Full article by Ken Magri available at Sacramento News & Review
The first steps in solving California’s affordable housing crisis are finding available land to build on and streamlining a cumbersome bureaucratic process that slows building projects down to a snail’s pace. A new bill introduced last December aims to tackle both of these issues.
State Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco and Assemblymember Tina McKinnor of Inglewood introduced Senate Bill 4, which streamlines the approval process for colleges and faith institutions wanting to build affordable housing on their own available land.
Many parcels of surplus land in California are owned by churches, synagogues, temples and nonprofit colleges. But zoning laws in plenty of cities across the state prohibit building multifamily apartment buildings, or any housing on such parcels, according to information provided by Wiener’s office. Additional delays often come from repeated lawsuits over environmental issues, whether legitimate or not.