WP4 Rough Draft
California is currently undergoing an affordable housing crisis. Although California was hardly considered an affordable state to live in before 2008, its residents are still feeling the lingering effects of the crash of the housing market in its current affordable housing crisis. Due to the unprecedented rise in home foreclosures after the 2008 market crash, the housing market for rentals is still “tight” with few vacancies. To compound this problem, the development of housing has barely risen (Public Policy Institute of California 2018). In tandem with stagnant wages, rising housing costs, and growing demand (Public Policy Institute of California 2017), the state has failed to address housing and especially affordable housing. Recent legislation, such as Senate Bill 9 (SB 9) and Senate Bill 10 (SB 10), displays California’s desire to increase its housing density. However, when developers fixate their efforts solely on density, state action neglects the core of the issue: affordability. Although housing development under SB 9 and SB 10 can help alleviate the tight housing market conditions, they do not ensure affordability and along with a limited degree of availability (Trambley 2020). Sustainable development must place an emphasis on its economic viability for all residents so as to not uproot low-income communities that are traditionally composed of residents from non-White backgrounds and their surrounding environment. As a result, SB 9 and SB 10 run counter to this proposed definition of sustainable development and should instead be replaced by legislation that promotes the development of tiny homes.
A major proponent of SB 9 and SB 10 is State Senator Scott Weiner. Weiner believes that transit-oriented development (TOD) is a solution well-fitted to his goal of combating global climate change, as well as the affordable housing and homelessness crisis in California’s metropolitan regions. The concept of TOD first appeared in the 1980s, when academics and urban planners alike claimed it would increase transit participation and mitigate urban sprawl. However, the actual implementation of TOD in urban regions of California such as Southern California did not follow suit. Municipalities, metropolitan planning organizations, and even many developers were concerned about the viability in a region where driving was ubiquitous. Nevertheless, the first major instance of TRO development in Southern California that occurred was the Blue Line, which connected downtown Los Angeles to downtown Long Beach, in 1990. When the Blue Line was still in the phases of its own development, railroad proponents pointed out that the project would bring both physical, but also financial mobility to its surrounding inner-city residents (Loukaitou-Sideris 2013). However, more than four decades since the inauguration of the Blue Line, classic symptoms of urban decay are still pervasive in the areas surrounding its rail stations. The collective lack of commitment and initiative from municipalities, public-sector agencies, and transportation agencies created an unsound plan that doomed the line from the start. Much of the housing along Blue Line stations had environmental issues such as contaminated sites and incompatible land use that was not fit for housing. Social issues including, but not limited to poverty, unemployment, crime, and gang violence, detracted many investors. Low-income neighborhoods surrounding the stations primarily housed minority and immigrant residents, who were often removed from the political participation process and thus couldn’t air their grievances. Finally, a lack of both private and public capital combined with high land costs created properties that were outside of the price range of the majority of said low-income residents (Loukatiou-Sideri 2013). In California, TOD has had a history of delivering empty promises.
Based on the information available on SB 9, it is likely that it will have a minimal but negative effect on solving the affordable housing crisis. Senate Bill 9 was proposed by State Senator Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) and overrides single-family zoning ordinances to convert one house parcels to up to four housing units. To expedite the process, SB 9 exempts specific projects. However, a study Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley estimated that at most, 7% of parcels statewide could be converted under SB 9. Those numbers translate into 410,000 parcels and around 714,000 units (Metcalf et al. 2021). This study assumes that every available parcel is converted which is unlikely as out of these 410,000 parcels, only 110,000 would become financially feasible for individual property owners and property owners. Because of the lack of government funding to subsidize this conversion, it is economically viable to not pursue any development before and after SB 9. Although SB 9 seeks to remove either local or state laws to promote new construction, it relies primarily on private capital as a source of funding. Therefore, developers would be much more likely to target low-income neighborhoods, where properties would be considerably less expensive to purchase. These low-income neighborhoods, which include a vast majority of Black and Latino Californians, will lead to their rental properties becoming demolished which will push these residents away (Layne 2021). Profit-driven developers will upzone the property in terms of density but more importantly value, which originally residents can no longer afford. Tenants who once enjoyed rent control protections will be evicted and may end up homeless, furthering the homelessness crisis. This gentrification will only further socioeconomic inequality that is already rooted in the housing bias against Black and Latino tenants. The communities that SB 9 is supposed to help stand to lose the most.
Similar to SB 9, SB 10 also promotes high-density construction at the expense of vulnerable, low-income communities. SB 10 was the cumulation of a series of attempts (e.g., SB 827, SB 50, and SB 902) from Weiner that had previously failed. It aims to promote building at higher densities in “transit rich areas,” which include rail stops similar to the Blue Line. Most notably, SB 10 zoning changes aren’t subject to review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Because CEQA mandates reports on the environmental impact of projects, it increases both the time and cost of development. However, similarly to the Blue Line, if CEQA doesn’t inspect properties, issues that make housing ill-suited for human habitation won’t come to the surface. And the ones who will pay the price both with their pocket and their health will be low-income communities. Overall, the quality of life for all will substantially decrease. By bringing people closer together to transit-rich areas, more people will be exposed to traffic-related air, noise, and light pollution. The urban heat island effect will remove the natural ventilation in cities. And energy grids will bear an unbelievable burden as they attempt to shift to more renewable sources of energy (Ng 2010). Without proper planning and funding, SB 10 will likely suffer the same fate as the Blue Line did decades ago due to its ambition.
If California is to address its issue of density and affordability simultaneously in housing, permitting the building of tiny homes is a more realistic solution than SB 9 and SB 10. Currently, there are building codes in California that set minimum requirements for property sizes. However, by repealing or amending these regulations, tiny can help alleviate the enormous pressure on the housing rental market. With their low construction costs, tiny homes can enable many renters to become first-time homeowners (Sisson, Andrews, & Bazeley 2020). This bypasses the toughest hurdle of the housing crisis, but tiny homes also reduce environmental impacts. They take less raw material to produce and also less energy to maintain due to the energetic efficiency relative to larger homes (Tramley 2020). Because of their minimal land use, tiny homes can also be placed in suburban areas to combat sprawl as they aren’t limited to urban neighborhoods. One major complaint of tiny homes in suburban neighborhoods is that they depreciate the value of the surrounding land. However, this is due to the fact that they are not permanent fixtures of land under zoning laws. If this were amended, then they could transform into stable, continual investments that become part of the community (Stoggard 2021). Proponents of SB 9 and SB 10 argue that simply increasing the supply of housing will inevitably slow the increase in cost, if not reduce costs entirely. Single-housing zoning should be amended but for tiny homes instead, as they actually get to the root of the issue: affordability, not density.
There are many countries across the globe that have come up with different solutions to their respective affordable housing crisis. But Canada is an example of a country that has adapted its zoning laws to generate interest in tiny homes to aid its affordable housing crisis. The most notable example of this is Edmonton, Alberta. They introduced bylaws that allowed tiny homes on foundations and removed minimum property zoning laws. What is noticeable is that this act was introduced before the start of the pandemic (December 2019). Similar to America, Canada is undergoing an affordable housing crisis. The pandemic shifted many people’s perspectives into wanting a minimalistic lifestyle. Living in tiny homes forces homeowners to get creative with the lack of space. Through this, they rejected consumerism and other unhealthy lifestyles that were highlighted as necessary during the pandemic. However, this shows that this change was going to happen regardless. America is not the only country that is in need of tiny homes. It has proven to be a viable solution globally in many different regions too.
Over the past few years, perhaps no issue has been more contentious than the affordable housing crisis in California. If 100 different Californians were asked about it, likely 100 different solutions would be proposed. Currently, Governor Gavin Newsom is projected to fall well short of his ambitious goal of creating 3.5 million homes by 2025. But part of this is his own undoing by cosigning SB 9 and SB 10 and will likely cost him his job in the future. Although there is a myriad of different issues surrounding the housing crisis in California, they all stem from the absurd fiscal cost of housing today in California. If density is emphasized at the literal expense of affordability, other issues surrounding inequity will stem from this too. History such as the Blue Line has shown us that TOR produces mixed results, but innovative ideas such as tiny homes can be the creative solution we need for the future.
