April 16, 2018
FROM: Sustainable TamAlmonte, 215 Julia Ave, Mill Valley, CA 94941
TO: State Senate Transportation and Housing Committee, State Capitol, Sacramento, CA 95814
Re: OPPOSE Senate Bill 827
Dear Senate Transportation and Housing Committee,
We urge you to oppose Senate Bill 827 (Wiener) and remove the bill from consideration. The bill is fundamentally flawed and the amendments are far from adequate to remedy the bill’s many problems.
Close to 4000 supporters agree with us and have signed our online petition entitled; “No to SB-827 & SB-828!Stop Top-Down Planning, Unsustainable High-Density Housing, and Unfunded Mandates!” And more are signing every day.
Here is the link to the online petition: https://tinyurl.com/No-to-SB827-SB828
Attached are two documents related to the petition:
- A PDF of the signatures of the petition supporters; and
- A PDF of the comments of the petition supporters.
Although our organization is located in Marin, we have networked with a number of community groups throughout the Bay Area as well as in Los Angeles County and Orange County. As such, the petition supporters are from various areas in California.
Reasons to oppose Senate Bill 827 are:
- Senate Bill 827 would pose a significant threat to local control, democracy, and public engagement. The bill ignores regional differences.It would override local land use plans and regulations and eviscerate decades of careful planning. Local planning efforts (general plans and zoning ordinances) encourage public engagement and are much better than the State at determining where and how much housing growth should occur.Local planning efforts are also better at anticipating necessary government services such as water, sewer, utilities, schools and traffic flow;
- The bill creates incentive for housing developers to build near bus stops and bus routes by exempting developments from specified low-density zoning standards, including density, FAR, parking requirements, design guidelines, and height. However, it doesn’t make sense to tie housing growth to bus services that are not permanent and can change frequency or cease to exist. The potential for unpredictable bus service could lead to confusion for both developers seeking to use the benefits of the bill as well as local governments for planning purposes;
- The bill does virtually nothing to solve affordable housing needs and would actually decrease opportunities for affordable housing. Exemptions from low-density zoning standards such as those proposed in the bill would greatly increase land values near transit as up-zoning confers a monetary benefit to property owners and developers. Therefore, the bill would decrease opportunities for the development of affordable housing because the increased value of land would exacerbate the challenges affordable housing developers have in competing for expensive parcels;
- Despite the new amendments, the bill would increase displacement of existing residents, particularly those from low-income communities. The right to return policies are ineffective because housing construction takes several years and once a family has moved away, it is unlikely they will actually move back;
- The subsequent housing densification and population growth would increase the risk of adverse impacts on the environment, public health and safety, traffic congestion, infrastructure, utilities (water supply), public services (schools), views, sunlight, privacy, neighborhood character, and quality of life; and
- The bill would create unfunded mandates.There is no funding for dealing with the above listed impacts and the bill provides an official sidestep of addressing this issue. Moreover, there are no subsidies provided for affordable housing programs.
Once again, we, and the 4000 petition supporters, urge you to oppose SB-827 and remove the bill from consideration.
Thank you in advance for your conscientious consideration.
Very truly yours,
/s/
Sharon Rushton, Chairperson
Sustainable TamAlmonte