In Sonoma County, and across California, housing costs continue to climb beyond the reach of many residents.
Increasingly, policymakers have pointed to small-scale, “naturally affordable” homes as a key solution. Last month, California’s Legislature acted on that conviction and advanced two controversial bills aimed at making it easier to build modest single-family homes, duplexes and downsized apartment buildings throughout the state.
Local housing advocates and developers are praising the measures as incremental but significant steps toward alleviating the North Bay’s affordable housing shortage.
“This is definitely a statement to local jurisdictions that the state means business on housing,” said Jen Klose, director of Sonoma County advocacy group Generation Housing. “It’s not enough, but it’s a great start.”
If signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the new bills — the latest piecemeal housing legislation following a series of failed attempts to pass more sweeping measures — could roll back some local control over city and county zoning ordinances in the state. Such land-use laws give local governments broad control over the scale and location of different kinds of developments.
Many community groups are urging Newsom to veto both bills, arguing the proposed laws only serve the interest of developers, while also damaging the character of local neighborhoods and having a detrimental impact on the environment.
“(The bills) would apply the failed theories of trickle-down economics to California’s housing affordability crisis,” said San Francisco-based group Livable California in a letter Assemblywoman Aguiar-Curry, D-Winters, who voted for both measures.
Newsom has not commented directly on the bills, but housing advocates and experts told the Press Democrat they’re confident he will eventually sign them. He has until Oct. 10, after the this month’s contentious recall election, to make his decision.
State Senator Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, who voted for both bills, sees them as an extension of the state’s ongoing commitments to affordable housing, including the $10.3 billion earmarked to build low-income homes in Newsom’s latest approved state budget.
“A lot of folks talk about the affordable housing crisis, but it’s now time to act on the affordable housing crisis,” McGuire said.
One of the bills, known as S.B. 9, which McGuire co-authored, takes aim at areas zoned only for single-family homes. The restrictive zoning is described by Klose and other advocates as contributing to racial segregation locally and across the country because they have long priced disadvantaged communities out of many suburban areas.
To spur denser development in those neighborhoods, the bill would allow most homeowners to split their property in half and build or convert up to two homes on each of the lots, if space allows. That means permitting as many as four homes in areas that currently only allow one.
Property owners would be free to rent or sell homes or duplexes on either lot created in split. To prevent speculation by investors, the bill would require a homeowner to live on the property for three years once they get approval to divide a lot.
The bill would also streamline approvals for new construction on the lots, while leaving local governments in control over many height, scale and design standards. Homeowners in designated historic districts or “environmentally sensitive” areas including fire hazard zones, however, may not eligible under the measure.
Amy Christopherson Bolten, director of operations at Santa Rosa-based Christopherson Builders, said Sonoma County has a significant number of single-family zoned properties with plenty of space to accommodate additional homes. Bolten said the bill could entice developers to pursue multi-home projects, which can be more financially viable than building just one single-family home.
“You could double the housing stock and make it more affordable,” Bolten said.
An analysis by UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation found S.B. 9 would clear the way for around 16,000 new homes that would be “market feasible” to rent or sell in Sonoma County. That’s more than the roughly 14,000 homes the state is set to require the county approve between 2023 to 2031.
Of course, it remains to be seen how many property owners would actually take advantage of the potential new rules. But Stephen Marshall, founder of Sonoma Manufactured Homes, which specializes in building prefabricated homes, described the prospect of upzoning single-family properties as an “obvious gold rush.”
