Nine months after forming an enforcement arm to go after cities that illegally deny housing development , the state says the unit has helped save 2,568 homes throughout California that would otherwise have been rejected or indefinitely delayed.
The unit has sent out 131 “accountability letters,” which warn of potential violations of 16 different state laws regulating housing. It has offered “technical assistance” in 172 cases in which local jurisdictions — this could include including planning departments, city councils or boards of supervisors — were faced with controversial decisions about whether to approve a housing project. So far 222 cases have been “closed” after the projects were approved.
“Already the Housing Accountability Unit is paying dividends,” said Jason Elliot, senior adviser to Gov. Gavin Newsom. “These are units that would have fallen victim to the traditional NIMBY sword of local government denial. In part because the state stepped in those units are now on their way to becoming actual housing for actual people.”
But so far the crackdown doesn’t seem to be helping the developers of two prominent Bay Area projects that were targeted by the enforcement unit after being rejected by local lawmakers — a 495-unit development at a Nordstrom valet parking lot in San Francisco and a 222-unit project across from the West Oakland BART station.
In October of last year the San Francisco Board of Supervisors turned down the Nordstrom’s complex at 469 Stevenson St., which had been approved by the Planning Commission. In upholding an appeal by a local nonprofit, the board members questioned whether the building’s foundation would be safe and the impact the housing would have on the existing low-income neighborhood around Sixth and Market.
After the vote the California Department of Housing and Community Development sent a letter to the city saying that decision was under investigation and may have violated the Housing Accountability Act, a state law that limits the ability of cities to reject housing that complies with local zoning.
But while the project developer, Build Inc., met with state housing investigators early this year, there has not been any indication that there would be any legal action to hold the Board of Supervisors accountable for rejecting the housing.
“As far as I know the investigation continues,” said Build Inc. partner Lou Vasquez. “We have not heard anything specific yet but as far as we know they are still looking into the events of the Stevenson Street vote.”
Vasquez said that his company has had no alternative but to rewrite portions of the environmental study in order to assuage the concerns of the board. This will include a peer-reviewed equity study of the impact the development will have on the neighborhood as well as a more detailed study of the foundation, something normally done in the post-approval building permitting stage.
Vasquez said that he expects to be back before the planning commission late this year.
“It’s the exact same project,” he said. “We are looking at a year plus delay for no apparent reason.”
In early December of last year, in what California Housing and Community Development Director Gustavo Velasquez called a “copy cat” of the Stevenson Street case, the Oakland City Council delayed a proposal to build 222 units at 1396 Fifth St., across from the West Oakland BART.
Scott Cooper, an executive with project developer the Michaels Organization, said that his team met with state officials about possible enforcement action but that nothing has come of it.
“HCD has not done anything — they said they were going to issue something but they never did,” Cooper said. “My legal counsel gave them the lay of the land and they found it to be suspect and said they were going to be doing an investigation.”
The project had been unanimously approved by the Oakland Planning Commission before East Bay Residents for Responsible Development — an organization made up of building trade unions — appealed the approvals to the city council, arguing that the project’s environmental study failed to adequately analyze toxins on the site or lay out a plan for cleaning it up.
Cooper said the project will go back before the Oakland City Council in late July. Since last year’s vote the developer’s consultants have been working on a more detailed analysis of any hazardous materials that might be on the property, which was the location of a 2012 fire.
He said the combination of inflation, rising interest rates and a looming recession mean that the housing — which would be well under construction were it not for opposition — could be delayed even further.
“As of right now we are pushing a year and a half of delays,” he said. “Given the economic environment we are entering into I can’t say what further impact the delays will have.”
David Zisser, who oversees the Housing Accountability Unit, said that both the Stevenson Street and West Oakland projects remain under investigation. But he emphasized that the current emphasis for all California jurisdictions is on the state-mandated Housing Element, in which cities are required to come up with a specific plan to meet housing goals.
He said the analysis as to how and why the Stevenson Street and West Oakland projects were turned down would be a “lens” through which the state will determine whether the Housing element submitted by Oakland or San Francisco is acceptable.
“The individual projects are important but there are larger systemic issues that the housing element allows us to address,” he said.
In its housing element San Francisco is obligated to plan for 82,000 units while Oakland has to plan for about 15,000 units.
Zisser called the element “a contract with the state that the state will use to hold the city accountable.”
He said that Housing Accountability Unit officials will be watching both the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the Oakland City Council to make sure the projects are not delayed again.
“I think the message is that we do continue to watch these cases, and depending on what happens something could trigger our involvement again,” he said. “We take every complaint and request we get really seriously and we are optimistic that the actions we have already taken are having an impact.”
J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @sfjkdineen