REAL ESTATE IN THE NAPA VALLEY
The end of single-family zoning?
S
enate Bills (SB) 9 and 10 culminate a multi-year effort to create a solution to California’s housing crisis. Two recently signed bills into California law effective in 2022, SB 9 allows homeowners and developers to split a single-family lot, adding two or more units per lot. SB 10, a similar bill, provides tools allowing local governments to zone a parcel for up to ten BURT POLSONW units in areas close to transit hubs and urban infill sites.
PROS OF THE NEW LAWS • Fills the immediately needed void of housing for the middle-income. • Provides homeowners to build multi-generational wealth while creating an investment allowing people to rent the additional units. • Establishes the maximum number of units per single-family parcel. • Preserves historic neighborhoods, farmlands, and environmentally sensitive areas. • Maintains local control over building standards. • Only applies to urban infill areas and excludes areas of very high fire hazard severity 34 | DISTINCTIVE PROPERTIES
BURT POLSON burt@acresinfo.com zones, prime agricultural land, hazardous waste bus stop). Essentially, there is no allowance for sites, earthquake zones, floodplains, and others. parking, thereby creating congested neighborhoods full of vehicles. Other locations require CONS OF THE NEW LAWS one parking space per unit. • After careful examination of the text, infill • It may be difficult for a homeowner to areas with a very high fire hazard severity are utilize the ability to execute a lot-split and conallowed without any additional fire hardening. struct a duplex, triplex, or fourplex. A home• The US Census definition of “urban” owner must have no mortgage to perform the areas is outdated as it includes any area of over split, and many will need a construction loan 2,500 people. This could further grow urban to develop the site. This essentially leaves many sprawl in many areas. without the ability to perform leaving the • An amendment to SB 9 allows local opportunity open to investors and developers. municipalities to provide a written finding for • SB 9 works along with the new Accessory any development they feel would hinder people Dwelling Unit (ADU) laws allowing for up to or property. Unfortunately, the requirements eight units where once stood a single-family imposed for the report to provide substantial house. evidence are complex, and many municipalities Many of our issues today are not solved may not have the staff to create such a compre- through a single means but are multi-faceted. hensive report. The housing crisis runs much deeper than • Much of the prime land for development adding additional units and involves addressclose to urban areas are owned by Latinos and ing construction entitlements, jobs, finance, Blacks, thereby potentially creating a bidding the economy, and social & political disparities. war and gentrification. • Targeting single-family homes’ backyards Burt M. Polson is the CEO of ACRESinfo. and side yards further removes trees and green com, a commercial real estate brokerage areas, exacerbating the “heat islands” in major company, and CEO of StoneMarkerIncities. vestments.com, a private equity real estate • SB 9 overrides local parking requirements fund. Call him at (707) 254-8000 or email for locations close to a transit corridor or within burt@acresinfo.com and burt@stonemarkhalf a mile of a bus route (even if there is no erinvestments.com. October 2021
