Guest Opinion | Michael Canavan : Let Them Build in My Backyard Before They Build in Yours

SB 79 legalizes the construction of taller residential buildings close to California’s best transit in its biggest metro areas, including Pasadena’s six A-line stations where it would permit five to seven stories. Signed by Governor Newsom last October, it’s already been blamed for raising heights and lowering parking requirements on several housing projects that have been fought all the way to Pasadena City Council and beyond. It was criticized, erroneously, by Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt for encouraging dense development in the Palisades. And here’s the kicker: it hasn’t even taken effect yet and won’t until July 1st. 

Since its introduction, the legislation has been the source of widespread confusion among both policymakers and residents. In Pasadena, rumors swirled about how it enabled a controversial affordable housing development at 600 North Rosemead Boulevard, when that was actually the product of years-old housing law. It’s only now that cities and counties are discovering what SB 79 changes, where it applies, and, most urgently, what powers they have to resist it. 

Pasadena City Council will exercise some of those powers on June 8th when it votes on an ordinance to delay SB 79 eligibility until 2031 for certain sites: all designated historic properties in the city as well as single-family and low-density multifamily zones around the Del Mar, Memorial Park, and Lake A-line stations. Local governments can legally defer an unlimited number of historic sites and specific environmentally threatened areas. But they can only exempt other sites within transit areas that already permit at least half of the density SB 79 would enable. Fillmore, Allen, and Sierra Madre Villa don’t qualify. In essence, Pasadena plans to shift the housing capacity allowed by the law from our already urban areas to our more suburban ones.

This is a mistake. I live in the Central District about a quarter mile from the Del Mar A-line station. I’m lucky to live in one of the most populated and walkable parts of the city. I love the bustle of the streets, restaurants, and parks on a perfectly cloudless weekend afternoon. I’ve made peace with the traffic congestion and parking scarcity. And I welcome the telltale white placards that signal new development. 

My neighbors near the Fillmore and Allen stations might not say the same. And yet under Pasadena’s SB 79 delay ordinance, much of the Central District will be deferred from eligibility for at least five years. While some of this is a well-intentioned attempt to protect our numerous historic landmarks, the effect is the same: less development in my neighborhood and more in yours. 

As a housing advocate, I don’t seek out conflict with residents of single-family neighborhoods. Although we need housing all across the city, the most intensive development should be focused in areas where it is already working, where jobs and services are plentiful, and where a humane pedestrian experience and transit network is most likely to reduce car traffic. If that’s anywhere in Pasadena, it’s my neighborhood. And absent deferrals and other obstacles, that’s where development would go. 

Neighborhoods like mine are in high demand, not only from prospective residents but from developers. I live in Council District 6, which has the highest rents in the city, according to the most recent annual report of the Rent Stabilization Department. All things being equal, developers would prefer to build where higher rents translate into more certain returns for investors. And I would prefer some competition that might make my own landlord think twice about a rent increase. But if developers are turned away here, they’ll look elsewhere. It won’t take them long to find the parts of Pasadena that City Council can’t shield from mid-rise housing development. That will ensure many more frustrated appeals like the one that targeted 600 N Rosemead. 

Luckily, there’s another way to respond to SB 79. Cities can substitute a transit-oriented development alternative plan, or a TODAP, for the provisions of the law as written. While there are some restrictions, a TODAP would free the city to move housing capacity between transit areas and reserve more modest density increases for station areas like Fillmore, Allen, and Sierra Madre Villa. It would be a true planning effort to guide development according to the city’s plans for infrastructure investment and community needs for housing choice and neighborhood stability.

We could protect our most vulnerable historic properties now and conduct a citywide discussion on how to envision a post-SB 79 city, one we neglected to hold in the runup to implementation. But time is running out. Whether you’ve been fighting for this moment like I have or dreading it, July 1st is coming soon. 

Michael Canavan is a volunteer organizer with Abundant Housing Pasadena, a local chapter of the nonprofit organization Abundant Housing LA.