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The Hollow Promise of AB 1445, Levine: Planning and zoning: regional housing need allocation
At first I was happy to read Richard Halstead’s Marin IJ article regarding AB 1445. I appreciate the addition of climate change reports to the Housing Element, as I believe they would reinforce the obvious new dangers faced by the at-risk communities of Marin and elsewhere. So it takes us a huge step forward…but then negates itself.
https://www.marinij.com/2022/10/06/marin-assemblymans-housing-mandate-reform-adopted-into-law/
“Assembly Bill 1445 requires organizations such as the Association of Bay Area Governments to weigh such factors as emergency evacuation route capacity, wildfire risk and sea-level rise before deciding how much new housing to require of counties and municipalities.” — Richard Halstead
In the same article, Marc Levine comments on the legislation he authored:
“As the state faces a housing crisis, it also faces a climate crisis,” said Levine, a Democrat in Greenbrae who represents Marin and part of Sonoma County. “Vast areas of California are increasingly vulnerable to wildfires, sea level rise and severe drought. We must ensure that badly needed investments in housing are not placed at risk by the climate crisis.”
Bill Text: CA AB1445 | 2021-2022 | Regular Session | Chaptered | LegiScan
I wish Halstead’s conclusion was correct. ABAG and other COGs would be able to more safely distribute housing numbers using this criteria. Levine also seems confused about the usefulness of his AB 1445.
There are two ways in which their conclusions are inaccurate. The first is the equivocating in the beginning of the law. The bold type is mine.
“Commencing January 1, 2025, this bill would instead require a council of governments or a delegate subregion to consider including specified factors in developing the above-mentioned methodology. The bill would require a council of governments or a delegate subregion to additionally consider including and would authorize the department, as applicable, to additionally consider among these factors emergency evacuation route capacity, wildfire risk, sea level rise, and other impacts caused by climate change, as provided. By adding to the duties of local officials in allocating regional housing need, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.”
So, considering climate change can be read as optional, and the process would create more unfunded-mandate work for localities to create what amounts to a Climate Change Element.
But Section 1 of AB 1445 contains contradictions that must be dealt with in the future, as the requirements of the law are at odds with reality, even though they state here that they are not. AB 1445 allows us to quantify the risks, but continue on the same path. Housing at all costs. Bold type is mine.
“b) The additional factors … are intended only to identify climate change impacts and are not intended to be used to constrain, limit, or prohibit regional residential development.
(c) Developing new housing and mitigating climate change impacts are not at odds with one another and should not constrain, limit, or prohibit providing enough housing opportunities for all Californians. New housing and climate change mitigation can work in tandem during the planning process.
(d) For any identification or consideration of climate change impacts in development planning, there must also be an identification of the climate change impacts of not building enough housing.”
Part (d) is especially interesting. The identification of the climate impacts of NOT BUILDING would seem obvious. Less housing, less population, less proximity to hazard areas should equal a better outcome with less emissions, watershed damage, heat islands, etc. And less loss of life and property when worst case scenarios occur.
The Marin County Draft EIR was just released:
“The DEIR finds that the project would result in impacts that are significant and unavoidable with regard to the following topical issues: Aesthetics, Air Quality, Cultural/Tribal Cultural and Historic Resources, Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Energy, Noise and Vibration, Transportation, and Utilities and Service Systems.”
Presumably, this information, along with the upcoming Marin County Unincorporated Areas Safety Element, will be similarly set aside when creating the Housing Element list for HCD if the County is to identify enough land to accommodate 3,569 new residences.
This is just another enraging chapter of the HCDs RHNA, and the way that numbers are allocated.
A law like AB 1445 that actually took pressure off of cities to build in hazardous areas (as recommended in Plan Bay Area 2050, but overruled) would have been very welcome. This law is a cheat. Climate change is already making everything worse. Marin is blotchy with areas at risk for fire, with unavoidably limited evacuation routes. FEMA flood plains and sea rise issues flow through the county.
We are in extreme drought, without a dependable water supply — MMWD relies on rain — for the current population. Worst case scenarios are just being ignored. A fire anywhere near a reservoir can contaminate the water supply, as can damaged infrastructure. Building in burn scars is being mandated, though they are susceptible to mudslides and likely to re-burn. AB 1445? None of this matters.
The problem is with the legislated state vision: That California, in its entirety, must be forced to become densely built out, regardless of impact. That this should be done for privately, for profit, not by city/state cooperation or subsidy. That there should be no limitation on what we are willing to do to accommodate every single person who wants to live here now and in the future.
If that is the vision, and it is, the Sixth Cycle RHNA does not represent the end of the expansion. In eight years, the small city of Mill Valley, for instance, could be expected to add an additional 865 units at all income levels.
This system does not merely attempt to provide housing for those needing it now, it does so in perpetuity, without limit. The new laws strip localities of zoning control to allow large for-profit housing projects by institutional investors almost anywhere.
The vision is of a grateful renter class, in which only a few (already privileged) people are able to create generational wealth by owning a home.
The notion that any decent percentage of the housing will end up for very-low and low-income groups is absurd, at a time when the prices and availability of land, labor, and materials are at an all time high. Interest rates are still rising. If the state was working cooperatively with localities, instead of acting as punitive overseers, things might be different.
In actuality, I do not believe the cities and counties — even after allowing building in hazardous places — will produce the exact housing numbers and income percentages required by the HCD’s sixth cycle RHNA, and it will be interesting to watch Attorney General Bonta’s Strike Force try to fine practically every city in California into bankruptcy over the inaction of private developers.
Safety should matter. Facts on the ground should limit growth. AB 1445 is all the more reason why cities and counties should join the ongoing SB 9 and upcoming HCD/RHNA lawsuits.
I WHOLEHEARTEDLY ENDORSE DAMON CONNOLLY FOR THE ASSEMBLY SEAT BEING VACATED BY LEVINE IN NOVEMBER. He has seen these issues wreak havoc from the ground level, as Marin County Supervisor. I believe he’ll have the guts to stand up for us.