SACRAMENTO — A week after the state Senate’s housing committee killed a closely watched bill from Sen. Scott Wiener to spur more housing near transit, another bill from the senator that takes aim at California’s housing shortage was headed to passage Tuesday.

Senate Bill 828 is a proposed fix for a little-known zoning law that is supposed to guide housing growth throughout the state based on each region’s need — but that is criticized as ineffective, political and bureaucratic.

“It gets beat up a lot, including by me, because it has problems,” Wiener, D-San Francisco, told the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee on Tuesday. “But we are going to, I hope, make it better, and it’s going to take a lot of smart people to help make that happen.”

The law itself is so little known that the bill to change it has drawn relatively little attention outside of the planning world. While throngs of people came to Sacramento last week to show their support or opposition to Wiener’s now-defunct Senate Bill 827 to add apartments near transit, Tuesday’s hearing had plenty of empty seats. But insiders say Wiener’s proposal to fix it could have a very real effect on housing development as California reels from skyrocketing housing costs.

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Every eight years, each city and county is told how many low-income and market-rate homes it must add to its general plan to meet the needs of the region. The fact that many cities are meeting those goals for market-rate housing — despite a severe housing shortage — shows that that the policy isn’t working, said Greg Morrow, executive director of the Institute of Real Estate at Pepperdine University, who has been following the bill closely.

“What we’re trying to create is an overall healthy housing market,” Morrow said. “The prices that landlords are able to exacting are only possible in a housing market that’s not functioning properly.”

SB 828 would set more aggressive targets for local governments, though less than originally proposed. It also would roll over a city or county’s deficits from one period to the next. Currently, if a city falls short, it’s allowed to start fresh in the next cycle.

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San Jose, Pittsburg housing projects among first to win coveted state ‘Homekey’ funds Sen. Ben Allen, D-Redondo Beach, pressed Wiener about the changes, questioning whether they go far enough to correct situations in which neighboring cities of similar sizes are allotted dramatically different goals by regional councils, rather than a statewide body. “I kind of worry that the model you structured,” he said, “it doesn’t extract itself from the political phenomena that you’re seeking to address.”

Why not take a statewide approach? Allen asked.

“We had that last week,” Wiener shot back, “and it was voted down.”