The letter is signed City Manager Pat West, addressed to Committee chair state Senator Jim Beall (D, San Jose) and cc'd to LB-area state Senators Ricardo Lara (D, LB-Huntington Park), Janet Nguyen (R, SE LB-west OC) and Steven Bradford (D, south bay), plus Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D, NLB-Lakewood), Assemblymembers Patrick O'Donnell (D, LB), Mike Gipson (NW LB/Carson) and SB 828's author, Senator Wiener. It states in pertinent part:

"While Long Beach understands the need to address the housing crisis in California, we believe there are more nuanced opportunities at the local level to meet neighborhood needs," the letter says, and continues:

[Scroll down for further.]

Through responsible local land use management, Long Beach has been able to cultivate a unique and diverse urban fabric. This includes quality public parks, state of the art private developments, sustainable transportation infrastructure, affordable housing, market rate housing and other components to cities that are unique to each city across the great state of California.

The City has conscientiously worked with the private sector to facilitate housing. Over the past ten years, 1,778 new affordable units have been built, 2,093 existing units have been preserved, and 367 units have been rehabilitated. Long Beach has also supported 335 first-time homebuyers with silent second mortgages. With that said, developers build housing -- cities facilitate housing developments through the provision of public service such as public infrastructure and public safety services.

Long Beach recognizes that California's housing market is financially challenging for many individuals and families in our State. However the problem will not be solved by simply mandating cities [to] accommodate housing developments at 200 percent of a city's RHNA [Regional Housing Needs Assessment.].

Given these reasons, the City of Long Beach strongly opposes SB 828 (Wiener),

Sponsor

Sponsor

City of LB Manager of Government Affairs, Diana Tang, tells LBREPORT.com that "the City is following [housing issues] very closely and is opposing bills that would take away local control.

Ms. Tang notes that the City does support SB 912 -- also on the April 24 state Senate Committee agenda -- that would require allocating $2 billion from the state of CA's General Fund to the Department of Housing and Community Development to assist with housing (1) through new construction, rehabilitation, and preservation of permanent and transitional rental housing benefiting persons with incomes up to 60 percent of the area median income; and (2) to address youth homelessness and provide housing assistance for domestic violence survivors.

As previously reported by LBREPORT.com, the City of LB (per March 6 City Council voted action) opposed SB 827 [9-0, action originally agendized by Councilmembers Mungo, Austin and Supernaw] and sent a letter of opposition on SB 827 signed by City Manager West, to Senator Wiener visible here. Coupled with strong opposition on several fronts, SB 827 was effectively stopped (for now) on April 17 in the same Committee (4-6-3 vote, LBREPORT.com coverage here) that will hear SB 828 this afternoon (April 24.)

Ms. Tang notes that in addition to SB 827 and SB 828, the City has sent an opposition letter regarding AB 2162 [now in the Assembly process that would require a ministerial/City Clerk type approval for certain Accessory Dwelling Units/"granny flats"]. On April 19, AB 2162 cleared the Assembly Local Gov't Committee on a 6-3 vote and is now in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Sponsor

As previously reported by LBREPORT.com, SB 828 (with amendments added on April 16, full text here) would basically require cities that haven't produced the number of "needed" low and very low income housing units (numbers decided by a regional gov't body, locally meaning the So. Cal. Ass'n of Gov'ts/SCAG) to double of such units such cities must produce and simultaneously make it harder for cities to appeal for reductions in the SCAG decreed number.

SB 828 would [legislative counsel digest text] "require [a City'e General Plan] program to identify actions that will be taken to accommodate 200% of the city’s or county’s share of the regional housing need that could not be accommodated on the sites identified in the inventory of land without rezoning of those sites. The bill would also require those actions be taken to make at least 100% of the city’s or county’s share so identified be available for multifamily housing located within developed areas."

SB 828 would also "prohibit the final allocation plan from considering the prior underproduction of housing from the previous cycle, as calculated, to justify a lower allocation for a particular local government. The bill would also require the final regional housing need to demonstrate efforts to reverse racial and wealth disparities throughout a region, including by demonstrating a high housing allocation for households located within particular communities, efforts to alleviate a median market rent that exceeds 30%, and a high housing allocation for all income categories."

SB 828 would also "define the vacancy rate for a healthy housing market for those purposes to be considered no less than 6% of both rental and ownership housing, as provided. The bill would also require the council of governments to include data on the percentage of households paying more than 30% of their income on housing."

The bill would "require the [state Dept. of Housing and Community Development], after making the final written determination described above, to add the difference between the previous cycle’s housing allocation and the reported housing production based on an annual production report submitted by the local government" and "the bill would provide any determination of that nature is unappealable."

Sponsor

Sponsor

When combined with Senator Wiener's SB 35 (enacted in 2017, effective now), the net result could in some cases make it nearly impossible for some cities who've fallen behind in producing low/very low income housing to avoid the "streamlining" mandates of SB 35.

To date, neither the LB City Council's "State Legislation Committee" (Austin, Mungo, Gonzalez) nor the full City Council have discussed in detail the Land Use impacts of SB 828 or taken a specific voted position on SB 828 (introduced Jan 3, 2018 with its significant amendments added March 14) despite SB 828's upcoming April 24 Committee hearing.

Sponsor

In 2017, the City of LB took a neutral ("working with the author on local control issues") as Senator Wiener's SB 35 advanced to enactment despite verbiage in the Council adopted 2017 "state legislative agenda" stating that the City would oppose measures weakening local decision making control, including on land use issues. However the Council's "State Legislation Committee" (Austin, Mungo, Gonzalez) didn't meet between Jan. 10, 2017 and Nov. 21, 2017, and the Council didn't explicitly discuss the impacts of SB 35, as it advanced to passage in September 2017.

LB resident Janet West (4th dist. constituent) tried without success to get the Council's attention on the advancing bill. She contacted her Councilmember, Daryl Supernaw, by email, and received a polite response with no action. Ms. West then sounded the alarm on SB 35 when LUE density increase maps came to the Planning Commission for a stormy August 2017 meeting. Ms. West tried yet again with the full City Council (public comment for non-agendized items) with no response.

The net result: no LB Councilmember(s) or Mayor Garcia agendized an item to put the City of LB on record against SB 35 (which had the backing of Sac'to Dem legislative leadership.) To date, no LB Councilmember has publicly inquired how and why the City failed to oppose the SB 35 despite the Council's "state legislative agenda" stating that the City would oppose measures threatening local decision making control.

Shortly before SB 35's final enactment votes, Mayor Garcia [via an individual Tweet] and Councilwoman Price [at an early September community meeting reported by LBREPORT.com] indicated they opposed SB 35; Assemblyman Patrick O'Donnell (D, LB) also stated his opposition and voted against SB 35 (one of few Dems to do so) but State Senators Ricardo Lara (D, LB-Huntington Park) [now running for State Insurance Commissioner] and state Senator Janet Nguyen (R, SE LB-west OC) [now seeking re-election] both voted in favor of SB 35.

City Hall's record on SB 35 became an issue cited by members of the public in opposing then-advancing city-staff drafted density-promoting Land Use Element maps. (In response to puhblic push-back city staff, the Planning Commission and ultimately the City Council reduced a number of proposed density increases by voted actions on March 6, 2018.)

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