HomeMy WebLinkAboutSB831_LtrToWieckowski_20180627Office of the City Council
990 Palm Street, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401-3249
805.781,7114
...city ON
June 27, 2018
The Honorable Senator Bob Wieckowski
California State Senate
State Capitol Building, Room 4085
Sacramento, CA 95814
RE: SB 831 (Wieckowski) Land Use: accessory dwelling units
Notice of Opposition
Dear Senator Wieckowski:
The City of San Luis Obispo (the City) respectfully opposes Senate Bill 831, which makes
several changes to the current law relating to accessory dwelling units (ADUs) and
eliminates the ability of local jurisdictions to maintain an owner occupancy requirement.
The City has been working very hard to comply with changes from both SB 1069
(Wieckiwski)/AB 2299'(Bloom) signed into law in 2016 and SB 229 (Wieckowski)/AB 494
(Bloom) signed into law in 2017. The City now has a compliant ADU ordinance that is
effective in enabling additional production of housing. Our ordinance requires no additional
parking for ADUs, no impact fees for transportation, water or sewer, and substantially
increases the size limits for new ADUs.
The City has a compliant Housing Element and we are generally supportive of legislation
that promotes housing production. In fact, our City Council has established a Major City
Goal to "Facilitate increased production of all housing types designed to be economically
accessible to the area workforce and low and very low-income residents, through increased
density and proximity to transportation corridors in alignment with the Climate Action
Plan." As a result of our collective commitment to housing production, our community is
growing at a faster rate than at any time in the past 30 years. However, the City of San Luis
Obispo is also a university town and 65% of the housing in the City is already utilized as
rental housing.
Contrary to its intended objectives, SB 831's elimination of the owner -occupancy
requirement, currently in place for ADUs, would be devastating to housing accessibility, as
well as neighborhood stability, quality and diversity. In a community like ours, removing
local discretion to require owner occupancy serves only to create stronger financial
incentives for real estate investors to purchase scarce residential property, dramatically
increase its value by constructing ADUs, and then rent both the primary and secondary units
at a premium in a tightly constrained housing market. That investment incentive frequently
results in over occupation of single family units by students desperate for housing close to
the University at rents that artificially inflate property values and make home ownership
inaccessible to most working families. Exorbitant rents represent a windfall to absentee
landlords at the expense of existing neighborhoods, neighbors and renters while making
property ownership the exclusive province of investors, rather than our local workers and
families.
In the City of San Luis Obispo, the dynamic described above results in single-family
properties with unrestricted ADUs commanding rents well over $6,000/month. Eliminating
the enforceability of owner occupancy restrictions in such severely impacted local housing
markets results in circumstances that are clearly contrary to the principals of housing equity,
accessibility and affordability and serve only to degrade existing neighborhoods and create
barriers to working class home ownership.
For these reasons listed above, the City of San Luis Obispo respectfully opposes SB 831.
Sincer
Mayor
ely,
eidi Harmon
cc: San Luis Obispo City Council