Dear friends,

Last night Kamala Harris reiterated the need to end America's housing shortage – to build more housing to solve the affordability crisis. We have an urgent opportunity to do something – pass a key bill to build more housing here in California.

As Kamala Harris put it last week, we must "clear away some of the outdated laws and regulations that made it harder to build homes for working people in this country."

One of those outdated laws are limits on the ability to build new homes in single family zones. California YIMBY helped pass an historic bill, SB 9, in 2021 to help fix this. SB 9 made it legal for homeowners to split their lot and build a duplex on each new lot – making it legal to build as many as four homes per property.

Although SB 9 created an important tool for creating more homes in infill areas, cities have found creative ways to effectively ban SB 9 projects in their jurisdictions. It's time to fight back.

California YIMBY is supporting SB 450 by Senator Toni Atkins. SB 450 will strengthen SB 9 by clarifying the intent and purpose of the law, and by giving state agencies the authority to enforce its provisions in cities that try to block it.

SB 450 will be up for an Assembly floor vote as early as Monday, and opponents are already mobilizing to try and defeat it. We need you to do something – help show legislators that Californians support this bill.

This is urgent: Please send a message to your Assemblymember and urge them to vote YES on SB 450 – help make it easier to build homes and tackle the affordability crisis!

SEND A MESSAGE >>

California YIMBY has worked hard to pass transformative legislation to tackle our state's housing shortage and affordability crisis. Unfortunately, NIMBYs often try to undermine these bills by working with local governments to find unintended loopholes or other ways to evade the intent of the law.

That's what happened after we won a hard-fought victory to pass SB 9. Following its passage, many cities enacted highly subjective standards that make it impossible to use the provisions of SB 9 to actually build housing. Some of these standards, such as onerous design reviews, create prohibitive costs. Others, such as building setbacks and size limits, make it physically impossible for homeowners to proceed with SB 9 projects.

SB 450 addresses some of the most egregious examples of bad-faith SB 9 implementation:

Prohibits local governments from assigning objective zoning, subdivision, or design standards to SB 9 projects that do not apply to the underlying zoning (single-unit zoning)
Requires local governments to respond to SB 9 applications within 60 days, after which time the application will be deemed approved
Bars local governments from denying a lot split application based on its impact on the physical environment
Gives the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) oversight and enforcement authority over SB 9

These reforms will help strengthen SB 9 – and follow through on the calls we just heard from Kamala Harris and Barack Obama this week to make it easier to build the housing our state needs.

SB 450 passed the State Senate in 2023, but it has not yet passed the State Assembly. This is our final chance to pass it before the two-year session ends. Opponents are mobilizing right now to try and stop this bill. We need your help to continue the momentum!

Send a message to your Assemblymember: Vote YES on SB 450 and help get more housing built to tackle our affordability crisis!

Thank you for taking action for housing abundance in California.

Matthew

Matthew Lewis
Communications Director
California YIMBY

California YIMBY is a movement dedicated to ending our state’s housing crisis and building a more inclusive, affordable, and accessible state for ALL Californians. If you were forwarded this email, you can join our movement here. DONATE NOW » Want to keep track of housing issues and the YIMBY movement? Sign up for the HomeWork, our newsletter here.

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