KPBS: Sen. Toni Atkins On Passing ‘Historic’ Housing Bills
By Maureen Cavanaugh, Michael Lipkin
Before it happened, no one knew for sure if they could pull it off. In one of the California Assembly's last votes of the session, a package of housing bills squeaked through that will raise billions of dollars for affordable housing and decrease regulations for developers.
Sen. Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, wrote SB2, a centerpiece of that package. The bill will add a $75 fee to some real estate transactions, creating a pool of about $250 million per year for affordable housing. Atkins, who called the SB2 vote "historic," said the funding will help replace the roughly $1 billion in state redevelopment funding that Gov. Jerry Brown turned off when he ended the program in 2011.
"The housing crisis was happening before our eyes, even with redevelopment money," Atkins said. But losing that $1 billion "was critically devastating to helping to make the crisis worse."
Atkins joined KPBS Midday Edition on Tuesday with more on what housing SB2 would fund and the likelihood voters will approve a $4 billion housing bond on next year's ballot.