Breaking

California governor Gavin Newsom signs bills ending a rule that helped cause its housing crisis - Vox.com
Sep 17, 2021 1 min, 18 secs
Newsom signed bills ending single-family-only zoning, a step toward addressing the housing crisis.

Gavin Newsom has officially ended the over 100-year scourge of single-family-only zoning in California.

That change was part of a suite of housing production bills Newsom signed into law on Thursday, continuing a years-long trend of California pushing forward as one of the few states attempting to tackle the housing supply crisis.

While overhauling single-family-only zoning might sound revolutionary, the bills are gentle attempts at increasing density: legalizing duplexes and quadplexes and making it easier to build small apartment buildings that provide up to 10 homes.

This doesn’t mean single-family homes are outlawed or can no longer be built, but it provides homeowners the option to convert their homes into duplexes or sell their homes to people who want to do so.

UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation found that SB 9 (the bill that legalizes duplexes) will “modestly accelerate the addition of new units relative to the status quo.” Other laws that restrict the building of new and more affordable homes are still in effect — in particular, local laws around minimum lot sizes will continue to make it illegal to turn single-family homes into duplexes if the existing lot is too small to subdivide while still adhering to the size regulations.

This added more than 20,000 new homes to the state’s housing supply.

And they’re not the first to pursue a policy in this vein: In 2019, Oregon passed a bill mandating that any city with over 10,000 people allow duplexes in areas zoned for single-family-only housing.

RECENT NEWS

SUBSCRIBE

Get monthly updates and free resources.

CONNECT WITH US

© Copyright 2024 365NEWSX - All RIGHTS RESERVED