And the award for most absurd move by a California city to circumvent state law allowing multiple residential units in neighborhoods previously zoned for single-family homes goes to the snooty Silicon Valley suburb of Woodside.
Rather than allow a few duplexes, city officials released a memo this year declaring the entire town a safe haven for mountain lions. So, of course, Woodside claimed it could not permit any duplexes, lest valuable mountain lion habitat be compromised.
The town would rather have mountain lions roaming around than people who might want to live in a duplex. And we wonder why California has a shortage of affordable housing.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta quickly notified Woodside officials their declaration was “quite clearly contrary to the law, and ironically, contrary to the best interests of the mountain lions the town claims to want to protect.”
After several days of scorn, bad publicity and a threatened lawsuit from the state, Woodside officials backed down.
To hear some cities and residents in Sacramento vilify Senate Bill 9, which took effect in January, you’d think Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state Legislature were advocating open sewer lines.
In spirit, Woodside was not alone. A number of localities passed restrictive ordinances that would make it all but impossible to build multi-unit dwellings in established neighborhoods. According to news reports, at least 29 California cities were suspected of taking actions that would make multiple-dwelling units in single-family neighborhoods financially prohibitive.
Pasadena imposed strict height, parking and landscaping requirements for anyone wanting to subdivide a single-family lot. In Sacramento, about a dozen neighborhood associations “concerned about our neighborhoods, affordable housing and the negative impacts of up-zoning,” sent the mayor and City Council a laundry list of requirements before a single-family lot could accommodate multiple units.
Early in my newspaper career, my wife and I rented half of a duplex in Denver. It was in a nice neighborhood not far from downtown and all we could afford at the time.
It wasn’t our first choice, but we have nothing but pleasant memories. As I have argued here before, no one seriously believes allowing up to four units per residential lot will solve the affordable housing crisis in our state. But it would help.
Anyone who owns a house is legitimately concerned about what’s built nearby and how it will impact their neighborhood and property values. But the kerfuffle around SB 9 is a bit like the hysteria we saw when Obamacare arrived.
In states that fought the law and did everything to subvert it, it was a mess. In California, which embraced it under my former boss, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, not everyone was happy but several million people suddenly had health insurance.
SB 9 is not a death knell for single-family neighborhoods or the American Dream. It’s a valid approach to provide additional housing options, some maybe slightly more affordable. With reasonable guidelines on height, density, design, parking and other considerations, we might see a more diverse housing market.
My hope for places like Woodside and dozens of other cities that oppose the law is that their elected officials and residents will take a deep breath, think about others perhaps less well-heeled in search of a place to live, and lighten up.
If not, the California Department of Housing and Community Development’s new Housing Accountability Unit created by Newsom’s 2021 budget will step in and put heat on the offending cities.
The housing crisis is so acute in California that we have to try everything reasonable to mitigate it. SB 9 is a modest but positive step. Let’s give it a few years, see how it works and fix anything broken. Seems more constructive than claiming mountain lions are more important than homebuyers.
Gary Delsohn can be reached at gdelsohn@gmail.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
