Last week, the CA Assembly voted to pass CA Senate Bill 10 (SB 10) and CA Senate Bill 9 (SB 9). These two bills promote affordability and inclusivity in housing for Sonoma County and California as a whole. SB 9 – HOME Act, would legalize duplexes, a middle-income housing type, by allowing homeowners in most areas around the state to divide their property into two lots and allowing two homes to be built on each of those two lots. Support SB 10 – Missing Middle Housing Near Jobs and Transit: makes it easier for cities to voluntarily zone for smaller, lower-cost housing developments of up to 10 units near jobs and transit to address California’s housing crisis.
Those who opposed the bills, homeowners and local government groups, said it “crushes single-family zoning” however, these bills would only help alleviate the affordable housing shortage we are currently facing. To ease these concerns, a few amendments were added that give local jurisdictions some veto power over units that threaten public health and safety. We need more housing, more missing middle housing, more duplexes, more condominiums, more townhouses near mass transit, more suburban apartment buildings.
Toni Atkins, the bill’s author and president pro tem of the California Senate, said in an interview: “This is a gentle density increase that respects the character of neighborhoods… It’s a modest production bill, and it’s one that will give opportunities to people who haven’t been able to own a home.”
SB 9 and SB 10 are notable but modest steps on the journey of truly ending exclusionary zoning and building the housing we need. This is getting us one step closer to our big, audacious, moonshot (but totally achievable) goal in Sonoma County: 58,000 homes by 2030!