This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
A controversial housing bill that would pave the way for more apartment buildings near major bus stops and train and subway stations across urban California is one step closer to becoming law after its author struck a last-minute deal with a long-time political foe, one of the state’s most powerful labor groups.
The State Building and Construction Trades Council, which represents union construction workers, agreed to drop its opposition to Senate Bill 79 in exchange for an amendment that would require some of the projects that make use of the bill to hire union workers.
The bill, authored by San Francisco Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener, would be one of the largest state-imposed housing densification efforts in recent memory. On residential and commercial lots within a walkable half-mile of well-trafficked public transit stops, developers would be allowed to build taller and denser housing — as high as six stories. That would apply in neighborhoods where local regulations restrict new development to single-family homes.
Wiener and backers of the bill argue that the state needs to turbo-charge housing construction to bring down the cost of living in California and that local zoning restrictions are among the barriers to that necessary building boom.
“This is exactly where we should be building more housing, right by our highest quality transit,” Wiener said.
Since Wiener rolled out the bill in March it has become a magnet of controversy. SB 79 only squeaked out of the Senate, clearing the opposition of two powerful Democratic committee chairs on its way, who largely objected to the fact that the bill did not include larger affordable housing requirements. The trades’ decision to withdraw from the fight significantly boosts the bill’s chances of becoming law.
“You hear from legislators all the time trying to be on the same side as the housing folks and the same side of labor — they don’t like when those sides are split,” said Louis Mirante, a lobbyist with the Bay Area Council, a business group that is backing the bill. “The trades removing their opposition is always helpful when you’re trying to pass a housing bill. That’s pretty cut and dry.”
Backed by “Yes in my backyard” activists, economic development boosters and public transit advocates, the bill has been fiercely opposed by neighborhood preservation groups, critics of market-rate development and a long list of local governments — including most recently, Los Angeles — who argue that the bill tramples on local prerogatives over what gets built and where.
Throughout that legislative gauntlet, the Trades Council have also been opposed. Not anymore.
“My hope is that this can be the beginning of shifting the dynamic where we’re all locking arms,” said Wiener. “We all want more housing. We all want more construction workers to be part of the middle class and not in poverty.”
Wiener, California YIMBY founder Brian Hanlon and Trades Council president Chris Hannan announced a deal on Friday morning.
Under the terms of the deal, projects over 85-feet tall would be required to hire “skilled and trained” workers — effectively a hire-union requirement — if the developer receives a sufficient number of bids. Projects built on transit agency-owned land would likewise need to meet that requirement or enter into a direct contract with labor unions.
Over the last decade, the trades council has developed a reputation as a particularly well-organized and unyielding opponent of bills that ease restrictions on residential construction unless they also include broad minimum pay levels or union hiring requirements. The amendments announced today represent a step back from that all-or-nothing position. Most projects over 85 feet, for example, use concrete and steel frame construction, which require a higher skilled labor force that is often unionized anyway.
This isn’t the first time this year that the trades have been willing to take less than a full victory in exchange for dropping their opposition to a bill. When the Legislature was debating a proposal to exempt most new urban multifamily housing from the state’s premier environmental protection law, the trades accepted a concession that provided wage and hiring requirements for a small subset of projects.
The fact that California YIMBY and the trades council were in direct communication Could itself represent a notable political shift in the way that housing bills are negotiated in the capitol.
“Chris (Hannan) and I really have been spending a lot of time on this bill to the point where, quite frankly, some members of my coalition thought I was chasing at windmills,” said Hanlon of California YIMBY. “This bill here represents not just a deal on the specific language of SB 79, but it’s also a commitment from me and Chris to work together in the coming years to pass legislation to create more homebuilding opportunities in California.”
SB 79 still needs to be voted on by the entire Assembly and then once again by the Senate before the end-of-session Sept. 12 legislative deadline. If Gov. Gavin Newsom then signs it, it would be a particular feat for Wiener, who has tried and failed to pass similar legislation twice before.
“The bill is not guaranteed to pass, but we have more momentum today than we did yesterday,” said Wiener.
Correction: SB 79 would make it legal to build taller buildings around train stations. In the case of the Peninsula, the train stations were there first, and it was city leaders’ mistake decades ago to build low-density neighborhoods around them.
In neighborhoods like Old Mountain View, even where small apartment complexes were built in the 1960s and 70s, the city restricted surrounding areas to single-family homes only, thus constricting supply exactly where the market would have created more.
Wasn’t a mistake. It was designed that way. Plenty of heavy rail systems on the east coast are not built with dense housing around them (please see the LIRR). It only looks like a mistake because there is now more demand than supply since we made the mistake of overbuilding office space.
Just because New Jersey also did it doesn’t mean it wasn’t a mistake.
It’s important to note that SB79 allows cities to develop their own “transit-oriented development alternative plan” around the same major transit stops, with the freedom to tweak height limits or density or whatever, as long as the plan achieves the same total capacity (number of units and floor area) as the SB79 baseline.
Dictating to homeowners who their neighbors should be and how many, after they’ve already invested millions, feels less like planning and more like social engineering. It’s a blunt instrument masquerading as policy.
Neighbors trying to choose their own neighbors is social engineering.
Requiring skilled labor (union labor) especially on transit owned land (different from the 85 foot rule for private land) may have interesting consequences as developers say they can’t build under current economic conditions…which is of course why developers and their allies have fought against requirements that force them to pay union, liveable wages.
Bulldoze Old MV and build more housing. Insane that we let these people dictate everything so we can preserve their home values and way of life at the expense of everyone else. Downtown and the train station and numerous bus stops are nearby. Old MV needs to make way for New MV and the future with more housing to support the community.
The Left will never give up the dream of destroying single-family neighborhoods.
Their ultimate goal is to spread the blight and crime emanating from the cities to our communities. By force, if necessary.
Since Democracy is on the last legs in Sacramento with Democrat super majority, the only path left to us, citizens, is to leave for a normal State. Millions have done so already.