- Just to give you one example, in my hometown, Berkeley, where I've been developing for 35 years, a project in People's Park for student housing was, was challenged, successfully challenged on CEQA grounds based on the fact that it would involve noisy students.

And so students as a pollutant.

- Welcome to Forum, I'm Alexis Madrigal.

You know, for decades, developers have wanted changes to CEQA, the California legislation that required them to create environmental impact reports and opened them up to lawsuits by anybody who thought their reports were inadequate.

Yesterday we talked about the policy context for CEQA and when it was passed in our state and also in our times.

Today, we're gonna look at whether the changes to CEQA pushed by state assembly member Buffy Wicks will have a major effect on housing production here in our state.

And we're joined first on the phone by assembly member Wick.

Welcome.

- Hi.

Thanks for having me.

- So why did you think CEQA needed to be reformed?

- Well, I think we've seen, you know, it, it CEQA's been around for 55 years and every governor since its inception, since Ronald Reagan has sought reforms around this.

And I will say the original true intent of CEQA is something I fully support.

I think we need to be super mindful about our environment and how we're building, how we're developing.

You know, it was created at a time when we had, you know, orange skies and air pollution and issues, but it had transformed and become kind of this, you know, unwieldy law that allowed essentially anyone at any time, you know, who had a little bit of resources to throw really, you know, gears in the rent a wrench in the gears in terms of the ability to build housing.

Anyone can file a lawsuit for any project anywhere in California at any time.

And there's really egregious examples of this, as I'm sure you've discussed before.

You know, the Stevenson project in San Francisco, you know, is, you know, one block from the BART in downtown San Francisco, almost 500 units, you know, union built with 20% affordable units, that's units that, you know, low income families can live in, was essentially stopped in its tracks because of CEQA.

- Hmm.

- You know, and, and I would say the most environmentally friendly housing we can have is housing that's built on our current footprint.

You know, built, you know, in places that have - Transit.

Transit.

Yeah.

- You know, that's where we need to be building housing, you know, and so it, you just, you look at examples like that and there are many, many, many we could talk about Mm.

Of, you know, is this law really serving the needs of our constituents?

Is it serving the needs of our communities who are suffering from these crushing housing prices?

- Yeah.

- And I would argue it wasn't.

And so that's why we needed the reforms.

- Yeah.

And there were a lot of different ways that CEQA could have been reformed.

What was the specific version of changes that actually made it through the legislature?

- Yeah, so, so the, the bill that I wrote that was put into the budget AB 609, it was very simple.

It basically said if this is infill housing, so housing on our current footprint, I'm not talking about, you know, building out on our open spaces, which I do think needs strong environmental review, but housing on our current footprint where we have development, that, that essentially doesn't need to go through the CEQA process.

Hmm.

Because, you know, we say, and politicians say this all the time, housing is a human right.

Well, if we say that, then let's do something about it and actually make it easier and incentivize housing, particularly on our current footprint.

- Hmm.

And was it that infill proviso that kind of changed the politics on this that made reform possible after it hadn't been for decades?

- Yeah, I mean, I think the reform was made possible this year for a number of reasons.

One, because I do think infill housing is something we should all be supporting.

It's a, it's a really hard argument to say, no, we shouldn't have infill housing.

No, we should keep these strip malls that are, you know, you know, half abandoned point moldering Yeah.

To be used for.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, like, no, that should be housing.

Right?

You know, things like that.

Like, it's hard to argue against that.

And also the crisis has metastasized into such a problem when you have almost 200,000 folks experiencing homelessness when you have families leaving the state.

You know, when you have, you know, people who who, you know, grew up here that are leaving to go live in places like Texas and Colorado and other places, you know, it, it is metastasized into such a crisis that I think there's more political will.

I think the second thing is, you know, there's been a growing movement for this.

You know, this isn't, wasn't done alone in a vacuum.

You have activists now showing up at city council meetings saying, Hey, I've been a renter for 20 years and I wanna afford to buy a home one day.

That means we need more housing.

You know, the abundance book came out in the middle of all of this, which I think gave an intellectual framework around this.

And I also would say the election results in November.

You know, voters are upset, they want government to work for people.

You know, they want to see an ROI in what they're doing.

They want their tax payer, you know, tax resources spent wisely, and they want government to serve the needs.

So I think it was a number of things that led to the moment that ultimately allowed us to pass this bill.

- So, you know, after yesterday's show, I got some emails from different activists and, you know, one of the arguments that was made to me, you know, I'll just quote from one of the emails here, the CEQA is preventing housing construction argument is not as true or as simple as it initially seems, especially when looking at the state of housing con construction in, for example, downtown Berkeley.

So how would you respond to that?

- Well, I think what you, what also happens with CEQA is there becomes a chilling effect on different properties.

So, you know, if there's, say there's a strip mall that's no longer in use, a developer wants to go and turn that into housing and they get a CEQA lawsuit, well, you know, they could be tied up in the courts for 10 years, maybe they prevail, you know, or five years or whatever.

But by the time they prevail, the interest rates have changed, the economics don't work anymore.

So that project is effectively dead.

And then they can't sell the property, really.

And no developer wants to buy it because then they're gonna say, oh, I'm just gonna get caught up in the same thing.

- Hmm.

- You know, so we know that we need the housing, you, we need it across the board in all of our communities.

And some communities have done a really good job.

And so I don't wanna demonize all local municipalities because I do think a lot of them are trying to meet the moment are trying to say, okay, we need the housing and we need it, it at all income levels.

So I think that the evidence is, is, is pretty clear.

And I think we've seen that now since the bill has been enacted.

We're, I don't know, six weeks in now, you know, and, and, and we're actually putting some more meat to the bones to actually track the progress.

Because I think that's an important piece of this so that we have data that comes out of this next year where we can have this conversation, say, did this work?

You know, and in, in the coming years.

But, you know, in terms of the land use attorneys that I've talked to, many of them have resubmitted their applications.

They're using AB 130 to streamline and start the process, and it's creating more certainty in the market.

What we also saw is a lot of, you know, developers just leaving California completely because they're like, it's too hard to build here.

And or investors say, you know what, why would I invest in housing in California when I can go do it in any other state?

You know, it's, it's, it's, and so we have to look at those things to understand how do we create certainty in the market?

'cause when we have uncertainty, who bears the burden of that ultimately is our working class families because of the lack of housing.

- Yeah.

I mean, it sounds to me, and I think it's, it's clear from the work you've done in the legislature and other, you know, other California legislators, especially those from the Bay Area, that, you know, this is just one piece of a package of reforms.

So if you were to just say, okay, CEQA reform is one, what are like steps two and three and four, whether they've been taken yet or not?

- Yeah, it's a great question.

We've done a lot of really good work over the last, say, eight years to create more certainty to, to streamline the process.

You know, Nancy Skinner, Scott Wiener, some of my colleagues have done a really good job of, you know, working in this space as well.

CEQA is a big piece of this.

We've also done things like SB 330, which was Nancy Skinner's bill, which basically said, you know, when applications going to get the, the permits to start building that you can't change the terms.

So cities and municipalities can't change the terms of what is needed.

It has to be, you know, an understood process all the way through.

So that seems like a small thing, but it's actually really, really important.

We have other things like creating a universal application, and again, seems like a small thing, but if all cities have to adhere to the same thing and, and we have the same process, it really just creates level playing fields so that we can get these building permits going and get the entitlements so these processes can, can, can move more, more smoothly.

CEQA was a huge piece of this as well.

We have other issues though.

You know, one of the things I'm super interested in exploring is, you know, there's modular prefab, you know, you look at Sweden, they do 85% of their new construction with modular prefab housing.

We do about 4% here in the United States.

So I think there's real room for growth in that area.

And how do we ensure that we can kind of create that market so we can bring down the cost of housing.

There's things we can't control, like the interest rates or tariffs, you know, and I'm very nervous about what the tariffs are gonna do in terms of this process and the interest rates.

But what we can control in, in our world is that the other thing that I'm a, a, a big believer in is more public funding for housing.

Hmm.

You know, we're, we're running out of resources for public financing for housing.

We have a bond we're trying to get on the ballot for next year.

That would be $10 billion to fund, you know, low income subsidized housing, which we desperately, desperately need in our communities.

And so I think it's gonna take all of these things, but we're slowly chipping away to create a better environment for housing to happen in California.

- Yeah, I mean, and maybe you just answered this with the, the tail end of that answer, but, you know, another worry that I've heard is people saying, okay, fine.

You're, you're making all these changes to kind of the ecosystem so that housing will be, more housing will be built generally.

But does that ensure that people, say, in the bottom third of incomes in the Bay Area will have housing built for them?

Like, is there a way to ensure that housing is truly and actually built for all income levels?

- Well, if someone shares that opinion, hopefully there'll be a, a, a ballot measure next year they can vote on to support funding for, for subsidized housing, which we, we absolutely need.

And we also need that missing middle.

You know, you have people like teachers and nurses, you know, who don't qualify for subsidized housing.

They make too much, but they also can't afford the current market rate.

It is way too expensive for them.

You know, so what are they supposed to do?

Right.

That's why we need more housing at all income levels.

But I, I'm a big believer and I do believe we need more subsidized housing.

We also can't subsidize our way out of the crisis.

You know, we have too much of a need.

So that's why we need the, the housing at all income levels.

- Yeah.

I mean, is there a municipality that you're looking to where you feel like, okay, this place has been lining up all the factors so that the right kinds of housing will be built for, you know, all types of people?

- Yeah, I mean, El Cerrito in, in my district, they've done a fantastic job.

They started rezoning and looking at their, they have two Bart stops in El Cerrito along their, the I 80 corridor right there.

And they started in 2014 of really thinking through how do we redevelop this area and bring in a lot of that transit oriented housing.

They have two major projects that they're trying to put forth.

They're working with affordable housing developers, they're working with market rate developers.

They're trying to bring in the resources.

The city leadership has been great.

They've been at the forefront of this, and they're really trying to create the right conditions so that we can build that housing.

And they're starting to, to do that.

It takes a while, but I've really seen cities like that who are saying, you know, we want people in our communities, you know, we want this housing, we want the tax base, we want to be inclusive of everyone we wanna build, you know, in, in our transit, you know, corridors.

And so I do think you've seen areas like that, you know, in Berkeley, you know, the North Berkeley BART, which has been a pretty controversial project, you know, council member Rashi who's there, she's really led the way in, in creating that kind of environment so that we can have that type of housing on what is currently a parking lot to build that type of housing that we need.

But, you know, a lot of municipalities need to come along as well, But we're slowly, slowly, slowly getting there.

- Yeah.

Finally, El Cerrito getting the on-air props that they deserve.

Thank you.

We love, we love El - Cerrito.

- Buffy Wicks is a member of the California State Assembly.

Of course, she represents California's 14th Assembly District, happens to be my district as well, includes portions of, you know, Oakland, Richmond, Berkeley, Emeryville, Albany, El Cerrito, San Pablo, and actually many more.

Thank you so much for joining us Assembly member Wicks.

- Thanks for having me.

- Yeah, we are, of course, continuing with CEQA Fest here on Forum.

In the next segments of the show, we're gonna be joined by our own Adhiti Bandlamudi housing reporter here at KQED, as well as other experts on housing.

Stay with us.

I'm Alexis Madrigal.

Hey, welcome back to Forum.

We're talking about CEQA reform.

Yesterday, we were talking about it in the kind of context of the environmental legislation of the time.

Now we're talking about it in terms of housing and how the reforms that you just heard about from assembly member Buffy Wicks, could translate into actually more houses being built.

We are joined this morning by Adhiti Bandlamudi, who's a housing reporter here at KQED.

Thanks for joining us.

- Thanks for having me.

- We're also joined by Patrick Kennedy, who's owner of Panoramic Interests Development Firm that's been building in the Bay Area since 1990.

Thanks for joining us.

- Thank - You.

And we have Sarah Karlinsky, who's director of Research and Policy at the Turner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley.

Welcome, Sarah.

- Glad to be here.

- So, Adhiti, first of all, let's just like talk about where we are in terms of building housing in the Bay Area.

How much is getting built right now?

How much do we need?

Like sort of what kind of housing is getting built?

Just give us a little bit of that landscape.

- Yeah, so the state has said that we need to build 2.5 million homes by 2030, really ambitious goal.

And right now we are not to that we, you know, we have not, - Not on pace, not on pace, - Not on pace, not on pace at all.

But, but the, the way that we're building has definitely changed.

The, the types of homes that we're building has definitely changed.

I was just looking at some stats from the MTC, the Metropolitan Transportation Transportation Commission.

And in 2024, last year, more than half of the homes that were built were multi-family homes.

That means apartments and duplexes and, and basically not single family homes, which is a huge change in the 1990.

In 1990, it was only 30%, a little more than 30% that was multifamily.

Wow.

And we're seeing a lot of multifamily construction in Alameda County, Santa Clara County, Sonoma County, San Mateo.

And that's driven in large part by this, you know, demand for rental housing near job centers, Silicon Valley.

But conversely, we're seeing a lot of single family home construction happening in Marin County, Contra Costa Solano, 90% of the homes built in Solano last year were single family homes.

So there is still demand for that.

And, you know, we are still building for that demand.

- Yeah.

Patrick, talk to me about, you know, when you hear that, how does that match up with sort of your experience as a developer?

I know you specialize in infill development, so talk to me about, you know, why the market dynamics are driving things to multifamily housing in these places.

- Well, I think that the proximity to jobs is the biggest driver of where people wanna live.

And people do not wanna spend two hours commuting to San Francisco jobs or jobs on the Peninsula.

Therefore, the only choices they have are multifamily, typically close to BART or close to other means of transportation.

The single family home market is so expensive in the immediate Bay Area, Berkeley, San Francisco, and elsewhere, that it's beyond the reach of most new households and certainly households that are just coming to the area for jobs.

So their only choice is multifamily.

- Yeah.

Sarah, from your sort of policy perspective, can you talk about the places that as this, you know, kind of ecosystem of policies and things are evolving, where might we see more housing get built?

Is it gonna continue to be, you know, Solano County single family homes?

Or is it possible we'll get things closer in?

- Yeah, I think it's gonna be certainly a, a mixture.

So I, I think what you're seeing is in part the economics of building trends towards housing types that are more affordable.

So you're gonna see stick-built construction continuing in, in places where it can occur.

But I think that there is a lot of interest certainly in trying to build in those sort of inner Bay Area areas that Patrick mentioned.

I was able to pull some stats as to where permits are occurring within the Bay Area.

And the vast majority, unsurprisingly, are in the three major cities of the Bay Area.

So San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose.

Now, whether permits get pulled and projects actually get built, I think that's, you know, gonna be subject to market forces.

But in the, in the planning framework for the Bay Area, there's a lot of interest in trying to build in our, in our cities and our infill locations for all the reasons that Patrick mentioned.

And so I think we're gonna see some pressure there as well.

- Yeah.

We of course, would love to invite you into this conversation on CEQA reform and how it could work.

You know, what kind of homes would you like to see built in your city?

Where should they be built?

How would you like to see California balance housing demand with protecting the environment in its many different forms?

You give us a call, the number is 866 733 6786.

That's 866 733 6786.

You can email forum@kqed.org.

You can find us on social media - Bluesky, Instagram, We're at KQED Forum, or you can join the Discord community.

Of course.

Sarah, let's stick with you on these CEQA reforms.

I mean, every show we've done on housing over the past, I dunno, how long have we been doing this job?

Four years.

It is, we've gotten at least one call, email, et cetera, that says like, CEQA, CEQA these problems with CEQA.

Do you think the changes that assembly member Wicks talked about earlier kind of address those core concerns?

- Yeah, so it's a great question.

I, I've been doing this housing and policy thing for about 25 years, and the first paper I ever worked on related to planning was a CEQA reform paper over 20 years ago.

So people have been at this for a really long time, and I think that the, the reform that the assembly members put forward is really powerful.

It's really, I important, there hasn't been sort of a quote unquote clean infills CEQA exemption of the type that she wrote ever before.

Hmm.

There's a difference between, I'm gonna go a little bit nerdy here for a second, but between a statutory exemption, which the legislature writes, and a categorical exemption, which is a defined in guidance, there has been an infill exemption of the categorical variety, but it's easy to poke holes in.

And the statutory exemption is very, very powerful.

- Hmm.

- But it's gonna really depend on how local jurisdictions utilize it, because one of the things about CEQA that's so important to remember is there's the local interpretation of the, the laws really impacts what is allowed to be built or, or not.

And just to give kind of one example, many years ago when I was doing a bunch of work in San Francisco, there was a project that was in the marina that was basically converting a motel from just being a motel to housing for youth transitioning out of foster care.

And everybody in the world came out and said, this is terrible, and you didn't analyze this under CEQA, and there's gonna be all this traffic impact, of which there was very little, but it generated so much energy and there was just a huge outpour through the vehicle of CEQA.

Right.

As compared to when I was an affordable housing developer many, many years ago, I built a project that was basically part of a subdivision.

We were doing a slightly more dense project within the subdivision, but all I needed to do was a much more modest CEQA review called a mitigated negative declaration because the city wanted to see project move forward, and that was 200 units of affordable housing on a greenfield.

Right.

So you can see in those two examples how the application of CEQA really differs based on the jurisdiction's interpretation.

- And this, these reforms aren't gonna change that, that you're saying - They potentially could.

I mean, I think what you could see, so given the example of the, the infill project in San Francisco transitioning the motel, you could see that project sponsor saying, Hey, you know, we absolutely deserve an, an infill exemption, you know, one of the, the, the one that the assembly member authored.

And that would be a more helpful and powerful tool.

Yeah.

But it would depend on how the city of San Francisco in that instance, if they chose to utilize that exemption.

- Yeah.

You know, Adhiti, I think one thing to address here is what remaining kind of community input forums there will be, right?

Like CEQA was just one way, right, that communities could kind of tap into the process of development and, and have their voices heard.

So what, what are, what remains?

- I mean, there's still a lot of public process like baked in, especially in California.

Like I think that, you know, what ends up happening with CEQA is it's just one channel.

But when a project comes before a city, or if it's a really big project, it might come before a county if it's, you know, in an unincorporated area.

It still has to be reviewed by the planning commission, by the city council, by the board of Supervisors.

And there are often opportunities for public comment.

So if people are concerned about a project, they can always voice them there and they can always speak to elected officials about a project that really concerns them.

So I think there are avenues to engage a a apart from CEQA.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

In your experience as a developer, Patrick, you know, if you had a, a pie chart of sort of problems with housing in California, like how big is the CEQA slice?

- CEQA is huge because it can gum up projects for years and be abused in a way that delays obstructs and prevents developments from being done.

It's, it's not, it's not the panacea for everything, but just to give you one example, in my hometown, Berkeley, where I've been developing for 35 years, a project in People's Park for student housing Was, was challenged, successfully challenged on CEQA grounds based on the fact that it would involve noisy students, and so students as a pollutant or an environmental impact that was ridiculous on the face.

It's comical, we laugh about it now, but it gummed up that project for two years until Scott Wiener and Buffy and other legislators passed laws that exempted UC from it.

But private developers here in San Francisco have been delayed by CEQA for years on end.

In fact, there was a project of a friend of mine, a Erickson in Oakland on a Rockridge campus of the CCA.

- Oh, yeah.

- I know that the CEQA project, the CEQA analysis there had gummed up the project for eight years.

And it was, that's - What happened up there.

- Yeah.

That's what happened up there, you know, but the concerns of the neighbors were largely based on disliking the development period.

And I think if, when you give obstruction a career obstructionist an opportunity to delay a project legally with CEQA with very little expense, you have results that stop development in their tracks.

- Well, you know, one, one of our experts yesterday, Ethan Elkind, you know, mentioned like that there are these kind of high profile examples with CEQA in part because it seems like high profile projects tend to draw more attention of this kind.

So just to give people a sense though, of like, I don't want people's hopes for building housing if they have those hopes to get too high.

So like what percentage of your projects that haven't gotten off the ground have been due to CEQA and what have been due to sort of other financial reasons?

- Well, it's a mixed bag.

I have several projects going in Berkeley right now.

One of them was delayed by CEQA for close to a year.

It was a, a historic theater that we're going to restore the facade and the lobby of, but it had a non ductal concrete old theater in it that once housed a magnificent movie house.

But it had been converted to a seven screen multiplex in the seventies and eighties.

And all of the historic artifacts of it had been removed, destroyed, altered, but on se a grounds, it was challenged that the latest more than a year.

On the other hand, we have other projects that have been now exempted from CEQA and are moving forward without impediment.

Now the market forces interest rates, construction costs, other city regulations like inclusionary requirements are making it still very difficult to build in Berkeley right now.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

Let's maybe take a caller here before we get into the break.

Let's take Rob.

Welcome Rob.

- Thank you.

Yes.

I live in San Francisco in the Sunset District, which is block after block after block of single family homes.

It's a quiet kind of a, almost a suburb of San Francisco.

And the upzoning plan that the mayor wants to push through would allow eight story to be built amongst two story buildings.

And I think when you look at, I'm not an impediment to housing, and I, I know of many projects that have been killed by somebody that just was against any kind of development at all.

But, you know, it's really not appropriate to build 8, 10, 20 story buildings in a small-ish one, you know, two story building neighborhood, you know, it, it will ruin that block.

You know, if you live next to one of these developments, your house is gonna drop in property value, you're gonna lose all your son, you're gonna live next to a wall.

I just think you gotta look at where they're wanting to put these and how appropriate they are.

- What about 3, 4, 5, 6 story buildings?

Like, is there a line for you that no, no higher than this?

Or do you think it should all be - 4, 4, 4 Story is my max.

Mm.

You know, you put an eight story building and some, some of these developers have thrown out these numbers, like 10 story, like out where the old Sloat Gardens used to be.

There's another building that they built out near the beach that's pretty much empty.

It's been sitting that way for like eight years or so.

I mean, trying to match where the housing is needed, wanted and is actually gonna sell.

It seems like there's a lot of mismatching going on, and, you know, what is, what is, do you think it's fair to put a, an eight story building next to everybody's two story building?

This is definitely a big part of the conversation in San Francisco right now.

I think Adhiti wants to jump, jump in here.

- Well, no, it, it, it's really interesting.

I had covered, I had covered when, when San Francisco released this plan, and I also live in the sunset.

So I I totally hear you.

It's like a very suburban part of the city.

And I think, you know, the city had said that they wanted to put a lot of housing there because it's what's called a high resource neighborhood where incomes are high.

Education is really good.

It basically is like a really good place to put housing if somebody is in need of housing.

It's like a great place for them to live and then thrive.

I do wanna clarify that.

It, you know, there, there are definitely, you know, the upzoning in the west side is definitely a big change to that area, and it is really controversial.

But the changes, the upzoning happens along what's called a commercial corridor.

So areas where there are already some tall buildings, some, some buildings with maybe four stories or six stories right now, I believe that four stories are allowed.

That's like the max that you can build to.

And what they wanna change is to make that max more like six stories or eight stories.

But again, only along commercial corridors, areas where cars are driving past, where there's already restaurants, shops, places where people are walking and what, are there - Some legacy buildings that are already, you know, for higher than four stories out there too?

- There are, I mean, I, I live, you know, I, I frequently and am on Taraval and there are some buildings that are already higher than four stories.

And, and the 12 story, and again, like the thing to note here is that, you know, eight stories may be the uppermost limit, but it's not necessarily what a developer will build to.

It's really what ends up penciling out and working for them.

- Yeah.

Patrick.

Yeah, I know this is, go, go ahead.

- Oh, I'd like to respond to that and I, I agree with it Adhiti, that we're, we should focus on the transit quarters, but I'd like to bring your attention to the Painted Ladies in San Francisco.

The iconic four or five Victorians right next to the Painted Ladies is I believe an eight story building.

And I wonder whether that eight story building has diminished anyone's attraction to the Painted Ladies.

And I think not, in fact, most people don't, are not aware that the painted ladies are next to an eight story building.

And I've got a photograph here on my, on my iPhone that I'd love to show.

- Yeah.

I mean, I can, I can understand Rob's concerns and also it feels like people are trying to address them, at least in, in some of these various ways of the, the, the plan.

We're gonna be back with more right after break.

We've got Patrick Kennedy from Panoramic Interest.

We've got Adhiti Bandlamudi Housing Reporter with KQED, and we've got Sarah Karlinsky, director of Research and Policy at the Turner Center at UC Berkeley.

I'm Alexis Madrigal.

Stay tuned for more.

Welcome back to Forum.

I'm Alexis Madrigal.

We're talking about CEQA reform, possibility for change in our housing situation here in the Bay Area.

We are joined by Patrick Kennedy, owner of panoramic interests.

Sarah Karlinsky, director of Research and Policy at the Turner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley, and Adhiti Bandlamudi Housing Reporter with KQED.

Earlier you heard from Buffy Wicks member of the California State Assembly representing the 14th District.

Let's get to some other calls here.

Maybe let's go to Laura in Oakland.

Welcome, Laura.

- Hi.

Thanks for having me on.

- Oh, go ahead.

- Can you hear me okay?

Yep.

Yes.

Yeah, so, you know, I, I saw that Buffy Wicks was on and that Patrick Kennedy is now on.

I I would, it would be great if, you know, again, you know, I am for housing.

I'm a low income renter, but I am here to talk about the effect of eroding CEQA and all of these new housing laws on historic buildings.

And yes, people roll their eyes going, oh, you know, overreach trying to protect any historic building, but why not put in some new legislation provisions to protect highly historic buildings, you know, in terms of like actual landmark buildings that now are at risk of being destroyed.

For example, you have Patrick Kennedy on the project that he just alluded to a few minutes ago, is his plan to destroy a palatial art deco theater in downtown Berkeley.

Yes, he's gonna preserve a facade and part of the lobby, but this, you know, very large four story historic building is going to be destroyed.

And he was given, you know, he was granted the ability to totally evade CEQA review and which should have protected this landmark building.

So, you know, - Single Laura, can I ask you, we - Really need state law provisions to protect highly historic buildings, and I do think people should consider the effect of these laws kind of a scorched - Effect - On these laws on like historic downtowns.

- You know, it's interesting though.

I mean, at least to me, when I hear "environmental quality act," it doesn't say to me like, this should be the law that's used to protect a historic building, if that's the thing that you think you would like to have happen.

- Yes.

- You know, so I take care.

Yeah.

- I, I, I agree.

And, and you know, and we've actually been kind of maligned for abusing CEQA as just kind of a community group that's standing up for one historic theater.

Right.

And my response to that is, it's frustrating.

We don't really wanna invoke CEQA except for that the provision is in CEQA.

So that's the state law we have to use.

'cause that's how it is.

We would love it if some state lawmakers would step forward and maybe craft a, a separate law that can have, that can, you know, reasonably protect certain highly historic buildings.

But it seems that there is no maybe financial incentive for our elected leaders to do that.

- Laura, appreciate your perspective there.

Patrick, do you wanna give a response?

- The new law, a AB 130 does have provisions protecting legitimately historic buildings.

But our particular theater was studied by an architectural historian, and she said all of the features that imbued it with historic character had been destroyed or removed.

And what was left was a non ductal concrete shell that had no historic value left.

And the parts of the building that were historic were ones that we were restoring IE the art deco lobby and the, and the facade.

So I respectfully disagree with your analysis there.

- And I think, you know, one of the tricky things about this, right, is how do we, you know, historic, it means one thing to one person, another thing to another person.

Like, I can totally understand.

I mean, I know exactly where the project is.

I know all this like, and I, and I, one part of me is like, oh yeah, that's historic.

And the part of me is like, well, how do we balance that historic versus, you know, the need for the, the city to be able to turn over?

And it's, you know, I mean, we don't just encounter it in historic buildings battles.

We encounter it in, well, what is the character of West Oakland and what, who should build there and what should be built there?

So it's like, I I take it, it's very complicated.

Appreciate the, the perspective there.

Let's get to some more comment here.

Lots of people writing in.

And Sarah, maybe this one goes to you.

Natalie asks, I'm writing in response to the idea that there are still lots of ways for the public to participate without CEQA.

This overlooks one of the most important aspects of CEQA, which is transparency about a project's harms.

Without CEQA, people won't know about the real hazards of a proposed project.

How can the public engage without transparency?

What do you think?

- I think it's a great question.

I, I, I think that it's important to keep in mind the distinction between plans and projects.

And first of all, I just wanna make it clear that the, the CEQA exemption that assembly member Wicks authored is really just about infill housing.

It is not about any other type of development which might have environmental impacts, which would not be touched by this particular exemption.

So there are plenty of different types of land uses that could have environmental impacts, and those will continue to be studied under CEQA.

But for infill specifically, I think it's really important to make the distinction, again, between plans, which might be like a entire rezoning plan, which there is an, an, an intensive amount of outreach and opportunities for input, usually in the creation of a plan.

Like for example, with the first caller when he talked about the plan for rezoning the west side, there are plenty of opportunities for input that don't rely on CEQA and an individual project that conforms with zoning.

And what this infill exemption does is it, it all it does is it says, if you can, if you basically are proposing a project that conforms with existing zoning, that that project should move forward.

And so the rules have already been decided, decided about what the allowable projects are, it's just allowing that particular project to move forward.

And so I would say there should be plenty of outreach and input for plans, but for projects that conform with plans or with allowable zoning, those projects should be allowed to move forward.

- Hmm.

More comments here.

Questions coming in.

Bill asks, have environmental leaders been included in the drafting of the CEQA reform legislation?

If so, did they fully endorse it?

If not, it's hard to trust that this legislation is sound developers have their own agenda guiding their input, respecting the environment's not their forte.

Sarah, what do you think?

How, how were environmental leaders a part or not a part of this legislation?

- Well, I think environmental leaders are, I think it's a broad group and I think there are some, like the Green Belt Alliance that are highly supportive of infill housing.

And so, you know, that goes all the way from greenbelt to, you know, further along the spectrum and people have different opinions.

I will say that for assembly member Wicks's bill, I think there was a lot of support from environmentalists who understand that one of the core ways that we can protect our, our green fields and our open spaces is by supporting infill housing in our cities and already urbanized areas.

I think there was a another piece of legislation that also passed that, that was authored by Senator Wiener that was a little bit more controversial in some of its measures because it was exempting not just infill housing, but some other uses as well.

- Advanced manufacturing stuff that - Yeah, but also like childcare centers.

And I think, you know, there were other types of uses that were exempted under, under that bill that had, that attracted more kind of mixed attention, I would say.

- Yeah.

One of the things that I'm really interested in, Sarah, just sticking with you for, for one more question here.

You've been at this for a long time.

You know, you mentioned being in this field for, for 25 years.

It seems like after a lot of not change, there have been a, a whole bunch of changes to the different things that constrain or open up housing markets in the, in the bay and construction on your personal list, like are there still major areas that need to be tackled or are the main constraints now about the current market conditions because, you know, tariffs changing the price of, you know, raising the price of inputs or, you know, or, or interest rates that are slowing things down?

- Yeah, so I think there are still things that need to be tackled.

I, I agree with you.

It's just been an absolute extraordinary amount of change on my watch.

When I started at this many, many years ago, every single permit in San Francisco was discretionary rezonings were just objects of internal suffering and years and years and years of, of, of meetings.

And there just has been quite a lot of change.

But that being said, I think there can still some types of process improvements.

So looking at the processes by which jurisdictions review plans and projects and, and streamlining that, I think the area of missing middle housing, which the assembly member alluded to in, in her comments.

So allowing for, you know, duplexes, four-plexes, six-plexes, this type of gracious density in more places.

I think there's a lot of work to do.

There's been some work in this area, but so much of our urbanized areas in the Bay Area are these kind of single family neighborhoods.

And figuring out how to add some of this gentle density, allowing that to move forward, I think is the next big hurdle.

- You know, one example of that right, is the ADU legislation that passed, you know, when I was looking at the maps of like, oh, where's new construction gone in?

You, you see suddenly in all these single family neighborhoods, tons of ADUs that have been put in, is that considered like a successful housing policy at this point?

- I mean, I think, you know, the, it's funny, like we, my colleague Erin Baldassari actually just did a story about ADUs being used as like condos and that as a form of home ownership or a path to home ownership.

San Francisco actually recently announced legislation that that allows condo- ADUs to basically be used as condos.

You know, ADU construction has definitely boomed over the past few years since legislation has made it easier for cities to kind of like make that pathway for building housing.

But in terms of it being used as like, I, I think the issue becomes that in single family neighborhoods, people are living there.

So it's really difficult to add housing to an area where, you know, a lot of the land is kind of spoken for.

And so ADU has become this kind of like solution.

But I think the issue is that ADUs are not like a silver bullet.

Like they're not really the only way that, you know, the state can kind of like get that level of housing production, but it is promising.

I mean, people are definitely building in my, you know, neighborhood in the sunset.

People are building ADUs.

- Yeah.

I also wonder too, like on my block, there were more or less like unpermitted very old buildings in the back that were already being used as housing until a lot of them have just kind of been upgraded from garage plus into like actual ADU.

And it, I, it's fascinating 'cause you know, I live on the border of Oakland and Berkeley and Oakland.

There's been a ton of ADU construction in Berkeley.

There's been essentially none and there's just a lot more people around and on the street.

There's just that like the, the change in density is very noticeable even though they kind of look the same on the, on the outside.

I did want to ask one of our listeners, Sandra, is curious about senior living facilities and these, you know, kinda particular things that can be built for that.

Are there, you know, we know we've done shows recently about the, you know, aging population of the country and in particular the Bay Area has some of the fastest aging places in the country.

Patrick Kennedy.

Like what are the incentives slash impediments to building specifically, you know, senior housing, whether it's rental or as Sandra would like an opportunity to, to own - Right now at, it's interesting you that because we are proposing a large project in North Berkeley that's gonna be targeted to seniors whom I like to call prime timers.

No one likes to use the word seniors anymore or admit that one's a senior.

A couple things about that, that demographic, especially in Berkeley where we have I think 25,000 people that are over 55, we have a very significant aging population there.

And that is we want to build condos for them.

And we also want to build condos for first timers.

But the set aside requirements, also known as inclusionary zoning, forces us to sell units for as low as $75,000 a piece, which doesn't even cost cover the cost of the land.

And that exaction is passed through to the other buyers in the project and make the project infeasible.

So I'd like to see some kind of change in the state requirements or the city requirements with respect to inclusionary zoning for, for sale units.

Because as it's designed right now, it makes it impossible to build entry level condos or condos for, for empty-nesters.

And in fact, the evidence of that in Berkeley's pretty clear, 'cause in the last 30 years in Berkeley, I think there has been one project over 10 units that was for sale condos.

And that's among other things attributable to construction defect law.

But more importantly, it's attributable to the high costs that the city imposes on condo developers for, for sale.

- Hmm.

- And that's, that's a change that I think would make a massive difference in inducing developers to build for seniors and to provide also entry level housing.

- You know, one of the fascinating stats that you, you, you shared a fascinating step before the show this morning.

You know, we have all these coastal cities that have been not building a lot of housing and what that's done is drive a lot of housing production east.

Right?

- Exactly.

- And so what was the step, this was really striking to Adhiti and I this morning.

- Yeah.

I heard a, a member of Cal YIMBY last night say that more people in California now live east of I5 than west of I5, which is stunning when, because when you think of the California dream, you're thinking of sun fun surf.

You're not thinking of the artichoke fields in the Central Valley.

- Yeah.

I mean it's one of those things where you're like, oh yeah, Fresno's got a million people.

Yeah.

You know, Oakland's got 400,000.

- Yeah.

- Couple last comments coming in from folks.

I mean, David writes, why do you think that the free market is going to deliver affordable housing?

The price of housing has skyrocketed throughout the entire country and the world.

Developers everywhere are in the business of making money.

Heather writes, I'm an affordable housing developer building housing for folks experiencing chronic homelessness.

One of our current projects should have been exempt from CEQA, but the city we were partnering with was sued by a NIMBY neighbor.

Our operational budget resulted in around $200,000 of additional operational costs.

Richard writes, I am an environmental lawyer from San Francisco representing environmental groups.

Even good projects can have significant environmental impacts.

Housing may be built on contaminated sites.

Solar farms may be constructed on habitat for rare species.

Computer chip factories may release toxic chemicals into the water.

CEQA requires these impacts to be analyzed and mitigated.

Then the project can be built, but with reduced environmental impacts.

The last thing Andrea writes to say in Alameda, just two bad actors are causing huge disruptions on the redevelopment efforts of the old Alameda Naval Air Station, which has been slowly deteriorating since the Navy closed operations there in 1997.

It's a great location and given the tight real geographic constraints on development in the Bay Area, it's been so sad to see it languish.

So many comments, such great guests.

Thank you all so much.

And we have been talking about the CEQA reform that is now through the legislature and how much of a difference it could make in addressing the Bay Area's housing shortage.

Given the whole array of issues, which we talked about and heard about today, we've been joined this morning by Adhiti Bandlamudi, Housing Reporter with KQED.

Thanks so much for joining us.

- Thanks for having me.

- We've been joined by Sarah Karlinsky, director of Research and Policy with the Turner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley, thank you so much, Sarah.

- Thank you.

- And we've been joined by Patrick Kennedy, owner of Panoramic Interest.

That's a development firm that's been building in the Bay Area since 1990.

Thanks so much.

- Thank you.

- Earlier, we were joined by Buffy Wicks, assembly member Buffy Wicks.

She represents California's 14th Assembly District.

Thank you so much to all of our callers and listeners.

Really appreciate your perspectives and we're gonna keep covering these issues.

Always appreciate hearing from you.

You're actually gonna be able to catch this episode too on Kq D'S YouTube channel in the near future.

I'm Alexis Madrigal.

Stay tuned for another hour Form ahead with Mina Kim.