Why a California Plan to Build More Homes Is Failing

Only a few dozen people have built housing under a law allowing them to construct duplexes alongside single-family houses

By Christine Mai-Duc of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"California legislators voted in 2021 to eliminate zoning laws that require neighborhoods to have only single family homes"

"fierce resistance from local officials, as well as complex hurdles for homeowners to add multiunit buildings to their properties, have kept neighborhoods of only single-family homes dominant in the Golden State.

Fewer than 500 property owners have sought to subdivide their land under the law known as SB9"

"“The purpose of SB9 is homeownership but we’re not even allowing that to really bloom,” said Muhammad Alameldin, policy associate at the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley. “We wrote the law with too many ways in which local governments could prevent the actual home-building.”"

"SB9 allows owners of properties with single-family homes anywhere in the state to sell or split off part of their lot, and permits each lot to include up to two units, including duplexes. Previously, many local governments allowed only a single detached home per lot in most neighborhoods."

"California’s statewide median home price reached a record high of $904,210 in April"

"In response to the law, Alameldin said, cities have imposed limitations on height, square footage and even landscaping to make it more difficult for homeowners to subdivide their properties profitably. 

The Los Angeles suburb of Temple City, for example, previously barred SB9 properties from having driveways or off-street parking, while at the same time refusing to issue overnight street parking passes for residents living there. The city also required a 1,000-square-foot courtyard separating housing units, and specified the size and style of eaves, porches and window shutters to conform to either Spanish Colonial Revival or Craftsman architecture."

"Temple City has yet to receive a single SB9 application"

"A handful of Southern California cities including the seaside hamlet of Redondo Beach have challenged the law’s constitutionality in court. They won a victory in April when a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled the law didn’t apply to them—which has thrown the law’s future into question."