Weakening CEQA Protections Won’t Help State Build Housing

By Reina Tello, community organizer, People Organizing to Demand Environmental and Economic Rights, San Francisco

Reina Tello

August 28, 2024

The San Francisco Chronicle ran this Letter to the Editor from Reina Tello:

Regarding “White House slams San Francisco for its ‘unnecessary and onerous’ housing approvals” (San Francisco, SFChronicle.com, Aug. 23): The White House statement calling for housing reform cited delays in the state from environmental review lawsuits, which could be interpreted as a call to weaken the California Environmental Quality Act.

Arguing that protecting the environment, public health and the climate is too great a burden to place on our policymakers and developers gets our state’s priorities backward and is irresponsible.

The law, known as CEQA, does not stop development; it makes development better and healthier, enhancing the quality of life for Californians. Scapegoating CEQA will not change market forces that undermine housing production. Notably, tens of thousands of housing units in San Francisco are approved to be built but have not been for economic reasons.

Lawmakers in recent years have adopted numerous CEQA exemptions for housing. Yet we still have a housing crisis because, as multiple studies have demonstrated, other factors are the root cause.

Policymakers should focus on the actual cause of the state’s affordability crisis and housing shortage. California can produce needed housing without decimating its foremost environmental justice law.