COUNCIL PUSHING BACK ON HOUSING RESTRICTIONS AND “JOBS TAX”

The Bay Area Council is pushing back against efforts to impose restrictions and fees that would further limit housing and job growth.

Step with us into the weeds; the details here are important. At a meeting on Tuesday (Sept. 1), staff from the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) and Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) put forward a proposal to include “displacement risk” as a target in Plan Bay Area 2040 (the plan that will guide development for the next set of years). Over the last several months, these government organizations have proposed a slate of solutions to what they define as displacement, including only giving funding grants to cities that have rent control, inclusionary ordinances, in-lieu fees, commercial linkage fees, and condo conversion ordinances among other “anti-displacement” measures. Additional signs point to “commercial linkage fees” – what some would consider an outrageous fee for every new job an employer would add in an area – being a particular goal, to which we will strenuously object.

The Bay Area Council has been a consistent voice against these efforts and will continue to engage in the process at every level. We are also coordinating with coalitions like the Bay Area Business Coalition to make sure our message is reiterated in public comments and letters by other like-minded organizations. The next public meeting related to these changes is the Joint MTC Planning Committee with the ABAG Administrative Committee meeting being held at the MTC and ABAG office in Oakland at 9:30am on Friday, September 11.

For more information on the Council’s housing and regional agency advocacy work, please contact Senior Vice President Matt Regan.