Affordable Housing Bill on Governor’s Desk
Governor Jerry Brown is not a fan of inclusionary zoning, the principle way cities like Berkeley have met state mandates to build affordable housing. As Mayor of Oakland, Brown’s 2010 vote insured that our neighbor was the only major municipality in California without affordable housing mandates for developers. Now the fate of affordable housing in California is on Brown’s desk!
Brown has until Oct 12th to sign AB 1229 but he’s not going to do that without a billion phone calls from voters. The Berkeley Tenants Union has not formally voted on a position, but we are a member of the state-wide tenant organization Tenants Together, so we wanted to share their message:
AB 1229 (Atkins) passed through the California Senate last week. The bill restores the power to cities to adopt and enforce local inclusionary zoning laws that provide essential affordable rental housing in over one hundred jurisdictions in California. The bill is necessary because of a disastrous Supreme court decision (Palmer/Sixth Street Properties v. City of Los Angeles) that called into question whether cities could require developers to include affordable rental units in new projects. AB 1229 will promote the development of affordable rental housing in communities across California
Call the governor today at (916) 445-2841 and urge him to sign this important bill into law.
For Berkeley, a lot could be at stake, especially if the bad changes to the Demolition Ordinance get passed by the City Council and we begin to lose our rent controlled housing stock.
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140AB1229
News on Berkeley’s Affordable Housing Fee
http://www.dailycal.org/2013/09/08/berkeley-city-council-to-reassess-affordable-housing-fee/
San Jose Inclusionary Zoning Goes to CA Supreme Court
http://www.californialandusedevelopmentlaw.com/2013/09/16/california-supreme-court-to-hear-san-jose-affordable-housing-case/
Demolition Ordinance
http://theyodeler.org/?p=7882
Our petition:
https://www.change.org/petitions/berkeley-city-council-preserve-affordable-housing