Write today  August 14

There are two bills going through California to be signed on August 16. The bills take away part of our rights to say what will be built in our town if we, the people, do not act and act now.

There are two Senate Bills, 9 and 10, fast approaching final approval in the State Assembly and then headed to the Governor’s desk. These bills spell the end of single-family neighborhoods. They allow ten units on single parcel that meet certain conditions and they override local zoning initiatives. 

Senate bill 9 rezones R1 (single-family) neighborhoods to allow lot splits that can accommodate 4 units, not counting an ADU and a Junior ADU, which adds up to a potential 8 units on what is currently zoned for a single house plus ADU’s. 

We need bills which will help affordable housing to be built not market-rate.

This is on top of the density bonuses that give developers additional zoned height, ending the ability of local elected officials to amend the projects. Hence the slew of 80 feet tall mixed-use buildings approved for downtown Santa Cruz, along the river levee and south to the first roundabout. We will soon see the first example at Laurel, Pacific Avenue and Front streets.  

Senator Scott Wiener, one of the lead authors of both bills has called backyards and single-family homes “immoral.” He is heavily funded by the real-estate industry. He and other supporters exploit social justice jargon as a selling point, but organized communities of color, particularly in San Diego and Los Angeles strongly oppose these bills. They see speculators waiting in the wings to snap up single-family homes and develop market rate dense housing, further marginalizing renters and homeowners of color. A recent Investors trade magazine writes that $5 billion is now available for speculators and investors to buy up single-family rental homes across the sun-belt. There’s big money in the wings.    

There are no requirements in either bill that such new housing include any affordable units. Our local inclusionary law applies only to projects over 10 units. SB 10 gets rid of all environmental review. Approval of a multi-housing development in your neighborhood will be ministerial, not discretionary. What that means is approval is automatic. No public hearings, no public input.

The smokescreen for this real estate bonanza and state lawmakers’ promotion is the myth that more housing equals lower cost housing. Nothing could be further from the truth.  All this new housing under SB 9 and 10 will be market rate, which means expensive, given today’s construction costs and land values.  We do not need more market-rate housing. Santa Cruz city has fulfilled its state-mandated housing provision in all categories except Very Low Income. That is where the need is and that is the opposite of what is contained in these Senate bills.

If a one-bedroom, 400 square feet unit rents for just shy of $3,000 a month as is the case with new downtown developments, imagine what one of the 4 new houses on a single-family lot will rent or sell for? Land value is based on what can be built on that land. A single house at current values is worth over a million dollars. Four houses on one lot, each over a million dollars means that the same square footage is worth four times as much, a dream for real estate speculators and absentee landlords, a nightmare for someone looking to buy a house, other than the wealthy, displacement and a long commute for low income workers. 

Although SB 10 disallows a current single-family house to be demolished if a renter has lived there for 3 years, imagine the incentive to get rid of that renter should the absentee landlord wish to take advantage of this new law, should it pass?

One analysis of SB 9 concludes that the effect of re-zoning single- family neighborhoods will be felt only slowly since most current homeowners won’t immediately sell. They obviously aren’t talking about the city of Santa Cruz where 54% of single-family homes are non-owner occupied, meaning they are rentals. Such property owners to sell at the new higher land value driven by the re-zoning. 

Senator John Laird is waffling on SB 10 and Assembly member Mark Stone, who has not taken a position on SB 10, voted for SB 35 last time around. Both need to hear from you. Write John Laird@sen.ca.gov  tell him to vote no on both SB 9 and SB 10. Because they do not work well for Santa Cruz and more market-rate homes would be built and we need homes for very low income. Mark Stone to vote "No"
by emailing Mark Stone at  mark.stone@asm.ca.gov. It is important to do today!

Write them today  August 14. It is important and only take a minute.