California Rejects Berkeley's Housing Plan

California has rejected Berkeley’s housing growth plan, which the university town submitted just before the Jan. 31 deadline set by the state.

This apparently will put Berkeley in the same category as a bevy of Bay Area cities that failed to submit plans before the deadline—as in failure to comply—in danger of having the state impose “builder’s remedy” zoning overrides and a loss of state funding for housing and other grants.

The California Department of Housing and Community Development (CHD) decides which cities have failed to comply—last week, the CHD approved San Francisco’s plan to build 82,000 new homes (more than half of which will be affordable) in the next eight years, an approval announced by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“[This] demonstrates our commitment to tackling this housing crisis head-on by providing unprecedented funding and resources, streamlining and eliminating bureaucratic red tape and most importantly, demanding greater accountability at the local level,” Gov. Newsom said.

“Through stringent state mandates with real consequences for failing to meet their obligation, San Francisco is showing what is possible when you stop kicking the can down the road and start to face the difficult decisions it takes to tackle the housing needs of Californians,” Newsom’s statement continued.

The real consequences the governor referenced include the loss by a non-compliant city of millions of dollars of state funding for housing and the loss of local control for zoning through the builder’s remedy legal clause.

The builder’s remedy, enacted into state law in the 1990s, permits developers to bypass local planning or zoning approval for residential projects that are planning to reserve at least 20% of units for affordable housing.

Southern California, which had an earlier deadline for housing element plans, already has seen projects filed under builder’s remedy. WSC plans for more than 4,000 units over 12 projects in Santa Monica; Lennar plans to build 530 homes on a golf course in La Habra, the largest builder’s remedy project thus far in Orange County.

Municipalities are likely to test the state law creating the builder’s remedy in by litigating the overrides in state courts.

The HCD is requiring several “housing elements” in each city’s plan to grow housing over the next eight years, including:

A plan to grow the minimum number of units needed to meet a state-specified target (or more); identifying land suitable for residential development, by providing a specific site map; and providing a specific plan to make the zoning or density changes needed to facilitate new housing development in the city.

Berkeley failed to identify land, provide a map or outline zoning changes in its growth plan, the HCD said in a letter to the city.

On Jan. 3, Oakland unveiled a housing plan that exceeded the state’s target by 10K homes: the city will build 36,000 homes, after the state recommended 26,000. The city produced a map indicating where it plans to build 36K new homes.

Oakland’s new 132-page housing plan has designated more than 600 sites for new housing, most of which are concentrated in downtown and West Oakland. Major transportation arteries, including Foothill and MacArthur boulevards, will see transit-oriented housing development, GlobeSt. reported.

The city’s planners also have identified parcels spread across suburban and urban areas throughout Oakland.

The city partnered with a regional advocacy group, East Bay Housing Organizations, which explained in a city-produced video that the new housing plan is designed to serve the city’s 440,000 residents without gentrification that would drive out lower-income people.