Newsom picks more housing over CEQA in backing two bills meant to speed construction

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The effort by two Bay Area lawmakers to exempt most urban housing developments from the state’s premier environmental regulation — an idea that has drawn some of the state’s most powerful interest groups into a fierce legislative debate — just received a prized endorsement from Gov. Gavin Newsom.

While announcing his updated budget proposal for the coming fiscal year, the governor urged the Legislature to pass two housing bills and thanked their Democratic authors, Oakland Assemblymember Buffy Wicks and San Francisco Sen. Scott Wiener.

“It’s time to get serious about this issue, period, full stop,” Newsom said this morning. “If you care about your kids you care about getting this done. This is the biggest opportunity to do something big and bold and the only impediment is us.”

Wicks’ Assembly Bill 609 would exempt most “infill” housing developments,  projects built in or next to existing developments, from review under the California Environmental Quality Act. That 55-year-old statute requires governments to study the environmental impact of any decisions they make, including the approval of new housing. Any person or organization — construction worker unions, environmental advocates or neighborhood groups, to name a few —can challenge the validity of those studies, delaying approval. 

Critics of the law argue that it is regularly abused for non-environmental reasons to delay urban housing projects which are inherently better for the environment than sprawl development. Defenders of the law say such lawsuits are relatively rare.

Wiener’s Senate Bill 607 is a highly technical grab bag. Among other things it would make it easier for state and local governments to approve projects — housing and otherwise — without conducting a full, lengthy review and exempt certain zoning changes for infill projects from CEQA entirely.

Newsom said that he would include language that mirrors those policy goals in upcoming budget bills. 

“These bills are critical permitting reform proposals, and I applaud Gov. Newsom for including them in his proposed budget,” Wiener said in a statement. “By clearing away outdated procedural hurdles, we can address California’s outrageous cost of living, grow California’s economy, and help the government solve the most pressing problems facing our state.”

The governor also published proposed legislative language that would channel certain environmental impact fees collected from development projects toward the construction of new affordable housing located near public transit stops. That mirrors another bill authored by Wicks.

That proposed legislation would also give the California Coastal Commission, a frequent target of pro-development legislation, a deadline for responding to project proposals.

This isn’t the first time the governor has weighed in on the landmark environmental law. Two times in as many years, the administration has urged the Legislature to tinker with the law to make it easier to build infrastructure projects and to expand the state’s renewable energy capacity. 

The Legislature hasn’t always listened and the prospect of comprehensive “CEQA reform,” a goal regularly touted by California governors and resisted by environmental groups and many unions, remains elusive. 

Those earlier legislative efforts were “weak sauce” and “piddlywinks,” these bills represent much more substantive change to housing and environmental policy, said Chris Elmendorf, a UC Davis Law professor and frequent public critic of CEQA.

“The fact that the governor is willing not just speak in generalities, not just have Ezra Klein on his podcast, but to endorse specific bills and even go beyond endorsing them by tying them to his budget and putting pressure on the Legislature, that, I think is a very big development that we haven’t seen previously from this governor,” he said.

His nod to these two bills comes at a politically important time. Wicks’ bill has sailed through the Assembly so far with the explicit backing of Speaker Robert Rivas. Wiener’s bill has made its way through one committee, but only barely and over the objections of that committee’s chair.

Both Legislative leaders have vowed to prioritize legislation that promotes “affordability.” Rivas, closely allied with the “yes in my backyard” movement, has publicly endorsed a suite of bills aimed at reducing regulations and speeding up approvals for new housing. McGuire, tasked with wrangling a Senate Democratic caucus with public fractures over housing policy, has been more reluctant to articulate the specifics of his housing agenda. 

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