This week, California state senators voted against S.B. 827, a bill to increase housing density near public transportation centers like ferry stops and train stations.
The bill was introduced by Democrat Scott Wiener of San Francisco, arguing that it would be a way to combat climate change by creating communities where commuting by car was no longer needed. Despite this, the California chapter of the Sierra Club opposed the bill, The New York Times reports. Other opposition came from groups worried about gentrification. “This bill will exacerbate an already perilous situation for tenants,” says Damien Goodmon, director of Housing Is a Human Right, a division of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. “We need to be talking about protective measures” like rent control.
In an interview earlier this year, Gavin Newsom, a former San Francisco mayor now running for governor, said that California was in “code red” for housing affordability and that he liked the “spirit” of Mr. Wiener’s bill, but he would not support it as written. “I told him point blank, ‘I would not sign this bill, but I love what you are doing. How can I help?’”
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