Senate Standing Committee on Natural Resources and Water

A Senate natural Senate natural resource and water committee will come to order. Good morning. We ask if all members can come to Room 2100 very promptly since we only have one bill on today's agenda pursuant to Senate rule 29.10B, not 29.10A. This is AB 2051 by Wicks. The bill was substantially amended before last week.

Previously, AB 2051 passes committee unanimously at our 07/01/2026 hearing.

Bless you.

We do have Assemblymember Wicks with us. Please go ahead and tell us give us the update.

Thank you, Mister Chair. Thank you for hearing AB 2051 in light of amendments that we made last week. The committee unanimously already supported, the policy that is in section two of the legislation. So now we're here to talk about the amendments. Amendments made, also narrowly address one of the many hurdles facing the Venice Dell Community Housing Project, a 100% affordable housing development on what is currently a parking lot, 800 feet from the coastline in the Venice Beach neighborhood of Los Angeles.

The project first proposed ten years ago would include two mixed use structures, each four stories high, which contain a 120 affordable housing units, 68 of which are reserved for people experiencing homelessness with supportive services offered on-site. The 2025 in 2025, the Department of Housing and Community Development provided a $42,400,000 conditional award to help fund the project. Because of the obstacles that Venice Dell must overcome, that award is now in peril.

AB 2051 retroactively extends for five years the Coastal Commission's authority to give the local government more time to act on modifications to a land use plan, which specifically authorizes the approval of a 100% affordable housing project. To be clear, this bill does not simply provide a glide path for the Venice for Venice Dell to break ground.

The project has been the subject of seven lawsuits of which it has won, and two of which are scheduled to go on trial next year. AB 2051 does not invalidate those challenges, but it addresses the issues of the City of Los Angeles to act on the pathway provided by the Coastal Commission for the Venice Dell to begin construction. Joining me today to testify and answer technical questions is Anya Lawler on behalf of Venice Community Housing.

And when the time is right, I would respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Okay. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Mister Chair members. Anya Lawler here today representing Venice Community Housing, one of the two developers of the Venice Dell project. This project has been put through the ringer totally unnecessarily. This is a minor modification to keep the Coastal Commission's approval alive, so that once the remaining two pieces of litigation are resolved, the project can quickly break ground and not lose out on the HCD award, and we would respectfully request an aye vote. Thank you.

Oh, anyone else in support?

Good morning, Mister Chair and member. Steven Stenzler with Brownstein on behalf of the Bay Area Council, a proud cosponsor of this measure, Yimby Action, Housing Action Coalition, and I've been asked to give a me too for enterprise community partners. Thank you. All in support.

Good morning, Chair and members. Paul Schafer with the California Council of Affordable Housing here in support. Thank you.

Good morning. Lizzie Guansona here on behalf of the County Of Marin, City County of San Francisco, City County Association of San Mateo, and SF Bay Ferry, all in support.

Jack Worston from Nossaman on behalf of the County Of Monterey and the Santa Clara Valley Water District in support.

Okay. Any opposition? Do we have any opposition? We do not.

We'll bring it back to committee for discussion. Good. I have questions too. Go ahead. You go first.

Thank you. Actually, I just wanna say thank you for your perseverance in trying to see this through. I think it's a perfect example of, why we are so far behind in housing as the process, the lawsuits, the all of the above, the commission sometimes. I mean, all of these things are things that we put in place and now they are manifesting themselves in this type of issue where you actually have to create legislation to allow a project to get built or it won't. And that's sad.

That's sad. We really need to think about that and, and understand what we need to do better or what we need to get out of the way of so that, these type of projects can, get funded and, get done and keep their funding. So, appreciate it. I'll be, supporting when the time comes, if we can get a quorum. That'd be really good because I have another meeting I have to get to.

That would be really good. All, the relevant members. I have a question, which is why we talk about this being put through the ringer. Why was it put through the ringer? Was it just neighbors who didn't want the project, or was it the Coastal Commission issues involved?

Or why was it put there?

It was definitely not the Coastal Commission. The Coastal Commission has been very supportive of this project. The project the the start this actually started with the city of Los Angeles seeking developers to develop this parking lot as affordable housing. The project that these developers applied, Venice Community Housing and Hollywood Community Housing. They applied.

They won the award to build the project. The project was approved by the City Council, and then a New City council member came in and a New City attorney, and they rescinded the approvals. And that teed off a whole bunch of litigation, most of which has been resolved in favor of the project, two of which are pending in March and April. And meanwhile, the Coastal Commission's approval has expired.

So this would simply be able to to keep that alive while we resolve those last two pieces of litigation, and then we can break ground and build 120 units of affordable housing.

Excellent. Well, I will be supporting the bill when the time comes. I don't wanna require you to stay here necessarily. We will be waiting for a quorum to vote. Would you like to close?

Sure. Well, I appreciate the comments. It shouldn't be so hard to build housing in California, especially a 100% affordable. And with that, when the time is right, respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks for being here.

Well, thank you for that. We have a rush of members. We heard from Assembly member Wicks on AB 2051. I would love to entertain a motion. Okay. Oh, let's sorry.

I apologize. Let's do Quorum first. Please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Okay. We have a quorum. Alright. Now, we have a motion from Senator Seyarto. Can you please call the roll?

Senators Becker?

Aye. Do you wanna read it?

Measured to be returned to the Senate floor for consideration. That is the motion, by Senator Seyarto. Aye.

[Roll Call]

5 to 0. We'll keep that open. Thank you to all the members who are here.

Okay. We have some visitors in the rules committee. We'd love to reopen the role on AB 2051. We have a motion with the measure be returned to the Senate floor for consideration. Please call the absent members.

[Roll Call]

Thank you to both of you. That is 7-0. It is out. Thank you.

And now, we shall adjourn.