The nature of new housing development approvals is continuing to evolve as Sacramento gets increasingly involved in what used to be a purely local decision-making process. Responding to the statewide housing crisis, California lawmakers have been busy for the past several years passing legislation that serves to change the balance of power between Sacramento and local city halls when it comes to approving new housing development.
The most potentially controversial of these changes involve the expansion of what are called “ministerial” approvals of new housing projects. This means that if a proposed new residential development meets the zoning rules that are on the books, it must be approved by City staff with no public hearings or involvement of the Planning Commission or City Council. This will increasingly affect housing approvals in Oakland over the coming few years, and the City is now at work creating “objective design standards” to be incorporated into the City’s zoning.
These standards are permitted under the new State regulations as long as they don’t serve to chill the development of new housing. Based on an Oakland zoning code amendment proposed by Councilmember Kalb, the developers of projects to be approved ministerially will be required to give notice to residents and property owners within 300 feet, even though there is no public hearing process.
The following are some recently enacted State bills to be aware of:
SB423: Mandates ministerial approvals for most new housing in jurisdictions (such as Oakland) that aren’t meeting their newly increased state housing allocations. (Due to the way in which the State measures how cities meet their housing allocation, the provisions of the law will not take effect in Oakland for a few years.)
SB4: Mandates ministerial approvals for certain low- and moderate income housing projects to be constructed on the property of private colleges and religious institutions.
AB1633: Prohibits cities or counties from using the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to inappropriately hold up approvals for housing development projects in urbanized areas.
AB1287: Increases the size of the state density bonus to 70 percent for projects that include at least 20 percent of units affordable to families making less than 50 percent of the area median income. This means, in effect, that projects including that substantial number of units affordable to families considered to be “very low income” will be permitted to build 70 percent more units than the zoning would otherwise allow.
