The California Building Industry Association has released our 2022 Housing Killers and Creators, a list of bills moving through the California legislative process that, if approved, would impact California’s housing crisis.
Bills on the Housing Killers list would make the housing crisis worse by increasing cost, time, and hurdles to build homes in the state.
Bills on the Housing Creators list reduce barriers to home construction or help address the need for more houses in California.
The purpose of CBIA’s Housing Killers and Housing Creators list is to highlight legislative efforts related to California’s housing crisis that should be dropped, improved, or championed.
Expands the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by adding unmeasurable standards that will discourage housing production in California at the very time we need it most. AB 1001 will impede local governments’ ability to approve new housing projects, depress jobs directly in and associated with the construction industry, and further exacerbate the cost-of-living crisis in California.
Would impose an additional tax of up to 25% on a homeowner’s net capital gain from the time of purchase until the final sale or exchange of a property if sold within the first 7 years of purchase. This targeted tax penalty would result in higher home prices, pushing sky-high housing costs further out of reach for California families.
Would prohibit freeway expansion projects. Many new housing projects are required to pay for or build freeway expansion or interchange improvements as a condition of approval – particularly if they are located within 10 miles of a freeway. AB 1778 would kill housing projects by prohibiting those improvements and associated permits.
Would place a ban on certain warehouse/logistics facilities, overriding local authority in lieu of all environmental processes. The bill is contrary to the state’s planning and greenhouse gas reduction goals of decreasing vehicle miles traveled by designing communities with mixed uses. CBIA Members are designing new communities, with walking to work, shopping and other services in order to help meet these environmental objectives. By placing undue burdens on the warehouse and logistics industry, AB 2840 also raises massive supply chain concerns. This would place further stress on California’s economy, making it difficult to transport basic necessities.
Would prevent urgently needed housing development by rendering 50% of all new projects infeasible through regulations to be determined at a later date. SB 12 would give the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research excessive control over the land use decision-making process, complicating planning for future housing needs. SB 12 would also impact projects that have already been approved or are in the pipeline. Unfortunately, SB 12 uses fire fear as an excuse to deny more housing for the projects that use proven, fire-tested, science-based, fire-resistant measures that are the safest in the state.
Further exacerbates California’s housing crisis by providing local jurisdictions with the authority to place sweeping prohibitions on new residential construction ignoring significant regulatory mandates already in place.
For the first time, the state is creating a one-size-fits all, top-down environmental standard that for decades has been the purview of cities and counties, based upon the diverse conditions in the state and allowing for local public in-put. By requiring a second state-mandated local program to determine whether a project may result in negatively impacting oak woodlands, SB 1404 will make the housing crisis worse by arbitrarily and statutorily defining what is considered a significant environmental impact when removing an oak tree. In short, this measure adds a duplicate layer of bureaucracy for managing oak trees on top of the already most aggressive oak tree protection requirements in the country.
The Housing Accountability Act was created to prohibit local agencies from disapproving housing development projects. In an effort to scuttle additional housing, some jurisdictions are requiring further environmental studies in addition to complying with CEQA where there is not a legally sufficient basis for doing so. AB 2656 closes this abusive loophole.
Creates high standards for homebuilding in very high fire hazard severity zones thereby protecting California’s ability to meet the urgent need for more homes while addressing climate change concerns. These new development standards for homebuilding will preserve the development of fire-safe, climate resilient and energy efficient master planned communities.
The regulatory implementation of Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) was intended to incentivize the construction of homes in urban areas with a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but the VMT policy has failed to achieve these results while adding huge costs to home construction where lower and middle income families can actually afford to live and disproportionately impacting families of color. As originally introduced, SB 1410 would have modified the VMT regulations to limit their use to Transit Priority Areas, but during its first hearing in the Senate, the bill was amended and is currently a work in progress to address this difficult regulation that has increased the cost of housing.
- Will the bill constrain or increase housing production and supply?
- Will it increase or decrease the cost to build houses?
- Will it make housing even more expensive or less expensive for Californians?
- Will it make any of the processes associated with homebuilding such as the entitlement, approval, or permitting processes more complicated, difficult, and lengthy or less complicated, difficult, or lengthy?
- Does it discourage or encourage homeownership?
- Does it increase or decrease regulatory barriers?
- Will it encourage or discourage unnecessary lawsuits aimed at new home construction?
- Does the bill balance the housing crisis unfairly on the backs of a few versus a more egalitarian distribution or equally serve all Californians buying their first home?
What the COVID-19 crisis has shown is that the greatest threat to housing production continues to be the extreme and burdensome regulatory environment in California.
CBIA expanded its annual Housing Creators and Housing Killers list to include regulations.
Regulatory issues like Waters of the State (WOTS) and a number of species management challenges are making it harder to produce the homes needed in California to address the state’s housing crisis.
New Vapor Intrusion Guidance proposed by CalEPA will severely impact California housing affordability and availability by subjecting projects throughout the state to unrealistically low soil and ground water cleanup levels compared to current practices (which are already the most stringent in the nation), thereby making commercial and residential development – especially infill type projects – cost prohibitive.
Action Needed: CalEPA needs to revise the VI Guidance document based on the Department of Toxic Substance Control’s own Vapor Intrusion Attenuation Factor Study aimed at developing a California-based attenuation factor using California data.
To meet projected demand, California needs to produce 180,000 new homes annually. However, home production has averaged less than 80,000 new homes annually over the last 10 years, and ongoing production continues to fall far below the projected need.
Homeownership stabilizes communities, provides access to education, and access to employment opportunities. Research shows affordable housing reduces stress, toxins, and infectious disease, which leads to improvement in both physical and mental health.
Owning a home is also one of the most effective ways that Americans build wealth, which can be passed down from generation to generation. Yet, homeownership rates are at their lowest in California since the 1940s, and inequities in homeownership have increased, while California’s housing crisis grows worse.
Housing production of all kinds is needed to address equity in homeownership, is essential to the health of Californians, and is necessary for the state’s economic recovery. California’s homebuilders want to address the need for more houses.
Let us do what we can to address the housing crisis and produce the homes that California families need.
Suspending these Regulations Is Critical for California to Meet its Housing Goals
Construction General Permits (CGP) would require home construction sites to plan for wet weather and follow certain protocols to prevent soil erosion and stormwater runoff. The current CGP has been proven to protect the quality of the environment and there has been no indication that it has failed to achieve its goals. The State Water Resources Control Board is considering radical modifications to the CGP requirements. Now is not the time to make unnecessary and burdensome bureaucratic changes to a program that is working.
New Vapor Intrusion Guidance proposed by CalEPA will severely impact California housing affordability and availability by subjecting projects throughout the state to unrealistically low soil and ground water cleanup levels compared to current practices (which are already the most stringent in the nation), thereby making commercial and residential development – especially infill type projects – cost prohibitive.
Action Needed: CalEPA needs to revise the VI Guidance document based on the Department of Toxic Substance Control’s own Vapor Intrusion Attenuation Factor Study aimed at developing a California-based attenuation factor using California data.
#HOUSINGFORALL
Based on feedback from our builders around the state, in January 2020 we compiled a series of legislative proposals aimed at relieving the state’s ever-growing housing affordability crisis. Read more here.