Governor Newsom signed a long list of bills last week. Among them were several that refine state laws aimed at making it easier to build housing, especially housing near transit.
Here’s a quick look at two newly signed bills. There are more, which will be covered in subsequent posts. Governor Newsom has until September 30 to sign or veto bill from this session.
Housing Developments Won’t Be Forced to Widen Roads
The state has been trying to reform how development addresses transportation/ traffic impacts, both under the California Environmental Quality Act and in various planning laws affecting housing. For decades, some cities have required new development to widen roads along all kinds of projects, both private (new housing, new retail) and public (new rail stations, new parks). Cities require projects to dedicate land, and to pay for construction costs for added roadway and new curbs/sidewalks. These dedications drive up costs and delays, shrink project footprints, and increase uncertainties. Road widening has further negatives, increasing traffic and making roads more dangerous for everyone, especially vulnerable folks on foot and on bike. Road widening also runs counter to state housing and climate goals. Less footprint and extra construction costs make housing much harder to build.
Governor Newsom signed a bill from Wendy Carrillo – A.B. 3177 – which will prohibit municipalities/agencies from requiring a development to dedicate land to widen a roadway if the purpose is to achieve a higher “level of service” for cars or to “achieve a desired roadway width.” Local government could, if needed, still require land dedication from a proposed development, but would have to meet strict rules and back it up with “substantial evidence.”
A.B. 3177 also specifically names the city of Los Angeles and its practice of “spot widening,” whereby new developments are required to widen the road in front of their parcel. The city was working on its own ordinance to end automatic road widening requirements, but, at least for housing, part of that ordinance appears moot now. A.B. 3177 applies only to housing, and the problem in Los Angeles is more widespread, as any and every development has been subject to spot widening rules.
The bill’s analysis points out that these practices impose untenable costs on development. “According to the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), this sort of land dedication may affect the cost and feasibility of developing housing as well as its affordability. A 2016 research study published in the Journal of Transport and Land Use found that road widening requirements in Los Angeles can cost developers over $10,000 per unit, resulting in up to hundreds of thousands of dollars being added to projects subjected to these requirements in certain instances. Such additional costs often lead to higher rent prices to make up for the loss.”
It also takes up valuable land, which could be put to better use as homes.
“Shifting land from housing to roads on a per-project basis may not achieve any mitigation because the widening is limited to the roadway adjacent to the project, leading to road configurations that essentially zigzag. In instances where an entire block of the road is widened due to a large development, the growing body of evidence on the effects of road widening makes clear that this practice induces driving and worsens congestion.”
According to the bill’s author, “One project in Los Angeles lost over 6,000 square feet of land to road widening, which amounted to a loss of over 30 dwelling units. There was a delay of almost two years for another project, consisting of permanent supportive housing for the homeless, as the developer sought to waive the road-widening requirement.”
As the bill’s sponsors, Streets for All and The Greenlining Institute, have pointed out, this practice “is fundamentally misaligned with principles of environmental sustainability, equity, and justice. This approach not only fosters a dependency on automobiles, leading to higher Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) and associated emissions, but also exacerbates the urban heat island effect, a critical environmental concern.”
Also: What Is a “Major Transit Stop”?
Another bill signed by Governor Newsom, A.B. 2553 from Assemblymember Laura Friedman, expands the definition of what qualifies as a “major transit stop.” This is important to get right, in part because the California Environmental Quality Act exempts infill residential projects located within a half mile of a “major transit stop” from its requirements, acknowledging that transit-adjacent infill will have a positive environmental impact since it would make it possible for people to avoid driving.
Right now CEQA defines “major transit stop” as the intersection of two or more major bus routes with service of fifteen minutes or less during the peak commute periods.
A.B. 2553 changes that requirement to include transit service of twenty minutes or less. This will greatly expand the availability of the exemption; while fifteen-minute headways are undoubtedly better (much more frequent is preferable), a bus that comes every twenty minutes is more realistically available in wider areas, especially given many transit agencies’ current struggles to fund more service.
The bill also addresses the way a city imposes traffic mitigation fees, another cost driver for housing. Right now, those fees can be lowered if a housing development is within a half mile of a transit station, defined as “a rail or light-rail station, ferry terminal, bus hub, or bus transfer station, including planned transit stations whose construction is programmed to be completed prior to the scheduled completion and occupancy of the housing development.”
A.B. 2553 allows a housing development to claim a lower fee if there is a major transit stop within a half mile that would be completed within a year from the scheduled completion of a housing development. The definition of “major transit stop” is adjusted to mean “a site containing an existing rail or bus rapid transit station, a ferry terminal served by either a bus or rail transit service, the intersection of two or more major bus routes with a frequency of service interval of twenty minutes or less during the morning and afternoon peak commute periods, or other major transit stops that are included in the applicable regional transportation plan.”
Together these two companion bills should meaningfully streamline the construction of transit-oriented infill housing.
