Feeling political pressure to solve California’s severe housing shortage and rising homelessness, state legislators are pushing for new bills to increase affordable housing production and strengthen tenant protections against evictions and rising rents.

Some of the proposals include allowing religious organizations to quickly build affordable housing on their surplus land and lowering the limit on how much landlords can raise rents each year. Others would ask voters to add housing as a human right to the state constitution and reduce the barriers homeowners face when building duplexes in their single-family neighborhoods.

Those efforts would add to laws passed in recent years to streamline student housing on college campuses, funneling hundreds of millions of dollars

for

in affordable housing and clear bureaucracy for more accessory housing units known as casitas or granny flats.

A new California housing law has done little to encourage building, the report says

And yet, the majority of voters remain disillusioned with California housing costs. Seventy-four percent of voters view housing affordability as a major issue, according to a February survey by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, and nearly 90% are concerned that younger generations cannot afford a home in the state.

State Senator Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat who heads the housing committee, said progress has been made in recent years to address the state’s shortage of millions of units. But bigger changes will take time.

“I think we’re actually starting to turn the corner,” he said. “This is a lengthy process.”

Here are notable housing bills to watch this year.

Rewriting zoning rules to protect the environment

Housing advocates and environmentalists are collaborating on a new bill to overhaul California’s zoning rules to prevent so-called urban sprawl into rural areas where wildfires and flooding are more common.

Assembly Bill 68, which is supported by California YIMBY and The Nature Conservancy, aims to make it easier to build multifamily homes in developed communities that are hubs for transit and jobs.

Local governments could approve projects outside of existing communities if they can demonstrate that there is no more available space or that they need to expand outside to meet their state-required housing goals. The general ambition is to encourage living where

Climate risks are minimal and infrastructure is already in place.

Melissa Breach, chief operating officer for California YIMBY, said the housing and climate crisis are “inseparable” and that AB 68 offers a solution to both.

“We want to encourage housing in existing communities where people actually want to live,” Breach said. “And we want to protect people from the incredibly high risk of fire and flood, and all the other climate risks associated with that.”

But developers argue the proposal fails to recognize how impossible and costly it would be to limit new construction to urban centers.

Dan Dunmoyer,

P

resident and CEO of the California Building Industry Assn., called AB 68 “the furthest solution to the housing crisis that can possibly be imagined.”

Urban areas are also flooding, Dunmoyer said, and many of California’s cities, such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, are at high risk for earthquakes. And if you reduce the amount of land available for housing, the remaining plots will increase in price. That could mean that new homes would only be affordable for wealthy people.

“This is the ultimate housing killer,” said Dunmoyer.

The California Chamber of Commerce agrees. It recently added AB 68 to its annual “job killer” list, a designation that indicates the group will lobby hard to kill the bill.

Another battle over labor standards

Wiener introduced two bills this year that he hopes will build on a rare deal Democrats struck with unions in August that included legislation to convert underutilized commercial space into new units.

Senate Bill 4 would allow non-profit colleges and religious organizations such as churches, mosques and synagogues to quickly build affordable homes on their land, while Senate Bill 423 would make permanent a 2017 law that allows developers to streamline projects in non-compliant cities. state-mandated housing targets.

Both bills include a union-level guarantee of wages, known as the prevailing wage, and some health benefits for construction workers. Those labor standards were included in last year’s agreement and are supported by the California Conference of Carpenters.

In a pioneering plan, California is allowing affordable housing on some commercial properties

The carpenters have split from other labor groups to support the bills, including the influential State Building and Construction Trades Council, which has long advocated the stricter requirement of “skilled and trained labour”. That standard guarantees that

a portion of must

employees have completed an internship program and

most

are uniformed.

The increased demand protects workers from exploitation and wage theft and opens opportunities for women and other marginalized groups to join the industry, said Sabrina Hernandez, who represents an electricians union that is part of the Trades Council.

“Skilled and trained provides safety and security for those individuals who may be vulnerable,” Hernandez said

as she tested in an interview after testing

to SB 423 at a recent hearing.

Wiener said he hopes the two sides can find a solution that works for everyone. He is backed by Assemblyman Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), who helped broker the deal last year and chairs the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee.

Wicks said it’s time to find new ways to build housing and let go of the “status quo.”

“We’re done with that,” she said at a recent housing conference. “We’re trying to find the coalition of the willing that’s going to say it’s time to get on this train and build the homes we need.”

Churches in California, not-for-profit colleges could build homes on their land with a bill that increases tenant protections

Current law allows landlords to raise rents by 5% plus inflation each year, or a maximum of 10%

,

and to

pursuing certain evictions beyond the standard violations of a lease. That includes

when

landlords

or

their family members

want to move into the property or have plans to renovate the property or take it off the rental market.

Senator Mara Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles) introduced Senate Bill 567 to further address what she says are outrageous rent increases and unfair evictions that have exacerbated homelessness.

“The rent increases are getting out of hand,” said Durazo.

Durazo’s bill would limit the increase to

inflation cannot be exceeded

5% per year

,

and expanding protections for tenants in single-family homes, apartments and mobile homes, according to a summary sheet from Durazo’s office.

It would also enact liability measures to ensure that landlords or relatives move into the homes and stay there for a period of time, and to prohibit permanent evictions after renovations. Instead, tenants are allowed to move back in after the renovation is complete.

The effort has again drawn opposition from organizations representing landlords who fought against the 2019 law that set the current rent cap and eviction standards.

“We came to the table and we struck a balance. That was historic,” said Debra Carlton, executive vice president of state affairs for the California Apartment Assn.

California tenants will see a cap on rent increases under the bill sent to Newsom

Carlton said more time is needed to evaluate whether the law works before expanding it, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic provided tenants with strong protections from eviction through local states of emergency.

The association also opposes Assembly Bill 12, which would limit security deposits to one month’s rent, calling for support for the law that would prevent tenants from going into debt just to make that payment.

Another proposal, Assembly Bill 919, would give tenants, local public agencies and non-profit organizations the first chance to buy a rental property or match an offer when an owner puts it on the market.

Add social housing

Assemblyman Alex Lee (D-San Jose) introduced Assembly Bill 309 to increase California’s social housing options.

Two of Lee’s previous social housing bills have failed to pass the legislature.

There are many models of social housing, but the general idea is that it is publicly funded and occupied by residents of all income levels. It is typically more affordable for low-income earners, and tenants have more say in how the building functions and is managed.

Lawmakers traveled to Vienna in the fall to hear about the widespread use of public housing in that city, pointing to projects in Singapore as a model for what could be done in California.

They could also look down the street from the Capitol for inspiration.

The Capitol Development Authority

or CADA,

is a public agency that manages more than 700 rental units according to its website.

while

Although it is not exactly social housing,

the residents have mixed incomes, it is used by residents with mixed incomes,

and about 25% of

the CADAs

units are affordable for lower-income tenants.