Thread by @CSElmendorf

A 🧵 on how California enviros lost the plot on infill housing & got rolled by sprawl builders.

trigger warning: if you give money to mainstream green groups in CA, this thread may be hard to read.
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Back in 2018, Cal. Building Industry Association lobbyists came up w/an ingenious scheme:
Make local govs approve any housing project whose density is within range allowed by local gov's General Plan, even if zoning of site is much more restrictive.
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To the average legislator, this may have looked like a narrow tweak to the state's Housing Accountability Act (HAA), but it would have been transformative.
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The reason is that (per conventional wisdom) many counties & cities responded, in 1970s, to CA's new mandate that zoning be "consistent" with their general plan (GP), by adopting GPs that allowed pretty much anything in areas of potential future growth.
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These anything-goes GP designations were paired with highly restrictive zoning (sometimes called "holding zones"), and invitations for developers to propose project-specific rezonings.
/5
definitions.uslegal.com/h/holding-zone/

The arrangement gave city councils unfettered discretion to approve or reject projects as they wished, since rezoning is a legislative act and a "plan-consistency" challenge to a rezoning would be doomed to fail if the GP says any zoning classification for the site is fine.
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Thus was the table set for pay-to-play greenfield development. Developer would propose a project; county supes would say, "Ok, but only if you build the schools, parks, sewers, or highway extensions that I want." (And fund my next campaign.)
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In its original form, the BIA's 2018 bill (AB 3194) would have overturned the table, by prohibiting local govs from denying or reducing the density of any project whose density does not exceed the GP max. (The bill required approval w/o rezoning.)
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In contrast to bills like @Scott_Wiener's SB 50 and @BuffyWicks's AB 2011, which upzone targeted locations for buildings of specified heights, AB 3194 was pell-mell upzoning.

Whatever a GP allowed, a city or county would have to approve, even though...
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the authors & adopters of the GP may have written it only with an eye toward preserving future political discretion--as opposed to rendering a considered judgment about what heights and densities are actually appropriate in different areas.
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So who fought AB 3194?

It wasn't the enviros!

Rather, local govs and the American Planning Ass'n came out against it.
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They eventually secured an amendment that allowed developers to blow through local zoning only if the zoning was "inconsistent" with GP.

Then then withdraw their opposition; the final bill analysis lists no opponents of record.
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Even so, there was a solid argument from leg history that AB 3194 changed the traditional meaning of plan-zoning consistency, such that cities would have to approve some GP-compliant projects that they were previously free to deny.

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https://twitter.com/CSElmendorf/status/1717680210114760757

Meanwhile, @Yimby_Law took the strong view that AB 3194 as adopted in fact requires cities to approve *any* GP-compliant project, notwithstanding much more restrictive zoning.
A year ago, a superior court agreed with them!

/14 yimbylaw.org/the-general-pl…

@Yimby_Law's trial-court win should have put enviros worried about sprawl on high alert.
/15

But rather than do anything about risk of pell-mell upzoning thru the HAA, enviro groups trained their artillery in the 2023 leg session on bills that would limit CEQA review (SB 423) or CEQA abuse (AB 1663) of ***infill development only.***
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Meanwhile, right under their noses, the Leg amended the Density Bonus Law to codify the "developer gets max general-plan density" rule! (AB 1287)

Without a peep of opposition from the greens.

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https://twitter.com/CSElmendorf/status/1717963299730722907

Any group opposed to sprawl should be especially alarmed about codification of the "max GP density" norm thru SDBL (vs. HAA), because whereas the HAA allows local govs to apply objective standards & impose discretionary conditions of approval that don't reduce density, ...
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the SDBL requires cities to ***waive any local zoning, design, or development standard that interferes with the 'amenities' of her project's design.***

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https://twitter.com/CSElmendorf/status/1646743927318515715

If a developer wants to provide "sprawly" amenities--big yards, loads of parking, etc.--the SDBL lets her do it, so long as she meets the affordable housing threshold (e.g., 5% for very-low-income households).
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The project can be as low density as the developer wishes. Or as high density (up to the GP max + statutory bonus).
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And while the SDBL formerly allowed local govs to deny waivers, incentives, and concessions to avoid adverse enviro impacts, that proviso was lined out in 2021.
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So why didn't enviros ring the bill about AB 3194 (especially after @Yimby_Law's trial court win), and raise hell over AB 1287?

I wish I knew.
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From where I stand, it sure looks like the greens in Sacramento are more concerned w/ preserving litigation hooks they know the best (CEQA), rather than preserving the environment.

/24

https://twitter.com/CSElmendorf/status/1558261164378767362

Perhaps they just didn't understand AB 1287, the HAA, and SDBL.

But that's damning too, b/c the greens have been talking the talk about infill for ages & the Leg has been hard at work on housing since 2017.

In this context, "I don't understand" == "I don't care."

/end