No to Senate Bill 79
The following letter was sent to Assemblymember Buffy Wicks and the California State Assembly Committee on Appropriations.
The Windsor Square Association has represented an historic Los Angeles residential neighborhood— Windsor Square—for more than 100 years. Our Mid-Wilshire Los Angeles community contains approximately 1,100 single-family homes and some moderate-density, multifamily buildings.
Despite the numerous amendments made to Senate Bill 79 to try to garner enough votes to pass this unneeded legislation. The punitive, anti-family neighborhood proposed law will cause enormous damage to stable communities if passed by the legislature. None of the recent amendments have remedied the fundamental flaws of SB 79. They have made them worse.
SB 79 is drafted to create profitable (to developers) multifamily housing in current single-family blocks. It does not address the need (that our community and association support) for affordable housing.
You and your colleagues must realize that the goal of SB 79’s supporters is to strip local zoning protections and to open up vast areas of low-density neighborhoods to high-profit real estate development.
Our City of Los Angeles already has completed a massive, collaborative planning process, where we now have state-certified Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) goals, so we can build the needed housing, much of it on commercial corridors adjacent to public transit. There is no need to break up single-family blocks to create new housing.
On behalf of the thousands of residents in our 1,100 homes, the Windsor Square Association joins so many others in requesting that you and your committee support California families and vote No on SB 79, a bill sponsored by special interests for their sole benefit.
John H. Welborne, Vice President for Planning and Land Use, Windsor Square Association
Category: News
