Town of Atherton
Office of the Mayor
80 Fair Oaks Lane
Atherton, California 94027
Phone (650) 752-0500
May 21, 2025
The Honorable Gavin Newsom
Governor, State of California
1021 O Street, Suite 9000
Sacramento, CA 95814
RE: Housing Law
Dear Governor Newsom,
On behalf of the residents and stakeholders of the Town of Atherton, I write to firmly oppose the relentless proliferation of state housing laws that have overridden local control without regard for local housing plans, effectively sidelining the voices of our community and undermining years of responsible local planning.
The Town of Atherton is a community of just over 7,000 people. Our progress has been shaped by our philosophy of small-town, semi-rural character. This has allowed us to retain the small-town feel that has defined our community for generations. Decades of dutiful local planning has crafted our community into one of the most desirable jurisdictions in San Mateo County.
While the Town respects the pursuit of housing production amid a statewide crisis, the way forward is to work with cities to allow for growth in ways that make sense for their communities. Instead, cities have been virtually shut out of the process, and these new laws have diminished general plans, stripped away authority over local development, and left community members demanding answers from their local elected officials.
The Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA), a distribution of housing units assigned to every California city, is an impossible number to attain that will not lead to the level of increased housing growth that it intends. The rigorous process of getting a housing element approved by the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) has left cities vulnerable to draconian penalties such as loss of grant funding and the Builder’s Remedy. Most importantly, the laws are not providing affordable housing as intended.
Local control continues to be undermined by a slew of new bills each year. These bills override general plans, ignore local zoning and land use plans, and steadily erode the ability of residents and their local representatives to shape the future of their communities. Despite Atherton’s opposition—as well as that of the League of California Cities and other municipalities statewide—we have been inundated with legislation that further limits our ability to plan for growth responsibly. SB 423 (Weiner, 2024), which significantly expanded ministerial approvals for affordable housing projects; SB 4 (Weiner, 2024), which requires a housing development project to be a “use by right” on land owned by an independent institution of higher education or a religious institution; and SB 9 (Atkins, 2021), which allows homeowners to Housing Law
May 21, 2025
subdivide their lots and add up to two duplexes in most single-family neighborhoods, are just a small example of how the new laws diminish local control.
This year, many onerous bills have been introduced that will impose additional state housing dictates on issues of critical local significance. One such example, SB 79 (Wiener), defies cities’ general plans and grants transit agencies unlimited land use authority on property they own or on which they have a permanent easement, regardless of the distance from a transit stop. Transit agencies would have the power to determine all aspects of development, including height, density, and design, without regard to local zoning or planning regulations.
And yet, housing prices are still spiraling out of control. It is imperative that we raise the question of how the state plans to evaluate these housing policies when the intended outcomes are currently not being achieved.
As Mayor of the Town of Atherton, I have heard from my constituents, as well as local officials in neighboring cities, about the effects of these new housing laws. Our communities are suffering, and Sacramento has regrettably turned a blind eye to the effects these laws have had on cities across California.
The time to act is now. I ask that you meet with me and other jurisdictions in this region so we can work together on a sustainable, reasonable process that addresses this decades-in-the-making housing crisis while keeping cities in the conversation and allowing us to grow in ways that include local discretion and public engagement. Please contact City Manager George Rodericks at [email protected] or 650-752- 0504 to schedule a meeting. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Lewis
Mayor
Town of Atherton
Cc: Senator Scott Weiner
Senator Josh Becker
Assemblyman Mark Berman
League of California Cities