Opinion: Senate Bill 79 isn’t needed to spur transit-oriented housing

A trolley at the new Tecolote Road station File photo courtesy of SANDAG Despite newest revisions Senate Bill should not be approved without further meaningful changes SB is a fix in search of a challenge Its goal is supposedly to enable transit-oriented maturation but preponderance California cities especially those with considerable transit investments have already zoned for this In addition to adding housing threshold through general plan and population plan updates regional transportation planning agencies and municipalities including SANDAG and cities throughout the San Diego region have maximized their transit investments by creating and funding specific plans for transit-oriented advance by increasing densities eliminating parking and streamlining permitting That these cities have housing plans that have been certified by the California Department of Housing and Group Advancement is proof that cities have already made it legal to build housing near transit as proponents of the bill are fond of saying SB is too expansive to be transit-oriented The bill s one-half and one-quarter mile tiers should be defined by walking distance not straight line as the crow flies distance which can be a mile or more from a transit stop across canyons and freeways Allowing local governments to limit this to one-mile walking distance doesn t fix the matter because every transit review shows that transit usage especially for bus amenity drops off significantly beyond a one-half mile walking distance The bill should have been written to measure all distances by walking distance SB is a zoning bill not a housing bill Cities have already zoned for much more housing than projected need For example San Diego s current zoning provides three times the limit for new housing as San Diego s projected need And this doesn t include bonus densities that can increase capacities a multitude of times more than zoned allowances As a effect SB won t drive housing production it will just change where housing is produced SB projects won t be built near transit they will be developed a mile or more from transit where developers can exploit unsophisticated single-family homeowners who won t know how to revalue their properties to the highest and best use allowed by SB This is what happened with San Diego s Bonus ADU effort and there s no reason not to expect the same outcomes statewide with SB It is also significant to note that housing production is not driven by the state s projections of needed homes for moderate- and low-income households Rather developers produce units at the rate that the realm can absorb them without substantially driving down rents When demand weakens and vacancy rates rise the building industry cuts back on new improvement until the realm catches up There is no incentive for developers to flood the sector with overcapacity that will permanently lower long-term trends in rents and home prices It is telling that Contra Costa County which is partially represented by Buffy Wicks the bill s Assembly coauthor has been excluded from SB based on an arbitrary threshold for applicable rail stations When Contra Costa County does meet the criteria for being an urban transit county in the coming years the bill still protects Contra Costa by excluding bus routes from SB s upzoning If the bill s authors believe this is a great bill then residents of all urban transit counties should be treated the same as Assemblymember Wicks constituents by removing bus transit for all counties SB also excludes Marin County and Sonoma County even though they are connected through efficient commuter rail lines to employment centers in those counties and elsewhere in the Bay Area Altogether SB arbitrarily exempts three of the ten wealthiest counties in California Contra Costa Marin and Sonoma which is clearly not affirmatively furthering fair housing SB allows local governments to relocate growth from very high fire hazard severity zones and historic districts under an alternative plan but the limitations under which an alternative plan can be produced make it mathematically impossible to achieve these plans in practice Rather than requiring local action these areas should be excluded from SB s baseline limit altogether It is particularly egregious that SB ignores fire safety in the wake of devasting fires in Los Angeles as well as wildfires in urban San Diego neighborhoods This train is not ready to leave the station Geoffrey Hueter is the chair of Neighbors For A Better San Diego a grassroots organization that advocates for sensible and effective land use housing and zoning policies