Housing

Protected: The Quest for Affordable Housing

Affordable Housing

PCL has always been a proponent of encouraging the development of sustainable and affordable housing. However, we believe that the current housing crisis cannot be solved simply by building enough units for everyone. Instead, new housing projects must be built in alignment with our climate, health, and equity goals to ensure these developments remain accessible to disadvantaged communities and help reduce GHG emissions. One example of this type of development is infill development, where housing is built on urban abandoned lots instead of on new land outside of the city. Such development is more accessible to low-income families and helps reduce emissions because housing is now closer to job centers and amenities, reducing the need for transportation. This type of housing is costly for the developers due to the cost of repurposing abandoned lots, so lots of incentives are needed to promote this type of development. You can read more about our work on redefining and incentivizing infill development here.

PCL has also supported a variety of bills that provide incentives to build affordable housing. We helped pass bills such as SB 2 and SB 3 (2017) and Prop 1 and 2 (2018) that provided funding to build affordable housing, especially for vulnerable groups such as veterans and the mentally ill. We also supported a number of bills that protected tenants from unjust rent spikes and evictions to make sure that housing remains affordable even after it’s built. For more information on the bills we helped pass, click here. To view the housing bills we are currently working on, click here.

Tenant Protections

Establishing tenant protections is just as important as regulating housing. By fighting for renters’ rights, we can protect low-income vulnerable residents from displacement and promote equity, public health, and climate goals in California.

Measures PCL has supported in the past:

Limiting rent increase to 5% per year
Disallowing landowners to evict without a justifiable reason
Allowing local governments to enact rent stabilization policy to protect struggling families
Funding for housing-related programs for low-income families and veterans.
Using mental health services tax to fund housing for homeless people suffering from mental illnesses.
Ensuring that local inclusionary housing ordinances extend to rental housing
Establishing a permanent source of funding for affordable housing
Requiring a public agency to administer its programs and activities relating to housing and community development in a manner to affirmatively further fair housing

How this helps our environment

In order to address our climate change goals, California will need to meet its transportation and land use goals. This would mean redeveloping us land use strategy to allow for efficient and sustainable use. PCL is working on solutions that help solve the housing crisis but also provide a sustainable method for building new housing. We promote policies that support equitable infill investment in existing communities in order to successfully address both California’s climate and housing goals.

CEQA and Housing

CEQA has often been criticized as the reason for California’s housing crisis. Developers have especially argued that CEQA slows down the development process due to the litigation and the environmental impact review that is part of the CEQA process. However, multiple studies have shown both of those claims are false. For example, studies have determined that litigation under CEQA is exceedingly rare, with less than 1% of projects litigated under CEQA [1]. Additionally, it is rare that a housing project requires a full EIR review. Most affordable housing and infill projects are exempt from CEQA requirements if they meet certain requirements like following the local General Plan land use plan and zoning code. Those projects that are large enough to warrant a review usually deal with a discretionary review from the local development department. This type of review looks at architectural, building, and site development permits instead of CEQA documents. A study examining five California cities found that less than 20% of development projects require an EIR for a review. This study concluded that the pace of development was driven by discretionary review, established by local ordinances, and not CEQA [2].

As much as developers tend to criticize CEQA, it provides quite a few benefits to promoting good quality housing. CEQA can help promote housing that has little or no pollution, helps improve communities, and protects builders during the construction of the project [1].

References

[1] Tom Adams and David Pettit, CEQA – The Litigation Myth, CLCV and NRDC

[2] Moira O’Neill, Giulia Gualco-Nelson, and Eric Biber, Getting it Right: Examining the Local Land Use Entitlement Process in California to Inform Policy and Process, UC Berkeley Center for Law, Energy & the Environment, UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design Institute of Urban and Regional Development, and Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation