Senate Bill 610, a bill that would make it even easier for developers to build housing in high-risk fire zones, nearly made its way to the state legislature recently to be voted into law.
It should be no surprise that State Senator Scott Wiener, YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard) chum and faithful servant to California’s wealthy, introduced SB 610 by taking an unrelated bill and completely rewriting it, thus reserving the bill’s place in the legislative queue. While SB 610 was suspended in the Assembly Appropriations Committee and didn’t proceed in the 2023-2024 legislative session, there is a good chance the bill will be resurrected this year.
While YIMBYs publicly advocate for sustainability, affordability and equity, their organizations are funded by special interest groups that recognize the incredible amount of money there is to be made in creating high-density housing. Mega-developers and their consultancies, labor unions, tech companies, and Wall Street can realize spectacular returns on their investments.
Paying billions of dollars to front groups — developer lobbyists, university student activists, business and housing advocates, pliable politicians — is mere peanuts if it gives them access to the land they want.
Wiener has aligned himself with YIMBYs throughout the state. He’s highly adept at cracking open neighborhoods, and selling them off to the highest bidder one at a time. Chances are that hideous new multi-story apartment building going up near you or right next door was served up by Wiener.
The list of senate bills Wiener has devised to boost housing production is extensive. He authored SB 10, which was firmly rejected by San Diegans in 2023 largely through a series of community protests and a citywide yard sign campaign. He co-authored SB 9, which today enables local governments to rezone for higher densities near transit-rich areas. Wiener is also leading the assault on the California Coastal Act, which limits new development along the state’s sensitive coastline.
He co-authored AB 671, the law that the city of San Diego responded to by devising the controversial ADU Bonus Program, which has spawned such contested development projects as the massive 17-unit project being built on a 0.45-acre, single-family lot in Clairemont; and the proposed 43-unit development on a single-acre lot in Encanto.
And now, in his boldest move yet, Wiener wants to clear the way for new development in neighborhoods within Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones primarily by taking away cities’ authority to designate VHFHSZ in their own regions. Instead, he’s proposed to place responsibility in the hands of Cal Fire, which doesn’t have the knowledge of individual cities statewide nor the bandwidth to take on such a wide-sweeping and critical role.
Such new legislation would lead to further major disasters throughout the state, particularly San Diego, which narrowly dodged a scenario similar to that of Los Angeles recently. Weiner sees this is as a golden opportunity though. When hundreds of thousands of people end up living in high-risk fire zones and their houses go up in smoke, developers will race in to their rescue to rebuild.
More than 90 environmental groups opposed SB 610, including the Sierra Club and National Wildlife Federation. Still, Wiener and his YIMBY devotees will say they support “environmental sustainability.”
This is the cockamamie paradigm in which Wiener and his YIMBY enablers dwell. Residents’ property, safety and very lives don’t seem to matter. They would just as soon watch San Diego’s neighborhoods burn to the ground than to admit that their McKinsey & Company fabricated housing shortage is bogus.
But Wiener is just doing as he’s told. According to public records maintained by the California Secretary of State, his donor list reads like a who’s who in real estate, technology, finance, organized labor, and big law — in other words, the very fabric of the YIMBY movement.
Thankfully there have been steps taken to YIMBY-proof San Diego neighborhoods from falling victim to a major wildfire disaster. Recently, the Community Planners Committee voted in favor of writing a formal recommendation to the City of San Diego calling for an emergency moratorium on all infill construction projects in VHFHSZ that more than double dwelling unit density until comprehensive risk assessments and mitigation measure are completed. Visit sdurbanwildfire.org for more information.
It’s essential that San Diegans urge Mayor Gloria and district council members to support this proposal. Weiner will continue to push SB 610 this year, and we must let him know that areas of San Diego located in wildfire-prone zones are not for sale.
Bonnie Kutch is a resident of University City and founding member of UC Neighbors for Responsible Growth, a.k.a. UC PEEPS.
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