Several Southern California cities are expected to file a lawsuit against Senate Bill 9, which will allow single-family homeowners to turn their property into duplexes.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the law in September, and it was enacted Jan. 1. The law says that local municipalities cannot deny an application unless it presents a “specific, adverse impact” to public health and safety or the environment.
The cities of Carson, Redondo Beach and Torrance have countered that the measure deprives them of local control over approving home developments in their cities and intend to argue in court that the bill is tailored to address the state’s housing crisis.
Matthew Lewis, director of communications for "Yes, In My Back Yard," a group that is supportive of the law and seeks to address affordable housing, said that the problem for the cities involved in the lawsuit is that they really do not want any more housing in their community.
“I think it’s really important that cities like Carson built as much affordable housing as they can and the good news is if they don’t have affordable housing now — that is entirely their own fault,” he told the Southern California Record. “You could fix that within a day or two. So, every city council in the state of California has the ability to pass affordable housing bonds and to create zoning overlays within their jurisdictions to encourage the production of affordable housing at a higher density because you can’t build affordable housing that is just one-unit housing.”
Lewis added that he would encourage cities like Carson, that are concerned about affordable housing, “and don’t have any to frankly just start funding and building it.”
“There is literally nothing stopping them and in fact there are a lot of incentives the state has for them to do so mostly through denser zoning because you need at least, usually, 10 to 15 homes per lot for the finances to work,” Lewis said.
Lewis said that what the organization has found is that most cities like Carson don’t want anymore housing to be built and “they hide behind the river of affordable housing as a way to fool some people into thinking that is the issue that they’re fighting for.”
“We know that it’s not true because cities pass bonds for all kinds of things and cities that really care about affordable housing pass very large affordable housing bonds and then spend that money on affordable housing, and it works very effectively,” he said. “I hope that they become sincere about their concerns for affordable housing and follow that up with local action.”
As far as the lawsuit is concerned, Lewis said that unless the city has a constitutional issue with the law, they would be hard pressed to convince a court that the legislature and the governor were wrong to pass the law.
“I would be shocked if they made any constitutional claims,” he said. “The history of the United States is of states passing laws and cities generally following them.”
Lewis said Senate Bill 9 gives local homeowners more flexibility in what kind of home they build on their property.
“Under Senate Bill 9, if there is a homeowner with a single-family home in Carson and they want to have a multifamily generational living arrangement and they decide that we are going to build another house in the back of the property to give (family members) who have returned to build equity and have a home together, that's illegal until SB 9 is passed,” he said.
Lewis added that the law gives homeowners the flexibility to add a home or split their lot and cities like Carson define local control very narrowly “to mean only things that let us not build more housing.”
“(Citizens) don’t have to build homes under SB 9, but what if they do want to?” Lewis said. “Local control is a long used, and now tired, euphemism for exclusionary cities.”
Lewis said that there are cities in the state that don't want
more homes in their city, but it drives out affordable housing in the process.
The new law would alleviate that, according to Lewis, because it would help with housing depreciation, along with the displacement of residents.
“California as a state, and most cities, hasn’t built housing for middle and lower income families who have been displaced by wealthier families buying up older properties,” he said. “Middle and lower income people are leaving the state. California’s population is staying the same, but our median income is up. The way we do policy, we have decided that we don’t want middle and lower income people to live in the state of California so they are gradually moving to Arizona, Nevada, Texas and Florida — places that built more homes.”
Lewis added that the law would double to quadruple units in one unit zoning districts.
“It will be a relief valve for those who are seeking new housing and reducing displacement pressure on existing housing stock,” he said.