CEQA can increase affordable housing in Sacramento while protecting communities

By Ralph Propper, President of the Environmental Council of Sacramento | October 19, 2021 | Sacramento News and Review

The City of Sacramento signed a deal this summer to build a U.C. Davis campus and innovation hub, bringing economic investment that will create affordable housing, jobs and transportation infrastructure. Thanks to California’s premiere social and environmental justice law, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), this agreement was not just a win-win for the project developers and city, but also for the community living near the development. Without a strong CEQA, however, the deal could have had wide-ranging negative impacts for the area’s under-resourced neighborhoods.

The project, known as Aggie Square, is a case study in how CEQA works to protect public health, safeguard communities and spur more affordable housing development. When market-rate developers approach cities with plans to build housing developments, warehouses or other big projects, their main concern is to make a profit. Thanks to CEQA, communities have a chance to make their voices heard by decision-makers before permits are approved and potentially problematic projects are built. Under CEQA, public agencies must study the environmental and public health impacts of a proposed development and identify feasible ways to offset those impacts.

Originally signed by Governor Ronald Reagan in 1970, CEQA protects environmental resources and advances environmental justice and social justice goals. But this keystone law has somehow become the punching bag of for-profit developers, who wrongly blame the statute for creating a barrier to the development of affordable housing. In fact, studies show local zoning and other local factors – not CEQA – are the primary barriers to affordable housing development. While the CEQA process has at times stalled or even blocked inclusionary housing or densification—which does further chill affordable project proposals—the Aggie Square development is a case where CEQA worked as designed, providing a pathway for inclusionary affordable housing and equitable access to opportunity.

The developers of Aggie Square were planning a project that, while bringing economic gains to the city as a whole, would have driven up rents for existing residents, leading to the all-too-familiar pattern of gentrification that displaces lower-income residents. But the outcome was different. Largely as a result of a grassroots effort led by Sacramento Investment Without Displacement that leveraged CEQA to ensure that community voices were heard, the city established a Community Benefits Partnership Agreement that protects local residents from gentrification and reduces the impact of increased traffic surrounding the new development.

Moreover, the agreement goes beyond mitigating harm posed by the project — it creates real benefits for the existing community. It will ensure that a significant portion of the new jobs created by Aggie Square, from entry-level to higher-wage positions, go to local residents. And it will create affordable housing, transportation options, job training and youth education programs.

By requiring decisionmakers to take the time to receive public input, and developers to understand the impact of their proposed development, the CEQA process made this project better and brought it into alignment with state priorities, including by increasing affordable housing supplies. Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg is now talking about replicating the agreement elsewhere in the city, prioritizing economic equity and residents’ rights over the financial gains of big, for-profit developers. This same model could be used to bring affordable housing and economic growth to communities across California.

As we continue to look for solutions to build more affordable housing, all Californians should look past the distorted picture being presented by those who have the most to gain by weakening this 50-year-old law. CEQA may be imperfect, but we must recognize that it is an essential tool for environmental and social justice, and for housing justice.

Click here to read this article on the Sacramento News and Review website.

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New Voices for the Environment: ECOS Board Meeting, July 27

Tuesday July 27, 2021 @ 6:00 pm – 7:45 pm

Please join us for an ECOS Board meeting featuring presentations by three new voices for the environment:

Caring for our Watersheds in California competition winner Rory Pilling on the intersection of environmental and social justice: protection of waterways and the proposed “Right to Rest Act” for homeless to reside in the city.

CA state legislative intern Quincy Stivers on her new CEQA Handbook, written for ECOS: what is CEQA, how environmental documents are organized, how to review these documents, and how you can get involved.

Architect May Lin Chang AIA LEED AP on building standards to meet the challenge of climate change: how carbon can be reduced in building materials and operations; and standards that should be implemented now.

About the ECOS Board of Directors Meetings

Free and open to the public! Join ECOS on our mission to achieve regional and community sustainability and a healthy environment for existing and future residents. Come to one of our ECOS Board of Directors meetings! These meetings are a great place to network with fellow environmentalists and to keep up with the latest local environmental successes and challenges. Mark your calendar: ECOS Board of Directors meets on the fourth Tuesday of every other month (odd-numbered months). You do not need to be a member of ECOS to attend. Come see what we have been up to!

Held Virtually

Below is the information for participating in the meeting.

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Developers funded Sacramento County climate action plan

Environmentalists see a conflict.

By Michael Finch II | June 10, 2021, Updated JUNE 11, 2021 | The Sacramento Bee

Sacramento County leaned on developers last year to help fund its long-delayed climate action plan, raising conflict of interest concerns among environmentalists who say the early drafts do not have enough detail to be an effective blueprint for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

…

In the eyes of some environmentalists, the financial arrangement suggests a conflict of interest. Each of the five firms wants the Board of Supervisors to expand the boundaries of where new development is allowed to include their projects. And that decision is in conflict with the aims of the climate plan.
“I know some environmentalists were concerned that the county’s staff was compromised in this way,” said Ralph Propper, president of the Environmental Council of Sacramento. “There were a lot of concerns about that but the county was pleading poverty.”
https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/environment/article252009793.html

Click here to read the full article.

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Letter to UC Regents re Aggie Square

October 10, 2020

Sacramento Investment Without Displacement, of which ECOS is a member, sent a letter to UC Regents regarding our concerns about Aggie Square.

Below is an excerpt from the letter.

We are writing this letter to appeal to you and the Board of Regents to request that UC Davis and its developer Wexford Science and Technology commit to signing a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) with our broad coalition. We believe that this project could bring great possibility and promise for the future of Oak Park and other nearby neighborhoods, the City of Sacramento and UC Davis Medical Center, if the benefits are shared widely and equity and inclusion are embraced as core values.
Before this project’s Environmental Impact Report is approved, it is a moral imperative that the UC system consider our community coalition and the impacted community we represent. The leaders of our coalition are requesting a meaningful conversation with UC Davis and its developer to address inequities and unintended consequences of this project.
The Oak park community is mostly made up of people of color, low-income people and immigrants who have carried a heavy burden for generations in the history of the development of this region. Unfortunately, deep poverty, violence, inadequate affordable and safe housing, employment discrimination and the many subtle actions of hate have deeply wounded countless promising young and old souls alike. Residents have a list of concerns about how the build-out and operation of Aggie Square will impact their neighborhoods.

Click here to read the letter in full.

Community Seeks Aggie Square Partnership

By Genoa Barrow | September 28, 2020 | The Sacramento Observer

Aggie Square is described as a “game changing partnership” that will bring innovative opportunities to the area surrounding the UC Davis Medical Center on Stockton Boulevard. Local residents say they don’t want to be losers when the project, which will include the building of spaces for research facilities, academic programs, offices, retail and mixed-use space,and housing, kicks into gear.
Kim Williams, of Sacramento Building Healthy Communities says the Aggie Square project should benefit everyone in the surrounding area, not just a certain part of the population.
The Sacramento Building Healthy Communities: Community Development Action Team and Sacramento Investment Without Displacement (SacIWD) held a press conference at the Fruitridge Community Collaborative last week, demanding a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) in the UC Davis Aggie Square project to ensure issues of affordable housing, jobs, healthcare access, and other issues are addressed in any major projects brought to the community.
SacIWD is a coalition of community organizations and neighborhood associations. Coalition members have been working together for almost two years and say the proposed Aggie Square project at UC Davis Medical Center “has the potential to improve and protect residents’ health, provide residents with access to good union jobs that pay a living wage, improve the quality of our neighborhoods, and reduce existing inequities.” Members want to make sure area residents in the 95817, 95820 and 95824 zip codes aren’t summarily boxed out, and priced out, by the Aggie Square project.
Community involvement topped a list of concerns.
“While neighborhoods surrounding Aggie Square will be altered by the many thousands of new workers and students at Aggie Square, with a recent estimate as high as 25,000, and the flow of billions of dollars, the traditional avenues of resident involvement will be weakened, and those communities already on the fringes are likely to be further silenced,” reads a statement from the group.
Concerns also include local hiring, affordable housing access, access to primary care for Medi-Cal beneficiaries, project labor, and local business protections and support.
“This is about building with our community,” HUB Director Kim Williams said.

Click here to read the full article.

Aggie Square Environmental Review Update

September 18, 2020

The environmental review for Aggie Square Phase 1 is being done in a document called the “Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the University of California, Davis Sacramento Campus 2020 Long Range Development Plan Update.” For additional information and to access the Draft Supplemental EIR and Draft 2020 LRDP Update, click here.

Public comments on the Notice of Availability of the Draft Supplemental EIR were due on September 16, 2020. The Environmental Council of Sacramento and its partners submitted comment letters outlining our concerns with the document.

“Our primary concern is that the planned expansion of the UC Davis Sacramento Campus facilities does not cause displacement of low-income residents in the surrounding neighborhoods.”
Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS)

Click here to view the letter from the Environmental Council of Sacramento.

“We hope to see a version of Aggie Square that supports the health and livelihoods of existing and future Sacramento residents through the creation of affordable home and job opportunities for communities too often excluded from the economic prosperity and investments elsewhere in the City.”
Sacramento Investment Without Displacement

Click here to view the letter from the Sacramento Investment Without Displacement.

Learn More

Click here to learn more about this project, and our concerns.