Newsom signs housing bill package to ‘turn up the heat’ on California cities

Gov. Gavin Newsom was in San Francisco on Thursday to tout a housing bill package he signed into law that aims to crack down on development-resistant cities and force local officials to speed up the approval process for new housing projects and homeless shelters, among other goals.

To those cities “turning their backs” on the housing crisis, Newsom said, “we’re turning up the heat.”

The package includes 32 new housing bills. A few of the most potentially impactful include:

SB 1037: Allows state officials to impose new fines on cities that fail to greenlight new housing or come up with an approved plan for their future homebuilding goals.

Under Newsom, the state has sued, or threatened to sue, cities across California that it’s accused of potentially violating state housing laws. Earlier this year, Newsom threatened legal action against Half Moon Bay for slow-walking a farmworker housing project. In 2022, the state attorney sent a warning letter to Woodside after the wealthy Silicon Valley suburb tried to get around a state housing law by declaring itself a mountain lion habitat.

AB 1893: Clarifies that cities and counties that don’t get state approval on their every-eight-year housing plans must accept “builder’s remedy” applications from developers starting next year. The builder’s remedy is a penalty meant to force cities to approve housing projects that are much larger than local zoning rules allow.

In the Bay Area, developers have proposed at least 98 builder’s remedy projects across 18 cities. However, some, including San Jose, have argued that existing state law doesn’t require them to approve the projects.

SB 1395: Streamlines the approval process for “interim housing” homeless shelters, such as tiny homes and converted motel rooms. Unlike traditional dorm-style group shelters with strict rules and little privacy, interim sites are meant to offer residents individual rooms to provide a more welcoming and stable environment while they receive help finding permanent housing.

San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan has pushed the city to build hundreds of new tiny homes to bring many of its roughly 4,400 unsheltered homeless residents off the street while also clearing more encampments. He was a staunch backer of the shelter bill.

“We can now get more people indoors faster and create a better quality of life for everyone — not just in my city, but in all California cities,” Mahan said in a statement.

But some advocates for homeless people, while supporting the bill, say adding more shelter space amounts to only a temporary solution. They’ve been critical of recent decisions by San Jose and other cities to shift money meant for affordable housing toward building shelters.

“We all share the goal of getting people into safe shelters as quickly as we can, but we won’t be able to maintain this effort if we don’t have more options for people to move into,” said David Low, policy and communication director with Destination: Home, a South Bay homeless solutions nonprofit.

To that end, Newsom on Thursday announced that, in November, local officials can start applying for $2.2 billion from Proposition 1 — a mental health bond that voters narrowly approved in March — to help build supportive housing. The money is expected to go out in May 2025 and fund more than 4,000 units for homeless people and those with mental health challenges.