Event Recap: East Bay Housing Legislative Update
This Saturday we partnered with with East Bay for Everyone to bring our East Bay state legislative representatives Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, Assemblymember Rob Bonta, and Senator Nancy Skinner together for a Housing Legislative Update.
About 150 people gathered at the East Bay for Everyone headquarters in downtown Oakland to hear from our elected officials about their plans to address our region’s housing crisis in the recently commenced legislative session. The conversation was moderated by former TechCrunch journalist and TechEquity Advisory Board Member Kim-Mai Cutler.
Check out our livetweet thread here:
Two major themes emerged in the conversation, about which all three legislators seemed to be in agreement. First, we’re not building enough to keep up with demand, and second, we’re not providing enough protections or an adequate safety net for renters while we work to address the problem. Though in agreement about the core issues, each representative had their own perspective on how to address them, with legislation to match.
Renter Protections
Assemb. Bonta lamented the early demise of his bill AB 1506 in last year’s session that would have repealed the Costa-Hawkins Act. The Costa-Hawkins Act is a law passed in 1995 which limits cities’ ability to enact some kinds of rent control and prevents them from protecting certain types of housing, such as newer construction or single family homes. Repealing the Costa-Hawkins Act would allow cities to provide more comprehensive rent control policies for their tenants.
The battle for expanded rent control went on to appear on the 2018 ballot as Prop 10, which would have repealed the Costa Hawkins Act; to Assemb. Bonta’s dismay, that ballot measure also failed. He said that despite his disappointment about the results of AB 1506 and Prop 10, he feels optimistic about reforming, rather than repealing, the Costa-Hawkins Act in the legislative session. However, he didn’t reveal a specific bill or plan to do so at the town hall this weekend.
Assemb. Wicks shared two bills she’s working on this session to support renter protections. Assemb. Wicks stressed the importance of having good, reliable data about California’s rental market to allow our state to adequately direct resources. A rental data registry, enabled by her bill AB 724, would track both rent prices and evictions. This would provide the state with critical data about who is at risk for displacement and which landlords are engaging in predatory behavior. Many local municipalities track little to no data points for their rental housing stock. Without a statewide registry, this leaves the state with few data points to inform decision-making.
In addition to gathering better data, Assemb. Wicks wants to act swiftly to create price controls for renters. She previewed a concept for an anti-gouging rent cap, which she plans to co-sponsor with San Francisco Assemblymember David Chiu. The anti-gouging rent cap wouldn’t provide the same protections as rent-control, but it could provide some price stability to renters and prevent the kind of steep rent increases that push families into poverty or homelessness. The policy mirrors the work that TechEquity did with the Terner Center for Housing Innovation last year to identify alternatives to repealing the Costa-Hawkins Act.
Sen. Skinner echoed Assemb. Bonta’s frustrations with the Costa-Hawkins Act, and put forth her plan to support tenants this year: The Keep Californians Housed Act. The bill, also known as SB 18, would provide funding and support direct assistance for households that are behind on their rent as well as provide legal assistance for tenants whose landlords may be trying to unlawfully evict them. This type of emergency cash assistance has already proved effective in Oakland, which launched its “Keep Oakland Housed” program last fall.
Building More Homes
Assmeb. Wicks said at the forum, “We have got to do both. We have got to build more but we also have to prevent displacement. I think a lot of people are starting to understand that in the legislature.” Sen. Skinner seemed to share the sentiment, saying “the growth of homelessness is because of the scarcity of housing. Let’s be clear about that.”
Assemb. Wicks and Sen. Skinner have both signed on to San Francisco Senator Scott Wiener’s bill SB 50, the MORE Homes Act. The bill would increase housing capacity near job centers and high-quality transit by allowing more housing to be built within a quarter-mile of high-volume transit stops, overriding local planning laws that currently prohibit it in many areas. SB 50 would also relax parking and density requirements in these areas, as well as in areas with high numbers of jobs and/or within one-quarter mile of bus stops that offer high-frequency service. It would exempt properties that have or have had renters within the past seven years and would also exempt low-income communities, giving them until 2025 to complete alternative plans that will add more homes.
Both Assemb. Wicks and Sen Skinner emphasized the need for the state to step in where local municipalities are failing to develop regional and statewide solutions. Assemb. Wicks said, “We need regional coordination. Berkeley alone can’t deal with it, Oakland alone can’t deal with it.” Sen. Skinner added, “This is an emergency, we need to act like it.” As Randy Shaw put it in his article on the forum, “Skinner’s new SB 330 evokes the emergency theme. It prevents cities from downzoning areas for housing and from imposing minimum parking requirements. It also requires projects get an up or down final vote within 12 months of the project application’s completion.”
Assemb. Bonta stressed the importance of identifying funding to develop low-income housing. He’s introduced a bill this session, AB 11, to bring funding and county level coordination back to affordable housing development. The bill models itself after California Redevelopment Agencies, which were eliminated by Jerry Brown in 2011.
We were excited to see our representatives coming to the table (and to the legislative floor) with actionable solutions to address our housing crisis. Even more encouraging was the high turnout of community members who took the time out of their weekends to come to the conversation. We see Saturday’s event as a sign that the tide is turning on the housing conversation, and that real change is on the horizon.
Big thanks to our co-host East Bay for Everyone, to Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, Assemblymember Rob Bonta, and Senator Nancy Skinner for sharing with our communities, and to Kim-Mai Cutler for moderating!
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