Submitted by Julie Testa
On April 22, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled Senate Bill 9 unconstitutional for five “charter law” cities.
The court found, “no evidence to support the assertion that the unzoning permitted by SB 9 would result in any increase in the supply of below market-rate housing,” and “there is also virtually no evidence that substantially lower costs trickle down to lower two-thirds of households.” The judge concluded, “SB 9 is therefore unconstitutional” and a violation of the “home rule” doctrine, meaning local control.
This court ruling signals an opportunity for more California cities to follow the lead of the five courageous “charter law” cities who stood up against state overreach. The 150 state laws that erode local democracy have not and will not make housing more affordable for those who need it most.
Pleasanton residents are beginning to see the impacts of the California legislature’s overreach on local authority; it will get much worse. They are rightfully angry that their elected officials cannot stand up for constituents due to threats of lawsuits from developers and our own state attorney general.
Cities have succeeded in producing market-rate housing, but that has only made housing less affordable. Pleasanton produced 300% of our last Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) cycle market-rate housing targets and did better than most cities on affordable units. But the state housing mandates are unrealistic and require billions of dollars in subsidy, nearly all cities could not get close to meeting their unfunded affordable housing RHNA mandates. The result of state overreach is transferring local authority to for-profit development interests.
The new RHNA cycle target numbers have doubled without justification — proven by a legislative audit; few California cities will be able to achieve inflated state mandates. There are now more homes per person in California than there have been since 1991. California’s market-rate housing stock had grown 3% since 2020, even as California’s population had declined.
California does not have a “housing crisis” caused by an insufficient supply of housing. There is an affordability crisis due to growing income and wealth inequality and other economic factors such as making housing a profit-driven commodity, instead of an investment in a “home”. Houses are now corporate investments. Individuals and families can’t compete with foreign dollars and corporate offers.
My colleagues and I support affordable housing. We would like to create communities where housing is affordable, but low-income affordable housing requires subsidy. Pleasanton’s subsidy alone is $2 billion to $3 billion, money which does not exist.
The state must stop scapegoating cities. Cities did not cause the affordability crisis, nor do they have the resources to correct it. The State Legislature must have the courage to address economic factors and powerful special interests. It is time to acknowledge fundamental limitations of their market-driven housing policies and end this war on our communities.
A court ruling that SB9 is unconstitutional due to its lack of affordability should serve as warning that state housing laws are a failure at producing housing that is affordable.
Editor’s note: Julie Testa is in her second term on the Pleasanton City Council, serving as vice mayor for 2024. She is also executive director of California Alliance of Local Electeds (CALE), a networking group of councilmembers who meet weekly to discuss issues affecting cities statewide. She is an advocate for the proposed constitutional amendment that seeks to return authority of land use and zoning to cities in California, as outlined at ourneighborhoodvoices.com.