California Senate rejects bill intended to ease statewide housing woes News
Free-Photos / Pixabay
California Senate rejects bill intended to ease statewide housing woes

The California Senate voted on Thursday to reject SB50, rejecting an effort to substantially increase available housing.

SB50 acknowledged, among other issues, that California’s housing has created a unfilled backlog, an increase in pricing, and “premature and unnecessary development of agricultural lands for urban uses” which has “adverse effects on the availability of those lands for food and fiber production and on the economy of the state.”

The bill would have promoted the building of multi-unit housing on undeveloped urban land and the conversion of single-family housing into multi-unit housing where feasible. It would also have extended a financial incentive to developers to include low-income housing in newly-constructed developments.

The bill ultimately failed by a vote of 18-15, with six senators abstaining. To pass, the bill needed 21 votes to continue on to the Assembly.

This vote reflected both the strong support and opposition it garnered throughout the state. On January 22, a group of housing rights organizations banded together to send a letter to the California legislature opposing the bill, saying it “signals more rent hikes, gentrification and displacement in marginalized communities and beyond.” On January 7, Moms 4 Housing, an organization that includes homeless and marginalized mothers, “took over the press conference announcing [the] new housing bill.“

Senator Scott Weiner, who introduced the bill, released a statement following the bill’s failure. He expressed his disappointment with the failure, but thanked those who co-sponsored the bill and helped push it forward.

Today’s action is a huge missed opportunity to take [a] meaningful and serious step to address California’s massive and debilitating housing shortage. California’s long-term failure to build enough housing is harming millions of Californians, damaging our economy, badly undermining our climate goals, and threatening California’s status as a center of innovation and diversity. California’s housing status quo is badly broken.

After the bill failed, California Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins took to Twitter, announcing she is “making the commitment to you today that in the coming weeks I will be meeting with stakeholders on all sides to find a way forward on a housing production bill that can pass both houses and get the [California Governor’s] signature.”

Senator Weiner also tweeted his commitment to “advancing a strong housing production bill this year.“

THIS DAY @ LAW

UN General Assembly approves Palestine partition plan

The UN General Assembly approved UN Resolution Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, recommending that the British Mandate for Palestine be split into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone for Jerusalem. The vote in the assembly was 33 for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions. The resolution sparked a war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in 1947 and a wider war after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Read Resolution 181 (II).

UN divided Palestine between Arabs and Jews

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab territories, leading to the establishment of a Jewish state the following year. Read UN General Assembly Resolution 181.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara resigns during Vietnam Conflict

On November 29, 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced that he was resigning from his office to accept an appointment as head of the World Bank. The announcement came as the Vietnam Conflict was becoming increasingly unpopular in the United States and abroad.