeling that the state needs to invest in more coordinated planning and mitigation efforts to protect communities from all these disasters that we're starting to see more and more of.

So this bill requires local governments, upon the next scheduled revision of plans, to develop a comprehensive retrofit strategy for residential developments and infrastructure to improve safety and reduce risk of property loss within the safety element. This includes identifying potential financing strategies to pay for needed retrofits on both public and private property.

It also calls on local governments to integrate the goals, objectives and policies from existing and local local and state wildfire plans, hazard mitigation plans and climate adaptation plans into the land use element, which currently have limited coordination between each other.

As we've seen, this would include feasible implementation measures designed to carry out the goals, objectives and policies and so as to help the local governments with this work. The bill also requires LCI to establish a clearinghouse of local ordinances and policies and best practices related to land use planning in very high fire risk areas.

So here with me today to testify in support, we have Amber King, who's Vice President of Legislative affairs with Leading Edge Cal- Leading Edge California and also Matt Baker, Policy Director for the Planning and Conservation League.

Thank you very much. And you have two minutes each. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Madam Chair and Members, Amber King with Leading Age California representing nonprofit providers of care, services and housing for older adults, including 400 senior affordable housing providers throughout the state. Unfortunately, wildfires are a growing threat to California's communities with particularly devastating impacts on vulnerable populations, including older adults.

As we saw with the fires in LA, most of the individuals that lost their lives were older or disabled adults. SB 8- 815 takes a smart systems wide approach to ensuring that local governments integrate retrofitting, coordinated planning and data sharing into their hazard mitigation plans.

This bill will help to reduce risk, improve evacuation planning and protect both people and property, especially those areas that are prone to wildfire. Most importantly, the bill requires the consideration of financial strategies to make retrofitting feasible for both public and private properties.

This is essential for senior affordable housing providers and the low income older adults that they serve who often lack the resources to make these necessary and critical upgrades. Leading Edge California has been committed to strengthening the emergency planning for older adults. We believe that this bill furthers that progress and we would urge your aye vote today.

Thank you.

Oh, sorry. Sorry. Sorry man.

Good morning Chair and committee members, Matthew Baker with Planning Conservation League. We thank the author for for bringing forward this important bill.

I can only imagine what he's seen and been through in his community in these recent months, but I know that the author cared greatly, deeply about this- this topic even before these most recent fires, as the LA fires are of course only the last in a long and growing line of- of tragic fires in California in recent years.

But of all the bills, the executive orders and the bills that have been proposed in the recent months to focus on rebuilding and addressing the immediate needs of the communities affected. You know, this- this bill is the one outlier that I'm aware of that asks the long term questions, that ask the planning questions.

How, looking ahead, do we plan better in our communities? How do we make sure that we're not building in ways that puts people in harm's way? How do we make sure that our existing communities are retrofitted to be safer?

And how do we make sure that existing and new communities have the infrastructure in place to be able to get out safely in time when the disaster comes? These are very complex problems and questions that we as a state have really not adequately grappled with yet.

And I think that this bill is the vehicle to have those conversations. And there are many, certainly many conversations that are going to be had with many stakeholders before this bill gets to the finish line. But PCL is very committed to have those conversations with the author and the stakeholders, very eager to have them.

And we strongly urge an aye vote.

Anyone else in support of SB 815, please come to the microphone.

Good morning. Christina Scaringe with the Center for Biological Diversity, in support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Kim Delfino for the California Native Plant Society in support.

Thank you.

Anyone else in support? Seeing none. Anyone in opposition to SB 815? Good morning.

Good morning. Thank you. Madam Chair.

Members, Lauren De Valencia representing the American Planning Association, not in opposition to the bill. We do have concerns though, and we really want to engage in these conversations and appreciate the conversations we had thus far. Our members are the folks that are going to be implementing and updating the general plan.

You know, if the bill were to pass as is. And right now it's really asking for a lot of work to be done specifically within the general plan. And that takes a lot of time and money to do.

So we are really seeing our planners struggle with capacity and resources to keep up with all the mandates that have passed in the last few years, particularly in the General plan. So we're really looking for solutions that we think we can work together on. Perhaps.

I know the bill speaks to having Lucy or excuse me, LCI do some initial work that our planners can pull from to have those resources to figure out how to do this at the local level. We think that is a great first start. We'd like to see more of that.

I think working with the state at the state level and then working down and figuring out how we can address this at the local level is critical. I just last thing I want to know is the City of LA. It's noted in your analysis, City of LA right now is looking to potentially lay off 114 planners.

And that is a- a city where we consider to be a more resourced city. Right. They have more planning staff. We're really concerned that if the City of LA is being impacted in this way, we know our smaller cities and counties are being impacted as well.

Some cities and counties only have one planner to do all of this work. And so we really just want to work together with Senator Allen. We appreciate your efforts. This is absolutely something we need to talk about, but we need to find the right way to do it. So we'll continue to be engaged. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Tracy Rhine with the Rural Counties Association. I'd like to align my comments with the previous speaker. We do have concerns. We have been working with Senator Allen's staff for months and we appreciate that collaboration. We are not at all opposed to, I think what the proponents and the author want to get to.

We need to have safe development and existing developments be safe that live in high fire prone areas. And we continue to hope to work together to get to a solution. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Seeing no further people in opposition. Do we have any comments or questions from our members here? Committee? Senator Cabaldon?

Yeah, thank you Madam Chair. I'm very supportive of the bill. I think the- the- the- the non opposition but the folks raising concerns have excellent points. It's, I mean it's very common for us here. You know the in- in housing committee we're like hey, you needed your housing element should build the max amount of housing possible.

And then another committee takes up the safety elements. Hey, your safety element should stop building in places that it shouldn't be. And then, then another committee is like hey local govs, you got to do this.

And as the author said, these are complicated issues with lots of trade offs and I know we can't expect the town of Sonoma with its 5,000 people to figure all this stuff out on issues that- that we struggle to balance.

And so I think the, you know, the concerns that have been raised in particular about the just the dollars, and most terms- one of the reasons general plan updates don't happen as much as they should or as comprehensively or as thoughtfully as they should is that there's no funding source for them.

Unless- Unless you happen to have a multibillion dollar housing project coming to Solano County, you know. There's nobody to pay for a general plan update. But we vest all of our hopes and dreams in it. So I think those are all legit.

But I've also heard the author and the- and the sponsors deeply commit to- to resolving this and I know you understand and are supportive of resolving those trade offs as well.

So I look forward to this being, this bill being a, you know, thoughtful way to grapple with that while attacking what is an incredibly important issue and appreciate that we are deferring to local governments in this way.

We just need to make sure they have the capacity to get it right and also not to have them develop- develop a safety element that describes all the things that need to be done that they can't pay for as well.

So I think this is definitely on the right track support- support moving forward with it needs to get across the finish line. And I- I- I hear and appreciate the commitment to work with- with the planners and the other thoughtful folks to make it happen. Thanks.

Yeah. I mean, it is part of why we- we create this clearinghouse at LCI to provide basically assistance, best practices and ordinances. And just because I'm very sensitive to this issue, you know, we're- we're also having discussions about, you know, adjusting timing of plans, you know, other changes that might reduce the burden.

There's also a big chunk of climate bond funds that are specifically devoted to- to, you know, wildfire planning and mitigation and- and response that could help to pay for some of the additional workloads.

So there's some options there, but all the points are well taken and the last thing we want to do is make this impossible for- impossible for local government. So, you know, we- as- as I think was even discussed in the staff briefing, this may end up being a two year bill process.

We're still trying to figure that out, but it's partly to make sure we really land this in a way that will be workable for the folks that we're tasking with doing this work. So. Yeah, thank you though. Appreciate- Appreciate your recognition of what we're trying to do and also the challenges.

Okay, I had to go to make a presentation of.

Thank you. So this may be one of the components of a comprehensive plan that we need to engage in to address what now everybody, I think understands.

We've been screaming about this for years, but I think now everybody really understands the gravity of what is going on out there and some of the constraints that agencies, fire agencies that are charged with doing some of these things already have in trying to mitigate and prepare and get people on board.

You know, I think you'll remember at the beginning of the year, two weeks didn't go by and we had like 30 bills that were going to fix the wildfire problem. And I had mentioned at the time that not one person had even picked up the phone to call me to- to get maybe some input.

Because as sensitive as you might be to this area, I'm equally as sensitive. I covered this area and we knew this was going to happen eventually and nobody did anything about it.

And so, you know, now we're- we're faced with 30 different bills that may conflict with each other and- and- and this kind of mishmash of all these different attempts and- and everybody has different interests. You know, conservation has interests, we have fire agencies have interests, cities have interests.

But the biggest interest of all is the people that are affected by all this. And so somehow we need to get responsible about our approach to it and have a comprehensive plan in California that covers the prevention part, that covers the response part and then recovers and then talks- covers the recovery part. And we're not getting there.

I can see it. We're not getting there. What we are getting is a bunch of things coming from different directions that conflict with each other and don't solve the main problems of why we can't do, why we can't protect our communities.

So I'm hesitant to pile on more things without having a- a better, more not- not bill form, but a better way of- of trying to get a comprehensive plan together for California because we're going to wind up undoing things along the way.

We need- We need the input from OES, we need the input from the county fire, we need the input from LA City Fire. We need input from all these different agencies and communities, the local agencies, in order to do this the right way.

I'm not saying that this is the wrong way, but there are components of this that might not be productive or helpful or might be redundant to what's happening already. There are other reasons that these things aren't getting done. And- And yes, rebuilding how we rebuild is going to be a big deal.

Palisades will not have to worry about that for many, many years because everything's burned up over there and they don't have any brush concerns for a while. But other communities do. We do have response and the Altadena is the same. They have burned up a lot of theirs.

But, you know, so there's some time there to try and figure out how we're going to approach the bigger picture of fire mitigation in California.

So I would like to see this in a package of other things so that they don't conflict and that they are helpful and that local agencies have the flexibility they need to be able to do things that work for their agencies, work for their communities, for the very. The projects they have. We had a Bill similar.

It was a little bit kind of down this road a couple years ago that, you know, hey, what works up in Northern California's fire environment is much different than LA and much different from Riverside. And- And so those communities have to be able to address their issue and have the resources to address those issues.

And that's what the state's job is, to give them the resources so that they can address those issues and we get the hurdles out of the way for them to do it. So like I said, I'm really hesitant on supporting more and more of these wildfire measures because I don't think they're doing us any justice.

It makes us think we're doing something when we really are not accomplishing a lot.

Senator, if I may, it seems to me that everything you described is, I mean, is what we're seeking to do with this bill. I mean, I don't think I disagree with the single thing you mentioned.

In fact, if anything, this is about trying to create a more coordinated, you know, clearinghouse of best practices, engaging with the fire community aggressively in a way that will actually be helpful to the planners. And the only thing I would push back on, actually, is this idea that the- the- the folks in Altadena and Palisades have time.

If anything, they're actually now going through a really rather intense conversation about their rebuild and they'll be, you know, there's already permits going out. And so we need to engage, you know, th- th- the best information, most up to date information on retrofit strategies. And that's what's at the heart of the bill here. So, I mean, I- I welcome.

I don't think there's any philosophical disagreement between us on this and certainly welcome your input if there are ways that you think we can strengthen this, make it more useful and helpful.

But at the end of the day, it's about assisting and working with our planners at the local level to make sure that we're being smart about the way that we- the way that we plan, knowing everything we now know.

Thank- Thank you. Senator Arreguin.

Thank you. I want to thank the author for bringing this bill forward. Obviously, the most recent fire events that happened in Southern California, I think, raised a very important issue, which is should we be building homes in places that we know they're going to burn?

And it seems like we have this conversation after every major fire event that happens in California. But we haven't- we haven't solved the problem. We haven't aligned our land use policies with strategies to mitigate fire risk and to make sure that people are living in areas that are safe.

And this issue came up in the Bay Area in the context of developing our regional housing needs allocation.

I was the President of our council of governments in the Bay Area and communities such as Napa and Sonoma, where there were there were major fire events that happened, they had to absorb significant numbers of housing units in places where it may not make sense for those homes to be built.

So I think the goal of this is really to ensure going forward that we align our housing elements, our safety elements, our land use strategies, with best practices and approaches that are focused on how we mitigate risk and keep our communities safe. That's a good thing.

I think that the issue around providing resources to planners and local governments, that's definitely something we need to have in the context of the budget, I think you rightfully acknowledged there's Prop 4 money that you know potentially could be used. There'll be other budget resources as we're developing the state budget that we want to allocate.

So I think that's important to make sure we have the resources because not every community has a planning department. Some- Some loc- smaller governments subcontract out their- their work. And so this issue came up when we were doing the housing element work last RHNA cycle. And so this bill is critical.

I'll move the bill at the appropriate time and also want to work with you to support this effort and make sure we get the budget investments to help support local governments to do this critical work.

Okay, no other comment then. I would like to say that I appreciate for your intention and basically for fire prevention measure for requiring another mandate for local governments to update their- their fire mitigation, you know, measures. But I- I feel this is not- not the lack of any mandate measures that the state produce.

Was the problem not fighting or preventing the local fires? With the continuing fires erupted in the state, all local governments have realized how important it is fire mitigation measures in the fire prone areas and they are doing that and then also imple- implementing whatever the best they can.

And then also there were many builds, for example SB 379 in 2015 and then also AB 2911 in 20- 2018 required climate adaptation and fire risk strategies and safety elements and the local hazard the mitigation plans which proactive agencies have integrated. So there are plenty, you know, requirements from the state regulations as well.

So it sounds like this is all duplicative effort by forcing the local agencies to do and updating their firefighting strategies, how that will help, you know, in adding another burden to the local government agencies.

You know, I- I- I- I strongly believe that the local governments and the fire districts, they are aware of what had to be done without being told like this. So I'm a little bit hesitant.

Yeah, I mean, certainly not the intent to be duplicative. And it's part of why it's so likely this bill's going to be a two year bill because we want to engage in these conversations with local government and make sure that it's not duplicative, make sure that it's helpful.

You know, I- I agree that people know what needs to be done to some extent or another. But again, there's so many competing. You know, responsibilities and- and pressures, quite frankly.

I mean, if we really knew what we needed to be done, we would not be, you know, building deep more and more major projects deep into the very high fire risk zones without implementing best practices for fire mitigation. Unfortunately, we're doing just that in many places in the state.

So I would respectfully push back on the idea that, I mean, even if the planners know that it's unwise, it ends up being part of our practice, unfortunately. And we ended up creating massive costs, both emotional, psychological and financial on our state when those properties either burn or at threat of burning.

So I- I- I think we can agree that we need to do some work in this space, you know. And I welcome your input. An- And again, I don't. But I- I- I- I don't want this to be duplicative and- and onerous, kind of unnecessarily burdensome.

And that's why we're engaging in these conversations with local government to make sure this is something that's going to be helpful. But- But you know, I- I- I do, I- I- I- I- I would say, you know, I- I- I wouldn't adhere to the philosophy that tha- tha the status quo is- is just fine in- in- in terms of the status of planning in various places in the state.

Thank you, Senator Allen. And motion has been made by Senator Arreguin. Will you please call?

Yes.

No closing statement, please.

I appreciate the dialogue and the engagement from all the members. And you genuinely welcome people's input as we try to figure out where to land this and respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you.

Please call roll.

The motion is do pass to the Committee on Appropriations. [ROLL IS CALLED]

Vote is 2, 0 on call. Okay, thank you so much. And let's see. We have Senator Wiener. I think you are the only one who are present here. And we have a bid to present. Okay, next one is file number 14, SB 607 by Senator Wiener. When you are ready, you can make a presentation.

Oh, I'm sorry, you have two of them. 12. We'll go file order 12 first. SB 79. Yeah, that's the winner.

Yeah. When you are ready, we are ready.

Thank you very much, Mr. Vice Chair, colleagues. I'm here today to present Senate Bill 79, which has received bipartisan support, and I'm grateful for that. SB 79 authorizes more housing near our highest quality, highest capacity public transportation stops, high frequency rail, light rail, bus rapid transit, and ferries.

I want to start by thanking the Committee for a very thoughtful analysis about the bill, including raising various questions and issues and potential amendments. Some at a more general level, some at a more specific level. We're very grateful for that and, frankly, quite aligned with quite a number of the suggestions in the bill.

I do want to just go through, based on feedback that we've received from different Members and stakeholders, in addition to comments in the analysis, some of the amendments that we will... Because we're in a position where the Chair, you know, we're not necessarily fully aligned with the Chair, we are working on amendments that, if the bill moves forward, we would anticipate taking in Appropriations.

And so one of them is, and this has been an issue raised, distinguishing between more urban districts and more suburban districts. And we'll be making an amendment so that in the more suburban areas there will be less intensity in terms of more of the, being more under tier 3, so less height in those areas.

So we're trying, want to be take a sort of a nuanced approach to the context of different areas. We will be we already have a provision in the bill about local flexibility that this bill sets default standards in terms of density and height. But it does create an option for local governments to come up with their own plan and submit that plan to try to move things around to suit their needs. We agree with the analysis that that needs to be fleshed out more, and we are currently working on that to make it very usable.

They, in addition, we are going to, we're going to look at light industrial land, which is a comment in the analysis about whether light industrial should be included, and we want to create some local flexibility on that. So if a city does not want its light industrial land to be included, they do not have to.

That'll be a local choice. We also will be making some clarifications. There's been some confusion about whether there's a blanket CEQA exemption in the bill, which there is not. But we're going to make that clear. And then in addition, the bill does not override local inclusionary requirements. There's been some question about whether that's clear enough.

We think it's in there already. But we're going to make it crystal clear just for the sake of clarity. And then the California Association of Realtors have raised an issue about wanting to clarify that transit agencies can't sell their easement rights to a third party. We agree with them. There's no disagreement with the Realtors.

We've actually already sent them language that we think resolves the issue, and we're waiting to hear back from them. In addition, there are several issues that we are working on. One is we are, in terms of the Surplus Lands Act, we are in active conversation with the affordable housers to work towards a resolution there, and I'm optimistic we'll be able to achieve that. There was been questions about affordability requirements in the bill.

Right now the bill is I think a very pro-affordable housing bill because does trigger local inclusionary. It also, if SB 423 streamlining is invoked, that creates a baseline. But we are exploring the possibility of including like a safety net in case none of those applies or if it's in a jurisdiction without inclusionary.

And so we're exploring that, potentially adopting some existing state law and utilizing that structure. And then in terms of transit agencies land use authority on their own land, we know we have some work to do there in terms of really fleshing that out in detail and we are going to continue to do that work.

So I say all of these things. You may have noticed that a number of the things that I just indicated are also issues that have been flagged in the analysis. And that's why I say that we appreciate the analysis and we'll continue that work if the bill moves forward today.

So we have made some progress around transit oriented development. We know that we need a lot of housing in California. We have a massive shortage that is driving middle income and working class and low income people out of the state. And we talk a lot about where we don't want to build housing.

For example, discussion about the highest severity fire zones and other areas where people may not want to build housing. We don't always talk about where do we, where do we want to build housing? Where do we want to prioritize housing? And if, if it's not around the highest quality public transportation stops, I don't know where it is. And that's what this bill will do. Other states are ahead of us on this, putting minimum standards in place. Colorado, Utah, Massachusetts, minimum standards in place.

If we're going to make big public investments in public transportation, which of course I support and I know many of us support, we need to make sure that people can actually live near those stations and ride on those trains or those high quality bus lines.

So, you know, I think that this is a bill whose time has come. We've tried to make it very focused. It is way less broad, much more, you know, focused than some previous efforts that I've been engaged in. And I hope that the Committee moves the bill forward, and I respectfully ask for your aye vote. With me today to testify is Berkeley City Council Member Rashi Kesarwani and Jordan Grimes with the Greenbelt Alliance. And we also have, for technical questions that may come out up, Aaron Eckhouse with California YIMBY.

Okay. Witness, when you are ready.

Thank you very much, Senator Wiener. Good morning, Members of the Committee. My name is Rashi Kesarwani, and I have the honor of serving as the Berkeley City Council Member representing the North Berkeley BART Station. Great to see our former Mayor here serving on this Committee.

This station sits in the middle of a low rise residential neighborhood of mostly one story bungalows, so it was no small feat when the Berkeley City Council with our former Mayor, Jesse Arreguín, embarked on a community engagement process to create homes at the site beginning in 2018. Fast forward seven years.

Our City Planning Department has now issued a land use entitlement for 739 homes at the six acre parking lot of this BART station. The development team has proposed six to eight story buildings, including 3 100% affordable housing buildings, with 52% of the 739 homes affordable to low income households, including formerly homeless people.

More than 100 million of public investment has already been secured for this site, and the development team is hoping to break ground on the first building next year. What I want you to take away from this is that we would not have reached this successful outcome without state laws like AB 2923 from by former Assembly Member David Chiu that required BART to zone its stations for development.

As the Senator noted, we know that allowing more homes close to public transit is one of the smartest things we can do to address our state's housing shortage and the threat of climate change. Over the last 10 years, as state housing laws have required the City of Berkeley and cities across the state to say yes to more homes, we have seen rents stabilize and even fall.

SB 79 builds on important progress by extending the success of AB 2923 for BART stations to other transit systems and places reasonable requirements related to zone density. Finally, in the City of Berkeley, I want you to know that the census shows that the average Income for a household living in a detached single family home is $235,000, whereas the average income for a household living in a large apartment building like the ones we're planning to create at the North Berkeley BART station is $61,000.

We know that the housing scarcity imposed by our zoning code pushes our low income residents into homelessness and often forces our teachers, nurses, first responders like firefighters and EMTs, seniors, and young adults who grew up in our community to move away. I believe we can do better and help all California cities do the right thing. That is why I'm asking you to support SB 79. Thank you.

Thank you. You want to make a statement?

Good morning, Members. My name is Jordan Grimes, and I'm the State and Regional Resilience Manager for Greenbelt Alliance. We are an environmental nonprofit that has for the last 67 years worked to conserve and protect the natural and working lands of the Bay Area.

One thing our organization has learned over decades of policy and advocacy work, being effective conservationists requires us to be as zealous in our advocacy for infill housing as we are for our climate and natural resources. That's why we're proud to co-sponsor SB 79.

For far too long, California has embraced development patterns that have harmed both our communities and our environment. The primary driver of sprawl and the loss of our natural landscapes is an overwhelming demand for housing. And if we don't make it easier to build homes within our existing communities, were forcing that development outward onto farmland and floodplains, destroying natural resources and putting people directly into harm's way.

And as housing costs continue to rise, we force Californians to flee to sunbelt areas like Dallas and Phoenix, regions where their carbon footprint skyrockets due to car dependent development and higher per capita emissions. SB 79 helps tackle three intersecting and intertwined crises, housing affordability, climate change, and the financial instability of our transit systems.

By accelerating housing production near transit, the bill reduces emissions from long commutes, provides new ridership and revenue for transit agencies themselves, and opens up vast amounts of land in our existing cities and towns for both market rate and deed restricted affordable homes in the places where it is most sustainable to build them.

It is important to remember that the vast majority of Californians live in housing on the open market. SB 79 adds critical supply to that market, easing rent pressures and creating more equitable access to jobs, schools, and services. Significant new public benefit for Californians.

And with California losing 50,000 acres of farmland to sprawl every year, we cannot afford to keep building the wrong way. SB 79 means smarter growth, safeguarding our environment, and a California that everyone can afford. We respectfully ask for your aye vote today. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Now lead the witnesses having completed their statements, I would like to reach out to the public. State your name and organization and mention your position only.

Hello. I'm Katie Caceres, and on behalf of the UC Davis College Democrats, we support this bill.

Thank you.

Morning, Mr. Vice Chair, Members. Robert Naylor representing Fieldstead and Company, that's Howard Ahmanson Jr. He is in strong support.

Good morning. My name is James Ye, also from Davis College Democrats. I'm supporting this bill.

Thank you. To save our time, would you please move over to the other side so we can save our time? Go ahead.

Hello. Brooke Pritchard on behalf of California YIMBY as a proud co-sponsor.

Thank you.

Kirsten Bladh on behalf of Streets for All in support as a co-sponsor.