TIME TO FIGHT FOR LOCAL CONTROL!
SINGLE-FAMILY ZONING HAS BEEN ELIMINATED IN CALIFORNIA.
You’ll remember that SB9 and SB10 were passed by the California legislature in 2021 and went into effect in 2022. These laws allow high-density housing to be cram-jammed into existing single-family communities, regardless of existing zoning. Your local elected officials can no longer determine how your community is zoned or what can be built next door to you.
FCA opposes the loss of local control as anti-democratic: it takes away your ability to influence what happens to your local community through the ballot box. And it pulls the rug out from under homeowners who bought a property under one set of rules, only to see those rules change dramatically, generally for the worse.
Since then, much new legislation has been making its way through the legislature. Some of them modifies current law, such as changes to ADU legislation, allowing them to be bigger – and multi-story. And some of it tightens the screws on cities and counties that have not been able to produce housing plans that Sacramento finds “substantially compliant.” Much of this has been done in the name of expanding our supply of affordable housing – but SB9 and SB10 only call for market-rate housing.
We are backing the constitutional amendment sponsored by a Northern California group, Our Neighborhood Voices, which will enshrine local control over land use planning and zoning. Our plan is to put this amendment before state voters via a ballot initiative for the 2024 election.
Please go to our website, RestoreLocalControl.com for more information, to donate to help get this on the ballot, and to sign up to help with signature gathering later this Summer.
If you value your community, Join the Fight!
Fig 1. This 90 unit apartment building is going into a residential neighborhood in Santa Monica. Elected officials and residents have no ability to oppose it since it being approved under state law with no input from the local community. Several more are going in Santa Monica. There are 9 such projects in Orange County. The latest is in the City of Orange.
