The 2024 state legislative year ended with a number of big wins for SPUR and our partners in affordable housing and transportation advocacy. Governor Newsom signed hundreds of bills into law, including six pieces of SPUR-sponsored legislation that will make housing faster and easier to build, support development of interim housing for unhoused people, and make dangerous roads safer for pedestrians and bicyclists.
Our Big Housing Wins: SPUR-Sponsored Legislation
AB 1886 (Alvarez), a good government measure, clarifies that only a court or the California Department of Housing and Community Development can certify a city’s housing element and rejects claims of a “self-certification” option asserted by some jurisdictions. State housing element law ensures there is a sufficient supply of properly zoned sites for residential development in cities and counties to accommodate the housing needs of California’s population over time. The housing element is the only element of a jurisdiction’s general plan that must be certified by the state.
AB 2553 (Friedman) significantly expands the geographic scope of the transit-oriented developments that can access incentives such as exemption from environmental review, density bonuses, elimination of parking requirements, and reduced traffic impact fees. The bill modifies the definition of “major transit stop” from the intersection of two or more bus lines with 15-minute frequency during commute periods to those with 20-minute frequency. It also changes eligibility for reduced traffic impact fees under existing law from “transit station” to “major transit stop.”
SB 1395 (Becker) facilitates the development of interim supportive housing communities that provide safe, secure, and high-quality housing solutions for people experiencing homelessness by clarifying that relocatable, single-room housing is eligible for streamlined approvals. In addition, the legislation extends the sunset for existing streamlining under the Shelter Crisis Act and AB 101 to give local governments certainty that they can use these laws to address the homelessness crisis beyond 2025. Finally, the bill ensures that interim supportive housing is eligible for funding from state homelessness programs. These interim housing communities constitute a missing rung on the housing ladder: the one between temporary shelter and permanent affordable housing. SB 1395 supports a compassionate and comprehensive system that can help people experiencing homelessness move out of dangerous makeshift encampments and into interim housing communities while they wait for permanent housing opportunities to become available.
AB 1820 (Schiavo) authorizes housing project proponents who have submitted preliminary project applications to request a good-faith estimate of all fees and exactions that would apply to their project. The local jurisdiction would then be required to provide an itemized list and total sum of all fees within 30 business days. The measure also requires a jurisdiction to provide project proponents with the final good-faith estimate, itemized list, and sum total of fees within 30 business days of the project’s final approval. Development impact fees can make up nearly 20% of the cost of a new housing unit and are often hard to predict, which can deter construction. AB 1820 will make the costs of development impact fees more transparent and predictable and is based on a recommendation in SPUR’s May 2021 policy brief How Much Does It Cost to Permit a House?
AB 3122 (Kalra) includes important clean-up provisions to the landmark housing streamlining laws SB 35 and SB 423. Regarding a CEQA exemption for subdivisions, it adds public parks as an urban use; reduces the inclusionary housing requirement for projects submitted prior to January 1, 2019, that include at least 500 units of housing; allows for project modifications to reduce the size of a project given changes in demand for office and retail uses; and imposes a 30-day timeline for jurisdictions to review and comment on such modifications.
More Housing Wins We Supported
The 2024 state legislative year was a successful one for bills to promote housing construction. In addition to SPUR’s sponsored housing bills, our informal statewide coalition, the California Home Building Alliance, supported and advocated for dozens of successful bills sponsored by our allied organizations in Sacramento, including Senator Scott Wiener’s SB 937, which will lower the cost to finance and build new housing by moving payment of development impact fees to the date the certificate of occupancy is issued; Senator Nancy Skinner’s SB 1211, which expands the number of accessory dwelling units allowed on multifamily properties; and Assemblymember Wicks’ AB 2243, a “cleanup” and expansion of AB 2011 for residential development in commercial zones.
Our Transportation Win: SPUR-Sponsored Legislation
SB 960 (Wiener) makes dangerous roads safer by requiring the state to accelerate the buildout of projects like protected bike lanes and sidewalks on state-owned roads that often serve as main streets. These include some of the most used and most dangerous streets, such as Van Ness Boulevard, Lombard Street, and Park Presidio Boulevard in San Francisco; El Camino Real in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties; and International Boulevard in Oakland. The bill also requires the state to develop a transit priority policy and expedite the approval of local transit priority projects. This will get buses out of traffic, making riding the bus more reliable and convenient. SPUR co-sponsored the bill with CalBike, AARP California, WalkSF, KidSafeSF, and StreetsforAll.
The One That Got Away
Unfortunately, one bill SPUR supported as part of Senator Weiner's safe streets package, SB 961 did not pass this session. The bill would have reduced speeding-related traffic crashes and deaths by requiring all cars and trucks manufactured or sold in California (except emergency vehicles and motorcycles) to give an audio and visual alert to drivers when they’re going more than 10 miles per hour above the speed limit. This technology is now required in all European vehicles, supported by the majority of Americans, and recommended by both the National Transportation Safety Board and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.