> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Sacramento laws make building projects easier - URL: https://www.smdp.com/sacramento-laws-make-building-projects-easier/ - Published: 2002-12-18T16:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-23T01:07:53.000Z - Author: Andrew Fixmer - Tags: Real Estate & Housing, Santa Monica, #archive-import *New state laws may lift city’s sagging affordable housing production* (Editor’s note: This is the second installment of a two-part series examining affordable housing in Santa Monica. Tuesday’s article focused on local production of affordable housing. Today’s article focuses on what the state is doing to address the lack of affordable housing.) With a looming local affordable housing deficit, the state legislature is making it easier for developers to build more projects in Santa Monica, as well as other California cities. Gov. Gray Davis in the past year has signed bills into law that make it easier for affordable housing developers to quickly get approval from local municipalities and make it more difficult for residents to defeat proposed projects in their neighborhood. The laws also will no longer require affordable housing developers to jump through the same bureaucratic hoops market-rate developers must go through. Coupled with funds from a voter-approved $2.1 billion state bond for affordable housing, officials say affordable housing is finally getting the increased support it needs to succeed. The state will no longer require environmental impact studies for affordable housing projects with fewer than 100 units. Local cities are now forbidden from limiting the size of a project, as long as it meets all existing local criteria. And the same rules apply for the homeowner who wants to build a guest house on his property. As long as it conforms to the city’s current zoning ordinances, the project must be approved. The changes will allow construction to begin without having “Not In My Back Yard” neighbors blocking it, officials said. According to local and state officials, the changes should boost the production of affordable housing in Santa Monica, though estimates aren’t available to qualify exactly how many more units could be built. “By making the exemptions for affordable housing clear, it makes the law less vague and therefore less subject to interpretation, and therefore it reduces the time to develop projects,” said city housing director Bob Moncrief. “New construction generally takes three years from the day you start to when you build it, so it can’t help out next year, but it will help out with future projects.” That’s good news for Santa Monica, which is predicted next year to produce only a fraction of the affordable housing it’s required to by city law. In a recent city housing report, officials predict that even though the city is required to ensure 30 percent of all new multi-family housing built in a year is affordable, only 9 percent will be produced next year. While the law doesn’t punish the city for failing to meeting its quota of affordable housing, city officials have molded their housing policies in an attempt to meet its demands. Some officials question the city’s housing policies. Especially of concern to some officials is the low amount of fees charged to developers of market-rate housing that’s intended to fund affordable units in the city. The money collected by fees covers only one-third of the cost for new affordable housing units, officials say. But the city is limited from charging free market developers more because it reportedly would make building housing in Santa Monica prohibitive for most developers. Raising fees would likely results in lawsuits against the city, officials said. “When the only housing being built to speak of was affordable housing it was easy to meet the requirement each year,” Moncrief said. “Now that the non-affordable, market-rate housing market has picked up considerably, reaching the minimum 30 percent under Prop R has become very difficult.” Similar situations are occurring throughout the state, officials said. As the cost of homes in the state has more than doubled from 1996 when it was $177,270 for an average home to more than $324,400 today. > “We’re focused on supply,” > “Housing is still a local responsibility but there are things the state can do to facilitate and support affordable housing construction and we’re trying to do that as well.” FEELING THE PINCH Escalating property values has translated into increased rents locally. The average rent on a two-bedroom apartment has risen to more than $2,200 a month, according to city officials. “Everyone is feeling the pinch,” said Tad Read, a housing analyst with the city. “We are not creating enough housing to keep up with population growth in the state, and because supply is out of sync with demand, prices are out of control. “At this point, the only way we can get prices to even hold steady at this point is to build more housing locally, regionally and statewide,” he added. Because the rising real estate costs have started to affect middle class families, affordable housing is even more important on the state level, officials said. “At the heart of the issue is that the middle class are talking to their legislators and city staff themselves needing affordable housing just to live in the towns they work in,” said Mike Brown, co-director of the California Housing Law Project, which advocates affordable housing. “It’s not just a poor person’s concern anymore. It’s affecting a much larger segment of the population now.” > “It’s not just a poor person’s concern anymore. It’s affecting a much larger segment of the population now.” — said Mark Stivers, who works for the state Senate Committee on Housing and Community Development. — MIKE BROWN California Housing Law Project HOUSING FALLING SHORT The state legislature has begun focusing on housing issues and is becoming more sensitive to the concerns of affordable housing developers, Stivers said. “It’s become a big issue at the state level,” he said. “Over the last couple years, our focus had been on increasing housing supply, but the issue is that the population is increasing but we’re not building to meet that.” Stivers said during the past two years 300,000 units of new housing were built in the state. However, Stivers said even if 225,000 new units of housing were added every year for the next decade, it would be just enough to meet the state’s housing need. “And the last two years were the best housing years we’ve had in a decade,” he said. “So right now we’re doing our best and building the most housing in a long while and we’re still 75,000 units short of what’s needed.” That may be because many California towns haven’t been interested in building multi-family housing, let alone affordable housing, officials said. Anaheim, for example, has not approved the construction of any multi-family apartment complexes for the past 40 years. For that reason, the Southern California Association of Governments — an administrative arm of the state — has begun to set higher levels of new housing construction for every town in the region. While the levels may seem low for Santa Monica, which has been told to produce about 2,200 new housing units in five years, that number can seem high in towns such as Anaheim, officials said. “Certainly we have seen more cities forced to open up and allow more housing recently, but there are some other towns, like Santa Monica, with good track records sprinting to put as much out there as they can,” Brown said. “My sense is you do see smaller jurisdictions that had little focus on housing taking more of an interest,” he said. “I think you are seeing them reaching out more, and seeing more regional efforts.” But he added, “I don’t want to sound Pollyana-ish, we’re no where near the end of our task.” *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 18, 2002.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/121802.pdf?ref=smdp.com)