By admin 
Democrat gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra reiterated his support for Proposition 1, a $11.25 billion housing bond, during a campaign stop in Long Beach on Friday.
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Billed to the press as a chance to highlight his housing agenda, the frontrunner for governor, and one-time construction worker, spoke for less than 10 minutes in broad terms about the importance of building more homes.
But beyond reiterating his support for Prop. 1, Becerra didn’t elaborate on his broader housing goals. He argued Prop. 1 would help developers build a 39-unit affordable development in Long Beach, and noted the presence of a church across the street.
“If we need to, we’ll walk right across the street and say a little prayer to make sure it happens,” Becerra said, according to video captured by C-SPAN. “But what we need are the voters to come through.”
A UC Berkeley poll last month found Becerra leading Republican Steve Hilton by 18 percentage points among likely voters.
Compared to Hilton and some of his primary rivals, Becerra kept his platform relatively broad and vague since launching his run last year. His campaign only posted a housing plan in May, months after many of his rivals, after a surge in support following former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s withdrawal from the race.
Becerra said last month that he wants to avoid “inflated” campaign promises on issues like housing. He appeared to draw a contrast with politicians like outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has fallen well short of his 2018 campaign goal of building 3.5 million new homes.
“I’m not going to promise you 3 million units, because that’s where I can’t go,” Becerra said at the POLITICO summit. He later told reporters his comments weren’t directed at Newsom and that a more realistic goal might be doubling the rate of housing construction to around 200,000 units a year.
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In the primary, Becerra vowed to declare a housing state of emergency on his first day in office and direct state agencies to prioritize building more homes.
The Democrat said he’ll target 40,000 “shovel-ready” projects that are permitted but stalled because of financing issues and secure funds to get construction moving. Becerra said he’ll make sure localities don’t skirt their obligations to build more housing required under SB 79, a sweeping state law that requires denser housing near rail transit. He said he’ll aim to build on that law by “seeking to end exclusionary zoning around more types of transit and in high-opportunity areas,” according to his campaign website.
In a May primary forum, New York Times commentator Ezra Klein pressed Becerra on whether he supports requiring housing developers to pay the prevailing wage. Klein pointed to a that found that projects that pay that wage cost an extra $94,000 per unit.
Becerra said he supported requiring the prevailing wage for infill projects over eight stories, but not for smaller builds.
“The carpenter who builds a home should be able to afford to buy it,” Becerra said at the time.
Like Becerra, Hilton, a former Fox News commentator, has stressed the need for streamlined permitting and reducing red tape in housing construction. But he’s gone much farther, arguing California’s environmental laws are getting in the way of prolific single-family home construction.
“We’re not thinking big enough,” Hilton said at a CBS debate in May. “It’s all just fiddling around the edges. … We need to build outwards, not just upwards.”
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