UPDATED: June 17, 2020
State Senator Scott Wiener (author of SB 827 and SB 50) is still trying to impose his San Francisco errors on all of us. In 2020, he has rushed bad bills through his Housing Committee with virtually no media coverage due to COVID-19. These bills would destroy our neighborhoods and our cities and raise our taxes.
On Saturday, June 6th at 10AM, Livable California sponsored a state-wide teleconference with land-use attorney Robert Silverstein who discussed the four worst bills currently being pushed through the legislature by Scott Wiener.
ACT NOW to stop these deceptive bills and support the good one.
After you have learned about these bills, CLICK ON THE LINKS to read and send the letters to Senator Jerry Hill, Assembly Member Marc Berman and 18 Senators on the committees.
We have learned from our past experiences that we have a much larger impact on our senators and assembly members when we reach out and increase our contact numbers and frequency. And our state senators and assembly members pay attention to voters who voice their opinions directly.
It worked for us with SB 50 and we’re asking you to again write letters to Hill and Berman. It’s very easy. Just click the links for each bill and follow the instructions.
Then ask 10-15 of your friends/contacts to do the same. If each person will ask 10-15 friends to continue the chain we can build the momentum. Get as many people involved as you can.
These grass-root efforts work! Please join us in stopping the demise of single family homes and R1 zoning in our towns.
Our state senators and assembly members need to hear your voice!
Legal and Legislative Perspectives on Bad Bills
SB 1120 (Atkins-Wiener) Multiple homes will replace single family homes without requirements for parking. This bill will destroy ALL single-family zoning, statewide. Weiner has said that R-1 zoning is “immoral”.
CLICK HERE TO OPPOSE SB 1120
SB 902 (Wiener) Cities can overturn voter-approved citizen initiatives that protect open space, shorelines and other sensitive land, to allow 10-unit luxury apartments pretty much everywhere — including on single-family streets.
CLICK HERE TO OPPOSE SB 902
SB 1085 (Skinner) The state’s “density bonus” program failed to create low-income housing. This bill rewards developers who erect huge luxury buildings with fewer affordable units than ever.
CLICK HERE TO OPPOSE SB 1085
AB 725 (Wicks-Wiener) Cites which failed to meet the state’s impossible targets for approving low-income housing (which the state refused to finance), would be forced to rezone single-family homes to build high density apartments.
CLICK HERE TO OPPOSE AB 725
SB 1299 (Portantino) Finally, a good bill which would allow cities to repurpose unused or abandoned commercial property for workforce housing.
Although this bill might seen innocuous on its surface, I would prefer the bill be amended to insure zoning is not changed from industrial, so that industrial interest be allowed to return to these properties in the future. Also, its important to remember that there is no shortage of housing in either the bay area nor Southern California. A quick drive and view of Craigslist reveals thousands of vacant units, and they are all sky high.
The source of the high cost is most caused due to financing practices of credit unions and banks. On the home owners side, credit unions and banks charge the majority of the interest on a 15 or 30 year mortgage in the first 5 years. They do this for three reasons:
1) To prevent yo from paying the loan off,
2) To insure the home is so expensive that you can’t buy directly from the seller, and
3) To defeat the common law mandating all debt be discharged within 7 years.
The solution is to criminalize such lending practices since most states don’t have legal standing to regulate federally chartered financial institutions. Other factors that would help the cause is to issue a severely negative interest rate in the real estate market after the states new public banks get up and running, and the 3rd thing I recommend is a land reapportionment policy.
Land reapportionment is one of the many underused tools at the disposal of the government. It comes from an ancient common law mandating that all land be returned to its original owners once every 50 years.. A modern day interpretation means that large holders of rental property may be required to sell, but I would add the stipulation they be required to sell to US citizens.
If these suggestions are followed above then you won’t have a problem with affordability.
Randal, not sure if you will see this reply 10 months later, but your comments were quite informative.
I would be interested in talking with you more about these because you are quite a resource.
Would you be available for that?
Finally, a reasonable housing bill that does not destroy our communities.