Gavin Newsom signs bills to bring housing to empty strip malls with union labor
California developers will soon have new legislative tools designed to make housing construction in the Golden State a little bit easier.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a collection of bills Wednesday meant to promote home and apartment development in a notoriously housing-strapped state.
Bills from Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, and Sen. Anna Caballero, D-Merced, would provide an easier local approval process for developers who want to build in commercially-zoned areas previously occupied by parking lots, big box stores and office space.
Newsom is scheduled to sign dozens of additional housing and homelessness-related measures. He will also announce $1 billion in grants for 30 housing developments funded through the state’s California Housing Accelerator program.
Labor deal brings housing to commercial areas
Wicks and Caballero brought their bills across the August legislative finish line by striking a deal with carpenter and Trades unions.
Carpenter unions backed Assembly Bill 2011 from Wicks, which allows housing construction in shopping and office corridors. The projects are “by right,” meaning local officials have little ability to oppose them. In exchange, developers must build a certain number of affordable units and and pay workers prevailing wage.
If they build 50 or more units, developers must employ workers from an apprenticeship program and give them health benefits.
A complementary bill from Caballero helped assuage the Trades, which represent workers in all other aspects of construction. They wanted guarantees that developers would hire “skilled and trained” or union labor.
Her measure, Senate Bill 6, would permit housing construction in commercial areas on a discretionary basis. Local leaders could oppose projects in those zones, but in a more limited way than they can currently.
Caballero’s bill doesn’t have the affordable housing requirement provided in Wicks’ measure, and it is targeted at developers looking to build market rate units.
“What they get for the bill, if they use this bill, is to get conversion from commercial real estate to residential,” Wicks said of the housing agreement in August. “Which is important, and they don’t have to do any affordability requirements. They don’t have the by-right provisions in the same way we do. But they also don’t have the affordability requirements.”
SB 6 got approval from the Trades because it requires the first two bids for developments to come from union labor. If skilled and trained workers aren’t available, developers still need to pay prevailing wage.
“That was a big concession,” Caballero said in August. “It helped to allay some of the concerns that were raised about skilled and trained.”
After the AB 2011-SB 6 deal came together, both bills easily passed the Senate and Assembly during the final days of the legislative session.
This story was originally published September 28, 2022 at 10:57 AM with the headline "Gavin Newsom signs bills to bring housing to empty strip malls with union labor."