On Wednesday, Governor Gavin Newsom signed 27 bills related to housing affordability at Coliseum Connections in East Oakland.

Coliseum Connections made for a particularly fitting venue for the signing ceremony. Completed in 2019, the project utilized modular construction to quickly and cost-effectively deliver a 50% market-rate / 50% affordable housing project on a former parking lot at Coliseum BART Station.

“Oakland and the entire Bay Area are ground zero for both the problem and the solution [to the national housing crisis],” remarked Mayor Libby Schaaf. “The problem is affordability and that starts with housing. And the solutions are projects like this one.”

The signed bills represent 84,000 potential new units of affordable housing across the state. The National Low Income Housing Coalition reported earlier this year that 150,000 affordable homes are needed in the Bay Area alone. 

Newsom characterized the affordable housing shortage as “the most defining issue of our time,” according to KGO News. These new laws take another big step in closing the gap.