Larry Klein
Mayor
Omar Din
Vice Mayor
Russ Melton
Councilmember
Alysa Cisneros
Councilmember
Richard Mehlinger
Councilmember
Murali Srinivasan
Councilmember
Linda Sell
Councilmember
August 18, 2023
The Honorable Anthony Portantino
Chair, Senate Appropriations Committee
1021 O Street, Room 2200
Sacramento, CA 95817
RE: AB 309 (Lee): The Social Housing Act. (as amended July 13, 2023) –
OPPOSE UNLESS AMENDED
Dear Senator Portantino:
On behalf of the City of Sunnyvale, we strongly urge your Opposition of AB 309 (Lee) when this measure is heard in your Senate Appropriations Committee.
AB 309 would create the Social Housing Program within the Department of General Services (DGS) to facilitate the construction of government-owned housing on leased state property or excess state-owned property. Cities would have no ability to regulate zoning or development standards, including floor area ratios, height limitations, or density requirements.
The City of Sunnyvale strongly supports the intent of AB 309, which is to produce more housing, as housing affordability and homelessness are among the most critical issues facing California cities. Affordably priced homes are out of reach for many people and housing is not being built fast enough to meet the current or projected needs of many people living in the state. Cities lay the essential groundwork for housing production by planning and zoning appropriate housing sites in their communities based on extensive public input and engagement, as well as state housing laws. AB 309 would create a new agency, disregard this state-mandated planning process, and specifically empower DGS to make land use and zoning decisions on state excess property. The measure broadly establishes the Social Housing Program within DGS and could be easily expanded beyond excess lands to include all state-owned lands.
The City of Sunnyvale has a long history of identifying and rezoning parcels of land for redevelopment with the objective of providing new housing units, including affordable Attachment 1
The Honorable Anthony Portantino, Chair, Senate Appropriations Committee August 18, 2023
ones. Sunnyvale has made great strides toward meeting the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) requirements in all income categories for the 2015-2022 period.
The submitted 6th Cycle Housing Element provides full accommodation of the 11,966 housing units allocated for the City during the 2023-2030 RHNA projection period, including 4,677 lower-income units. Instead of bypassing local planning regulations, a more effective use of intervention to spur affordable housing development would be to create targeted, ongoing funding mechanisms for programs incentivizing and assisting local governments in developing affordable housing projects where there are existing opportunity sites, as well as for programs preventing and reducing homelessness. We call on the Governor and lawmakers to invest $3 billion annually to help cities prevent and reduce homelessness and spur affordable housing development.
If the new agency is created, the bill should be amended to require that the agency follow local zoning and objective development standards.
For these reasons, we would appreciate your opposition of AB 309 (Lee). Thank you for your consideration of our position. Please do not hesitate to contact me or Trudi Ryan, Community Development Director, at [email protected] if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Larry Klein
Mayor
cc: The Honorable Gavin Newsom, Governor
The Honorable Evan Low, State Assembly
The Honorable Aisha Wahab, State Senate
The Honorable Josh Becker, State Senate
City Council
Kent Steffens, City Manager
Teri Silva, Assistant City Manager
Trudi Ryan, Director of Community Development
Seth Miller, Cal Cities Regional Public Affairs Manager ([email protected]) League of California Cities (via email: cityletters @calcities.org) Attachment 1