Assembly District 14 Rep. Buffy Wicks defeated her challenger Margot Smith in a race to define what it means to be a progressive in California housing policy.
Wicks had 72.5% of the vote as of Wednesday morning, as ballots continued to be counted.
She campaigned to build on the housing policy she’s already passed in the California legislature, promising to address the high cost of housing by cutting red tape and regulations for housing developers. Smith, 94, had hoped to re-establish housing policies that empowered environmental groups and local government following the development of People’s Park in Berkeley.
“Housing has always been a top priority for me. Every Californian — seniors, families, veterans, young people — deserves housing security,” Wicks told Bay Area News Group last month.
Wicks won a second term serving Assembly District 14, which encompasses much of the East Bay from Hercules to Piedmont, with numerous metro areas caught in the state’s ongoing housing crisis. Wicks pointed to her bills that would streamline housing development through objective standards and empower developers with what is known as the “builder’s remedy,” a mechanism that makes it easier for them to build by restricting regulations.
Smith told Bay Area News Group last month that Wicks’ policies have failed to create the housing needed in Assembly District 14 for low-income residents. She argued that the assemblymember’s bills allowed housing developers to “bypass environmental laws and city council regulations” that prevented the construction of high-rise apartment buildings that she considered irresponsible.
“Here in the East Bay, Wicks’ ‘affordable’ housing is for those making less than $100,000 a year,” Smith told Bay Area News Group last month. “We need publicly funded housing for workers, families, teachers, veterans, elders who make much less.”
Smith had promised to reverse many of Wicks’ policies, saying that her first act in office would be to reform Proposition 13 — a ballot measure passed in 1978 that capped property taxes to their assessment value at the time of purchase — by ending its protection for properties owned by corporations like Chevron and Disney.
Wicks was the heavy favorite to win the election after dominating the primary earlier this year. She received 73.5% of the votes in March while Smith received only about 17%.