CALIFORNIA – This past week the Our Neighborhood Voices initiative received a title and summary from the office of Attorney General Rob Bonta that is false, misleading and likely to create prejudice against the initiative.
The title and summary provided by Bonta’s office falsely claims that the measure “automatically” overrides the state’s affordable housing laws. It does no such thing. It gives communities the power to shape local growth in a way that better meets affordable housing requirements – and it restores the ability of local communities to negotiate even higher affordable housing rates, which one-size-fits-all laws passed in Sacramento have taken away.
In 2021, Bonta’s own office issued a title and summary for the first draft of this initiative that did not include this misleading language. It correctly stated that the Our Neighborhood Voices initiative would return land-use and zoning decisions back to local communities – instead of forcing top-down mandates on cities that damage neighborhoods and only benefit for-profit developers.
In fact, the Our Neighborhood Voices initiative will increase the chances of more affordable housing being built according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. In their report, the LAO states that the initiative “May enable additional flexibility for affordable housing development.” This is exactly the intent of the initiative – to help local cities choose which state housing laws work best for them and modify them in ways that will...
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