Scott Weiner's War On Neighborhoods
People in Silicon Valley are finally starting to notice the repercussions of the housing legislation passed over the last few years and it’s hitting home fast. Cities like Willow Glen, Los Gatos, Morgan Hill, Scotts Valley and Santa Cruz are being told to cram in thousands of new units to satisfy state housing mandates, whether the neighborhoods can handle it or not. The character of these communities, the very things that make them special, is being reshaped from the top down. Californians are waking up to the fact that these laws weren’t about “solving a housing crisis.” They were about forcing density, stripping local control, and ignoring basic public safety.
And right in the middle of this mess is Scott Wiener.
For nearly a decade, Wiener has been on a mission to wipe out suburbs and single‑family neighborhoods. He’s actually called houses “racist and exclusionary”. Meanwhile, this is the same guy who grew up in Princeton, New Jersey , one of the wealthiest, whitest suburbs in America. He enjoyed the quiet streets, the yards, the safety, the stability… and now he’s decided nobody else should.
In Wiener’s dream California, all 39 million of us are supposed to live in tiny stacked apartments, ride bikes everywhere, and pretend front yards are some kind of moral failing.
Wiener has pushed bill after bill to make it easier for developers to build massive apartment blocks in high fire danger zones, tsunami zones, liquefaction zones, subsidence zones, basically every place where dense housing makes zero sense. SB 610, SB 647, SB 677… all designed to override local safety decisions and let developers cash in.
And let’s talk about who benefits. Wiener has taken significant campaign contributions from real estate pac's, carpenter unions, developers and tech interests, the very groups that stand to profit from cramming dense housing into unsafe areas. When you follow the money, the pattern becomes pretty obvious.
In February, while the Eaton and Palisades Fires were still smoldering and families were literally sifting through ashes, Wiener introduced SB 677, a bill to replace single‑family homes with multi‑unit buildings specifically in disaster zones. As people mourned their losses, he saw a political opportunity. Developers saw dollar signs. My opponent Gail Pellerin voted YES on SB677 and many of the other housing bills that have caused us to lose local control and allowed Sacramento to over ride out local elected officials and the residents of our towns.
This is the pattern: ignore hazard zones, override local governments, weaken environmental protections, and push density at any cost, even when lives are at stake.
Californians are finally paying attention. And they’re not liking what they see. We absolutely need to push back!
