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Wiener\u2019s bills penalize cities for something they have no control over<\/p>\n
The piece is a bit confusing, because it considers two related but different sorts of local housing goals set by the state. Reporter Olivia Borgula briefly discusses the requirement that cities\u2019 general plans include a housing element that\u2019s certified by the California Department of Housing and Community Development. Lack of certification triggers the \u201cBuilders Remedy,\u201d which allows developers to do pretty much anything they want.<\/p>\n
But Borgula\u2019s main focus, and mine here as well, is on the state\u2019s requirement that each city issue a certain of number housing permits or be forced to \u201cstreamline\u201d (a euphemism for approval without a public hearing) certain housing projects. The required number of permits corresponds to each city\u2019s \u201cRegional Housing Need Allocation\u201d or RHNA (sounds like ree-nuh).<\/p>\n
The connection between the two sorts of goals is that each city\u2019s housing element must accommodate the town\u2019s RHNA.<\/p>\n
As the Chronicle headline indicates, the number of permits issued by Bay Area cities is far short of their respective RHNAs. \u201cAcross the Bay Area,\u201d Borgula writes, \u201ccities permitted enough homes between 2023 and 2025 to reach just 14 percent of the region\u2019s 441,000-unit target for 2031.\u201d Many cities permitted far less. Brisbane, for example, came in at 1.3 percent; Walnut Creek at 4 percent; San Francisco at 7.4 percent.<\/p>\n
These shortfalls, Borgula notes, reflect \u201cthe magnitude of the cities\u2019 goals.\u201d She really means: the recent, exponential increase in those goals. She continues: \u201cSan Francisco, for example, is targeting about 82,000 new homes by 2031, which is almost triple the number of units it aimed for last time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Behind the enormous RHNAs: Wiener\u2019s bills<\/p>\n
What Borgula doesn\u2019t say is that Wiener\u2019s legislation is a major source of the huge increase in cities\u2019 RHNAs.<\/p>\n
Start with his 2018 bill, SB 828<\/a>. As I reported last November<\/a>:<\/p>\n The basic framework of the Regional Housing Needs Allocations was established [in 1980] by AB 2853,\u2026.[which] stated:<\/p>\n It is recognized that the total housing needs\u2026may exceed available resources and the community\u2019s ability to satisfy this need\u2026. Under these circumstances, the quantified objectives need not be identical to the identified existing housing needs, but should establish the maximum number of housing units that can be constructed, rehabilitated, and conserved over a five-year time frame. [California Government Code,\u00a0 Section 65583(b)(2)]<\/p>\n This was a major concession to both home rule and reality. It acknowledged that planning for housing and producing it are different things. Accordingly, the state qualified its expectation that housing production would equal each jurisdiction\u2019s RHNA.<\/p>\n That qualification was eliminated in 2018 by Wiener\u2019s\u00a0SB 828<\/a>. SB 828 erased the distinction between planning for housing and producing it,\u2026amending the passage cited above so that it reads:<\/p>\n It is the intent of the Legislature that cities, counties, and cities and counties should undertake all necessary actions to encourage, promote, and facilitate the development of housing to accommodate the entire regional housing need, and reasonable actions should be taken by local and regional governments to ensure that future housing production meet, at a minimum, the regional housing need established for planning purposes. [California Government Code, Section 65584(a)(2)]<\/p>\n The decisive term is \u201cmeet.\u201d To \u201cencourage, promote, and facilitate the development of housing to accommodate the entire regional need\u201d allowed for some wiggle room between a city\u2019s RHNA and the actual amount of development. To \u201censure that future housing production meet, at a minimum the regional housing need established for planning purposes\u201d removed that latitude. SB 828 encoded in California law the assumption that planning determines production.<\/p>\n Just as importantly, Wiener\u2019s bill stipulated that RHNA methodology address vacancy rates, overcrowding, and other factors in ways that wildly inflated the state\u2019s housing targets.<\/p>\n Also unmentioned by Borgula are Wiener\u2019s companion bills SB 35<\/a> (2017) and SB 423<\/a> (2023).<\/p>\n SB 35 tied a city\u2019s failure to issue the number of housing permits commensurate with its RHNA to a harsh penalty: loss of discretion over the approval of infill, multifamily housing projects with various levels of official affordability.<\/p>\n SB 423<\/p>\n extended SB 35\u2019s applicability to 2036;<\/p>\n enabled SB 35 to apply to a city without a compliant Housing Element, as determined by HCD;<\/p>\n required staff, rather than any elected or appointed official, to make final decisions about approving or denying ministerial (no public hearing) projects;<\/p>\n and expanded SB 35\u2019s applicability to parts of the coastal zone.<\/p>\n SB 423 also required San Francisco, unlike other Bay Area jurisdictions, to file its housing production report annually, rather than every four years and not until 2027.<\/p>\n The Chronicle\u2019s unexpected expos\u00e9<\/p>\n Borgula concludes by citing David Garcia, deputy director of policy at the state Legislature\u2019s go-to consultancy, UC Berkeley\u2019s Terner Center for Housing Innovation:<\/p>\n Garcia said the number of homes permitted in a city largely depends on the area\u2019s economics, including construction costs and the availability of subsidies for low-income housing.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cA city can have a perfectly good housing element, perfectly good zoning, all geared toward getting\u00a0housing built, but if the market is not really working for developers, then that stuff just doesn\u2019t get built,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Given the Terner Center\u2019s pro-developer agenda, it\u2019s somewhat surprising that Garcia pointed up the dysfunctional, market-driven nature of the housing sector. But what with its UC Berkeley imprimatur, Terner has scholarly pretensions, and occasionally its staffers venture beyond hype.<\/p>\n One memorable example: At the February 2023 hearing presided over by Wiener and his fellow Yimby legislator, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, Terner Center Director Ben Metcalf, who\u2019s also a former director of HCD, stated: \u201cHousing unaffordability remains high and housing production relatively stagnant\u201d\u2014an indiscretion for which he was soundly rebuked by Wiener<\/a>.<\/p>\n Going further than Metcalf, Garcia tacitly undercut the major plank of Wiener\u2019s housing platform, the notion that cities control the housing market. Cities can approve projects all they want, but it\u2019s up to developers to pull building permits. These days they aren\u2019t pulling very many for housing projects, because, thanks to interest rates, labor costs, and snarled supply chains, \u201cthe market isn\u2019t really working for [them].\u201d<\/p>\n I wonder if the conclusion to Borgula\u2019s story slipped by the Chronicle\u2019s editors on a holiday weekend, or if the paper will follow up and hammer the fact that Wiener\u2019s claims are a con. We\u2019ll soon find out.<\/p>\n