Zoning Update: SB 9 and SB 10

In 2021, the California Legislature passed two bills to address hurdles to small scale housing development by property owners and upzoning urbanized, developable land by planning departments. Together, the bills represent creative housing policies that reflect clever resourcefulness on the part of lawmakers.

Pilot Zoning Regulations

I wanted to know if there was a way to leverage the crowd’s frustration to create an innovative public-private solution to affordable housing gridlock, one that would be part policy, and part market force.

After months of community meetings, collaborative drafting sessions, two online surveys, and dozens of digital communication tools, I got enough feedback from the people to create a zoning pilot.

I delivered this data-driven report to the Mayor of New Haven on March 1, 2020.