We are currently meeting with city officials to see if they will work with us to get these bills amended.  We know the city has its own lobbyists that advocate for the city/mayor’s position on state bills.    Our meetings with them are currently ongoing. We want to make sure that we know where the city and county stand on these bills before we start our campaign.

 

SB 79 was amended yesterday.  It will increase residential density in areas 1/4 mile and 1/2 mile from transit stops. This bill will undo protections we achieved through the Housing Element for single-family neighborhoods and will basically take the power away from the Planning Department  to function for the good of LA residents. We will meet with the city tomorrow to discuss this bill further.

 

SB 677:  If you remember SB 9, the bill that opened up single family neighborhoods and allow you to build 4 units of housing on each and every single family lot or allowed a split the lot and with a duplex on each half with an adu and jr adu if your city allows it, was a bill specifically  for “homeowners”!  It was really a “foot in the door” approach to simply open up our neighborhoods.  We need to stop SB 677.

 

As the author Toni Atkins stated, #SB9 will help homeowners who opt to use it. It would open up a new income stream, allow them to help elderly parents looking for a place to live, and help them create wealth to pass on to their kids. Homeowners happy with their single-family home can keep it that way.

 

To protect homeowners from developers buying up properties, Toni Atkins put some conditions on this bill to stop land speculation in neighborhoods.  The bill required that if you split the lot, the owner of the property had to live in one of the units for at least 5 years.  Now we knew that wasn’t much of a protection but it did give developers pause about buying numerous lots and being found guilty of not living in them.

Also, lots could not be split if the lot next door had already been split.  This was an attempt to prevent the same developer from having adjacent lots to play with.  It also mandated that on a lot split you could not impose setbacks that preclude a minimum unit of 800 sqft to be built. It also allowed a city to approve a deed restriction of the units on a lot split. All these protections are striped away. It does not require homeownership and it allows bigger houses to be built with no setbacks requirements to prevent them from being built.

 

We are talking to city and county agencies and will report back soon.  

 

We enclose the amended SB 79.  Start on page 20-29. Stay tuned.

 

Best to all,

 

Maria, Cindy, Jeff, Marc