Happy 2022 to you! As you know, Livable California is a serious voice on housing, planning and equity in the State Capitol, and we work with many statewide allies in major cooperative efforts such as the 1,100 person Town Hall to Stop SB 9.

Affordable housing is vanishing, and the State's dozens of "trickle down" bills adopted since 2017 override local planning and local knowledge. As a result, California is producing pricey market-rate housing for top earners but very little housing for the average families and struggling households that local governments deal with every day.

We have an important request of you. Before Wednesday at 5 pm, please send a comment to the Southern California Association of Governments in support of the Our Neighborhood Voices Initiative, which is aiming for the November 2022 statewide ballot.

Please email to SCAG before Wednesday at 5 pm here: [email protected].

Urge SCAG to agree to accept its excellent staff recommendation to SUPPORT the Our Neighborhood Voices Initiative. Below are key points to put in your own words when you email SCAG at the above email. We thank United Neighbors and the authors of the Our Neighborhood Voices Initiative for their efforts. Key points:

Local communities are far more qualified than the State to decide which land-use and zoning policies help. What works for San Francisco doesn’t work in L.A., Riverside, the Wine Country or San Diego. It’s ludicrous for the State to believe it can outperform local government on land-use planning and zoning.
Allowing developers to take advantage of state density laws in single-family communities without requiring any affordable units, environmental review, or enforceable owner-occupancy rules, will fuel displacement and gentrification in sensitive communities. Because most state laws don't make developers pay for infrastructure, the new density will drain communities of their civic strength.
Communities of color and working-class neighborhoods are besieged by investors and institutions seeking more single-family homes to buy, squeezing out homeownership. SCAG’s support for the Our Neighborhood Voices Initiative is a strong statement against “trickle-down” housing that transforms homeowners into renters and destabilizes homeowner communities.
We all have a role in increasing affordable housing production, by collaboration between all levels of government, the private sector and community members. Passing the Our Neighborhood Voices Initiative will prevent the State from manipulating local land-use policy and handing out developer "incentives" that produce little affordable housing, then blaming local government for the crisis. Without delivering funding, or effective policies that produce affordable housing, California won't see an end to the housing crisis.
A basic tenet of our democracy is our right to speak out about public policy that directly impacts our citizens and communities. The State has instead prioritized the needs of developers, investors and financiers, providing them outsized benefits to produce more and more market-rate housing. This is fundamentally undemocratic. Being heard on the issues that face our communities is the heart of the Our Neighborhood Voices Initiative.