SB9: the What, the Who and the How?

SB9: the What, the Who and the How?

AIALA Committee: Urban Design

This is a virtual event. Zoom log-in information will be emailed to registrants 24 hours in advance from events@aialosangeles.org. If you do not receive a confirmation 24 hours prior to the event, please email events@aialosangeles.org.

We welcome Graciela Castillo-Krings to the Urban Design Committee for a discussion regarding the recently passed SB9. A state law that enabled homeowners to split single family residential lots into two separate lots and build up to two new housing units on each lot. We are intrigued to learn more about how (and if) people are using this new opportunity to increase the housing stock and what we may expect as SB9 gains traction around the city.

Joining Castillo-Krings will be a mix of design professionals from various fields who will speak about their take on SB9 and its potential to enable a positive change in the city. They include:

+ Dario Alvarez – Pacific Urbanism
+ Ian Janicki – Homestead
+ Elizabeth Timme – Office of Office

Moderator:

Graciela Castillo-Kring – Principal, Sacramento Advocates
Graciela joins Sacramento Advocates, Inc., with more than 15 years’ public service in California government, most recently as Deputy Legislative Affairs Secretary to Governor Jerry Brown. During her time serving the Brown Administration, Graciela negotiated, directly briefed and advised the Governor on over 800 bills, and oversaw the regulatory implementation of legislation he chose to sign, including decriminalization of medicinal and adult-use cannabis, streamlining of forestry and landscape management practices to prevent future wildfires, and reforms catalyzing the development and construction of affordable and market-rate housing. Graciela has an intimate knowledge of the complex, powerful, but often opaque state budgetary process, through years spent working directly with California’s Department of Finance to shepherd passage of policy and fiscal changes through subcommittees, conference committees, and the full legislature. Adept at mediating complex disputes between officials, regulators and impacted stakeholders, Graciela also often teamed with members of the Governor’s cabinet to supervise a dozen state agencies and departments, covering an array of policy arenas: business and professions, parks and forestry, housing and real estate, fish and wildlife, waste management and recycling, alcohol and cannabis regulation. Graciela’s career in Sacramento began as a Jesse M. Unruh Fellow and then Legislative Aide to San Fernando Valley Assemblymember Lloyd E. Levine. She went on to serve as Legislative Director for an Assemblymember from San Mateo, (now Senator) Jerry Hill, before joining the Brown Administration, initially as Deputy Director of Legislative Affairs for CalRecycle. Graciela holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Southern California, is a graduate of Hispanas Organized for Political Equality’s (HOPE) Leadership Institute and is fluent in Spanish.

Panelists:

Dario Alvarez – President, Pacific Urbanism
Pacific Urbanism is a social enterprise that is latino-owned and a small local business. We are a multidisciplinary planning research and architecture firm that specializes in demographics, land use policy evaluation, data modeling, and community building. Our mission is to serve as a resource to all peoples throughout California and beyond with data-driven planning support tools and architectural practice. Our guiding principles are social equity, environmental justice, and community economic development. Our funding comes from community serving consulting services, a portion of which are reinvested to advance the mission of the firm. SB 9 is a research topic for us and we are in the process of evaluating the reasonably expected development in the City of Los Angeles as a contribution to the scholarly literature on the topic of the housing crisis.

Ian Janicki – Co-founder, Homestead
Ian is a Co-Founder at Homestead, which is a startup that helps homeowners take advantage of SB 9 by splitting & selling their property for life-changing income by financing the development of their backyard. Since launching their SB 9 product only a few months ago, Homestead has kicked off projects throughout the state, and has a backlog of projects that exceeds $50M in homeowner wealth that will be created. Previously, Homestead built a successful ADU business that has dozens of completed projects throughout the Los Angeles area and went through the Y Combinator accelerator.
Ian’s background lies at the intersection of technology & architecture — holding a Bachelors of Architecture from Cornell and a professional background in software engineering, design, and management at fast-growing Silicon Valley startups & Fortune 5 companies such as Figma, Xamarin, & Microsoft.

Elizabeth Timme – Director of Design & Development, Office of Office
Elizabeth, co-founder of Office of Office, is a third generation architect born in Texas and raised in Los Angeles. Elizabeth has been named an Emerging Voice by the Architecture League, Women of the Year by Los Angeles Magazine, Curbed’s Young Gun of the Year, Next City Vanguard 2019 (recipient of the Vanguard Big Idea Challenge) and Exhibit Columbus Washington Street Civic Leader. She is currently an adjunct teacher at Cal Poly Pomona and has taught at Woodbury and Harvard Universities. When not on juries or teaching, Elizabeth writes in journals and publications like Manifest Journal, Log 48, and Tabula Plena. Previously, Elizabeth co-founded and co directed LA-Mas, a community development non-profit, where she led numerous projects and initiatives. Elizabeth holds a master’s degree in architecture from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture from the University of Southern California.