California legislators face off with group after release of ‘Housing Killer’ list
Having a bill labeled as a “Housing Killer” by the influential California Building Industry Association might leave some legislators shaken. But that is not the case for Assemblymember Gregg Hart, D-Santa Barbara.
“I actually welcome the designation,” he said. “This is all gonna work, I think, to my advantage.”
The trade association recently published a list of measures that is has deemed “Housing Killers” and Hart’s Assembly Bill 2569 is one of them. It would expand reviews of housing developments and other projects under the California Environmental Quality Act.
The association had hundreds of bills to choose from, but its CEO Dan Dunmoyer said the four that made the cut “would have a very profound, if not a cataclysmic effect, on the ability to build housing” if they become laws. The association is also a major spender on lobbyists, but the group’s annual list is a more public way to send a message to the authors of the bills and other legislators who may consider supporting them.
“It’s our way of saying: ‘Please, be careful,’” Dunmoyer said.
CEQA requires public agencies to evaluate the environmental consequences of development projects and Hart’s bill would require those reviews to consider the effects the developments would have on the health and safety of people who use or live in them in the future. A 2015 California Supreme Court ruling said agencies only needed to include those factors in limited circumstances.
An ordinary CEQA analysis, the court’s opinion said, “is concerned with a project’s impact on the environment, rather than with the environment’s impact on a project and its users or residents.”
Opponents of housing developments have used CEQA lawsuits to try and delay the construction of projects and the trade group warns the bill “would create sweeping new grounds for litigation against proposed projects seeking to create more housing for California’s working families.”
Hart agrees with critics that CEQA lawsuits filed by “powerful interests” are a problem, but said he does not plan to bow down to the building industry’s pressure.
“I appreciate the attention,” he said. “The point of my bill is to raise this issue and have us talk about it.”
The measure passed out of an Assembly committee Monday evening. It has to make it through at least one other committee before going in front of the entire Assembly.
Another bill on the list is a measure introduced by Assemblymember James Ramos, D-Highland, which would require government agencies to allow California Indians to access sacred sites that are on state public lands.
The trade group said Assembly Bill 1881 would threaten “to slow or stop critical housing development by imposing new, onerous regulatory constraints, making it more difficult for families to find a place to call home.”
Ramos said he tried to narrow the bill focus to address the group’s concerns. Previously, the measure also applied to local governments and would have required them to consult with tribes before approving projects. Still, the trade group remains opposed to the bill.
“This is truly about a voice that was taken, stolen from the Native American people from the state of California,” Ramos said. “One has to question why there is so much opposition to giving that voice back to Californian’s first people?”
The other measures on the building group’s list involve emissions reductions programs and insurance requirements for new developments. As of Tuesday morning, both were still scheduled to come up in future committee hearings.
Although the “Housing Killers” list did not immediately defeat the bills, Dunmoyer said the group has faced that reality before and was committed to a long fight.
“We try to work this out in the Legislature,” he said, “but we also have at times had to go the governor.”
