Housing

We support housing policies that increase housing production across all income levels by improving the time, certainty, and cost of housing development. This includes streamlining the entitlement and permitting processes, expanding by right development opportunities, easing zoning constraints, increasing ministerial approvals, and decreasing subjective requirements and unfunded mandates on housing developments to meet our local and regional housing needs.

We support the development of diverse housing types to meet a wide range of affordability and demand, including workforce and missing middle housing.

To accelerate production, we support:

• Pro-housing policies aligned with the City of Santa Rosa’s Housing Element
• Full and timely implementation of programs tied to Prohousing Designation
• Pursuit of state and regional funding opportunities
• Utilization of public land—including city, school district, and other publicly owned sites—for housing development
• Incentives for infill and affordable housing, including reduced fees and support for ADUs

Predictable, efficient permitting is critical to housing production.

We support:

• Consistent implementation of adopted streamlining policies across all departments
• Increased certainty and transparency in entitlement and permitting processes
• Expansion of ministerial approvals and by-right development
• Designation of a high-level staff position to coordinate across departments and improve efficiency
• Effective staff training to educate and empower employees, minimize errors, and increase quality of interactions with applicants.

We support the ongoing modernization of CEQA to preserve its environmental intent while preventing misuse that delays or obstructs housing, contributing to our insufficient housing stock, high development costs, and high home prices. CEQA amendments should streamline the process and remove obstacles, particularly for high density and in-fill urban development.

Rent control and just cause eviction policies are not effective housing solutions and ultimately exacerbate the housing shortage. Evidence shows these policies do not increase housing supply, reduce homelessness, or improve affordability, and instead discourage new investment in rental housing.

Expanding housing supply at all levels, from deed-restricted affordable to market-rate, is the most effective way to reduce housing costs and improve availability.

Support for tenants experiencing financial hardship should be provided through public funding, rather than through additional regulations or costs placed on housing providers. Policies that shift the burden onto landlords can reduce housing supply by discouraging investment and leading property owners to exit the rental market, resulting in long-term losses to the housing stock.

Additional local regulations, including just cause eviction and habitability requirements beyond existing strong protections under state law, increase administrative burdens and strain resources without effectively addressing bad actors. These approaches risk harming responsible housing providers while failing to achieve meaningful improvements in affordability or access.

Efforts should instead focus on increasing housing production and ensuring tenants are informed about, and able to access, existing robust tenant protections.