Council Rallies Support for Bill to Boost Homeownership
The dream of homeownership is getting harder and harder for many Californians to achieve, which is why the Bay Area Council recently joined Assemblymember David Alvarez, Senate Housing Committee Chair Jesse Arreguín (Oakland) and a broad coalition of housing advocates at the State Capitol on Monday (Aug. 17) to rally support for legislation (AB 2433) to provide stronger incentives for building affordable homes families and others can purchase.
The bill would rework existing housing density bonus policies, one of the state’s most widely used incentives to spur new housing construction. A new report from Circulate Policy and Planning finds the density bonus incentives have helped build more than 140,000 units over the past five years. But current incentives have overwhelmingly favored rental housing, leaving working families with few paths to build wealth through ownership.
AB 2433 rebrands the program as the Affordable Homes Bonus Law and grants two additional incentives to homebuilders who deed-restrict for-sale units for low- and moderate-income families, allows the bonus to be calculated using floor area ratio (FAR) in jurisdictions that zone by FAR, and requires local governments to treat every project with sufficient on-site affordable units as qualifying automatically rather than by developer opt-in.
The Council is proud to support AB 2433 alongside Circulate Policy and Planning, SPUR, the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, and the Inner City Law Center. AB 2433 cleared the Assembly floor 67 to 0 in May and passed the Senate Housing and Environmental Quality committees without a no vote, and it moved off Senate Appropriations on August 3. It now awaits a Senate floor vote ahead of the August 31 deadline for each house to pass bills. To engage in the Council’s housing policy work, please contact Senior Vice President Louis Mirante.
