This week, despite a late opposition from a coalition in Southern California, the legislature passed SB 1087. Late changes in the bill create real worries about how housing development will proceed in our region and to what extent local governments will be overruled by a state regulatory agency.
The bill rewrites how our region plans for growth and traffic over the next two decades, and ties billions in transportation funding to those plans.
We have real concerns about how this affects housing here in the Inland Empire. Late changes to the bill removed a requirement that the state’s new planning rules go through the normal, more rigorous public rulemaking process, swapping in a lighter version with fewer checks. That matters because those rules will decide whether our region’s plans get approved and under what conditions. It’s literally about the future path of communities across the state with an important part of the process removed from anyone elected by those communities.
This article was written by Paul Herrera, the CDIG Government Affairs Director.