State rules that have hindered development projects for decades also can help ease California’s housing crunch, several industry leaders said Thursday. 

The Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce and the Home Builders Association of the Central Coast hosted the Santa Maria Valley Housing Summit at the Santa Maria Country Club. About 80 people attended the Thursday afternoon event.

“I think the notion that we don’t have enough housing is well received,” said Craig Minus, director of the Coastal Housing Coalition and owner of CAM Land Use & Development.

However, communities soon will face, or already have faced, housing affordability challenges because of the lack of supply for the demand, Minus said.

Others agreed that most people recognize the need for more housing across the state, but said differences rest in how to solve the problem.

The California Housing Accountability Act and other state laws have forced cities to zone for the expected population. That has led one city, which had not approved a large-scale multi-family housing project since 1972, to begin discussions with a potential applicant about a 500-unit development. 

“This opportunity would not exist if the laws didn’t come down at the state level saying, ‘OK, you’re expected to have this much in population, you need to zone for a certain amount of housing units,’” said Jared Brenner-Goldstein from Canfield Development. 

Along with the acknowledgment of state laws needed to ease housing challenges, there’s also recognition of the barriers that have prevented housing projects, according to Christopher Guillen from the law firm of Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber and Schreck. 

“I think there’s an express acknowledgment at the state level saying our environmental regulation has gotten in the way a little bit, local control has gotten in the way a little bit, and the state has started to iterate how do we solve these issues,” Guillen added. 

Solomon Hills Project’s Peter Kiesecker said builders are adapting when it comes to costs and other issues they face. 

“It’s adapt or die out there for a lot of homebuilders,” he said, adding that there’s a lot of thought about how to reduce costs.

California’s housing shortage amounts to approximately 5 million units for the population, according to Eric Christen from the Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction. At the same time, the median home price is $900,000, he added.

Christen shared the story of efforts to create a recreational vehicle park in Nevada County leading to $3 million in fees and four years of delays. 

Of the projects targeted for California Environmental Quality Act litigation, 80% involve infill development or those proposed for unused and underutilized sites. 

“They are projects that are designed to enhance California’s environmental policy, not hinder it, and they are the projects that are being litigated,” Christen said. “These are transit projects, these are housing projects, these are affordable housing projects, these are renewable energy projects.”

Those holding up projects, he said, often are building and construction trade unions seeking project labor agreements where a developer agrees to hire the union’s members.

“That is one of the biggest problems that is facing us in this regard. It’s affecting housing at an astronomical level,” Christen said, using the term “CEQA extortionist” several times. 

A report released two years ago revealed that 90% of housing projects have faced challenges under the state’s environmental regulations, Guillen said, adding that it had led to new laws aimed at streamlining the process or providing exemptions to environmental review.

“We can get into the nitty gritty about whether those streamlining or exemptions are sufficient to actually encourage enough housing, but I think that’s a step in the right direction,” Guillen said.

Minus noted that CEQA, while becoming top heavy, still has a vital role in the home-building process.

“It is a valuable tool, particularly in California where we’ve got limited resources. It helps to keep California the way it was or is and preserve that,” Minus said, adding that it’s also forced developers to look to the future. 

For Kiesecker, that includes looking at future transportation or other new technology, citing Santa Barbara-based SeaWell, which has proposed offshore buoys to act like a desalination plant 1 mile offshore. 

The chemical-free system aims to reduce impacts to the environment while producing 950 acre-feet, or 300 million gallons, of potable water annually, he added.

“It’s a wonderful concept,” Kiesecker said.