PLANNING COMMISSIONER: If it [SB 35] does pass, will that affect any actions put into our Master Plan?

AMY BODEK LONG BEACH AICP, DIRECTOR: I first want to say thank you to the woman who raised it because I think that’s incredibly important that citizens understand the regulations that we are forced to confront and the history pattern. Cities are are not dealing with the housing crises as they’re supposed to. Because of that, the legislature has continued to constrain over the years the cities’ abilities to regulate housing in particular because there are many cities who are not as forthcoming and embracing change in density. So as a counter reaction to local agencies who have over, and I’m talking about the last 30 years, refused to comply with housing requirements, the state has continually forced local jurisdictions hands and you can see that in our accessory dwelling unit regulations that have come down from the state. We as a city … SB 35 is going to be a similar issue if it is in fact adopted. I think it will be very difficult for us from all zoning perspectives, less so from a general plan perspective because our general plan has been carefully thought out about where the density is going and not throwing density willy nilly in single family residential neighborhoods. We are trying to focus them on areas of change and certainly commercial corridors and linking them to transit. But we are very concerned about activities at the STATE LEVEL AND HOW THEY INTEND TO TAKE AWAY ANY LOCAL CONTROL and SB 35 is a perfect example of that because THEY WILL ABSOLUTELY TAKE AWAY THE LOCAL CONTROL AND WE WILL NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO HAVE PUBLIC HEARINGS ON RESIDENTIAL PROJECTS IF SB 35 PROCEEDS. And so there are implications we don’t know how to consider those implications because that law is not far enough along for us to know whether amendments are going to be proposed and accepted by the state legislature but until that happens we cannot specifically say what those impacts are but I absolutely applaud this constituent who brought it up. I think it’s fabulous and frankly critical for there to be an understanding of why this state does this and how that ties our hands locally.

PLANNING COMMISSIONER: So basically a lot of the things we’ve had to consider, the state wins.

AMY BODEK LONG BEACH AICP, DIRECTOR: Similar to affordable housing within a 1/4 mile of transit has special requirements and we are not able to increase those parking requirements even if they are below our Midtown Plan. We are tied.

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4:16:40 – 4:22:00