State Sen. Anthony Portantino's request for the money out of the new state budget for a regional housing trust was approved.
The future of an affordable housing trust fund among the cities of Pasadena, Glendale and Burbank took a step forward this week, as officials announced the approval of a $23 million infusion to get the fund off the ground.
Under state Sen. Anthony J. Portantino’s proposed SB 1177, the money — carved out from the state’s $308 billion 2022-23 budget, signed into law last month — would go toward a fund administered by a joint-powers authority of the three cities.
One caveat is that Portantino’s legislation is still making its way to the governor’s desk, now eligible for a floor vote when the Legislature reconvenes in August.
Still, Portantino lauded the early funding from the state’s new budget as a promising step as outlined in his legislation.
“Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena have been at the forefront of meeting California’s housing needs,” he said in a statement announcing the funding. “I’m happy to help them create and fund this effort to build critical affordable housing. The high cost of housing has had a devastating effect on Californians, especially on lower income and workforce households in the Burbank, Glendale, and Pasadena area.”
That devastating impact can be seen through a lens of the state’s regional housing assessment, which has found that Southern California cities, in particular, haven’t done enough to to comply with new, stricter state laws designed to promote greater development across California.
California needs to build 2.5 million homes by the end of the decade to address the state’s current housing shortage. Of those, at least 1 million must be affordable to low-income households.
Several state officials have argued that strict city zoning laws on development are a big reason why rents and housing costs are so high. Moreover, cities across Southern California — including in the tri-city region — have been found to be falling short of state-mandated housing goals, despite robust pushes to create more housing, according to data from the state.
Take, for example, Pasadena. Under the state’s affordable housing goals, the city has been asked to plan for more than 9,400 new units from 2021 to 2029 — 600% more units than the previous eight-year cycle. And, like many cities in the region, it missed those earlier marks, though Pasadena made more progress than any of its neighbors.
Of late, Pasadena has ramped up efforts to open up more housing for its “missing middle” and at the grass-roots level, advocates are seeking to convince voters to approve rent control in the city.
Still, such efforts run parallel to the tensions inherent in creating more affordable places for people to live in a built-out region.
It was just last April when in Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo fired off a blunt letter to state Attorney General Rob Bonta acknowledging more affordable housing is needed in the state but that SB 9 – which seeks to ease the affordability crisis by allowing homeowners to build up to four units on a single-family lot – was wrong-headed.
Gordo emphasized that the city has previously approved 3,000 units of affordable housing with 1,000 more in the works, according to Gordo’s letter.
At least four Los Angeles County cities have filed a legal challenge to the bill.
Portantino’s legislation leans on longstanding relationships among the three cities.
He noted that they are members of the Arroyo Verdugo Sub-Region and “have worked collaboratively in the past,” on share concerns, and he emphasized that Glendale and Pasadena are two of the three cities in the state that have their own homeless continuum of care.
Under his bill, the JPA would be allowed to request and receive private and state funding allocations. It would also be able to authorize and issue bonds, and help finance affordable housing projects for people living in extremely low-, very low-, low-, and moderate-income households.
Gordo applauded Portantino’s bill this week.
“Housing is a regional issue and cities working together in partnership, together with the state is the best strategy to constructing more affordable housing for our communities,” he said in a joint statements with Portantino and Glendale Mayor “Ardy” Kassakhian. “We are stronger when we work together. Thank you to Sen. Portantino for his leadership and support in making this strategy a reality for this Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena Joint Partnership on affordable housing.”
Portantino’s effort runs parallel to other legislative efforts in the region.
His fellow state senator, Sydney Kamlager, has introduced a bill, SB 679, that would set up the Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency, designed to build new affordable housing, preserve existing affordable housing and offer renter emergency rental assistance and access to legal counsel to help resolve landlord-tenant disputes.
The bill would authorize the agency to, among other things, raise and allocate new revenue, incur and issue bonds and other indebtedness, and place on the ballot in Los Angeles County, including all of its incorporated areas, funding measures to raise and allocate funds to develop maintain housing, fund renter protection programs and finance new construction.
Source: dailynews.com
