As California’s housing crisis continues, debates over affordability have increasingly pitted one form of housing against another—luxury vs. affordable, market-rate vs. subsidized. But with SB 79 heading into a critical committee vote, housing advocates like Max Dubler are pushing back on that binary.
SB 79, authored by Senator Scott Wiener, would legalize multi-family housing near transit stops—including in neighborhoods currently restricted to single-family zoning. The bill also streamlines permitting for these projects, a move supporters say is necessary to unlock both housing supply and climate benefits. Critics, however, decry the “luxury” character of many new buildings, asking why more affordable housing isn’t being built instead.
But, as Dubler points out in a recent thread that went viral, the obstacle to affordable housing isn’t zoning—it’s funding.
“In 2023, affordable developers had $3.5 billion worth of shovel-ready projects,” Dubler notes, citing data from CalMatters. “The state had $576 million in funding to award.” A chart from the Department of Housing and Community Development shows how dramatically requests for funding outstrip availability across all programs—Multifamily Housing, Farmworker Housing, Veteran Housing, and more. “There just isn’t enough to go around.”
This makes the anti-market-rate stance self-defeating, Dubler argues. “Blocking market rate projects on these sites will not make $3 billion materialize out of the air to fund affordable housing. Rather, it will further worsen the housing shortage, raising rents for the 90% of California’s low-income households who live in market rate housing.”
To illustrate this, Dubler turns to a real-world example: a brand-new, transit-adjacent apartment at The Skylyne, a 15th-floor two-bedroom near Oakland’s MacArthur BART station. The rent? $4,242/month. That number, while eye-popping, becomes less so when compared to the cost of buying a similar nearby home. Three blocks away, a two-bedroom, one-bath house just sold for $955,000. Assuming a 20% down payment, the monthly cost to own it—including mortgage, insurance, and taxes—is over $6,750.
“It’s not cheap,” Dubler writes of the Skylyne unit, “but it’s a whole lot cheaper than $6,754 a month. I think a lot of Oakland households could really use that extra $30,000 a year.”
This gets to the heart of the affordability paradox: new market-rate housing is expensive because it’s new—not because it’s inherently evil. Dubler compares it to buying a new car. “Just as brand new cars are generally for wealthier people, so too are new apartments.” The solution isn’t to ban new apartments—it’s to figure out how to fund housing for those who can’t afford the new ones.
The answer, for now, is public money. And that’s why SB 79 is critical, he says—not because it solves the funding shortfall, but because it removes local zoning barriers that make even privately funded housing illegal near transit. “If we want new construction to be affordable to poor and working people, we need to find a way to cover the gap between the rents people can afford and the actual cost of building.”
And while the bill has drawn fire from anti-development critics, Dubler’s response is blunt: “The idea that we have to choose between building market-rate housing and building subsidized affordable housing for poor people is, to use a technical term, bullshit.”
SB 79 represents a test not just of California’s commitment to housing supply and affordability—but to climate and transit equity as well. By making it legal to build homes where the state has already invested in public transportation infrastructure, supporters argue the bill can reduce car dependence, increase ridership, and stabilize transit funding.
Whether the Legislature agrees remains to be seen. The bill faces a key committee vote this week.
Seems that (unlike the YIMBY shills), tenant groups aren’t convinced that this will help them. (Also, it seems rather ironic that the YIMBYs are using the $4,242/month apartment described in the article above as an example of what they’re advocating for – while also describing it as a $30,000 per year “savings”. Sounds like YIMBY math.)
In any case, here’s what a tenant group thinks of this:
“Shanti Singh, however, with advocacy group Tenants Together, said she isn’t convinced. Her organization opposed SB 50 over concerns that it would accelerate displacement of lower-income tenants. Although she hadn’t seen a draft of SB 79 when she spoke to KQED, she said the same concerns very likely still apply.
“We don’t have any objection to going after exclusionary communities or making housing easier to build. And we’re certainly not against the idea of buildings being tall,” Singh said. “It’s when you pick a fight with our communities, who desperately need affordable housing, who are facing eviction and displacement, that’s when we get involved.”
https://www.kqed.org/news/12031302/wieners-controversial-bill-to-allow-housing-near-transit-is-back
There are all these interesting debates between various groups that know we need housing, but differ on how to accomplish it. Unfortunately, Ron doesn’t see the nuance the various positions.
The study I’ve cited several times shows that there is no housing shortage.
There is agreement that the existing housing is unaffordable for some people. Apparently, you can’t see the “nuance” regarding that.
And I suspect that those living in rent-controlled units or Affordable housing (such as yourself) aren’t experiencing that. (Seems to me that you’d be a bigger advocate for those type of solutions, since you benefit from it yourself.)
Truth be told, most homeowners also aren’t struggling with housing prices. (These are the folks that the YIMBYs want to essentially “evict” by encouraging teardowns.) (And they never look at the underlying cause – since those business interests are the ones who support the YIMBYs.)
Are you sure you want to continue stating that I don’t see “nuance”, as you’ve been stating over the course of the past several days?
A lot of what I try to do on housing issues is present a number of different – sometimes even conflicting – viewpoints on the solution that arise out of a common acknowledgment that there is a problem. the problem is, if you are constantly stuck on the first level debate – whether there is a problem, you never get past that and that in my view is increasingly not productive.
Again, David – it’s the underlying cause that you and YIMBYs prefer to ignore. (In the case of YIMBYs, that’s because their paychecks come directly from the underlying cause.)
The pursuit of the technology industry is what’s causing middle-class people to leave the S.F. peninsula, for example. (Even if they’re “cashing out” as they leave.)
This is also causing them to relocate further-and-further away (including “to” places like Davis, Folsom, etc).
I know someone who did just that – recently.
What we have here is a reshuffling of an existing, non-growing population. (And yet, California is still building thousands of acres of new housing on greenfields, each and every year.)
But you can’t get past that first point …. Or as they put it in 12 step programs, the first step is to admit that there is a problem. If we can’t get there, there’s nowhere to go.
Would you like for me to cite the university study again, which shows that there is no housing shortage?
That’s actually the “first step”. In other words, to carefully examine the claims regarding a housing shortage. (And yet, that’s almost never done.)
Part of the reason for that is because it’s “nebulous” – people adjust by moving (or not moving) to given locales. It’s also heavily dependent upon job growth (or contraction). This is actually the biggest factor.
“Demand” itself is not “fixed”.
DG say: “Or as they put it in 12 step programs, the first step is to admit that there is a problem.”
Actually, it’s to admit YOU have a problem.
Let me for once make a rhetorical point
“As California’s housing crisis continues . . . ”
Do you see realistically a time and situation in which everyone is housed as you like? With ‘affordability’ comes demand, with subsidized affordability comes even more demand. Therefore, your crisis cycle will never end. Which is what your developer friends want. So keep that crisis flag flying. But remember, having one’s body pumped full of adrenaline all the time isn’t good for one’s health :-|
You mean, do I believe that there is going to be a time when all the problems of the world they’re gone? no. Does that mean we should give up no
Not my point.
My point is that something cannot be a ‘crisis’ in perpetuity just because you and others choose to label ‘it’ that way. What you call a crisis, I call ‘it’s expensive to live in California’. Even if you subsidized everyone 10% or 20%, it would still be expensive as hell to live here, and you’d create demand by making it cheaper to live here, perpetuating the ‘crisis’, while taking money from everyone and creating a giant bureaucracy that skims masses of money out of the system. Your solution only perpetuates the crisis, and the only true winners are the developers getting free money.
“SB 79, authored by Senator Scott Wiener,”
Wiener #sigh#
” . . . would legalize multi-family housing near transit stops—including in neighborhoods currently restricted to single-family zoning.”
Backwards. We need a multi-tens-of-billion dollars in transit investment, so transit stops have value to build housing near. Forcing the equation by building density next to transit stops, and limited parking, benefits the developers, not society. This is even more a cruel joke not the SFMTA, in Wiener’s district, is massively cutting bus service due to a budget collapse. So what good is building next to a transit stop if the buses run infrequently or are terminated?
Alan, I think you raise a reasonable point
That reasonable point is what I’ve built my primary life activism passion around.
““The state had $576 million in funding to award.” A chart from the Department of Housing and Community Development shows how dramatically requests for funding outstrip availability across all programs . . . “There just isn’t enough to go around.”
So there’s half-a-billion dollars in free government money that everyone wants for their project, and the measure is that all the requests for free money aren’t fulfilled. You realize how ridiculous a measure that is, don’t you?
“I think a lot of Oakland households could really use that extra $30,000 a year.”
I know a guy in Old East Davis who could use an extra $30k a year.
“The answer, for now, is public money.”
Ha! I thought so . . .
“And that’s why SB 79 is critical, he says—not because it solves the funding shortfall . . . ”
So it doesn’t solve the funding ‘shortfall’ . . . :-|
” . . . is, to use a technical term, bullshit.”
May I use the same technical term to describe this article and this proposed bill?
I didn’t think so . . . :-|
A lot of “transit stops” are also right next to freeways. I’ve noticed some high-density housing recently built adjacent to freeways, which was probably approved as a result of it being near “transit stops”.
And given its locale (e.g., adjacent to the freeway in Marin), I’m quite confident that those new residents will primarily be driving. (In fact, due to its easy access to the freeway – they’ll probably be driving more than most residents.)
Seriously, you can almost touch these high-density apartments from the freeway, itself. (I’d suggest keeping your arms inside your car window, when driving past them.)
Just found this article interesting, regarding how the reports of a “housing shortage” actually arose (which might be described as a conspiracy):
“How did such a powerful consensus come together? As the saying goes, follow the money. Government subsidies and tax breaks for housing construction makes real estate developers fabulously wealthy. Banks, realtors, and corporate builders prosper from new construction, too. These industries’ fingerprints are all over the reams of reports and articles claiming that we must build our way out of the housing crisis. As Politico reported in November, “Lobbyists are scrambling to get help from Washington to goose the housing market.”
“Maybe we should listen instead to the housing experts whose bank accounts don’t get a boost every time a crane goes up.”
“So, if a lack of supply is not the problem, what is causing our housing crisis? Schwartz, McClure, Mallach, and others offer the straightforward explanation that is also reported annually by the National Low-Income Housing Coalition’s Out of Reach reports, which is the same explanation our clients tell us time after time: Millions of people simply do not make enough money to consistently afford market-rate housing.”
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/affordable-housing-crisis
Yup
“the National Low-Income Housing Coalition”
I agree with a lot of his point: “Millions of people simply do not make enough money to consistently afford market-rate housing. We routinely represent people who fell behind on rent because it amounted to 80% and more of their entire incomes from low-wage work or disability checks. As the title of a 2019 Mallach article pointed out, “Rents Will Only Go So Low, No Matter How Much We Build.”
New construction won’t fix that problem. ”
All of that I completely agree with. It is one of the reasons we regularly run pieces by the National Low-Income Housing Coalition and why the Vanguard is a publication sought out by them and other like-minded groups to run their pieces. The only thing I differ with Fran on is that I think more supply makes it easier to address the very issues he cites. Why? Because if you use the market to create supply, you can use it to siphon off low income housing, moreover, the more supply, the lower the overall cost and while that doesn’t *solve” the problems of the very low, it does mean less in the way of public money needed to address housing issues for very low and extremely low income folks.
In your rush to find other sources and make other points you missed a critical point by Dubler: “In 2023, affordable developers had $3.5 billion worth of shovel-ready projects,” Dubler notes, citing data from CalMatters. “The state had $576 million in funding to award.” What that means is critical and yet you completely ignored it because you already think you know the answer.
This gets back to my initial point – there is value is reading other people’s perspectives because they see different aspects of the problem. For example, Matt Williams raises the very valid point that we need to have more small a affordable housing even though I disagree that we can exclusively have and I also recognize that that sort of housing does nothing for the folks that Fran is citing. By the same token, David Thompson has forgotten more about very low and extremely affordable housing (mostly big A) than the rest of us know and while I don’t agree with him on everything, I think his perspective adds value to this conversation. Bottom line, I disagree with Fran that we can solve our housing problem – even the portions he cites – without building more but I think his point is well taken overall.
“David says: What that means is critical and yet you completely ignored it because you already think you know the answer.”
I don’t know if that comment is directed at me or Alan, but I have no idea of what you think I “already know”. For that matter, I don’t even know what you’re talking about.
David says: “Why? Because if you use the market to create supply, you can use it to siphon off low income housing, . . .”
Nor do I know what that means, either.
You know what “siphons off” housing? The fact that they build it in places where housing prices are lower – in massive amounts. (The same places where housing prices are now drastically dropping. But that’s not the only reason for the increase in “supply”.)
Actually, housing prices are dropping in California now, as well.
That’s how I felt yesterday
I’m glad it wasn’t just me that couldn’t make sense of that.
And I think he meant *you*