Policy & Legislation
New, State Land-Use Law Creates Many Opportunities
July 01, 2009
Last year's enactment of SB 375 (Steinberg) created multiple venues and opportunities for affordable-home advocates to explain how building more compact, affordable homes is good for the environment as well as families and individuals -- and to secure policies that support their development. Housing CA and our regional partners are already engaged in some of these efforts, with more on the horizon.
SB 375 linked regional transportation and land-use planning and funding in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These reductions will be achieved by encouraging communities to make land-use choices that lessen the amount of driving necessary in daily life.
In the process of negotiating SB 375, policymakers and environmentalists began to recognize the importance of strong, local housing elements in meeting those goals. For example, a community's housing element can reduce the number of miles residents drive to work by zoning land near job centers at 20+ homes per acre (apartments or condos). This approach has the added benefits of allowing the homes to be sold or rented at lower prices -- because per-home land costs are lower -- and of reducing development pressure on surrounding open spaces and agricultural lands.
Implementation of SB 375 at the state and regional levels will occur over at least the next six years. Some of the related activities in which Housing CA is engaged include:
- Representing our community on the Regional Transportation Guidelines Working Group -- This body will advise the CA Transportation Commission on changes necessary to implement SB 375. Our work will focus on providing direction to councils of government that must develop a "Sustainable Communities Strategy" under the new law. These strategies must reflect a realistic development pattern that meets the state target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, while taking into account the region's housing needs, transportation demands, and protection of resource and farm lands. The state will allocate $6 billion a year to transportation projects that implement the Sustainable Communities Strategy.
- Collaborating with environmentalists, transit advocates, infill developers and others through the ClimatePlan network.
- Serving on the advisory committee for the 2009 California Regional Progress Report -- Started by Cal-Trans and the California Association of Councils of Government in 2007, this report measures regions' progress on a variety of quality-of-life indicators, including housing affordability. We are urging that the 2009 report compare housing production data from localities' annual reports to the CA Department of Housing and Community Development against the Regional Housing Needs Assessment numbers.
- Negotiating provisions of the clean-up bill, SB 575 (Steinberg).
Additionally, our regional partners are working in coalitions to influence regional Sustainable Communities Strategies and the subsequent local housing elements. We hope to secure funding to support these collaborations and conduct research to inform local and regional zoning decisions.
Contact Julie Snyder, 916.447.0503 x102 or .
