A key law creating affordable housing in California cannot be allowed to expire | Opinion

The state of California is suing the city of Elk Grove. Why? Because Attorney General Rob Bonta, along with Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Department of Housing and Community Development, accused the city of violating the affordable housing components of Senate Bill 35 and other fair housing laws in a new development planned there.

“California has critically important laws designed to combat housing discrimination and increase affordable housing opportunities,” Bonta said in a statement. “(The lawsuit) sends a strong message to local governments: If you violate fair housing laws, we will hold you to account.”

SB 35, introduced by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, was passed in 2017 and streamlined construction in certain California counties and cities that fail to build enough housing to meet state-mandated requirements. Elk Grove denied the development of a 66-unit affordable housing project, known as Oak Rose Apartments, that would have provided permanent supportive housing for individuals and families who previously experienced homelessness, or were at risk of homelessness.

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“Communities that fail to build their fair share of housing, including those refusing to develop desperately needed affordable housing, will be held to account,” Newsom said.

Since 2017, SB 35 has helped develop more than 13,000 units of affordable housing and tens of thousands of high-wage jobs in the four years since it went into effect, according to Wiener’s office.

But the legislation is set to expire in 2025, leaving affordable housing developers looking for help. Now, Wiener seeks to expand on that legislation with SB 423.

“(This is) certainly not a silver bullet, and nothing is,” Wiener said, “but this is one meaningful piece of the puzzle to get us there.”

The new bill would effectively remove the expiration date on SB 35, and make permanent the provisions set forth by the prior legislation, so California can continue to accelerate the development of affordable housing this state desperately needs.

‘With SB 35 sunsetting, developers are making choices saying, ‘Do I need to go through the regular process? Is SB 35 going to be there for me? How do I put my next deal together without the certainty of SB 35?’” said Ray Pearl, executive director of the California Housing Consortium, a nonpartisan advocacy group for the production and preservation of affordable housing, and which supports SB 423.

“By removing the sunset, we’re saying ‘This is how you can build for the rest of time.’”

California legislators must ensure that SB 35’s legacy is continued via SB 423 so that the pace of affordable housing construction does not slow and so that cities like Elk Grove are prevented from slow walking or rejecting much-needed housing.

However, the new bill differs from its predecessor by removing the requirement to hire “skilled and trained workers” — defined by the state as a workforce where all workers on a project must either be journey-level or apprentices enrolled in state-approved programs.

The State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, backed by the California Labor Federation, insisted that lawmakers require developers to include the “skilled and trained” language with the understanding that it would be made up of largely union workers. They stand together now against SB 423.

But Wiener says there simply aren’t enough “skilled and trained” workers to meet the definition, and the requirement as written into the law stops otherwise capable workers from finding jobs.

“We think it’ll work better, we think it’s more expansive (and) it will protect 10 times the number of workers,” Wiener said. “It will protect both unionized and non-unionized workers. And similar to when we raise the minimum wage for or pass legislation to protect fast food workers, we don’t limit those protections to non-unionized workers, we include both unionized and non-unionized — that’s the right thing to do.”

SB 423, along with the support of the California Conference of Carpenters, advocates for a prevailing wage requirement rather than limiting which workers can be hired. That prevailing wage is often comparable to the average wage for union workers and would be enforced by private-sector labor-management committees.

SB 423 would also prohibit a housing development from avoiding these new labor standards and affordable housing requirements by subdividing projects into parcels just below the bill’s thresholds, such as splitting up multiple-unit projects. Closing this loophole ensures all of the projects relying on the bill’s streamlined approvals will produce affordable housing and high-wage jobs.

The bill is scheduled to be considered in the state Appropriations Committee by May 18. From there, it would move to the Senate floor.

California is committed to building 2.5 million homes in the next eight years, and desperately need affordable housing. The Legislature should pass SB 423.