City officials applaud ‘flat’ veto

Deirdre Newman

City officials’ efforts to quash a bill that would have severely

diminished local control over secondary residential units paid off

Thursday when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it.

The bill, proposed by Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento)

was designed to create more affordable-housing opportunities by

making second units on homeowners’ properties allowable in more

single-family residential areas. But it would have superceded cities’

regulatory powers on such units.

Mayor Gary Monahan had written the governor beseeching him not to

approve the bill, and City Manager Allan Roeder had even asked

residents to help plead the city’s case to state legislators before

they approved the bill.

“Thank god the governor listens to us,” Monahan said. “I think

it’s good for local control. I think the governor understood that.

It’s hard enough for us to keep a handle on what’s happening in the

city. For the state to overrule cities is something we feel very

passionate about it.”

Schwarzenegger said he vetoed the bill because it forces a

“one-size-fits-all approach” to these units and takes away local

control, he wrote in his veto message.

“This bill removes that control away from local officials, where

homeowners and residents can voice their concerns about their

neighborhoods and moves it to a state bureaucracy in Sacramento,” he

wrote in his veto message.

It is now up to cities to decide how to regulate secondary units

-- also known as “granny flats,” because cities often promote them as

senior housing by restricting the age of the occupants. Costa Mesa

has already revised its second-unit law to comply with a previous

bill and would have had to change it again if Schwarzenegger signed

Steinberg’s bill. The city now only allows second units in the

lowest-density, single-family residential zones.

Councilman Allan Mansoor also expressed relief that the bill was

vetoed. To help increase the city’s housing stock because the city is

so built out, Mansoor said he would propose overlaying residential

zoning on an industrial section of the Westside.