There are real problems with SB 79, but anyone in L.A. who raises objections is dismissed as another SoCal NIMBY. That's a bad way to make policy.
I strongly believe California must densify its cities and stop sprawling and making commutes and pollution worse and worse. I applaud Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta for going after cities that have tried outrageous, if sometimes amusing, tactics to avoid complying with the state’s housing density laws.
I think single-family zoning is an unsustainable relic, and there’s too much of it in Los Angeles. Thanks to the state Legislature’s actions, I was able to build a rental unit in my backyard, which makes me a true YIMBY.
And yet I’m probably going to be written off by transit and housing advocates as just another L.A. NIMBY because I have concerns about Senate Bill 79, a controversial upzoning proposal by Democratic state Sen. Scott Weiner of San Francisco. Like Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, I hope Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoes it before Oct. 12.
I don’t object to the bill’s provision for nine-story buildings near subway stops. That’s old news in L.A – have you been to Hollywood recently? I’m concerned because it is riddled with so many amendments, exceptions and carve-outs that the result is an unfair and complicated mess.
Bill supporters chalk up the mess to the usual horsetrading that goes into passing bold legislation. Perhaps, but at some point it makes for rotten laws.
In a nutshell, SB 79 applies to the eight California counties, out of 58, that have at least 15 passenger rail stations. That includes L.A. County, Orange County and San Diego County. The bill would allow developers to ignore local zoning rules and construct multifamily buildings as tall as nine stories next to subway stations and up to six stories as far as half a mile away from the stations. For other major transit stops — trolleys, street cars and dedicated bus lanes such as the G Line in the San Fernando Valley — apartment buildings could be up to five stories within a half-mile mile radius.
Half a mile could mean a pretty deep incursion into areas relatively untouched by high-density housing. And as you can imagine, the bill doesn’t sit well for many residents who fear a massive apartment building will pop up next door.
So to quell opposition, the authors agreed to scale back the upzoning to a more palatable quarter-mile radius — but only for cities with fewer than 35,000 residents, such as Beverly Hills and South Pasadena. That means neighborhoods with the same density and proximity to major transit stops would be treated differently based only on municipal population.
That’s unfair, not to mention an incentive for those cities to limit growth — and therefore housing supply — to avoid losing control over land-use decisions. If scaling back was necessary to get the bill passed, it should have been uniform, not handed to a few wealthy cities just to get the votes of their representatives.
The bill is also super confusing. It passed with so many exemptions and delays — for low-income neighborhoods, historic districts and high fire-risk zones — that it is nearly impossible for anyone except a land-use policy analyst to fully understand which areas are impacted and when.
Because Bass and a majority of the L.A. City Council oppose the bill, much of the response to objections has devolved into L.A.-bashing. That’s disappointing, if not entirely new.
I saw the same dynamic play out in recent Zone Zero public hearings. At the Sept. 18 session in Pasadena, conducted by the ad-hoc committee tasked with developing stronger fire-safety rules for the state, residents, environmental advocates and elected officials were overwhelmingly concerned with the blanket brush-reduction proposal decimating much-needed shade and biological diversity. People who lost homes in the Palisades and Eaton fires said that trees and bushes had helped protect their homes and pointed to recent research that indicates removing well-watered vegetation might actually endanger homes.
But when the committee returned to Sacramento a few days later for another hearing, Bay Area residents supportive of the rules dominated the discussion. They dismissed their Southern California counterparts as ignorant, whiny complainers.
Ridiculing the concerns of the state’s largest region is not a wise or fair way to do policy. Even if it works for SB 79, it certainly won’t help win support for future legislation on transit, housing or fire safety.
