Xavier Becerra

California is short millions of homes, and the numbers are unforgiving. Only about 102,000 units were permitted last year, declining from 2023, while rents keep climbing and working families keep leaving. Other states build homes faster, cheaper and at greater scale. The consequences of inaction are not abstract. Homelessness becomes a worsening crisis and we lose congressional representation in the next census as people are forced to leave. I want to see that change on my watch.

Yes, unambiguously and without qualification. California needs millions of new homes, including market rate homes. Supply constraints drive up prices at every level of the market, and anyone who tells you we can solve the affordability crisis without building market-rate housing is not being straight with you.

The most important issue facing California is affordability. The number one issue within affordability is the cost of housing. We all have a lot to thank people like Senator Scott Wiener for, and I will defend and improve legislation like SB 79 as Governor.

As Governor, I will act on three foundational pillars from day one: zoning reform, streamlining to make permitting predictable and fast, and cost reform to make building financially feasible. On day one, I will issue an executive order declaring a statewide housing emergency and direct every state agency to treat housing production and affordability as paramount priorities. I will push for by-right approvals for projects near jobs and transit, support legislation legalizing duplexes, cottage courts, and small condos statewide, and establish a 90-day permit deadline so projects are not strangled by process. And I will convene the first-ever California Housing Master Plan, a unified statewide strategy, modeled on California's Climate Scoping Plan, to reduce what it costs to build a home at every level of the market. Housing is this race's defining issue for me. It is not one priority among many, it is the issue. ;;

Housing Element compliance has to be a mandate, not a suggestion, and I will treat it that way from Day One. I will declare a statewide housing emergency and launch public dashboards tracking every city's compliance with state housing law and every project's permit timeline, turning opaque bureaucratic processes into something residents, developers, and advocates can actually see in real time. Non-compliant jurisdictions will be put on formal notice and see state discretionary funding withheld until they come into compliance. I will also tie broader state infrastructure and housing dollars to jurisdictions that build according to state master plan principles, so financial consequences track directly with performance against RHNA, Housing Element obligations, and new laws to improve housing affordability.

Enforcement matters just as much as incentives. As Governor, I will expand HCD’s Housing Accountability Unit so that it can credibly respond to every inquiry for technical assistance and project support that it receives. As Attorney General, I sued Huntington Beach to force construction of 533 affordable units and defended the Housing Accountability Act in court, and I will bring that same determination to the Governor's office. I will direct HCD to immediately identify cities blocking zoning-compliant, affordable projects near transit and initiate enforcement action, not after years of back and forth, but from day one. Paired with a 90-day permit deadline and real-time permitting dashboards for every project, city, and county, my message to local jurisdictions will be unambiguous: meet your housing goals, or the state will act.

Part of what makes non-compliance so persistent is that bad actors have learned to use CEQA as a delay weapon. CEQA has too often been weaponized not to protect the environment, but to stall housing for years and add costs that get passed straight to renters and buyers. Sacramento took meaningful first steps with AB 130 and SB 131, creating new exemptions for infill housing, streamlined review timelines, and CEQA relief when local governments rezone to meet their state mandates. I support that progress and I'll go further. As Governor, I will push the next phase: tightening litigation timelines, closing loopholes used to obstruct infill projects near transit, and making it harder for bad actors to abuse the process.

The Coastal Commission was created to protect the coast for all Californians, not to serve as another veto point on desperately needed housing. I am particularly troubled by the fact California’s Coastal Zone is much more expensive and exclusionary than the rest of the state, something caused, I believe, by the immense shortage of housing there. When access to the coast gets defined as parking spaces while working families are priced out of coastal communities entirely, the Commission is failing its own mission. Under my administration, I will pursue legislation to ensure state housing law applies in the coastal zone just like everywhere else. My day one housing emergency declaration directs every state agency, including the Coastal Commission, to treat housing production, affordability, and accountability as state priorities. That means the Commission cannot be used as a workaround for cities trying to evade their Housing Element obligations, and zoning-compliant, affordable projects near transit will not be held up by duplicative or pretextual review. You may be aware of the affordable housing project in Half Moon Bay that is being proposed for farmworkers – because of the ambiguity of the Coastal Act, this project has been subjected to years of superfluous review. I will seek to end that ambiguity. Infill housing along the coast, in places like Santa Monica, San Francisco, and Half Moon Bay, helps improve coastal access, affordability, and the underlying mission of the Coastal Act. The Coastal Act should be modernized so that laws like Density Bonus Law apply in infill areas of the coast, helping the Commission accomplish its mission of expanding access and affordable housing.

When housing is so expensive to build that no one builds it, everyone is hurt. I will work on three key foundational pillars of housing affordability: increasing land zoned for housing, making the process for reviewing housing more dependable, and reforming the direct costs to housing, such as fees and the building code. I will convene housing stakeholders around a new California Housing Master Plan to scope every conceivable strategy for reducing the cost of housing, and my executive order on day one directing departments to prioritize affordability will specifically require suggestions from the California Building Code Council about how to make the building code cheaper to comply with without compromising safety, something I think is possible through applying the residential building code to a greater number of housing projects, such as those up to 10 or 20 units.

On transfer taxes and unfunded inclusionary mandates specifically: these are real cost drivers that my administration will take seriously. It costs roughly 2.3 times more to build a home in California than in Texas, and stacked local fees are a leading reason why. My day-one executive order will direct state agencies to reduce fees on housing where they control them. I will also work with the Legislature on comprehensive statewide fee reform that preserves local governments' ability to fund education and public safety, but that stops using housing as a piggy bank. Unfunded inclusionary mandates that make projects infeasible serve no one, least of all the low-income families they are supposed to help. We can do better, and we will.

Yes, and it must be funded at the scale the crisis demands. California has close to 500 affordable housing developments representing nearly 40,000 shovel-ready units sitting idle, waiting on a final tranche of capital. My housing team will do a hard scrub of every one of those projects on day one, identify exactly what each needs to break ground, and move fast-track funding to get dirt turning. Beyond the backlog, I will pursue a durable pipeline of production capital through state housing bonds, expanded tax credits, and gap financing that closes the feasibility gap for deeply affordable units. I will also make surplus public land available for mixed-income communities with guaranteed deeply affordable homes, paired with ministerial approvals and AB 130 union labor standards, and I will align state financing with jurisdictions that actually zone for and approve low-income housing near jobs and transit so public dollars stop flowing to places that refuse to do their share.

On tenant protections, working families should not lose their homes because a corporate landlord wants to push rents to an unsustainable high or flip a building for a quick profit. I will enforce and strengthen just-cause eviction protections so renters have real stability, and I will put real teeth behind our anti-price-gouging laws, which today carry consequences too light to deter bad actors. Preventing displacement is cheaper, more humane, and more effective than trying to rehouse families after the fact, and it ensures that as California builds more, we are not pushing long-time residents out in the process.

When I was Attorney General, I initiated action against Huntington Beach to achieve approval of 553 affordable homes. I also intervened to support the YIMBY group “California Renters Legal Advocacy and Education Fund” in their case CaRLA v San Mateo, a victory which has been foundational to the success of all housing law in the era since that decision to intervene.

I support SB 79, SB 9, ADU law, AB 130’s CEQA exemption for infill housing, and Density Bonus Law, and as Governor I would defend every one of them against any attempts at rollbacks. I also support the streamlined housing review process pioneered by SB 330, and I back Assemblymember Wicks’ housing construction innovation package, including state-backed construction insurance to help factory-built housing producers scale up. The cost of construction itself is the next frontier of the housing crisis and I intend to lead on it.