SACROMENTO — California lawmakers stood around Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday to celebrate the state budget and passing of “transformative” housing laws at the Capitol.
Between mutual praise and handshakes in front of television news cameras, there was little recognition of the power dynamics that took place behind the scenes.
“We’ve now seen multiple situations where it’s become clear that Congress is another place, whether it’s a bill that was overwhelmingly passed and rejected. “At some point, Congress needs to legislate.”
Newsom took a rare step earlier this year, publicly supporting two bills to reduce environmental review standards to speed up the construction of California homes. Despite vowing to build a rechargeable home, Newsom previously supported only small policies, and construction was stagnant.
In his recently published book, Abundance, journalist Ezra Klein argued that California’s Marquee Environmental Act has been in the way of home building. A newspaper considering the president’s run in 2028 has come to prove this year that he is part of the solution and a Democrat who can push the government and political logjam.
A pivotal bill recently designed to streamline housing construction in the state Senate, Newsom effectively forced it despite concerns from progressive lawmakers, environmental interest groups and trade unions. The governor did so by including a “poison” provision in the state budget bill that requires lawmakers to pass the Housing Act for the expenditure plan to come into effect on July 1.
Newsom called the bill “the most consequential housing reforms California has seen in modern history.”
“This was too important to play opportunities,” Newsom added, “I’m worried that they’d end up preying the same opposition as if they had allowed the process to unfold in a traditional way.
For many years, Democrats have tried to get through the bushes of regulations under the California Environmental Quality Act, known as the CEQA, and faced harsh opposition from strong labor groups. These groups, particularly the state’s Construction and Construction Trade Council, argue that the relief provided to developers should be combined with workers’ wages and other benefits.
The law newspaper, signed on Monday, avoided these requests from labor.
Congressional Bill 130, based on the law introduced by Congress member Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), exempts most urban housing projects from CEQA, requiring only developers with over 85 feet of high-rise and low-income buildings to pay union-level wages to construction workers.
Senate Bill 131 also narrows the CEQA order for housing construction and further waives environmental restrictions on changes to rezoning some homes. The bill, led by state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), no longer covers CEQA with more non-residential projects (such as health clinics, childcare and advanced manufacturing facilities, food banks).
Development experts said the new law could provide the most important reforms to CEQA in its 55-year history, especially for urban housing.
CEQA generally requires supporters to disclose and reduce the environmental impact of construction projects if possible. The process sounds simple, but often results in thousands of pages of environmental assessment and long-standing lawsuits.
CEQA has lacked past efforts to create substantial legal risks for home builders and developers and reduce the burden, said Dave Rand, a land use lawyer in Southern California. The bill, signed Monday, offers to save most of the home, he said. Building affordable housing on high-rise buildings often requires union-level pay.
“The worst cog on wheels has always been CEQA,” Rand said. “It’s always been a place where projects get stuck. This is the first, opposite-eyed, objective, simple exemption that anyone can understand.”
He wants clients to take advantage of the new rules and will take effect soon.
“We’ve probably got over 10 projects that push the go button up with this exemption on Tuesday,” Rand said.
For non-residential projects, changes do not amount to a comprehensive overhaul and still make sense, said Bill Fulton, publisher of California Planning and Development Report.
In the past, state legislators have passed a narrow, single CEQA exemption for projects they supported, including an increase in registrations to Berkeley Island, California in 2022. SB131 continues its council preference to exempt certain types of development from the CEQA rules.
“They choose what they want to speed up their cherries,” said Fulton, who calls the phenomenon “Swiss Cheese Seca.”
The observer said Newsom’s actions were the strongest in enforcing large-scale housing policies through Congress.
For years, the governor has made bold promises. On the 2017 campaign trail, Newsom has pledged to help build 3.5 million new homes by the end of this year. But he is likely to work behind the scenes after passing, or rush to praise bills, rather than publicly shaping housing policy, said Chris Elmendorf, a law professor at UC Davis.
Elmendorf, who supports new laws, is called the willingness to challenge new laws and the benefits to challenge.
The governor has been hampering policy priorities on other topics through previous legislatures, including climate law, infrastructure and oil regulations, and has mixed results over the years.
Newsom terminology ends in early 2027. His support for meaningful housing policy and his strategy to promote one through the state Senate became a bell of his strength at the Capitol when his tenure faded.
Wicks said Newsom would force the proposal to “put a lot of skin into the game.”
“I think he recognizes that we need to address this issue, so we’ve done our best to promote taking on these sacred cows like CEQA,” Wicks said.
Wicks’ laws put pressure on lawmakers to clear legislators to pass the bill before the proposal became part of the state budget process. She described herself as “cautiously optimistic,” which went through the Capitol and said her home understood the need for reform.
Wiener’s laws were slow to gain traction. Last week, the Senate and governor’s office failed to reach the agreement that proposed to announce the budget contract.
Newsom then tied the proposal to the budget, essentially asking lawmakers to pass the risk of commencing the July 1 fiscal year without spending plans.
During the discussion on SB 131, Sen. Henry Stern (D-Calabasas) said that although the law has “significant issues” that he voted in favor of the measure to ensure that it will ultimately be addressed.
“I think nature and abundance can live side by side. In fact, they have to,” Stern said. “We don’t want to live in California’s Moonscape. We want to live in something that’s easy to live in.”
Despite concerns, lawmakers passed both bills on Monday.
Gonzalez was critical of lawmakers, saying, “No one votes for their worth.” She compared Congress with Newsom’s plans and Republicans in Congress.
“California Democrats are screaming for fouls that they are passing on something they don’t even know that lawmakers and senators don’t even match the ingredients that just get pushed into their throats by Donald Trump,” Gonzalez said. “And the same California lawmaker allows it to happen to him.”
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