CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2021, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“ATTORNEY
GENERAL SPURS ON BIG 2022 HOUSING BATTLE”
There
will be plenty of political battles next year, starting with likely reelection
challenges to Gov. Gavin Newsom and similar efforts to unseat Democratic U.S.
Sen. Alex Padilla.
Heated
contests for the insurance commissioner’s job and an effort to unseat appointed
state Attorney General Rob Bonta have already started.
Initiative
fights are also pretty certain, on subjects from sports gambling to flavored
tobacco, state funding of private and religious schools to jury trials in child
custody cases, online voting and a proposed requirement to spend 2 percent of
the state’s general fund on water projects every year.
But
Bonta, a former ultra-liberal assemblyman from the East Bay suburbs of San
Francisco named attorney general when President Biden picked Xavier Becerra to
be his secretary of Health and Human Services, has assured that housing will
vie to be the year’s No. 1 issue.
Bonta,
never yet elected to statewide office and already with one serious challenger,
almost seems to be using reverse psychology that might inadvertently promote a
proposed initiative aiming to restore full authority over local zoning and land
use to local governments, where until very recently it has resided as long as
California has been a state.
Bonta
backed two new laws best known by their state Senate bill numbers, SB 9 and SB
10, which together could virtually eliminate single family neighborhoods all
over this state. He also has threatened to start enforcing previous state laws
that require every city and county in California to boost housing supplies
hugely on pain of lawsuits and financial penalties.
Bonta
named a 12-member “strike force” within the state’s Justice Department to “look
at local jurisdictions’ responsibilities to build more housing,” adding that
“there will be consequences, there will be accountability” if cities and
counties don’t knuckle under.
Those
pre-existing laws, via guidelines from the Department of Housing and Community
Development, have already forced many cities to plan vast new developments that
could produce as many as a million new housing units. Relatively few of those
units have been built, for lack of well-financed developers and the fact that
buyers for new homes can be hard to find.
Now
come several groups determined to preserve single-family neighborhoods that
embody the longstanding “California Dream” of owning private open space and
greenery.
Their
initiative runs completely counter to what Bonta and his longtime ally,
Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco, are trying to do, which is
essentially to remake California cities into dense New York-ish anthills of
high-rises and brownstone-style duplexes.
SB
9 and SB 10, for example, combine to allow six units on every lot where there
is now one home. They also call for high-rise developments near “major transportation
corridors” and light rail stops. All without any requirements for
affordability, parking, new water supplies or new schools.
In
response, the initiative due to start circulating this winter would remove from
the state all the powers Bonta, Wiener and allies like Oakland-based YIMBY (Yes
in My Back Yard) want to exert over local land use.
Says
the proposed law, “The purpose of this measure is to ensure that all decisions
regarding local land use controls, including zoning law and regulations, are
made by the affected communities…”
In
short, this proposed state constitutional amendment would make it impossible for
the state Legislature ever again to try reshaping the state by seizing powers
traditionally held by local governments.
This
is a change of the usual tactic used in trying to nullify new laws. It is
informed by what happened after voters last year passed a referendum cancelling
a state law ending cash bail. Legislators responded by proposing a different
new law that left a few circumstances allowing cash bail, but mostly would
eliminate the current bail system. Expect that to pass in 2022.
Advocates
of local decision-making and single family homes want to prevent similar end
runs around their initiative, so they’re trying to eliminate all state powers
over local land use.
It’s
an extreme solution to a problem foisted on neighborhoods by highly ideological
lawmakers like Wiener. Given the way today’s legislators often won’t accept the
voters’ will, something that strong may be needed.
-30-
Email Thomas Elias at
tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising
Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now
available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net.
Excellent points. Robert H
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