As the California legislature was moving bills through committees in the last couple of weeks, Transform traveled to Sacramento to advocate for and against critical bills. Jeanie Ward-Waller of Fearless Advocacy recently testified on our behalf at hearings on a bill to use environmental mitigation fees to fund affordable housing near transit and one that would lift environmental regulations ahead of a planned highway widening.

Testifying in committee is a powerful way to bring our message and expertise to decision makers as bills advance through the legislative process.

Leveraging CEQA to fund affordable homes near transit

Transportation makes up the largest share of GHG emissions in California and is increasing in large part due to entrenched land use and housing practices. If we are to meet the climate and air quality goals, we need to not only effectively address the additional driving caused by new highways and development projects, but also do so in a way that improves housing and land use patterns.

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires projects to mitigate their environmental impacts, including the harms caused by driving, measured by vehicle miles traveled (VMT). When done well, VMT mitigation measures, which range from transit service and passes to bike/ped improvements and roadway pricing, can be an effective means of alleviating environmental harm. Affordable housing near transit is one of the best ways to mitigate VMT, but coordination between project sponsors and local housing developers is often tricky and fails to move forward.  

Under AB 1244 (Wicks), a developer can mitigate VMT impact by contributing an amount of money per extra mile of induced travel to a statewide Transit-Oriented Development Implementation Fund, where funds are then reinvested in affordable housing projects in the same region as the project, and ideally, the same city or county. 

The bill includes strong accountability and effectiveness provisions, tasking the Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation to set an accurate price for VMT reduction and reassess every three years, and requiring the Office of Housing and Community Development to validate reductions using established models. 

Watch our testimony in support of AB 1244 in the Natural Resources Committee. 

Making it easier to expand climate-killing highways 

AB 697 (Wilson) clears the way for highway widening on State Route 37 between Solano, Napa, and Sonoma Counties by authorizing the taking (i.e., killing) of species protected under the California Endangered Species Act.

Transform opposes highway widening on principle because we believe California’s resources would be better spent on sustainable transportation options. It makes no sense to keep adding to a transportation system that brought us to the brink of climate collapse; we need to invest in the shift to proven, sustainable transportation. But widening SR 37 is a particularly bad project. It’s a band-aid rather than a fix for the real issue of too little affordable housing in Sonoma and Napa Counties, so workers need to commute from Solano County and beyond. And, this stretch of highway close to the San Francisco Bay is projected to be underwater within two decades, flooding the current construction and requiring a second, costlier project to raise the roadbed above the waterline. 

So we showed up to oppose this bill at the Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee.

Both bills made it out of their committees. AB 697 passed Appropriations and next faces a vote of the full Assembly. AB 1244 is awaiting a vote in Appropriations. Transform will continue to follow these and the rest of the bills on our legislative agenda. Bringing Bay Area voices and concerns to Sacramento is a critical element of our theory of change.