Supporting Our Neighborhood Voices – Return Land Use Control to Local Governments

The CV Weekly’s Sept. 18 issue carried an apologia from the Office of the City Manager lamenting the passage of AB 130. This legislation, by exempting almost all infill housing projects from environmental impact reports, makes the destruction of the Glendale Garden Homes Apartments almost inevitable. While the city’s prescription for fighting such overreach is good it doesn’t go far enough and it will not permanently solve the problem of state control of local land use.

The recommendations won’t stop our state legislators from bowing to well-funded developers and following the path of SB 1818 (the Density Bonus Act), SB 9 and too many similar laws to mention here to allow mid-rise apartment buildings to be built in and abutting single-family home neighborhoods.

This is a terrible new law … but it may not be the worst to come out of this legislative session. SB 79, currently on the governor’s desk, would likewise allow mid-rise apartment buildings to invade single-family home neighborhoods if they are within a quarter mile of a major bus line or half of mile of a light rail line.

Neither AB 130 nor SB 79 had to happen. For many years a grassroots tri-partisan organization, Our Neighborhood Voices, which was started in the South Bay, has been trying to amend the state Constitution to return land use control to local governments. Such an amendment would not automatically reverse the aforementioned laws, but it would give each city and county the option to pick and choose which laws work for its locality and ditch the others. Polling in 2024 showed that more than 60% of voters support the initiative.

But to put an initiative on the ballot, the sponsors much submit petitions containing the signatures of millions of registered voters, the exact number of which is a percentage of the voters in the last state election.

Our Neighborhood Voices’ attempt to qualify for the November 2022 ballot was stymied by the COVID-19 pandemic that made it impossible to collect signatures with volunteers. (The last initiative to qualify for the ballot without using paid signature gatherers was Prop 13.)  Even worse, their attempt to qualify for the 2024 ballot was scuttled by Attorney General Bonta’s false ballot summary stating it would reduce affordable housing. That made it impossible to raise the large contributions necessary to pay enough signature gatherers.

But Our Neighborhood Voices isn’t giving up. It will make a third attempt to qualify its initiative for the 2026 ballot. For the ballot language and more information about ONV, go to OurNeighborhoodVoices.com.

When you are asked to support the Our Neighborhood Voices petition to put the initiative on the November 2026 ballot, donate to it, work for it. It isn’t just the best way to reign in Sacramento’s unbridled race to destroy single-family neighborhoods without adding any meaningful amount of affordable housing – it’s the only way!

Mary-Lynne Fisher, President
Crescenta Highlands Neighborhood Association