State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, rolled his eyes when he heard the news that Woodside would suspend projects under Senate Bill 9, California's new split-lot law, earlier this month using an exemption for being a mountain lion habitat.

"Two of my favorite things for a moment collided," said Wiener, a prominent housing advocate, of housing and mountain lions, in an interview with The Almanac.

He reacted to Woodside's exemption: "I rolled my eyes because Woodside's argument was so frivolous and so absurd. The idea that you can build a mansion and it won't harm mountain lions, but if you build a duplex that will harm mountain lions. Unfortunately this type of approach is not uncommon."

Wiener noted that most cities in California are working very hard to comply with the law and it's just a minority who are trying to evade it.

For decades, the state looked the other way when cities and towns didn't comply with housing laws, he said. Over the last six or seven years, it has tightened longstanding 40- to 50-year-old laws and put teeth to them, he noted.

For example, days after The Almanac reported the story and others followed suit, Attorney General Rob Bonta sent a letter to Woodside officials warning that the town can't exempt itself from state housing law by claiming it's a mountain lion habitat, Wiener noted.

Other examples of resistance to state housing mandates

In Pasadena, residents have pushed to exempt historic districts in town from SB 9, state legislation that took effect last month and allows homeowners to split single-family lots and construct up to four residential units.

Some city officials take "aggressive positions" about wildfire zones in their communities to block housing projects, he said.

"We always exempt very high severity wildfire zones from our bills," Wiener said. "The reality is we need housing in a lot of different locations and we need to make communities more fire resilient."

San Mateo County, like much of the state, is confronting a housing shortage. Since 2010, just 10,000 homes have been built, while 100,000 jobs have been created. Many residents are spending more than 30% of their income on housing, said Brandi Campbell Wood, a senior planner with Baird + Driskell Community Planning, during an April 14, 2021, talk on housing needs on the Peninsula.

Portola Valley residents have implored the Town Council to limit building because of concerns about fire safety. Two Portola Valley residents asked the Town Council to take similar action as Woodside in a Feb. 1 letter to town officials.

Drought concerns could become one more way to stifle development, according to a report by Bloomberg Law. A possible moratorium on new water connections by the Marin Municipal Water District stalled one affordable housing project last year.

"Buildings don't use water, people use water," Wiener said.

Atherton officials called to discontinue train service in town in 2020 because of decreased ridership, but also because they thought that they could be on the hook to allow more housing to be built near the train station if it continued operating. The concern was Wiener's SB 50, a bill that would have required cities to allow new apartment buildings in any place that is either: within a half-mile of a rail transit station, within a quarter-mile of a high-frequency bus stop or within a "job-rich" neighborhood.

Atherton's reaction didn't surprise Wiener, who said towns and cities have all sorts of strategies for blocking housing.

Wiener said he has several housing projects he's working on this year and he is "very focused" on student housing initiatives.

Wiener will continue to monitor SB 9's implementation and that of other state housing laws.