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PENDING BILL - Senate Bill 79, the housing bill authored by Senator Scott Weiner (D-San Francisco), which passed the Senate by a vote of 21 Ayes and 13 Noes, and 6 NVR (No Vote Recorded, which is counted as a no vote), is now waiting for the Assembly to return from recess on August 18.
In the interim, opponents are organizing email letter-writing campaigns to elected state and city representatives, asking for them to oppose the bill, saying it would eliminate all local zoning control. The bill is supported by pro-development interests, including Abundant Housing, California YMBY, and locally-based Streets For All, among others.
SB 79 would allow construction of 5-6 story apartment buildings on any parcel within 1/4 or 1/2 mile of a rail or qualifying bus stop at a density requirement greater than Manhattan. This bill does not exempt historic districts, multi-family low-density, or single-family neighborhoods. The affordability requirement, which is higher in the city’s Housing Element, is too low to address the affordable housing needs for LA, according to an analysis by United Neighbors, a coalition of hundreds of homeowners’ groups across the state.
During the recess, United Neighbors is mobilizing residents to write letters of opposition to the bill to their Assembly members and LA City Council members.
“There are no exclusions for single-family, multi-family, or historic neighborhoods anywhere in the city. In Larchmont, for example, within a 1/2-mile radius at the intersection of Larchmont Blvd. and Beverly Blvd, SB 79 would permit 42,000 units of housing,” wrote Sam Uretsky, founder of Reboot Larchmont, a neighborhood land use advocacy group, and president of Larchmont United Neighborhood Association, to his neighbors in Larchmont Village, urging them to write letters of opposition to elected officials.
Last week, United Neighbors asked residents to write to Mayor Karen Bass and ask her to take a stand opposing SB 79. (Recently, Mayor Bass won an exception for the Pacific Palisades via an Executive Order from Governor Gavin Newsom, from SB 9, also authored by Sen. Weiner, which passed in 2021 and permits lot splitting and the construction of multifamily homes on single-family parcels in high fire hazard severity zones.)
Dear Mayor Bass,
Will you stand up for LA and oppose SB 79 loud and clear?
“With a full-on assault of our neighborhoods by real estate investors who want to deregulate our zoning so they can financially benefit by building apartments in our neighborhoods, we need you to voice concern. This bill rezones neighborhoods randomly and can generate enormous unneeded housing capacity from any qualifying bus stop. As much as 42,000 apartment units will be permitted per every qualifying bus or transit stop. How is this even reasonable? Many of our small communities will be wiped out.
Will you speak up and support us?
“If we don’t stop this bill, the impacts to our neighborhoods, our infrastructure, our open space and tree canopy will be huge and needless because our Housing Element already addresses all these concerns by rezoning our commercial and transit corridors without the need to impact existing communities,” said Maria Pavlou Kalban, one of the founders of United Neighbors.
“We have been working to amend SB 79 to exempt cities that have a state-approved and compliant Housing Element,” Cindy Chvatal-Keane, co-founder of United Neighbors and President of the Hancock Park Homeowners Association, told the Buzz. “This legislation would effectively eliminate local planning control over housing; we would lose all our historic preservation zones. It tosses out more than two years of work by the Planning Department and a diverse coalition of residents devising the city’s Housing Element, which puts housing on our commercial corridors; it was approved by the state last year and achieves our required housing goals.”
“Every one of our City Council members voted to approve the Housing Element. Now, they need to stand up and support it against SB 79,” said Chvatal-Keane.
CD12 Councilmember John Lee proposed, and CD11 Councilmember Traci Park seconded, a motion CF#25-0002-S19 that opposes SB 79 unless it exempts cities with a certified Housing Element, but Council President Harris-Dawson has not moved it forward for a vote.
CD5 City Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky’s office told the Buzz she is opposed to SB 79. CD13 Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez’s office said he has not taken a position. We have not heard back from Mayor Bass’s office.
Proponents say housing reform bills like SB 79 could solve the state’s budget crisis by generating more property taxes. But since other housing reform measures like SB 9 and SB 10 haven’t worked, proponents say they need to eliminate single-family zoning.
Urbanize LA reported that residential permitting has dropped 57% from 2024.
“The slowdown reflects a combination of persistent structural challenges – elevated interest rates, ongoing economic uncertainty, and a complex, regularly changing environment – as well as acute disruptions,” wrote study author Joshua Baum in Urbanize LA.
“LA’s housing problem is not going to be solved with continued zoning changes,” local architect John Kaliski told the Buzz. “The state needs to be putting more energy into financing mechanisms and incentives for small property owners. Creating free-for-all zoning is increasingly meaningless if the bonuses keep creating projects that don’t pencil.”
(Patricia Lombard is the publisher of the Larchmont Buzz. Patty lives with her family in Fremont Place. She has been active in neighborhood issues since moving here in 1989. Her pictorial history, "Larchmont" for Arcadia Press is available at Chevalier's Books. This article was republished with permission from Larchmont Buzz.)
