But the city of Half Moon Bay wants no part of the bill and Monday sent an official letter of opposition to three state senators. The letter was approved with a unanimous vote in the City Council.
The Senate bill, SB303, which recently passed through the Senate Housing Committee with a unanimous vote and is headed for the Environmental Quality Committee, would essentially require communities to plan farther ahead and pre-zone selected areas for low-income housing.
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The letter states that the upshot of these measures would be a "massive and costly undertaking that results in a lowest-common-denominator focus on housing."
In opposing the bill, which is sponsored by Sen. Denise Moreno Ducheny, D-San Diego, city officials find themselves on the opposite side of the fence from the California State Firefighters Association and the California Council of Churches. The bill is touted as a measure that will allow public safety workers to remain in the communities they serve and ensure that cities will have to analyze sites for housing comprehensively and in advance of pressing need.
"More certainty means lower prices," said Ducheny in a recent press release. "Our local governments have the right and responsibility to plan for places for people to live. We just want them to go the extra step of making sure that their process provides places that are truly appropriate for the housing they're planning."
But critics of the measure, which include the California League of Cities, say that the bill does not account for such things as infill housing - which is more difficult to quantify than a traditional subdivision. They contend that the bill would essentially promote suburban sprawl at the expense of more selective development within already dense urban sectors.
Local councilmembers agree. "The League of Cities has taken a position that I think is reasonable," said Jim Grady. He noted that the bill could "hamstring a city's ability to make decisions." He added that Mayor Naomi Patridge had requested that the letter be put on the council agenda and had studied the matter more extensively.
"It's too convoluted, there's too many mandates - and it's costly. Very costly," said Patridge. She added that she would rather see the city approach affordable housing through a countywide system than to deal with cumbersome state bills.
The city's letter of opposition, which is addressed to Sens. Ducheny, Joe Simitian and Leland Yee, raises the issue of urban sprawl and notes that "a one-size-fits-all approach with this senate bill will not work among the various cities in the state that have a wide range of physical and legislative constraints."
But proponents of the bill point to the larger issue of housing affordability and contend that sweeping measures are necessary now.
"California's current housing system is broken," said John Landis, professor of city and regional planning at the University of California, Berkeley in a press release. "The lack of adequate benchmarks and certainty in local general plans has led to unnecessary construction delays, reduced housing supplies, higher housing costs, increased crowding and reduced opportunities for home ownership, especially for young and middle-income households."
Landis agrees that the bill has flaws.
"You can understand why cities wouldn't like it," he said by phone. Landis pointed to features, like a "by right" provision, that make approval almost automatic for developers within areas pre-zoned for a certain density. He noted that this right to develop does not overcome environmental reviews, but said that most cities want more power to review individual parcels than the bill affords.
The bill does not address the financial obstacles to low-income housing either. "You can zone all the land for affordable housing you want," he said, but if funding in the form of housing grants does not follow then neither will homes.
Still Landis believes the bill should pass on its merits.
"This is a step in the right direction," he added.
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